Background of the Study

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Study

Language is used to share idea. It is including persuading people. The meaning of ‘to persuade’ is to make someone agree to do something by giving himher good reasons for doing it, such as: using cosmetics products, buying vehicles or making infestations. To persuade is one of the main purposes of advertisements. Advertisement as a promotion tool has an important role in the effort to make marketing of products to be successful. It is used to convey certain information about products, services, or ideas to the target markets. A good advertisement can attract the target markets to be aware of the product, and then to encourage them to buy it. As a result, it has a beneficial effect to increase the sale of products. J. Thomas Russell and W Roland Lane, in Kazmi 2004 have defined advertising in the following words: “Advertising is a message paid for by an identified sponsor and delivered though some medium of mass communication. Advertising is persuasive communication.” Therefore, we may conclude that advertisement has some elements: 1 messages, 2 sponsor, 3 mass media, 4 persuade or influence. Advertising can be done in two ways. It can be electronic advertisements by using electronic media such as TV, radio, or computer, and display advertisement such as newspaper, posters, catalogues, magazines, etc. As a promotion tool, in order to give information and to attract the reader, advertisements do not only consist Universitas Sumatera Utara of words but also pictures and illustrations. So, there are usually limited words used in the display advertisement. When the advertiser tries to convey the information, shehe always thinks how to manage the words in a sentence so the information will be understood by the consumers. Sentences in advertisements are structured in such away to attract the readers. Thus, the advertiser must consider how she he structured the information: what is put, where and why. The information is the message of the advertisement. The difference of the information arrangement makes the difference of the message. It can be exemplified as below: 1.a Gerber Generation is the favorite food in America. 1.b The favorite food in America is Gerber Generation. These two sentences seem to be alike except the structure. In the example 1.a the advertisement talks about the name of a product. It is ‘Gerber Generation’, not the other products. In the example 1.b, it talks about ‘The favorite food in America’. It is not about the favorite drink neither is the favorite food in Africa. In Discourse Analysis, the structure of information is discussed in Thematic Structure. It is Theme- and Rheme system which is introduced by M.A.K Halliday. The thematic structure views that the function of language is as message. At this point, clauses are considered as messages. The language is used to built a message to other messages; a clause to other clauses. A message can be related to preceding or following discourse or to the content. This function is realized by Theme-Rheme system. Universitas Sumatera Utara Gerot and Wignel 1994:103 state that in English the Theme can be identified as that or those elements which come first in the clause. Theme represents ‘This is what I’m talking about’ and Rheme is ‘This is what I am saying about it’. The interaction of the Theme and Rheme governs how information in a text develops. The boundary between Theme and Rheme is simple: Theme is the beginning of the clause conveying what is the clause about. So, we can find the topic of the information in a Theme. Rheme is the rest of the clause. The information is typically contained in the Rheme. Theme can be divided in to three categories: Ideational Themes, Textual Themes, and Interpersonal Themes. In this thesis, the writer wants to analyze the Theme used in the advertisements based on these distributions. The analysis of Theme-Rheme system which is a term of clause as message constructing a text is needed to see the distribution of information of the products in every clause. Moreover, we can reveal what kinds of item or concept are explored as the points of view on the texts of advertisements. The writer plans to analyze the advertisements taken from People Magazine. People Magazine is a weekly American magazine of celebrity and human-interest stories, published by Time Inc. People Magazine contains many advertisements, which most of them are life style advertisements such as women cosmetics, health products, foods, pet’s food, accessories, diet food, and fashion items. The writer is interested in analyzing advertisements from People Magazine because it is one of the most famous magazines in the word. ‘People’ has the largest audience of any American magazine with a readership of 46.6 million adults. The advertisements in People Magazine attract many readers. It has achieved a great Universitas Sumatera Utara appreciation by being named Magazine of the Year by Advertising Age in October 2005 for advertising.

1.2 Problem of the Study