Lorde’s Grammy Advertisement
Jessica Barry
Lorde’s Grammy advertisement in the New Zealand Herald was published to thank her fans for their
ongoing support after she won two Grammy awards. The domain of this advertisement was the Grammy
Awards which includes the music industry, singers and song writers. The main purpose of this ad is to
express gratitude and to inspire its intended audience of other singer song writers and fans of music, but
especially Lordes fans. Her intended audience is shown through her lexical choices. Lorde instantly
creates an informal register through her use of first person, contractions, simple sentences and her use
of symbols.
The informal register of this text is shown from the very beginning to the very end. The informal resister
is created through the use of non-standard grammar, ‘if you’re reading this… (line 1)’. This example
demonstrates how Lorde does not use the standard capitalization of sentences that is normally used in
texts. The lack of capitalization throughout the advertisement adds to the flow of the piece as it is not as
clear where one sentence stops and another is beginning. Lorde also mainly uses simple sentence
structures throughout her ad, ‘ I can’t wait for tonight’s show (line 15)’. However she also incorporates
some compound and compound complex sentences within the text. The use of these sentence
structures broaden her intended audience as the use of simple and compound sentences makes the text
easy to read and understand. This allows Lorde’s fans no matter what their age is to read and
understand her message.
Lorde appeals directly to her fans and the music industry through her lexical choices, ‘…thank you for
the time (line 6-7)’, ‘…your support (line 11)’ and ‘…tonight’s show (line 15)’. All of the following lexical
choices show Lorde trying to reach out and connect to her fans by thanking them and encouraging them
to continue to listen to her music and support her. This is also seen on line 15-16 when she says
‘Together, we’ll make it magic’. The lexical choices within this sentence are used to show Lorde trying to
support and reach out to her fans. Additionally Lorde began the text with the following lexical choice,
‘HOLY CRAP’. Through this use of swearing and emphasisim , seen through her use of capitalisation, she
is closing the social distance between her and her audience. This can also be seen through her constent
use of symbols ‘xxx L (line 17)’ and her use of ampersands ‘… Joel & I won (line 1)’.
The advertisement format of the text adds to its informality as advertisements are used to appeal to a
wide verity of people, and because of this the lexical choices shed used had to be understandable by the
broader public. Lorde uses a number of different devices to help with the coherence and cohesion of
the piece. Her constant use of first person and personal pronouns creates coherence throughout the
text. As she uses these devices to connect with her audience and decrease their social distance, ‘if
you’re reading this, Joel & I won (line 1)’. This example demonstrates the conversational tone which is
set throughout the text. Another coherence device which was used was the use of listing, ‘finding me
online or in between these pages or in your headphones (line 8-10)’. This adds to the flow of the text as
a number of ideas are put together so that the reader does not have to continue to stop and start for a
new sentence.
*unsure how to end