Author: Ju Huibing (Professor, School of Liberal Arts, School of Journalism and Communication, Jilin University); Bai Longyue (Ph.D. candidate, College of Liberal Arts and School of Journalism and Communication, Jilin University).
*: Young Journalists, Issue 22, 2023.
IntroductionThis paper takes Xianyu's 2022 year-end advertisement "Only Dry and Don't Sell, Please Don't Be Surprised" as the research object, combined with the triple semantic evolution of "sunning" to explain the corresponding behavior of "sunning" in Xianyu's advertising, and proposes that "empathetic discourse" is a new form of presentation in modern advertising language metabolism after "hegemonic discourse" and "rebellious discourse", and the way to achieve "empathy" is co-creation, and "empathetic discourse" will continue to demonstrate important discourse power in modern advertising communication.
Martin Puchner, a professor of literature at Harvard University, once said of ** learning: "It is at the intersection of storytelling and writing that literature is born." Previously, storytelling only existed in oral culture with different rules and purposes. And once storytelling and writing become related, literature emerges as a new force. All that happened after that, the whole history of literature, began at this moment of convergence. [1] On the eve of the 2022 National Day, AutoNavi Map launched an advertisement "Eleven Lines (xíng) Poems", which consists of eleven lines (háng), which echoes eleven lines (xíng), blending advertising and literature in a natural way, so that literature can be used as a form of expression for advertising. Advertising and literature also have many similarities, such as storytelling and writing as the basis of storytelling, the narrative that the advertising industry is talking about is the way on which the advertising appeal depends today, and the language and text are the information and content that the advertising appeal conveys. The study of advertising should appeal to literature and language.
Research Basis and Research Object.
1) The metabolism of advertising language: from "hegemonic discourse" to "rebellious discourse". Antoni Galluzzo, a lecturer at Jean Monet University in France, explained the concept of "advertising language metabolism" in the book "Making Consumers" as: the change of advertising language expression. The advertising that dominated in the first half of the 20th century became more of a persuasive activity, with advertisers constantly pushing out "superlative" things and teaching the passive and lazy masses what to do in a **, paternalistic tone. For example, in 1924, the advertising language of Li Shidelin's mouthwash, "She has always been a bridesmaid, but never became a bride", used a threatening metaphor to praise the product for refreshing breath, getting rid of bad breath, and even helping girls who hate to marry to get a wishful husband. In 1963, Avis's "Manifesto of the Second Doctrine" also reflected the advertising expression of "superlative" in the situation of market followers at that time. In the imagination brought about by this kind of advertising, the product seems to be a symbol of excellence and a symbol of success. In 1959, the Volkswagen Beetle broke the condescending norms and standards with the phrase "think small". In 1984, Apple pushed the rebellious spirit to the extreme with "1984, Macintosh". Since then, advertising has transformed from stereotypical to fashionable, and the discourse of advertising no longer follows the old-fashioned and old-fashioned set, but has become relaxed and playful. While the slogan was still there, they began to emphasize freedom rather than excellence, and the rhetoric changed from "we are the best" to "products make us who we really are." From authority to rebellion, the language of advertising has been metabolized once.
For an in-depth interpretation of the metabolism of advertising language from "hegemonic discourse" to "rebellious discourse", it is necessary to go back to the history of Western society in the mid-20th century, which was full of changes and innovations. Politically, in the 50s of the 20th century, the world political landscape underwent tremendous changes, the fanaticism of communism in Western society began to ebb, the ideology of subverting capitalism at the political level came to an end, and a group of "New Leftists" represented by Daniel Bell and Marcuse put aside their political attitudes and turned to cultural criticism of capitalism. Culturally, the "teenagers" who were called "teenagers" by the newspapers at the time formed their own "imaginary communities", and with a strong sense of self, they were determined to break with the culture of their parents and actively create a youth culture. Under the influence of the obvious "counterculture" of youth culture, advertisements preach that people should "change their lives", so young people willingly adopt a lifestyle contrary to bourgeois standards, and revolution and rebellion have thus become a mode of consumption. Economically, after the Second World War, there was a technological revolution in the West, which greatly liberated the productive forces, brought about a change in the mode of production, and the consumer society officially appeared. Young people have abandoned the savings habits of their parents, as well as the shackles of asceticism, frugality, and the notion that "if one has no foresight, there must be immediate worries", the result of a reflection on the values of the past is contrary to the Puritan ethic of hard work and thrift that Max Weber called hard work, diligence and frugality. The opportunists recruited the counterculture after commercialization, and squeezed the inexhaustible creativity of the rebellious culture. As a result, the new culture has been transformed into a homogeneous and mass-produced gorgeous commodity labeled as "rebellious" under the packaging of mass media. Young people proudly consider themselves to be anti-capitalist and anti-consumer, yet uncontrollably become the de facto bearers of the consumer society. Therefore, the counterculture activists have personally promoted the "cultural revolution" of advertising language metabolism in the advertising industry.
