Reclaiming the socio-cultural text : a semiotic-rhetorical reading of the cap avenir advertising campaign

Dissertant

Hind Berrada, B. A.

Thesis advisor

al-Rashidi, Linda Stump

Comitee Members

al-Almi, Najia
Pratt, Paula

University

Al Akhawayn University

Faculty

School of Humanities and Social Sciences

University Country

Morocco

Degree

Master

Degree Date

1997

English Abstract

This work articulates a reading of the advertising campaign, conceived by Wafabank in 1994 to launch Cap Avenir as a new product.

Nonetheless, only a print ad and a TV commercial have been selected as two sample texts.

Along two interrelated perspectives, namely semiotic and rhetorical, I have sought to analyze the socio-cultural implications of the bank’s advertising message.

By choosing semiotics and rhetoric as a mode of inquiry, this project purports to come to the understanding of the intricate mechanisms whereby advertising, as an expressive cultural practice, operates.

It thus attempts to rethink the truth-value of whatever advertising designers advance, with intent or inadvertently, about their target audience.

The conclusions reached after the analysis of iconicity, plasticity and textuality reveal two major questions which, in my view, need to be addressed on their own.

The first has to.

do with the Westernized outlook which informs the print ad though, ironically enough, the team that designed it and the audience targeted were mainly Moroccan.

The second question concerns the Orientalist strain readily felt on viewing the TV commercial, a work accomplished by a French advertising agency.

The main implication of this study is that, in general, advertising in Morocco still cogitates within imported frameworks of conception, completely blind to the necessity of reorienting interest into national culture.

Main Subjects

Engineering & Technology Sciences (Multidisciplinary)

No. of Pages

62

Table of Contents

• APA
• MLA
• AMA

Language

English

Data Type

Arab Theses

Record ID

BIM-591172