visual communication SAGE Publications (Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore and Washington DC: http://vcj.sagepub.com) Copyright © The Author(s), 2011. Reprints and permissions: http://www.sagepub.co.uk/journalspermissions.nav/ Vol 10(4): 565–588 DOI 10.1177/1470357211415788 ARTICLE Intertextual voices and engagement in TV advertisements DEZHENG FENG AND PETER WIGNELL National University of Singapore ABSTRACT By analysing multimodal TV advertisements, this study aims to show how intertextual voices are exploited in advertising discourse to enhance per- suasive power. Taking as their point of departure the assumption that all discourses are intertextual recontextualizations of social practice that draw on external voices from both specific discourses and discursive conven- tions, the authors identify two types of intertextual voice in TV advertise- ments: character and discursive voice. This article illustrates the multimodal construction of voices and demonstrates that the choice of voices is closely related to the ‘domain’ of the product. It is argued that the intertexual voices contribute to the advertising discourse through multimodal engagement strategies. Character voice endorses the advertised product through such resources as lexico-grammar, intonation, facial expression and staged narrative, while discursive voice endorses the advertised product through contextualization and intertextual discourse structure. It is hoped that the study will shed light on the understanding of the heteroglossic nature of advertisements, the interaction between intertextual voices and the adver- tised message, and multimodal construction of voices and engagement. KEY WORDS engagement • intertexual voice • multimodal analysis • TV advertisements INTRODUCTION Advertising discourse has attracted much attention from semioticians because it ‘tends to use a wide range of semiotic resources’ (Van Leeuwen, 2005: 8). It is acknowledged that direct propaganda is less and less used in advertisements and advertisers deploy various strategies to enhance their persuasive power while trying to reduce the appearance of their commercial nature. As a result,