The discourse of advertising has changed considerably over the past 200 years. This study - based on a corpus of 540 advertisements published in The Times between 1788 and 1996 - outlines how advertisements have developed into a distinctive text type with recurring formal, semantic and functional features. Criteria investigated are the global structure of advertisements, major topics, the use of adjectives, language play, the textual realisation of advertising functions and the emergence of the pictorial message. Although the study focuses on linguistic aspects of advertising, the discussion also includes the influence of extra-linguistic factors, such as socio-economic conditions and the development of the media.

Advertising has always been a uniquely influential social force. It affects what we buy, what we believe, who we elect, and so much more. We tend to know histories of other massive social forces, but even people working in advertising often have a tenuous grasp of their field's background. This book slices advertising's history into a smörgåsbord of specific topics like advertising to children, political advertising, people's names as advertisements, 3D advertising, programmatic buying, and so much more, offering a synopsis of how each developed and the role it played in this discipline. In doing so, many firsts are identified, such as the first full-page color magazine advertisement, and the first point-of-purchase advertisement. This book also reaches back farther in search of the earliest advertisements, and it tells the story of the variety of techniques used by our ancestors to promote their products and ideas. Part textbook, part reference, the book is an advertising museum in portable form suitable for all levels of students, scholars, and arm-chair enthusiasts. (Please note that the hardback and eBook formats of this book feature full-color printing. The paperback is grayscale.)

The discourse of advertising has changed considerably over the past 200 years. This study - based on a corpus of 540 advertisements published in The Times between 1788 and 1996 - outlines how advertisements have developed into a distinctive text type with recurring formal, semantic and functional features. Criteria investigated are the global structure of advertisements, major topics, the use of adjectives, language play, the textual realisation of advertising functions and the emergence of the pictorial message. Although the study focuses on linguistic aspects of advertising, the discussion also includes the influence of extra-linguistic factors, such as socio-economic conditions and the development of the media.

Advertising has traditionally communicated messages to consumers with strong local and national identities. However, increasingly, products, producers, advertising agencies and media are becoming internationalized. In the development of strategies that appeal to a large multinational consumer base, advertising language takes on new 'multilingual' features. The author explores the role of advertising language in this new globalized environment, from a communicative theory point of view, as well as from a close linguistic analysis of some major advertising campaigns within a multicultural and multilingual marketplace.