Garuda Indonesia Airlines Advertisement: A Critical Discourse

Analysis

Resti Juni Astuti

, Erstanty Arumsari

erstantyarumsari16@yahoo.com.id

Keywords: Garuda Airlines advertisement, Discourse Analysis, Fairclough’s three-dimensional framework

Abstract: This study examines Garuda Indonesia Airlines’ advertisement from Discourse Analysis perspective. It

focuses on the use of selected discourses in Garuda Indonesia Airlines’ advertisement in order to attract or

influence the audiences. As a flag carrier, Garuda Airlines brings the brand of tourism of Indonesia which is

an important component of the Indonesian economy. The analysis is based on Fairclough’s Discourse

Analysis three-dimensional framework. The finding shows that advertising language is used not only to

promote the product of Garuda Airlines but also to promote the natural beauty and the culture of Indonesia.

1 INTRODUCTION

As a flag carrier, Garuda Indonesia Airlines brings

the brand of tourism of Indonesia. Several campaign

has been launched by government through various

media; printed media, television, radio and internet.

In the early 1990s, the Indonesian government

launched “Visit Indonesia Year 1991” to promote

Indonesian tourism. In December 2014, the Minister

of Tourism launched the new brand “Pesona

Indonesia” to target domestic tourism market. Both

“Wonderful Indonesia” and “Pesona Indonesia”

have the same Garuda logo. “Wonderful Indonesia”

has been the slogan since January 2011 of an

international marketing campaign directed by the

Indonesian Ministry of Culture and Tourism to

promote tourism. The campaign replaced the

previous "Visit Indonesia Year" campaign which

had been used since 1991.

In order to promote Indonesian tourism, Garuda

Indonesia Airlines has launched some

advertisements through various media. The main

purpose of the advertisement is to persuade

audiences to buy the product. Cook (2001) states

that advertisements inform, persuade, remind,

influence, and perhaps change opinions, emotions,

and attitudes. The advertisement texts must be more

attractive and more unexpected. They must catch the

attention of the audiences and then identify the

product. Leech in Vasiloaia (2009) sets the

following principles of advertising texts: attention

value, readability (by means of simple, personal, and

colloquial style), memorability (the most important

thing in the process of advertising is to remember

the name of the product) and selling power.

Thus, this study investigates the use of discourses

used in Garuda Indonesia Airlines advertisement;

the linguistic features used in Garuda Indonesia

Airlines’ advertisement, and the discursive

techniques employed in Garuda Indonesia Airlines’

advertisement to attract or to influence the

audiences.

2 METHODS

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114

Astuti, R. and Arumsari, E.

Garuda Indonesia Airlines Advertisement: A Critical Discourse Analysis.

DOI: 10.5220/0008221000002284

In Proceedings of the 1st Bandung English Language Teaching International Conference (BELTIC 2018) - Developing ELT in the 21st Century, pages 114-118

ISBN: 978-989-758-416-9

The analysis is based on Fairclough’s Discourse

Analysis three-dimensional framework. Fairclough

(2001) points out three dimensional levels in

analyzing discourse; textual (micro), discursive

practice (meso), and social practice (macro).

‘Texts’ may be written or oral. Discursive

practice means the processes of text production

and text consumption. Sociocultural practice

means the social and cultural goings-on which

the communicative event is a part of

(Fairclough, 2001).

Figure 1: Fairclough’s Discourse Analysis three-

dimensional framework model

2.1 Textual Analysis

The textual analysis relates to linguistic features of

the advertisement’s discourses. The first analysis

focuses on syntactic aspect. There are two main

focuses in this analysis. The first one focuses on

sentence types. The second one focuses on sentence

structure.

2.1.1 Sentence Type

Referring to Quirk (1990), sentences may be

distinguished into four major syntactic types;

declaratives, interrogatives, imperatives and

exclamatives. Following definitions of each of them

are quoted from Quirk (1990).

“Declaratives are sentences in which it

is normal for the subject to be present and to

precede the verb. Interrogatives are sentences,

which are formally marked in one of two

ways: yes-no interrogatives (an operator is

placed in front of the subject), and wh-

interrogatives (an interrogative wh- element is

positioned initially and there is generally

subject-operator inversion). Imperatives are

sentences which normally have no overt

grammatical subject, and whose verb has the

base form. Exclamatives are sentences which

have an initial phrase introduced by what

or how, usually with subject-verb order.”

