Language and Advertising
3.0
creditsAverage Course Rating
Advertising pervades our culture; interactions with advertising are an unavoidable fact of modern life. This class uses tools from linguistics and cognitive science to analyze these interactions, and understand the impact of advertising on its viewers. A central theme is to treat ads as communicative acts, and explore the consequences -- what can theories of communication (from linguistics, psychology, and philosophy) tell us about ads? How do ads use central features of human cognition to accomplish their aims? Do ads manipulate, and if so, how successfully? The theories of communication we explore include Gricean pragmatics, theories of speech acts, linguistic theories of presuppositions, and more. Students will collect, analyze, and discuss advertisements in all mediums.
Spring 2015
Professor: Kyle Rawlins
The best aspects of the course included the interesting and engaging subject matter, the moderate workload, and the availability of examples to aid understanding. Students claimed that there was a general lack of organization for the course, with ambiguous expectations for assignments, changing deadlines, and inconsistent grading. Suggestions for improvement included using a more interactive lecture style with less reliance on PowerPoint slides, and providing more substantial feedback on assignments. Prospective students should know that this class is good for non-science majors.