INTERPRETATION OF SEMIOTICS IN CAR ADVERTISEMENTS

This thesis deals with descriptive qualitative study to find out the interpretation of semiotics on car advertisements. The objectives of the study were 1) to describe and elaborate how semiotics used in car advertisements interpreted by people and 2) to reason for why semiotics used in car advertisements interpreted by people the way they do. The sources of this study were the people who live in jalan Jala Asri. They were ranged from 16 to 50 years old and had different tribes and level of education. The data were obtained through in-depth interview covering 4 respondents (2 men and 2 women). The result showed that the people were able to interpret the semiotics used in the car advertisement in the four steps of interpretations (denotative, connotative, mythic and context - readers meaning). The highest percentage for denotative was 42.9%, connotative was 38.1%, mythic was 9.5%, and context – readers was 35.7%. The lowest percentage for denotative was 35.3%, connotative was 21.4%, mythic was 0% and context-readers was 11.8%. Readers interpreted the car advertisements in such a way due to functional factors such as different characters or personality of the respondents, and personal factors such as different jobs and experience of the respondents.