NARRATIVE DISCOURSE AND EXPLOITATION IN KURDISH TRADE ADVERTISING: A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS (CDA)

Abstract

Advertising discourse plays a central role in shaping social meaning by embedding persuasion within everyday communication. Using Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), this study examines how a residential property advertisement constructs and exploits socio-economic and gendered vulnerabilities through linguistic and narrative strategies. Guided by Fairclough’s three-dimensional model and van Dijk’s socio-cognitive framework, the study adopts a qualitative approach to analyse a purposively selected Kurdish-language advertisement promoting a housing development in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. The advertisement was transcribed and translated into English for systematic analysis. The analysis focuses on lexical choice, metaphorical framing, narrative structure, and multimodal elements across textual, discursive, and social practice levels. The findings show that vulnerability is discursively produced through lexical polarisation, fear intensification, and problem–solution sequencing, which frame consumption as the primary response to insecurity. Domestic risk and hardship are articulated predominantly through female voices, while masculine authority is positioned as the agent of resolution, reinforcing gendered power relations. Implicit metaphors of modernity, binary spatial contrasts, and the absence of structural explanations further normalise class inequality and individualise social insecurity. The study reveals that the advertisement actively reproduces neoliberal and patriarchal ideologies by transforming structural vulnerability into individual consumer aspiration. By foregrounding how ordinary conversational advertising functions as a site of ideological production in an underexamined media context, this research contributes to CDA scholarship and highlights the need for enhanced media literacy and ethical regulation of fear-based and gendered advertising practices.