The Analysis of the Super Bowl Advertisements within a Functional Grammar Framework

Author : Ana Tripkovic, Valentina Gavranovic

Abstract :This paper investigates language as a dynamic system designed to fulfil specific social purposes and focuses on analysing the Super Bowl advertisements within a functional grammar framework. It aims to describe the authentic language used in commercials at the syntactic level identifying how linguistic messages are tailored to address real-life causes. The analysis is based on the corpus of 120 slogans taken from 227 Super Bowl advertisements collected between 2017 and 2022. The Super Bowl event provides a valuable context due to its massive audience across the world amounting to millions and the impact the language used in commercials can have on the viewers. The analysis shows a wide range of syntactic units used in slogans and demonstrates the way language is manipulated to achieve certain effects. Moreover, it highlights how language choices change and deviate from prescriptive language rules within specific social contexts. The implications arising from the analysis point out the relevance of teaching functional language features the ultimate goal of which would be achieving a communicative purpose in language learning.

Keywords :Super Bowl advertisements, functional grammar, language analysis, slogans, communicative purpose, syntactic units, language manipulation, language learning, social context, authentic language

Conference Name :International Conference on Linguistics and Applied Linguistics (ICLAL-25)

Conference Place Edinburgh, UK

Conference Date 9th Jun 2025