Selling Status on Wheels: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Prestige Construction in Philippine Automobile Branding

In today’s consumer culture, automobiles are sold not only as machines of mobility but as powerful symbols of who people aspire to become. This study examined how prestige was discursively constructed in the slogans of leading automobile brands in the Philippines using Norman Fairclough Fairclough’s Three-Dimensional Critical Discourse Analysis, interpreted through Antonio Gramsci Gramsci’s concept of cultural hegemony and Pierre Bourdieu Bourdieu’s theory of distinction and symbolic capital. The corpus consisted of slogans from ten major automobile brands operating in the Philippine market. Through textual, discursive, and social practice analyses, the study found that automobile slogans employed aspirational vocabulary, metaphorical framing, evaluative expressions, and personalization to construct vehicles as symbols of progress, ambition, sophistication, and socially desirable identity. The findings further revealed that prestige discourse was strategically produced and circulated through integrated advertising platforms and localized to resonate with Filipino values such as family advancement, responsible provision, and respectable success. Four dominant prestige discourses emerged: prestige as social advancement, aspirational identity, distinction and sophistication, and socially valued character. These discourses normalized aspirational consumption and positioned automobiles as forms of symbolic capital that communicate status, taste, and identity. The study recommends further critical examination of branding discourse across industries and media platforms to deepen understanding of how commercial language shapes cultural meanings, social aspiration, and consumer consciousness.

Critical Discourse Analysis; Automobile Branding; Prestige Discourse; Symbolic Capital; Consumer Culture

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