This image is NOT merely illustrative! Notes for the analysis of the embedded ethos in the advertising field

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to contribute to the notion of embedded ethos, a concept located in French Discourse Analysis and presented by Dominique Maingueneau, in the work Variações sobre o ethos (2020). circulated in 2012 and immediately rejected by popular appeal, which resulted in its withdrawal from the mainstream media, accused of spreading racism and sexism through the use of the figure of a black woman, resident of the Rocinha favela. I will focus attention on two fundamental aspects to describe and demonstrate the functioning of the text: the treatment of advertising as a result of the archenunciation of a brand (MAINGUENEAU, 1996) and the notion of embedded ethos (MAINGUENEAU, 2020), based on a shared memory around a pre-constructed discursive community prior to enunciation. The analysis of the corpus allowed the observation of racist discourse as a “silent mentality”, narratives developed by the advertising industry and the contribution to the notion of embedded ethos through advertising.