PRESUPPOSITION IN TELEVISION COSMETIC ADVERTISEMENTS. POSTGRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE STATE UNIVERSITY OF MEDAN.

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PRESUPPOSITION IN TELEVISION COSMETIC

ENGLISH APPLIED LINGUISTICS STUDY PROGRAM

POSTGRADUATE SCHOOL

STATE UNIVERSITY OF MEDAN

MEDAN

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The Writer would like to praise and thank Jesus Christ for all the countless chance, and time which has been given for one after another achievement such as to complete this thesis.

In the completion of this thesis, the writer wishes to acknowledge his deepest gratitude for all generous guidance and assistance which has been given to him by a lot of handful people. The writer would like to appreciate two of his advisors, Prof. Dr. Lince Sihombing, M.Pd. as his first advisor and Prof. Dr. Sumarsih, M.Pd. as his second advisor for their valuable time and effort to guide and revise through the completion of this thesis.

His appreciation also goes to Prof. Busmin Gurning, M.Pd. as the head of English Applied Linguistics Program and Dr. Sri Minda Murni, M.S. as the secretary of English Applied Linguistics Program who have assisted him in processing the administration requirements during the process of his studies in the Post Graduate Program of the State University of Medan.

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laugh and joy, the fun and pleasure together will always go beyond the academic experiences in writing this thesis, Mahfuz, Ira, Maya, Isma, Nurhalimah, Rina, Raden, and all of his colleagues are all valuable and inspiring when writing the thesis. His thanks also dedicated to Bang Farid for his countless assistance in every administrative process and made the task easier.

A special thanks for Januar Tumbuan Manurung and Yosephine, Ronni and Irvan as his special comrades for a special friendship in a special world in his life. Words are not enough to describe.

The last and very special thanks for his parents Rusdin Manurung and Herlin Saragih who always provide everything that a son can ask. Gratitude will never be enough for the two real heroes.

Medan, August 26th 2015 The writer,

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ABSTRACT

HISKIA MANURUNG. Presupposition in Television Cosmetic Advertisements. Postgraduate School of the State University of Medan, 2015.

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ABSTRACT

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CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

1.1. The Background of the Study

Advertisements often convey ideas indirectly rather than asserting them

overtly. Though what majority people may not or subconsciously aware of the

presupposition in advertisements, the presupposition effects on some sort of

utterances will indeed in many studies will eventually affect their listeners. As one

of the pragmatic inferences in communication, presupposition plays an important

part of any message leaving the person’s mind provides the meaning.

Presupposition is frequently employed in order to enhance the effects of

persuasion in advertisement because of its unique properties and characteristics

and how it works. Goddard (1998: 125) says that presupposition is all about

reading between the lines; and since this is a hidden process, it is very interesting

to advertisers, stimulates all sorts of assumptions that can be taken in without

consciously paying attention. The implication of presupposition is used in

Advertisement commonly to raise various impressions among the audience for the

sake of persuasion.

Another important function of applying presupposition in advertisement is

to convey the message in a short and memorable way. In this case, the information

will be shared between the customer and advertiser without explanation or any

other way of convincing. Since presupposition are not affected by negation, in

which negative sentence will not eliminate the truth value of the presupposed

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of impression that the assumption of the product or service being advertized is

undeniable.

Fairclough (1989: 152) assumed that presuppositions are not part of texts,

instead, function as an aspect of text producers’ interpretations that points to some

sort of context. Moreover, as Vestergaard and Schroder (1985: 25) further

explained, “in Advertisement language, which almost by definition has to make as

many positive claims as possible for the product without actually making them,

the use of presupposition . . . is an extremely frequent feature.” Pragmatic

presuppositions are best described as a relation between a speaker and the

appropriateness of a sentence in a context (Levinson, 1997:177). Speakers, not

sentences, have presuppositions (Yule, 1996:25)

Most of cosmetic Advertisement has a certain strategies and use actor or

actress role to communicate their message. Through some sort of narration

dialogue the advertisers are intended to make a special interaction with the

audience to connect the idea of the product of being advertised. Commonly, in

cosmetic Advertisement there are strict rules and regulation of how to address

their claim or product representation and it will be inappropriate to address the

physical condition of their potential customer directly but in such a hidden

persuasion in which the advertiser and the customer mutually know about a

certain context of cosmetic consumption. An example of presupposition use in

Advertisement can be shown by the following excerpt from Indonesian Cosmetic

Advertisement for face make-up Product:

(1) Actor: "Semua orang bisa tampil menawan…dibantu tim profesional"

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By analyzing the meaning of the above utterance, it's possible to

presuppose the meaning of the utterance which is proposed by the speaker in

which way:

(2) Not everbody is atractive

(3) There are professional teams

(4) Professionals help people to be attractive

Unless the listener assume the meaning behind the sentence uttered, the

meaning will be vague, so there must be some sort of proposed meaning in which

the speaker and the listener accept as a common ground to make sense the

sentence.