Galluzzo summarized that under the guidance of the new consumer spirit, the advertising language has realized the transformation from the "hegemonic discourse" dominated in the first half of the 20th century to the "rebellious discourse" that emerged in the 60s of the 20th century. Galluzzo's research is a starting gun, not a terminus, on the topic of advertising language metabolism. However, there is no follow-up trend in the follow-up research on the metabolism of advertising language in the advertising community. The main reason for this is that in the context of the further deepening of the consumer society and the advent of the mediated society, the trend of advertising language metabolism presents a trend of diversification and dispersion, and it is difficult to grasp its common characteristics. The expression of advertising is complex and complex, and the speed of innovation is dizzying, which is not conducive to aggregate research. The metabolism of advertising language may adopt a bottom-up research perspective, work backwards from the results, and analyze and interpret the characteristics of advertising language around the expression style and use strategy according to popular cases. The concise and in-depth interpretation of contemporary cases can make the appearance of advertising language in the current society more clearly and obviously, so it is of practical significance to study the metabolism of advertising language in typical cases.
On the basis of combing the linguistic connotation of the current advertising cases, this paper compares them with the characteristics of advertising language in the 60s of the 20th century, because the two have natural similarities in cultural background. The background of the metabolism of advertising language elaborated by Galluzzo is in the period of the rise of youth culture, the influence of the media and the segmentation of the market have intensified the conflict between rebellious young people and their parents and the conflict within the youth group, this contradiction is evolving day by day, the youth community is divided again, disintegrating into more sub-groups, different forms of tribes begin to emerge, and the community that is ** out also has its own exclusive symbols, ** and consumer culture.
2) The marriage of youth culture: Xianyu advertisement "Only sun, not sold, please don't be surprised". Xianyu is an idle item trading platform owned by Alibaba. In 2022, there will be 2.8 million people on the Xianyu platform who "only post but not sell", and you can see treasures labeled as "temporarily unavailable", "only for appreciation", "commemorative pictures" and "display and exchange" everywhere in the community. "Xianyu Business Guide" took advantage of the trend and specially launched the year-end advertisement "Only Dry Not Sell, Please Don't Be Surprised", creating an interesting advertising film, presenting "sun-dried things", "sun-drying posture" and "sun-drying attitude" one by one. The treasures exposed by the Xianyu platform have shaped the daily life of young people, condensed and gathered the subtle love, simple throbbing, and "small luck" born from things in life, and become the epitome of youth culture. As Zhang Xiaohu of the 4A advertising network commented: "The behavior conveyed by * is more about the strange reasons behind the idle fish players' 'only drying but not selling', and all kinds of stories." Everyone has their own unique and invaluable treasure in their hearts, which may be difficult to buy for sellers, in order to express the brand concept: to go to Xianyu together, 'show' the memories of 2022, and also 'show' the beauty of 2023. [2] Rather than being a trading platform for idle items, Xianyu is more like a display area for youth culture and a gathering place for young people. In the year-end advertising film in 2022, Xianyu marches towards youth culture, therefore, whether from the dimension of youth culture or from the dimension of community, the research on Xianyu's advertising language of "only drying and not selling, please don't be surprised" is logically rational and culturally convergent as a follow-up to the metabolic convergence of advertising language in the 60s of the 20th century.
Mapping of behavior: a triple semantic variation of "sunning".
