MEMORY, NOSTALGIA AND ADVERTISING: THE CASE OF RETRO FOOTBALL SHIRTS

Abstract

This paper, under the general background of the French Discourse Analysis, presents a discursive reading of the phenomenon referred as retro, that is not new for its own history, but which appears distinctly in the course of the time. We observe in advertising discourse the strong presence of retro elements, both in advertisements that sell products and use material elements of retro type, as in products whose materialities constitute them. Exploring the intersection of discursive categories with notions of social sciences, this work aims at investigating the advertising discourse as a multisemiotic manifestation that uses retro discourse, taking as an example its effect with a piece of clothing: a football shirt – theorizing the retro effect and reflecting on discursivity, memory, history, image, instances of advertising. We tried to show, yet, why football shirts can be considered as discursive materiality that amalgamates textual items within a reinterpretation of the past; eventually, it is done a proposal of typology for what we are conceptualizing as tradition discourse.