L’implicature dans la publicité française contemporaine, selon la théorie de la pertinence
“L’implicature” in French Contemporary Advertising

Summary/Abstract: The study analyses people’s interpretation of selected French print advertisements using the tools of post-Gricean pragmatics, especially Sperber and Wilson’s Relevance Theory. After explaining the functioning of the inferential model of communication and, within it, the role of implicature (according to the principle of relevance), the paper then turns to the results of a practical study comprising four selected French print advertisements from the banking field, published after the onset of the financial crisis. Following on the study, a number of the advertising interpretations which were arrived at via implicature are quoted and analysed with respect to their strength and the processing effort needed to construct them. Our analysis presents meaningful insights into contemporary French banking advertising communications by pointing out the shift towards implicit communication, via weak implicatures, and the endeavour to replace banking jargon by general concepts (confidence, optimism, future, team etc.) which are reaffirmed.

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