The Modern Chinese Dictionary has six definitions of "sun", namely: the sun projects heat onto objects; absorbs light and heat in sunlight; Treat it slowly and ignore it; Display, publicity; Sharing, sharing; Show off, show off. The word "drying" used in ancient texts, from the west to the west, wrapping, means to dry the collection, in order to prevent mold. The semantics and are very similar to the archaic meanings. Semantics are mostly used in local dialects. Zhang Fenghua extracts the views of George Lekauf's "Metaphors We Live On" that metaphor is the main mechanism for language to produce new meanings, and most of the words in language are polysemy, and their central meanings may be arbitrary, while the non-central meaning is mainly extended through metaphors, and the root of linguistic meaning comes from the recognition of the similarity of two concepts, and the similar association in the cognitive field. [3]
Figure 1: The semantic extension process of "sun" and the conceptual mapping from the origin domain to the target domain.
Fig. 1 shows the semantic extension process of "sun" and the conceptual mapping from the origin domain to the target domain based on Zhang's discussion and legend. Due to the needs of language use, combined with the association with the original morpheme, the homophonic transformation with English words, and the customary expression of Internet terms, the word "sun" has derived three meanings commonly used in mass media. This paper mainly selects these three meanings to interpret the advertising case of Xianyu and depicts the triple semantic variation of "sun".
1) "Display and publicity" to promote sales by "exposure". As a trading platform for second-hand goods, the use value of Xianyu is to assist buyers and sellers to complete the exchange of goods, in this special platform, the identities of buyers and sellers can be reversed and exchanged, so it produces a more complex trading play, and also deepens the cultural connotation of the hidden operation behind it. In essence, the seller's behavior of "drying things" and "drying treasures" is to convey information about the product to the outside world and others, which is a simple and simple advertising behavior. At this time, the "sun" is more about the purpose of gathering on the display and disclosure of information, that is, to inform consumers in need that there is this thing for sale here, and the goods, condition, sales methods, and trading methods can be easily obtained. The behavior of promoting product sales through "drying things" on Xianyu is a kind of forward thinking that conforms to the laws of the market, and it is also a "light fashion" presentation of young people in the consumer society to barter lifestyle.
2) "Sharing" that only "shows" and does not sell. The symbolic interaction theory proposed by the American social psychologist George Herbert Mead believes that from the perspective of human subjectivity, human beings are social animals with symbolic behaviors, and human symbolic activities are an active and creative process, and through symbolic symbols to construct meaning and complete interpersonal communication. From the perspective of symbols, human beings use symbols to convey meaning, generate interactions, and then influence each other. The meaning of symbols is arbitrary and created by human beings according to various needs, meaning is interpreted in the process of communication, and human beings act on meaning. Based on this understanding, the "exposure" of the Xianyu community platform can be attributed to a typical symbolic interactive behavior, with the help of the release of information symbols with the labels of "temporarily suspended", "only for appreciation", "commemorative pictures", "display and exchange" and "999999 price" to construct an expression of one's own identity, establish a connection with others in the Xianyu circle and the community to which it belongs, and realize the symbolic flow in sharing and sharing. Therefore, in the culture of online "exposure", "exposure" is both a behavior and a destination.
Owen Goffman's theory of mimetic drama believes that social institutions are like a stage, people's social behavior is social performance, people play a variety of roles according to a certain script in the process of interaction, and people try to control the impression they leave on others, and make others form their desired impression through speech, gesture and other performances. [4] The "sunning" culture in Xianyu is also a kind of "performance" culture, in which users present their treasures with carefully selected symbols, which is itself a kind of "performance", and the purpose of the performance is to make the "audience" in the circle of Xianyu platform form an impression and give evaluation. In the process of performance, through "impression management", the audience can form their own expected impression, and the positive and positive impression may not be expected by the performer in the era of individualization, and the purpose of sharing is to create a unique texture of "no one has me", even if it is verbally attacked, it is willing to fall into attention and criticism, which is also the "epidemic" of the Internet era.
Looking at the comprehensive trend of cultural development, the prosperity and development of youth culture and economy and society and the iterative innovation of advanced technology are also trending step by step, highlighting the style of the times and showing a rich and diverse trend. Compared with the 60s of the 20th century, youth culture is no longer rebellious and rebellious in terms of cultural connotation and external expression, but more of a "reconciliation" with society and self, thus turning to a kind of "self-manifestation", that is, the cognition, identity and pursuit of self-worth, which can be achieved through "sharing oneself" with the outside world. "Sunning" is a typical behavior of sharing culture, which allows the majority of young people to share information, self-presentation, and extend the social circle through new ** and private domain traffic, and rely on the network to realize the circle and reaggregation between others, and build a cultural circle of Xianyu "sun".
