Coca-Cola advertisement in level of connotative meaning and denotation meaning.
6
B. Focus of the Study
In order to limit the research, the writer only focuses on the Coca- Cola’s commercial advertisements in Coca-Cola Coke edition and takes three
image of it advertisement models. The next two images are from Coca-cola Zero edition. Each of these editions consists of many slogans advertisement
that usually showed in billboard and street banner or even in the magazine. The writer thinks that a coca-cola advertisement will be full of interpretation
to get the meaning from that advertising model. On the process of interpretation of these Coca-Cola’s commercial advertising, the writer uses a
theory of semiotic especially in semiotic signification and focuses on the aspect of an object of sign Pierce, the codes Barthes and the meaning of the
advertisement in denotation and connotation meaning Saussure.
C. Research Question
In order to get a meaning from the interpretation of the Coca-Cola’s advertisement, the writer wants to explain and analyze each of the signifiers
that appeared in advertisement to get a denotative meaning. Afterward, the writer interprets the advertisement in level of connotation to get a meaning of
whole sign appears in the advertisement. The questions are consists of:
6
Sumbo Tinurbuko, Semiotika Komunikasi Visual Yogyakarta: Jalasutra, 2008, p. 23
5
1. What are the sign systems used on the coca-cola commercial
advertisement? 2.
What do the signs in coca-cola advertisement mean according to semiotic signification?
D. Objective and Significance of the Study
Based on the research question above, the writer has several objective of the research as follow:
1. To know about the sign system that constituted the Coca-Cola’s
commercial advertisement 2.
To know the meaning of the connotation and denotation level in coca- cola advertisements.
Moreover, by analyzing the advertisement sign in the commercial media in the term of semiotic, could give some of advantage for the reader
who is interested in the semiotic field for analyzing the cultural code that manifests in various ways. Semiotic can be applied in analyzing many sign in
advertisement, linguistic codes, pop culture codes and many more.
E.
Research Methodology 1.
Research Methodology
The method which is used in this research is descriptive qualitative analysis with textual and pictorial analysis where the writer describes and
interprets the sign on the Coca-Cola’s commercial advertisements
6
7
2. Data Collecting Technique
The method of data collecting technique in this research is analyzing and observing the icon, index and symbol element that appears in Coca-
cola’s advertisement in “Coca-Cola Coke” edition and “Coca-Cola Zero” edition. Beside it, the writer uses other resources in data collecting technique,
such as resources from any documents from books, journals, and internet.
3. Data Analysis Technique
To analyze the data, the writer analyzes the meaning of the pictorial aspect and linguistic aspect of the Coca-Cola advertisements. Firstly, the
writer uses a Pierce’s theory to analyze the object of sign in Coca-Cola advertisements from the icon, index and symbol sight. Then the writer
analyzes the codes that appeared in the advertisements whether it is a hermeneutic code, semantic code, symbolic or narrative code. Finally, the
writer finds the meaning of the Coca-Cola’s advertisements by analyzing connotation and denotation meaning.
4. Unit Analysis
Unit analysis, which is used on this research, is the collection of Coca- Cola’s advertisement from Coca-Cola Coke edition and Coca-Cola Zero
edition see appendices.
CHAPTER II THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
A. Advertisement
1. Definition of Advertisement
The word “advertise” originates from the Latin advertere, which means to turn toward or to take note of. Certainly, the visual and the verbal
commercial message that are part of advertising are intended to attract attention and produce some responses by the viewer. Advertising is persuasive
and virtually impossible to escape.
1
Newspapers and the magazine often have more advertisement than copy, the radio and television provide entertainment but are also laden with
the advertisement. Advertisements also exist on billboard along the freeway, in subway or everywhere. The persuasive of advertising and its creative
elements are designed to cause viewers to take note. Advertising is form of communication used to help selling products
and services. Typically, it communicates a message including the name of the products or services and how that products or services could potentially
benefit the consumer. However, advertising does typically attempt to persuade potential consumer to purchase or to consume more of particular brand of
product or services.
1
Jorge Reina Schement, ed., Encyclopedia of Communication and Information Volume 1 ACA-FUN,New York: Macmillan Library Reference, 2002, p. 10.
