A Study on Car Advertisement and its Signification Process

Gae Soon, Park(Major in Dept. of International Communication, Graduate School, Hankuk University of Forien Studies)

Advertisement text, a kind of sign system, constructs a myth and an ideology in accordance with a guide to make us spend the commodities.

The effect of the signification in advertisement text is to give us a guide to the life that is expected to be desierable in the society and to turn our need for the social identity to the need for the goods.

The image symbolized in this text does not play a role to reflect the reality itself but abstract some of them, create the new meaning by recombining thses in signification of the advertisement. This signification process is active and the meaning of it can be regarded as the interaction cf all the relations.

Semiotics is the one of the useful ways in analyzing the advertisement in the capital society. Semiotics, understanding all the social phenomena as the neanings formed by the structual relation, intends to find out the gramer that expresses the structural relation of all the signs within the text in order to explain the meaning in the text. In this sense, semiotics can be defined to be a science that interprets the hidden meaning in the complicated texts.

R. Barthes proposed that the and of the semiotics was to explain the hidden meaning of the text by myth. Myth can be defined to be the structure itself composed of the meaning system, which is complicated system of images and beliefs that a society constructs in order to preserve and support the meaning of the existence of it. These myths play an ideological role by intervening in cultural reference system of the society.

This thesis intends to find out the myth and the ideology that are constructed in the signification process in the advertisement text for the automobile in our society by analyzing the automobile advertisements that is the one of the ads which is symbolizing today's life very well.

The points in my theses are as follows.

First, the consumption ideology, middle class ideolgy and the myth that modern people must own car.

Second, the individualism, the consumption ideology and the myth of the differentiation in life that expensive car brings about the better life.

Third, the sexualist ideology, the consumption ideology and the myth that modern woman who wants to be active must own car.

Fourth, the consumption ideology and the myth that the previliged need the best car.

Fifth, the consumption ideology and the myth that new generations must lead a sensuous life by owning a sporty car.

Sixth, the ccmsumption ideology and the myth that we can lead a speedy life by owning a speedy car.

Consequentely, when we analyze the advertisement by the semiotic approach, we can understand the signification process systematically. In order words, grasping the advertisement as the structure of the signs which produce the meaning. We can analyze the meaning which is implicated in all the signs in advertisement text and understand the signification process which shows how the meaning of the advertisement is made and is transmitted to the consumer.