3) "Showing off" in a wide and "sun-drenched" manner. Whether it is a display and public that promotes sales by "exposure" or a sharing and sharing that only "exposure" does not sell, to a certain extent, it will contain personal "showing off" ingredients. The ostentation and ostentatiousness mentioned here are not limited to their superficial meanings, but tend to be widely disseminated as advertising language. The above two points are discussed from the perspective of individual consumers (the users of Xianyu are defined as consumers), and the main purpose is to study the discourse manifestation and popular mechanism of "sun". The core of the research is the problem of advertising language metabolism, consumers themselves do not participate in the creation of advertising, and thus cannot directly affect the language metabolism and discourse change of advertising. However, this time, Xianyu advertising adopts the strategy of directly acting on the advertising from the perspective of consumers' discourse. Therefore, the "language" posted by consumers has become the content of advertising communication. The rustic personal advertising behavior has risen to a kind of professional advertising behavior that has been creatively planned. Since it is a commercial advertisement, it should be widely advertised. The behavior of posting babies on Xianyu has shifted from private domain traffic to public domain traffic, and the sharing and sharing of only "drying" and not selling has been transformed into a wide and "sunned" "show-off". The youth culture of "self", "sharing" and "non-commercial" that consumers are proud of is used as a weapon for advertising by the brand.
The subject of appropriation: the "diving" game of "idle fish".
Psychologists believe that "basking in the sun" is a conscious, subjective instinctive activity, which is essentially a kind of self-disclosure. People like to tell stories as much as they like to hear stories, so they want to share the good things and things they have with others as much as they like to get them. In the Internet age, the performance is especially great. Research shows that 30 to 40 percent of what people say about themselves every day, and that number rises to 80 percent on the web and private. Individuals are keen to express themselves as a kind of media "epidemic", but they are not really sick, they just want to share more about themselves, let others know more about their personal dynamics, and be able to be more deeply known by others about their real or sculpted selves, so as to amplify the recognition and pleasure. Similarly, based on the perspective of mimetic drama theory, the behavior of "exposure" on the Internet can go through a regulatory mechanism to present the social self and highlight the self's attitude through performance, in order to achieve the purpose of forming a preset impression of the audience on the communicator.
The most ingenious part of Xianyu's "only show but not sell, please don't be surprised" advertising campaign is to convey Xianyu's brand position, attitude and culture through the mouth of consumers, and the advertising creativity "dives" into the dark line logic, secretly adjusts the main body of the narrative, replaces consumers with the brand itself, and then blatantly advertises. In the advertising video of Xianyu, summer goes to winter, and at the end of the year, people always have some beautiful things that they cherish in their hearts and want to share with relatives, friends, interest groups and even strangers, but they don't want to lose the ownership of the cherished things. Objects carry precious memories, footprints of growth, sweat shed when forging ahead, or tears shed when no one is there in the middle of the night. Things are similar, maybe ordinary, but the meaning it represents is for thousands of people. The greatest value of each communicator is not the item itself, but the love and beauty of life recorded behind the item. All the "temporary hanging", "only for appreciation", "display and exchange", and "999999 price" are not to show off the pretentiousness of "having but not selling", but to show infinite love and firm feelings.
Aiming at the people who love to "sunshine" is Xianyu's accurate dialogue with the target user group. And its brand attitude is not so much to be subcontracted and stolen, but to always stand with consumers. "There are always some treasures, want to always be baby", for consumers, the baby is the cherished items, for the brand, the baby is thousands of idle fish users. Xianyu is friends with consumers, indulges in the "nonsense" of "only drying and not selling", and participates in the "sunning" carnival of consumers, so that the year-end winter is full of human care.
Tacit conspiracy: discursive empathy after commercial persuasion.
In the 50s of the 20th century, the mainstream of society advocated the rules and regulations made it more and more difficult for young people to pursue their autonomy and the right to pursue freedom, and people lived in a uniform manner under the rapid development of industrial society, lacking uniqueness and interest, and survival anxiety was diffused among young people. In addition, the dreamy scene constructed by the mass media and advertising has become a "template" for the good life of successful people, and people's individuality and autonomy are submerged in mechanical herd behavior, resulting in a painful "crisis of meaning", and more people have begun to think about how to get rid of the conformist life, and after several twists and turns, they have embarked on the road of counterculture. Proponents of counterculture often condemn the over-commercialization of counterculture, which they see as a covert ploy by egoists to persuade emerging cultures. However, it still could not change the fact that the rebellious culture was co-opted by the commercial society, so the discourse of "counterculture" also became popular in advertising for a long time to come. The metabolism of advertising language in the 60s of the 20th century was also achieved by the counterculture.