2. The Function of Advertising
Although the primary objective of advertising is to persuade, it may achieve this objective in many different ways. An important function of
advertising is the identification function, that is, to identify a product and differentiate it from the other, this create an awareness of the product and
provides a basis for consumer to choose the advertised products. The identification function of advertising includes the ability of advertising to
differentiate a product so that it has own unique identity or personality.
2
Another function of advertising is to communicate information about the product, its attributes and its location of sale, this is function known as the
information functions. The third function of advertising is to induce consumer to try a new product and to suggest reuse of the product as well as new uses,
this is as the persuasion function. A Webster’s New World Encyclopedia defines the advertising related
to its functions and purposes: “….any of various methods use by a company to increase the sale of
its product or to promote a brand name. advertising can be seen by economist as either beneficial since it convey information about a
product and so bring the market closer to a state of perfect competition or as a hindrance to perfect competition, since it attempts
to make illusory distinctions such as greater sex appeal between essentially similar product.”
3
According to the advertising function and its definition, basically the advertising is a form of mass communication due to the message laden in the
2
Ibid. p. 11.
3
Kasiyan, Manipulasi dan Dehumanisasi Perempuan dalam Iklan Yogyakarta: Penerbit Ombak, 2008, p. 149.
10
advertising communicated through a mass medium to a large number of people.
3. Advertising Effects
There are many critiques arguing that advertising places a burden on society by raising the cost of merchandise and inducing people to buy a thing
they don’t need. There are four common of the advertising effect and misconception.
4
1. Advertising makes people buy things they don’t need
2. Advertising makes things cost more
3. Advertising helps sell bad products
4. Advertising is a waste money
Beside it, advertising has its detractor on its appearance and the a message laden on it, here are the details of the common criticisms in
contemporary advertising and its effects:
5
1. Advertising improper use of grammar debases a language.
A sentence “John tastes good like a cigarette should” may help sell cigarettes, but its make like difficult for English Teacher.
2. Advertising makes people to materialistic.
It’s portrays the acquisition of things as the means to a happy life. 1.
Advertising has the power to make people do irrational thing such as buying product they don’t need.
4
Ralph E. Hanson, Mass Communication Living in a Media World, New York: McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc, 2005, p.413.
5
Thomas M. Pasqua, et al., Mass Meedia in the Information Age, New Jersey: Prentice- Hall, Inc, 1990, p. 187.
11
2. That is too much advertising, and this make life less pleasant that it
might be. 3.
Many people find some advertising offensive or in bad taste. 4.
Advertising perpetuates stereotypes, such as women being best suited to housekeeping.
B. Semiotic
1. Definition of Semiotic
Semiotic or semiology, as it better known in Europe originate from the Greek semion, which mean sign. Semiotics is a general study about the
signs as an essential part of cultural life and communication. According to semiotics, we can only know culture and reality by means of the sign, through
the process of signification. Beside it, much of semioticians said that semiotic is a theory related to the lie, fake or generally as a theory of the lie. Semiotics
is in principle the discipline studying everything which can be used in order to lie.
Umberto Eco, write in his book A Theory of Semiotic, said: “Semiotics is concerned with everything that can be taken as a sign. A
sign is everything which can be taken as significantly substituting for something else. This something else does not necessary substituting for
something else. This something else does not necessary have to exist or to actually be somewhere at the moment in which a sign stand in for it.
Thus semiotics is in principle the discipline studying everything which can be used in order to lie. If something cannot be used to tell a lie,
conversely it cannot be used to tell the truth. It cannot in fact be used “to tell” at all. I think that the definition of a “theory of lie” should be
taken as a pretty comprehensive program for a general semiotics.”
6
6
Uberto Eco, Teori Semiotika, Signifikasi Komunikasi, Teori Kode, Serta Teori Produksi Tanda, Yogyakarta: Kreasi Wacana, 2009, p. 7.
12
According to a definition by Eco, the theory of lie is in definition of semiotic, but implicitly inherent in this definition as the theory of the truth.
