Playing hard to get: metaphor and representation in the discourse of car advertisements

Abstract

In this article I analyse some of the main semantic and metaphoric representations which underpin the discourse of car advertising in Britain. In particular, I focus on the use of male and female bodies as organizing metaphors which produce a gendered framework for advertising different types of cars. The discussion is based on adverts seen on roadside hoardings in the London area, in magazines, and on television at different periods over the past three years, and I use an analytic framework which is grounded in critical linguistic approaches to texts, situated within the context of current debates in feminist stylistics and critical discourse analysis (Fairclough, 1989, 1992; Mills, 1995; Stubbs, 1997; Toolan, 1997).