2.1.2 Sentence Structure

In this part of analysis, schematic pattering is mainly

focused. Parallelism is one of the forms of schematic

pattering. Garuda Indonesia Airlines advertisement

uses parallelism sentence structure. Parallelism can

be defined as repeated use of similar grammatical

structures. The second part of analysis focuses on

lexical and morphological aspect. The third part of

analysis focuses on semantic aspect. Each linguistic

expression has its literal meaning and its figurative

meaning.

2.2 Discursive Practice Analysis

This level of analysis involves studying the text’s

production and consumption. Several discourse

strategies used in order to attract or influence the

audiences.

2.3 Social Practice Analysis

This level of analysis relates to the social and

cultural goings-on which the communicative event is

a part of.

3 DISCUSSION

3.1 Textual Analysis

3.1.1 Sentence Type

In this study, Garuda Indonesia Airlines

advertisement use declarative and imperative

sentence types. These types of sentences are used to

convey or assert information. The tenses used are

mainly present tense. The declarative sentences can

be seen from these following discourses:

A new experience, allows you to

enjoy the richness of nature across

Indonesia, breath-taking natural

beauty, the excruciate harmony of

traditional music, savors

the variety of traditional cuisine

as a worth and reaches your soul.

Garuda Indonesia Airlines Advertisement: A Critical Discourse Analysis

115

The following are examples of

imperative sentences:

 Let them natural charm

of people...

 See, feel, listen to the wonders

beauty like in a home.

 Experience the real Indonesia

3.1.2 Sentence Structure

Garuda Indonesia Airlines advertisement uses

parallelism sentence structure. Parallelism can be

defined as repeated use of similar grammatical

structures. The following are the examples of

parallelism used in the advertisements analyzed in

this study:

A new experience, allows you

to enjoy the richness of nature

across Indonesia, breath-taking

natural beauty, the excruciate

harmony of traditional music,

savors the variety of

traditional cuisine as a worth and

reaches your soul.

Each clause has the same idea and structure

beginning with verb in imperative following by a

direct object. The function is to heightening the

emotional tone of the message.

Meanwhile, the second part of analysis focuses

on lexical and morphological aspect. Causal

conjunctive adjunct is used in Garuda Indonesia

Airlines’ advertisement. Halliday & Mathiessen

(2004) divides the Conjunctive Adjuncts into three

groups: elaboration (I), extension (II), and

enhancement (III). Causal conjunctive adjunct

belongs to Conjunctive adjunct group III. It can be

seen from this discourse:

A new experience, allows you to

enjoy the richness of nature across

Indonesia, ... and reaches your

soul.

The use of pronouns in advertisements creates a

friendly atmosphere to persuade or influence the

audiences. The following are examples of pronouns

used in Garuda Indonesia Airlines’ advertisement:

 ... allows you to enjoy

the richness of nature

across Indonesia...(second

person pronoun)

 ... and as a worth and

reaches

your soul. (possessive

pronoun)

 Let them natural charm

of people, ... (third oerson

plural pronoun)

 ... touch your heart (possesive

pronoun)

Pronouns ‘you’, ‘your’, and ‘them’ refer to the

audiences of the advertisement, especially the

passengers of Garuda Indonesia Airlines. These

pronouns are used to address the audience directly.

The third part of analysis focuses on semantic

aspect. Each linguistic expression has its literal

meaning and its figurative meaning. One of

figurative meaning used in this study is a trope. A

trope can be defined as “a word or phrase that is

used in a way that is different from its usual

meaning in order to create a particular mental image

or effect.”(Hornby et al., 2001).

In relation to semantic aspect, Garuda Indonesia

Airlines’ advertisement uses personification and

hyperbole trope. Personification involves directly

speaking of an inanimate object, or an abstract

concept, as if it were a living entity, often one with

specifically human attributes (Kumari, 2014). It

includes sensations, emotions, desires, physical

gestures and expressions, and powers of speech,

among others. The personification trope can be seen

from these discourses:

 Savors the variety of

traditional cuisine as a worth

and reaches your soul.

 Let them the natural charm

of people, touch your heart.

