| Summary: | The advertisement of menstrual products has traditionally been characterised by shame, discretion and euphemisms (Block Coutts and Berg 1993; Waschek 1995, Simes and Berg 2001). In the past few years, the theme of menstruation appears increasingly in the public eye and prompts the question of whether those qualities are still the dominant descriptors for advertising menstrual products. In order to study this, a critical discourse analysis was performed using the discourse-historical approach of Wodak and Reisigl (2016). The intention was to investigate – both qualitatively and quantitatively – how product descriptions of pads, tampons and menstrual cups are normatively and predicatively constructed, and which arguments, linguistics means and realizations are utilized for this purpose. The results suggest that qualities such as cleanliness, discretion and absence of smell as well as euphemisms (e.g. Flüssigkeit, leichte/stärkere Tage) are still quite prevalent in use. The focus on protection is also emphasized in various ways, both in the product names as well as in the frequency analysis of the adjoining texts. However, other qualities, such as comfort, indicate that progressive tendencies also exist in the advertisements of menstrual products.
|
|---|
