Language Change and Ideology in Irish Radio Advertising

Abstract

Language ideologies have been defined as ‘sets of representations through which language is imbued with cultural meaning for a certain community’. These representations can be seen as ‘ways of understanding the world that emerge from interaction with particular (public) representations of it’ (Cameron, 2003: 447-448). Therefore, language ideologies emerge from the way language is represented, particularly in the public sphere. More specifically, the relationship between the media and ideologies of language has been well researched and documented (Spitulnik, 1998; Johnson and Ensslin, 2007; Coupland, 2010). In relation to the medium of radio, Spitulnik (1998) points out that this medium has a role in the establishment of language ideologies and is in turn shaped by such ideologies. Coupland observes the influence of the mass media on ‘the evaluative and ideological worlds in which language variation exists in late modernity’ (2010: 56, 69). Turning more specifically to the area of advertising in the media, because advertisers are required to reflect the attitudes and aspirations of their audience, the analysis of advertising can function as a way of ‘taking the ideological temperature’ in a particular society (Vestergaard and Schroder, 1985: 120). Similarly, Lee (1992: 171) sees advertisements as ‘the meeting place of many different ways of speaking’, which reflect the discursive practices of the society in which they function. Lee’s research illustrates not only how advertisements echo ways of speaking in a particular society, but also highlights ideological dimensions of language use in advertising.