Even though the sentence only leave the audience a wild speculation of

what is actually the meaning behind it, advertisers are well aware of these context

dependant meaning by providing visual image and narration as a rhetorical force

to illustrate the message clearly visible. In this case, the advertisers establish the

context through a series of visualization of a famous celebrity which is being

treated by the make-up professionals.

As can be seen from the sentence (1) it presupposes some assumption for

the listener which can be seen as in (2), (3) or in (4) that not everybody is

attractive and there are professional teams and the brand that represents the

advertisement makes an impression that they are the professionals and provide the

solution. Here, the advertiser use presupposition as an implicit accommodation to

deliver the message behind the product they wish to sell. Though it’s not a direct

advice, it leaves the audience the impression and draws the truth-value logic

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basic assumptions and to dramatize the effect, the context setting is as an

illustration to make the products claims.

In relation between the presupposition meaning and how the context is

built, the way advertisement formed has progressed beyond the use of simple

techniques for announcing the availability of products or services. Advertisement

has ventured into the domain of persuasion, and its rhetorical categories have

become visible in contemporary social discourse. Since of the growing

effectiveness of its persuasion techniques, Advertisement has become entrenched

into social discourse by virtue of its wide spread diffusion throughout society.

When advertisements are scrutinized at how they are being made, their emphasis

is not only the product but also bound to find some advertisement message which

are designed to persuade people to buy a product. This strong emphasis shows that

Advertisement is not only simple meaning construction but bound the culture of

their future consumers through social discourse that has unparalleled rhetorical

force. As for the latest technology development, it is now possible to construct a

powerful advertisement to convince their audience with the style of presentation

that became increasingly important in raising the persuasive efficacy of the

Advertisement text. Accordingly, Advertisement started to change the structure

and use of language and verbal communication. Everything from clothes to

beverages was being promoted through ingenious new techniques.

Moreover, Dyer (1982: 32) points out, using more colloquial, personal and

informal language to address the customer and also exploiting certain effective

rhetorical devices to attract attention to a product. The persuasiveness of

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bring some changes to the basic ways in which people communicated with each

other and in which they perceived commodities and services.

One distinctive language structures which is commonly found in

advertisement is the advertisement claim which is often used to describe a

product. Advertising and claims of the products is an important and legitimate

means for a seller to awaken interest in their products and often embedded in

commercial speech. Advertising within the cosmetic industries can be confusing

as there are strict rules as to what may and may not be said for each category of

products. This trend sometimes lead the advertisements industries to makes

exaggerated claim and therapeutic as in a sense to increase their products

familiarity and capability.

Cosmetic Advertisement is one of the most interesting types of

commercial commodity to take account to investigate other than other products.

One reason is that cosmetic Advertisement has a certain degree and limitation in

cosmetic regulation guidelines and labeling claims which makes cosmetics

commodity types require different approach through the audience. This type of

product usually uses covert communication instead of direct language. Another

one is that commercial advertisements frequently use some form of appeal to

reach potential customers, either by rational or emotional appeals. These strategies

is usually used to penetrate the viewer mindset to provides proof to back up the

claims of the product they wish to promote, it can be related to product features

and cost and also the effect of a certain product.

Previous research focused in presupposition has been conducted such as

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utterances of outdoor advertisement. Wahyudi (2007) made a similar research at

identifying the presupposition and the types of presupposition of goods

advertisement in The Jakarta Post Newspaper, while Khaleel (2010) took English

Journalistic Texts in her analysis, and focus on the presupposition triggers. This

research focused on the five types of cosmetic product commodities

advertisements, namely: make-up products, facial care products, hair care

products, perfume and cologne products, and miscellaneous products which are

mainly categorized by the product substance (Iwata, 2013:4) and analyzed the

types of presuppositions among the cosmetic advertisements, investigating how

presuppositions are used in terms of their information content and message

appeals, and to find out the reasons of why presuppositions are used that way.

1.2. The Problem of the Study

The background provides the following research statements for the Problems:

1. What types of presupposition are found in different of cosmetic product of

television Advertisement claims?

2. What information contents and message appeals are employed in the

presuppositions of cosmetic television advertisement claims?

3. Why presuppositions are used the way they are in the television cosmetic

advertisements claim?