The second trope used in this advertisement is

hyperbole. A hyperbole refers to the deliberate use

of overstatement or exaggeration to achieve

emphasis (Kumari, 2014). The following are

examples of hyperbole trope:

A new experience, allows you to

enjoy the richness of nature across

Indonesia, breath-taking natural

beauty, the excruciate harmony of

traditional music, savors the

variety of traditional cuisine as a

worth and reaches your soul.

3.2 Discursive Practice Analysis

This level of analysis involves studying the text’s

production and consumption. Several discourse

strategies are used in order to attract or influence the

audiences. In this study, there are two discourse

strategies used. First, this advertisement use emotive

BELTIC 2018 - 1st Bandung English Language Teaching International Conference

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words. Emotive words can be defined as the

deliberate choice of words to elicit emotion or

usually to influence. Here are the examples of

emotive words used in Garuda Airlines

 ... the excruciate harmony

of traditional music,...

 ... as a worth and reaches

your

soul.

 Let them the natural charm

of people, touch your heart.

Second, this advertisement also uses irrealisis

representation strategy. It can be seen from these

discourses:

 …savors the variety of

traditional cuisine as a worth

and reaches your soul.

 Let them the natural charm of

people, touch your heart.

3.3 Discursive Practice Analysis

This level of analysis relates to the social and

cultural goings-on which the communicative event is

a part of. As a flag carrier, Garuda Airlines brings

the brand of tourism of Indonesia. Promoting

tourism of Indonesia is mainly the focus of Garuda

Indonesia Airlines. The natural beauty of Indonesia

and the richness of cultural heritage that reflects

Indonesia's dynamic history and ethnic diversity

bring Indonesia to be one of the most popular

destinations of tourism.

Some discourse strategies are used by Garuda

Indonesia to promote tourism of Indonesia in this

study. This advertisement promotes not only their

product but also the culture of Indonesia. It can be

seen from these discourses:

 ... the excruciate harmony

of traditional music, savors

the variety of traditional

cuisine...

 Let them natural charm of

people, touch your heart.

In addition, the advertiser (Garuda Indonesia

Airlines) persuades the audiences to come to

Indonesia by describing the natural beauty of

Indonesia. It can be seen from this discourse:

 A new experience, allows you

to enjoy the richness of

nature across Indonesia,

breath-taking natural beauty,

...

 See, feel, listen to the

wonders beauty like in a home.

4 CONCLUSIONS

Based on the analysis, it can be concluded that

Garuda Indonesia Airlines advertisement use various

linguistic devices to influence the audiences;

linguistic features strategies, discursive discourse

strategies, and social practice strategies. This

advertisement uses attractive discourses to catch the

attention of the audiences and to identify the

product. Besides, the advertising language is used

not only to promote the product of Garuda Airlines

itself but also to promote the natural beauty and the

culture of Indonesia. The results of this study

suggest that advertising language of an airline has a

specific discourse unique to other texts, even other

advertisements. The role as a flag carrier makes the

Garuda airlines’ advertisement culturally attached to

the country, apart from the product itself.

REFERENCES

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TEMPLATE’06, 1st International Conference on

Template Production. SCITEPRESS.

Smith, J., 1998. The book, The publishing company.

London, 2

edition.

Cook, G 2001. The discourse of advertising.

Psychology Press.

Fairclough, N 2001. Language and power 2nd ed.

Engl.Longman.

Greenbaum, S., Quirk, R 1990. A student’s grammar

of the English language. Essex: Pearson Education.

Halliday, M. A. K., & Matthiessen, C. M. I 2004.

An introduction to functional grammar. London:

Routledge.

Hornby, A.S., Ashby, M., Wehmeier, S 2001. Oxford

advanced learner’s dictionary of current English.

Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Kumari, L 2014. Linguistic analysis of

current advertisement a sociolinguistic study.

Haryana: Horizon Books.

Vasiloaia, M 2009. Linguistic Features of the Language of

Advertising 5.

APPENDIX

The text script of Garuda Indonesia Airlines

Garuda Indonesia Airlines Advertisement: A Critical Discourse Analysis

117

A new experience, allows you to

enjoy the richness of nature

across Indonesia, breath-taking

natural beauty, the excruciate

harmony of traditional music,

savors the variety of

traditional cuisine, as a worth

and reaches your soul. Let

then natural charm of people,

touch your heart. See, feel,

listen to the wonders beauty like

is in a home. Experience the real

Indonesia. The Garuda Indonesia

experiences.

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