In this thesis, the text analysis method will be adopted in order to analyze the non-observance of CP in collected auto advertisements more effectively and comprehensively. The reason for the use of this qualitative method but not the quantitative research method lies in the fact that the language of advertisement requires much interpretation and reasoning work during the process.
After reading the articles and other literature which concerning the study of advertising language, the researcher finds that most of them are lacking in united materials and few have been done specializing on a particular filed of advertising language. In order to fill the gap, all the advertising materials used in this thesis are collected from the famous American auto magazine called Automobile, which is one of the most influential and authoritative auto magazines in the United States. Thus the study can be more reliable, convincing and systematical.
Thanks to the various sources of on-line bookstores, the researcher has managed to collect altogether all the twelve editions in 2009 from January to December and selected 30 typical and suitable ones from more than 150 pieces of collected auto ads as examples of this thesis. Among these collected advertisements, most are from large auto manufacturers such as Mercedes-Benz, Honda, Ford and Nissan.
Print advertising usually consists of verbal text and pictorial illustration. The verbal part is composed of headline, body text, slogan and trade name. As is generally believed, advertising headline, which often embody the theme of advertisement and draw the most attention, are the cores of advertisement design. Therefore, as a consequence of time and energy shortage, the analysis of this thesis mainly focuses on the auto advertising headlines, and the body text is referred to as supporting the analysis of the headline when necessary. Besides, as the advertising materials are changeable, some auto advertisements only have body texts but no headlines, making a one-to-one correspondence between the selection and the analysis of such auto ads impossible.