Comparibility Task

Classroom Activity 1

1.    The language of advertising varies incredibly between adverts directed at men and those directed at women. An example of a women's advert that is very feminine would probably be a Venus razor. The first words spoken in the advert (by Jennifer Lopez, a well known icon for women to aspire to) are "Every woman has an inner goddess", another quote to emphasize how feminine this advert is "A feeling of confidence, and strength, an inner sparkle and an outer fabulous." The lexical choices that are used are all very positively emotive and encourage women to want to be all of the things listed. Men's adverts are extremely different, mainly focusing on how tough and strong the product will make them and the language that is used in adverts is crucial. The example I'm going to use is a Gillette Fusion advert, the narrator says "until you discover" to introduce the product, by saying that it is made to seem inevitable that the buyer will use it at one point. Also the use of "power" in the name of the product is one of the key words used in adverts directed primarily at men, because of of the stereotypical male features is that men want to be masculine and powerful to become attractive to women. Both of these adverts, although practically the same product and from the same company, are vastly different. The women's razor ad is aimed at women to make them happy with themselves, to be attractive but to also feel "confident", "strong" and "fabulous". The men's razor ad is full of visual sports references and "manly" language, these are both very typical views that male audiences are all looking to attract women and all female audiences want to feel "fabulous".
2.    The difference between radio and television commentaries is that the radio will have to be constantly talking. If you watch live sports on TV then you are able to sit and watch what is happening on the screen in front of you, but with a radio you can't see what is happening so you will essentially need it audio-visual description. The radio commentary will have the commentator constantly talking and describing what is happening, the current scores and adding their own comments as well. However, a commentator on television won't have to describe exactly what is happening because the audience can already see what's going on, the scores will be occasionally repeated so the audience stays up to date but the main thing that a commentator on TV will be doing is adding their own comments and talking about the people that are participating and what they know about them.