More than 70 years later, China is experiencing a situation similar to that time, and pessimists believe that the current situation is more serious than the "crisis of meaning" and "existential anxiety" of the 60s of the 20th century. The young masses are trapped in what Neil Bozeman describes as "entertaining to death", and as Jill Lipowiecki explains, people return to "nothingness." However, from an optimistic perspective, even though the technological revolution and mediated society have created daily anxiety and a lack of meaning, there are still people who love life to build warm corners of the Internet through sporadic "exposure" behaviors. If the "counter-mainstream" spirit in youth culture in the 60s of the 20th century was finally co-opted by commerce and became a homogeneous commodity that was put on the shelves and peddled, and the metabolism of advertising language has shown a "rebellious style", then the current situation is more positive, advertisers or brands have not carried out simple and crude persuasion of today's youth culture and young consumers, but have tacit agreement with consumers to achieve value co-creation, and the metabolism of advertising language at this time presents the characteristics of "empathy".
Empathy is a psychological term, proposed by Rogers, the founder of humanism, empathy is an ability that refers to the ability to put yourself in the shoes of others, so as to feel the inner world of others and understand the emotions of others. This paper proposes that empathetic discourse in advertising refers to the discourse mode in which advertisers or creatives stand in the position of consumers, have empathy, empathize with consumers' cognitions, attitudes, emotions, and desires, and express advertising demands in words that consumers like to see. In layman's terms, it is "think what consumers think, say what consumers want". The realization of empathetic discourse depends on the value co-creation between the sender of advertising language and the consumer. Consumer content production is a bottom-up, self-generated narrative, while the traditional one-way narrative is a top-down, plot-driven narrative. The so-called co-creation is the docking of two narratives to form a vivid narrative picture. [5] "Don't be surprised" is the best example of how brands and consumers co-create advertising language. Consumers not only regard "sunbathing" behavior as a simple circle hobby, but also rise to a new type of lifestyle that they are keen on every day. The brand does not show how to use and operate Xianyu through a direct introductory way, but resonates with consumers through the emotional response to the "exposure" behavior, and perfectly builds a tacit cooperation between the brand and consumers. The heart-warming words of "there are always some treasures, I want to be treasured all the time" not only attract more young people to join and use Xianyu, but also express the core values of the platform and users in the same position, and win the favor of users.
Conclusion. In the complex environment of complex media types, diversified changes in advertising creativity, and increasingly elusive consumer preferences, it is difficult to control the main development context of advertising language metabolism. Through case analysis, starting from the results, the presentation characteristics of advertising language in the present can provide new research ideas. Anthony Galluzzo has laid a solid foundation for this research, and it is incumbent upon him to continue to contribute as a successor to advertising research. This paper takes Xianyu advertising as a case study, analyzes its timeliness, representativeness and relevance to the background of the 60s of the 20th century, and focuses on youth culture, from the "hegemonic discourse" dominated in the first half of the 20th century to the "rebellious discourse" that emerged in the 60s of the 20th century, and discusses the "empathetic discourse" presented by modern advertising language metabolism. However, there are still deficiencies, advertising creativity is changing, and the style of discourse expression is different, only by going deep into the practice of the advertising industry, relying on the interpretation of classic cases, summarizing the common laws from the bottom up, and then carrying out theoretical verification from the top down, can the research on the language metabolism of advertising become clearer and clearer.
This paper is the first batch of new liberal arts research and reform practice projects of the Ministry of Education, "Research on the Construction of New Liberal Arts 'Creative Curriculum' and Advertising Communication Textbook System" (No. 2021070030), and the special research project of labor relations of Jilin University "Research on New Labor Relations in Northeast Cultural and Creative Industry" (No. 2021LD Jilin University Graduate Innovation Research Program "Manufacturing Consumers: Research on Advertising Language Metabolism" (No. 2023CX002)].
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This article refers to the citation format:
Ju Huibing, Bai Longyue. Discourse Empathy: The Presentation of Modern Advertising Language Metabolism[J].Young Journalists, 2023(22): 71-74