Synthetic personalisation
Synthetic personalisation is the process by which
texts treat their mass audiences as if they were individuals. It developed from
critical discourse analysis (CDA), a branch of
sociolinguistics concentrating upon how power is articulated.
Norman Fairclough, credited with developing the concept, calls it "a compensatory tendency to give the impression of treating each of the people 'handled'
en masse as an individual. Examples would be air travel (
have a nice day), [and] restaurants (
welcome to Wimpy!)" (2001: 52).
The use of second person
pronouns contribute significantly to the process of synthetic personalisation within the
mass media. It is extremely common to encounter constructions such as "See you after the break" on television shows prior to
commercial breaks. (This example is also common in
Paddy Scannell's concept of
Broadcast Sociability.)
Mary Talbot ([1995]/2003) used the concept in her work on a
synthetic sisterhood in teenage girls'
magazines, analysing the linguistic devices (
pronouns, presuppositions) constructing a simulated friendship between reader and producer. Using a variety of
sociolinguistic concepts, including
positive politeness, she comments upon the
ideological implications, such as
patriarchy.
*Fairclough, N. (2001)
Language and Power. 2nd ed. Essex: Longman.
*Talbot, M. (1995) "A synthetic sisterhood: false friends in a teenage magazine" In: K. Hall and M. Bucholtz (eds)
Gender Articulated: Language and the Socially Constructed Self. New York: Routledge. pp. 143-65.
*Talbot, M., K. Atkinson & D. Atkinson (2003)
Language and Power in the Modern World. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 0748615385
