Ideological Analysis Of English Public Service Advertisements

Public service advertisement is a kind of non-profit advertisement,which appeals to the public to participate in public welfare and pay attention to social problems,support or advocate some social responsibility in order to standardize public behavior through the dissemination of themes covering education,humanities,environmental protection and other themes.By using the Halliday's system functional grammar theory three metafunctions: transitivity system and voice system of ideational function,personal system and mood and modality of interpersonal function and cohesion of textual function and the Fairclough's critical discourse analysis method from the analysis of text,discursive level and social level,this thesis selects 40 English public service advertisements from official websites to solve the following questions by using quantity and quality method:(1)how are the thematic messages in English public service advertisement communicated and conveyed by language mode?(2)what social ideology do different topics of English public service advertisement construct?The research shows that firstly,the thematic messages of English public service advertisement are realized through the following language features.On the ideational function level,the material process statements describing the background information are used most frequently,accounting for 75.1%.The second is the relational process,accounting for 23.7%.Material process and relational process are mainly used to describe the background information,supplement the details,painting the overall picture for the audience to make the audience experience and arouse the audience's resonance and appeal them to take positive action.Besides,in terms of voice,active voice is most frequently used(94.4%)than passive voice(5.6%).Since active voice can enhance the urgent demand of public welfare,in an active way,so that the public consciously participate in the public service.ii)On the interpersonal function level,the public service advertisement mainly uses the first person and the second person.The first person can not only draw closer the psychological distance between the public service and the audience,but also establish a face-to-face communication relationship has been established between the audience and the advertisement designer,allowing the message in the advertisement perceived with a serious attitude.Meanwhile,declarative sentences and imperative sentences are more frequently used to show authority and express a tone of command so that the audience unconsciously accepts the appeals made by public service advertisement.Furthermore,the use of low-value modal words(60.4%)is aimed at building a harmonious relationship between advertisement and audience.iii)On the textual function level,lexical cohesion makes language unique,enhances the effect of expression,easily arouses people's emotion and promotes the persuasiveness of language.Secondly,the ideology transmitted by English public service advertisement includes topic of animal protection,climate change,environmental pollution,and cherishing the natural resources.Those advertisements give due respect and attention to discuss on how to make animals and human beings coexist harmoniously,how to achieve sustainable development,how to improve people's quality,how to share world peace and attain eternal happiness by appealing the public to actively participate in public welfare and contribute to the well-being of all mankind.