This thesis examines the impact of outdoor advertising on public space, by situating outdoor advertising within arguments about global corporate domination. I argue that the implosion of commercial messages into ever-increasing amounts of public space has repercussions for our ability to relate to each other as anything other than commercial beings. Outdoor advertising necessitates the use of stereotypes to communicate with its audience. The regulatory mechanisms for advertising sanction this use of stereotypes, which puts commercial needs and rights to free speech before the public's right to distance itself from commercial messages and values. The discourses of advertising and its progenitors reinforce hegemonic conceptions of gender, class and ethnicity thereby imbuing space with values which do not encourage diversity but promote narrow and limiting options for the self. By carefully examining the 'entrepreneurial adexec' and 'public interest' discourses that surround outdoor advertising, I argue that its global privatising power has been able to continue without challenge, as potential criticisms are silenced before they are even articulated. It will be shown how the various regulatory mechanisms operating under discourses of 'public accountability' actually serve commercial interests rather than public interests by supporting private-public partnerships and focussing narrowly on the implicit meaning in ads. Particularly problematic representations of gender, class and ethnicity in outdoor ads will be analysed to discern the various ways these impose certain values on public spaces in Christchurch through the process of commercialisation. Finally, graffiti and billboard liberation as forms of cultural resistance to this commercialisation will be examined.

Cette thèse vise à contribuer à l’étude de la fonction de régulation dans les domainesspécialisés en contexte anglophone (Petit, 2002a, 2004, 2010) à travers l’analyse des professionsà accès régulé au Royaume-Uni.La première partie présente plusieurs points de repère généraux servant à cadrer l’ensemble denotre étude et à éclairer le fonctionnement des domaines spécialisés. Nous définissonspremièrement les notions centrales de domaine et de discours spécialisés, avant d’aborder lanotion de régulation. Les discours sur la régulation et les discours contribuant à la régulation sontensuite analysés : nous en construisons une cartographie générale visant à mettre en lumière leurscaractéristiques stylistiques et rhétoriques. Nous présentons enfin la notion de profession, qui faitl’objet d’une acception différente en anglais et en français, avant de montrer les spécificités desprofessions anglophones à accès régulé.Dans la seconde partie, nous nous employons à caractériser la fonction de régulation quis’applique aux domaines de la santé, du droit et de l’ingénierie au Royaume-Uni, après avoirdémontré qu’ils répondent aux critères de définition des domaines spécialisés. Nous yenvisageons ainsi le fonctionnement général de la régulation par le biais de ses acteurs et de sesprincipaux dispositifs. Nous souhaitons montrer qu’il existe non seulement des points deconvergence dans les domaines examinés, mais aussi des éléments qui relèvent spécifiquement dechacun d’entre eux. L’étude de la fonction de régulation doit nous permettre d’éclairer lefonctionnement général et l’identité des domaines spécialisés. / This doctoral dissertation aims to contribute to the study of the regulatory functionthat applies to specialised domains (Petit, 2002a, 2004, 2010) through the analysis of the health,law and engineering professions in the UK.The first part of our dissertation describes the theoretical foundations and the key elements forour research. We first define some important notions, in particular those of specialised domainand specialised discourse, before approaching the notion of regulation. We then offer a typologyof the discourses on regulation and those contributing to regulation in order to highlight theirmain stylistic and rhetorical characteristics. Lastly, we present the notion of profession, whichhas a different meaning in English and in French, before pointing out the characteristics of theanglophone regulated professions.In the second part of this dissertation, we examine the regulatory function that characterises thehealth, law and engineering domains in the UK, after showing that they are specialised domains.We then examine, in each of them, the general functioning of regulation through the study of itsactors and practices. We intend to show that there are constant elements in these domains, butalso specific elements of regulation in each of them. The analysis of regulation aims to improvethe general understanding of the specialised domains.