Visual Communication: Exploring Representations of Vietnamese Culture in Advertising

Abstract

Visual communication has received much attention from studies in the field of foreign language education. In the Vietnamese context, however, little research has been conducted to explore the meanings of Vietnamese cultural aspects in visual advertising. To fill such a gap, this article investigated visual meanings of Vietnamese cultural values represented in visual elements of common advertising in the Vietnamese market. The data were firstly selected from various logos and images of popular brands in the Vietnamese market and then interpreted based on the Iceberg Model for Interpreting Vietnamese Images (IMIVI framework) (Huynh, 2022). The results revealed the selected advertisements carried core Vietnamese cultural values in terms of visible and invisible elements. Specifically, culturally specific images such as flowers, animals, and traditional clothing were identified as visible factors. Buddhist, Confucian, and Taoist values were found as invisible factors in selected images of popular advertisements in the Vietnamese context. Findings reported this article might be helpful for research in visual communication, multimodality, and foreign language education. The outcomes of this article are also interesting for cultural studies, especially for the roles of culture in commercial advertising, intercultural communication, and foreign language education.