THE ANALYSIS OF LEXICAL CHOICE ON CIGARETTE ADVERTISEMENTS

Abstract

This study mainly focuses on the class of words that are specially employed in cigarette advertisement’
texts, the effects on the context of situation toward the language of cigarette advertisements and the
images which are presented by featuring man or woman as the model in cigarette advertisements. The
data of this study were taken from some English magazines and one local newspaper. There are three
advertisements taken as the data source. In collecting data, the documentary method was used by reading
the advertisements and then taking notes from those advertisements. In analysing data, the descriptive
method was used. The theory from Geoffrey Leech was used to identify the verbal message. Based on
problems formulated, 3 data were chosen as representative data to be analyzed further. The analysis was
started by reading and taking notes from those advertisements. Then, those words clasified into two
dominant classes of vocabulary, namely adjective and verb. The analysis concerns with the understanding
of the implementation of lexical choice used in cigarette advertisements to find out the function of those
vocabularies in cigarette advertisements. The analysis is also concerned with the context of situation that
is focused on analysis of field, tenor, and mode was used the theory from Halliday and Hasan. In
addition, the theory of Gillian Dyer was used to describe the visual presentation and the special signs as
icon of the product based on the three concepts of denoting expressions or objects, appearance, manner
and acivity in the English cigarette advertisements.
The result of the research show that, (1) the lexical choice in the form of the adjectives and verbs are
dominantly used in cigarette advertisements. For example, satisfying and new are adjectives while come,
find and have are verbs. Those are chosen specially to express the emotion or feeling of the model in
presenting the message of the product that is being advertised. (2) There are some images that appear by
featuring man or woman as the model in cigarette advertisements. For example, the images of Marlboro
advertisement are freedom, brave, adventure and masculine.