Because if the sign couldn’t show it reality, it’s couldn’t show his lies. Finally, even Eco define a Semiotic as the theory of the lie, implicitly he define a
semiotic as the theory of the truth. As the theory of interpretation in the cultural life, semiotic has two
fundamental founders, between Ferdinand de Saussure and Charles Sander Pierce. These two founders put the fundamental aspect in semiotic through
ontological and epistemological. Between these two founders of Semiotic, each of them develops the
different type and characteristic of semiotic. Saussure as the founder of the modern linguists build the semiotic based on the language as the system of the
sign. And Pierce build the theory of semiotic based on the pragmatic and logic philosophy. Generally, most of the expert of the semiotic differs between the
semiotics of signification based on the Saussure, and semiotics of communication which based on Pierce logical and pragmatic philosophy.
Actually, in these two differences has a same interaction each other, even in the system of the language sign and in the communication as the language
context.
7
7
Kaelani, M.S. Filsafat Bahasa Semiotika dan Hermeneutika, Yogyakarta: Paradigma, 2009, p. 169.
13
2. Semioticians and his Theory
1. Ferdinand de Saussure
Ferdinand de Saussure, is well know as the father of modern linguistics and the founding father of structural linguistic in Europe.
Saussure was born in Geneva in 1857, studied mainly in Germany, taught for a number of years in Paris, and then returned to the University
of Geneva in 1981 and dead there in 1913. His importance work, not in his detail explanation in linguistic, but in his general view of
representation and the way his model of language shaped the semiotic approach to the problem of representation in a wide variety of cultural
fields. There are a three element distinction from Saussure according to
his Course in General Linguistic book as the fundamental element of the structural semiotic approach, between 1 signifier and signified, 2
langage, parole, and langue, 3 synchronic and diachronic. 1.
Saussure defined the linguistic sign as two side entity. One side of the sign was what he called the signifier. A signifier is the
thoroughly material aspect of a sign. If one feels one’s vocal when speaking, it is clear that are made from vibrations which are
undoubtedly material in nature. Saussure describes the verbal signifier as a sound image.
8
8
Paul Cobley and Litza Jansz, Semiotic for Beginner, London: Penguin Books, 1997, p.10.
14
Inseparably from the signifier in any sign, engendered by the signifier is what Saussure calls the signified as the mental concept. The
word “dog” in English made up the signifier d, o and g, what is engendered for the hearers is not the real dog but a mental concept of
“dogness”. These two inseparable of the Signified mental concept and the
Signifier material aspect are described as the following diagram:
Signified Signifier
Figure I. Meaning element from Saussure 2.
The general phenomenon of language in French, langage is made up by two factor, between parole individual acts of speech and
langue a system of difference between sign.
9
3. According to Saussure, the linguistic research must concern in
Synchronic aspect before Diachronic aspect. Saussure describes this vital distinction as: “Synchronic linguistic will be concerned
with the logical and physiological relations that bind together coexisting terms and form a system in the collective mind of the
speaker. And Diachronic linguistics, on the contrary, will study relations that bind together successive terms not perceived by the
9
Ibid, p.15.
15
collective mind but substituted for each other without forming a system.”
10
2. Charles Sander Pierce
Charles Sander Pierce, the founder of the philosophical doctrine as pragmatism, he defines a sign in the term of semiosis as “...something
which stands to somebody for something in some respect or capacity...”. In this term, Pierce determine the subject of the sign as the part that
unseparated from the proses of the signification. The Triadic model of Pierce representament + objek + interpretant = sign, show the
important role of the subject in the language transformation. The sign according to Pierce is which stand in the proces of the unlimited
semiosis, or the proses of the unlimited semiosis series, which creating the interpretant in the newest form.
11
This is the triange model or the semiosis by Pierce: Signground
Interpretant Object
Figure II. Meaning element from Pierce
10
Ferdinand de Saussure, Course in General Linguistic, New York City: McGraww-Hill Paperback, 1966, p. 99.
11
Yasraf Amir Piliang, Hipersemiotika Tafsir Cultural studies atas MatinyaMakna, Yogyakarta: Jalasutra, 2003, p. 266.
16
In the other name, a sign, is a fisrtnes which stand in such a genuine triadic relation to a secondes, called it object, as to be capable
on determining the thirdnes, called representament. From this triadic model, Pierce determines the sign clasification.