1.3. The Objective of the Study

1. To identify the types of presupposition used in the claims of cosmetic

product in television Advertisement.

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employed in the presupposed claims of cosmetic television

advertisements.

3. To find out the reasons why television cosmetic advertisements claim use

presuppositions the way they are.

1.4. The Scope of the Study

In this study, the scope of the study is the utterances of television cosmetic

advertisements claims on 5 (five) types of product categories They are: make-up

products, facial care products, hair care products, perfume and cologne products

and miscellaneous products. All the cosmetic advertisements which were aired on

all national televisions from January 2014 to December 2014 are collected. All the

advertisements claims found in the cosmetic advertisements within that range are

93 advertisements and analyzed based on presupposition types by Yule (1990),

information cues based on Resnik and Stern (1991) and advertisement appeals by

Pollay’s framework (1983) that accommodate the cosmetic advertisement claims.

1.5. The Significance of the Study

This study will open further suggestions of importance for another

research in the following directions:

1. Theoretically, findings of this study will be expected to contribute

presupposition analysis in pragmatics and on other subject, such as

Psycholinguistics, Sociolinguistics and other wide range of academic and

practical disciplines. Furthermore, the study is expected to enrich the

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2. Practically, findings are expected to give contribution to Media

Information practitioner such as Business Media and Communication

Media, and on the other hand, the findings will also contribute to public

readers to increase their existing knowledge about media literacy since

advertisement is commonly used as effective product selling campaign and

expected to be useful to increase the awareness of public viewer in terms

of cosmetic Advertisement language which are frequently exposed in daily

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CHAPTER V

CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS

5.1Conclusions

The analysis and findings from the presupposition, information content

and the appeal used in the cosmetic advertisement claims in different categories

reveals that the conclusion from the analysis can be concluded as follows;

1. The analysis of the sample data from 76 advertisements of five different

cosmetic categories revealed that there are three types of presupposition

found in the claims of Television cosmetic advertisements. The

presuppositions found are existential, structural, and lexical presupposition.

Other presupposition did not present. Existential presupposition serves as

to presuppose the existence of a certain product. While lexical

presupposition and structural presupposition serve as to communicate the

content of cosmetic ingredients, as well as the performance of the product

the advertisers made about their claims. The nonexistence of other types

of presupposition can be object specific restriction. Which means the study

only analyze the utterances of the television advertisement claims and left

out the other elements such as voice-over narration, sounds and other

audio-visual aspects.

2. The types of information content and message appeals also found in the

television cosmetic advertisement claims. This represents that the claims

are informative in terms of information content. The types of information

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Content of the product, Availability of the advertised product, New Ideas

and Characteristics of the product. The advertisement message appeals

used both rational and emotional appeals in the claims of television

cosmetic advertisements. The types of message appeals found are:

affiliation, convenience, distinctive, durable, enjoyment, family, natural,

safety, technology, and vain. This restriction maybe due to the nature of

cosmetic advertisement that is intended to be informative and persuasive

in its form.

3. The reasons of presupposition use in the claims of cosmetic

advertisements are intended by the advertisers to achieve several ways

such as: (1) as a linguistic device for implicit competition (2) Causing the

audience to consider the existence of a certain product, (3) Presupposing

the audience cultural and social values reflection to attract audience

personal interes, and (4) making the advertisements short and memorable

in the eyes of the audience mind. The findings also strenghtnen Lam’s

(2009) finding with the same topic but another additional findings such as

presupposing the audience psychological circumstances. This will ensure

that the findings are relevant and built as a recollection of objective

assumption towards the result of the study since the nature of

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5.2Suggestion

Having seen the result of the study, the researcher would like to offer the

suggestions as follows;

1. It is recommended for the advertisers who are involved in advertising research

and advertising production to consider the use of presupposition as a

marketing tool to make an interesting and persuasive advertisement form.

2. It is suggested for the researchers especially Linguistic field to further study

the presupposition use especially it’s psycholinguistic effects towards human

interaction and discourse to understand more about language of persuasion.

3. It is advisable for the students to understand presupposition as a linguistic

tools that is useful for conversation and study that will help and strengthten

their knowledge about pragmatic and specifically conversation meaning

making.

4. It is advisable that presupposition also may help the readers to build an

awareness about the miscommunication that may occurred due to the mistakes

to presuppose the meaning in a conversation or any kind interaction

circumstance in daily life. Being aware of the presupposition will help to

understand how to build an effective communication for daily use or specific

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PRESUPPOSITION IN TELEVISION COSMETIC ADVERTISEMENTS. POSTGRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE STATE UNIVERSITY OF MEDAN.