Description
Translating client identity in male cosmetics advertising (Aikaterini Eikosideka)
Addressee identity is often claimed to affect the way we structure discourses. The research project adopts a pragmatic lens to male cosmetics advertising, in order to investigate how client identity is shaped cross-culturally through advertisements for men’s deodorants, on the English and Greek market. The study uses communication styles (Hofstede, Hofstede and Minkov 2010) to account for (a) naturalistic shifts in verbal or multimodal data which tend to improve product reception in the Greek target context and (b) experimental data to confirm how masculinity is shaped and attributed to male clients, by well renowned deodorant companies. As the data analysis progresses, it seems that these socio-pragmatic parameters are operative in accounting for differences in the two contexts. Findings show cross-cultural variation along three of Hofstede and Hofstede’s communication styles, individualism/collectivism, masculinity/femini¬nity and uncertainty avoidance/tolera-nce. The significance of the research lies in that it shows how commercial content producers register locally shared gender identity assumptions of the audience type they address.