Ground or a sign itself clasified into Qualisign quality on sign, Signsign actual event on sign, and Legisign a role or norm or a habit
on sign. Based on it object, Pierce clasified a sign into Icon the
connection between sign and object becouse its similiarities, Index the connection between sign and object its causalities and effect, and
Symbol the connection between sign and object becouse the convention on the social agreement.
On the interpretant, a sign clasified on Rheme a sign interpreted to represent based on the choises, Dicisign a sign intrepreted to
rerresent based on the fact, and the Argument a sign interpreted to represent on the reason on something else.
C. Advertisements as the Semiotic Signification
Adveertisment as the langguage communiacation has a spesific language structure. It express the message with the certain language and
sometimes contain of false expression than the real purpose of the advertisment.
17
According to the semiotic signification, advertisment has contain more than a signs, it consist of the language element which arraged from a signifier
or the a material element of the advertisment showed as picture, fhoto and ilustration. And a concept of signified and the meaning beyond it signifier.
These structural element of advertisment is used to show a reality or even falsifaying the reality of the advertiments.
12
Usually, an advertisments has three elements of sign. An object of the product that advertise, contexts of advertisment aroud it object showed as the
things that gives the contexs of and object. And the text of advertismets in written language. Beside it elements, advertisment has a levels of meanings, it
a denotative meaning, and a deepen meaning or connotative meaning when the advertisment related to the cultural context and the undestanding of an
ideology.
13
Beside it elements, advertising has indicate to a certain codes. The first code that exist in usual texts is a linguistic code refer to what the texts
expressed. Generally, this code is express abut what is in the meaning of dictionary or in linguistic order.
Roland Barthes, a well-known as the scientist who practiced linguistic and semiology model of Saussurean and Piercian to analyze the secondary
code in cultural product such advertisements. In his book SZ proposed another term to understand the sign by arranging and grouping codes into five,
12
Ibid, p. 280.
13
Ibid.
18
there are a hermeneutic code, semantic code, symbolic code, narrativeproairetic code and cultural code.
14
Before he defines a sign into five codes above, he made two order of signification of meaning to get a meaning in level of connotation and related
to cultural condition. In this order of signification, Barthes interrogate every pieces of cultural and material product such advertisements and explained that
advertisements contribute to cultural myths as second-order signs.
First Order Second Order
Culture Reality
Sign
Connotation
Form Signifier
Signified Denotation
Myth
Content
John Fiske, Introduction to Communication Studies, 1990.p.88
The first order is based from Saussure work on semiology. In this first order shows a relation between signifier and signified in sign and between a
sign with other reference in external reality. Roland Barthes called this order with denotation. A meaning in denotation level may show a similarity except
14
Roland Barthes, SZ, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990, pp.19-20.
19
in connotation level. In this case, denotation tends to be described as the definitional, literal, obvious or commonsense meaning of a sign.
15
The term of connotation is used to refer to the socio cultural and association to ideological of the sign. These are typically related to the
interpreter’s class, gender, and so on. Sign according to Barthes are more polisemic in their connotations than their denotations.
16
These are definition of codes that Barthes proposed in his second order of signification:
1. A hermeneutic code consists of all units which function is to
articulated in various ways question, its response, and the variety of chance events which can either formulate the question or delay its
answer, or even, constitute an enigma and lead to its solution. 2.
A Semantic code is a code of connotation which utilizes hints or flicker of meaning generated of certain signifiers. Third is symbolic
code which code of recognizable groupings or configuration regularly repeated in various modes and by various mean in the
text, which ultimately generates the dominant figure in the carpet. 3.
Other code is a narrativeproairetic code. Narrative or proaretic code is a code of action derived from the concept of proaresis, the
ability rationally is to determine the result of an action, and this code is also embodied in sequence such as lexcia.
15
John Fiske, Introduction to Communication Studies,Jogjakarta: Jalasutra, 1990, p. 119.
16
Ibid.
20
21 4.
The last code which Barthes called as cultural code, which code manifest as a gnomic, collective, anonymous and an authoritative
voice which speaks for and about what it aims to establish as accepted knowledge or wisdom.
CHAPTER III RESEARCH FINDINGS
A. Description of Data