论文部分内容阅读
Abstract: With the globalization China becomes a member of WTO, and the trade barriers are broken down. In today's society advertisement has become one of the most important productive tools, in which advertisement language plays a key role. This study is intended to explore one of the information carriers—advertising, through the analysis of lexical features. This study point out that in order to focus the readers’ attention and achieve the aim of persuading, drumbeating and sale promoting, advertising English should be brief, clear and precise and convey abundance information by the shortest passage.
Key words: advertising English; lexical features; persuasion
1 Introduction
We are residents in a world of advertising. We see and hear advertisements everywhere. As potential consumers, we are unable to avoid contacting different kinds of products or service information from various media including newspapers, magazines, televisions, radios, posters and the Internet, etc. While as marketers, we must adopt the emotional, non-logical persuasive techniques of advertising to stimulate the market, to win converts to a product, service, or idea, to convince the consumers that the purchased products will add pleasure to life. Today, with the development of the technology and the diversity of the mass media, advertising has influenced us pervasively in our daily life.
By the analysis of lexical features and persuasive techniques employed in English advertising, this paper aims to provide some inspiration for advertisers in our country in producing international advertising for promoting popularity of domestic products. Meanwhile, it is hoped that it will raise language learners’ awareness of the features of English advertisements and so as to have a better understanding about them.
2Literature review
The study of advertising language has been an academic topic studied in the West for the past few decades. While in China, it still remains at a rudimentary level, and mainly focuses on rhetorical analysis. As a matter of fact, the use of language in advertising has its own model and patterns, which have more regard for persuasive effect and communicative function than the rhetorical devices themselves (Fan, 1996, p.1). Various approaches have been employed for the study of language features. To provide a basis for further study, a literature review is given before the analysis of the lexical features of advertising language.
2.1 Leech’s approach to advertising English
G.H. Leech’s English in advertising: A linguistic study of advertising in Great Britain (1986) is the classic research work on advertising language, which focuses on the style of advertising language with a quantitative research method, he describes advertising language scientifically. For example, he lists the 20 most frequent adjectives used in advertising language successively: new, crisp, good/better/best, fine, free, big, fresh, great, delicious, real, full, sure, easy/bright, clean, extra, safe special, rich (Fan, 1996, p.3). He also applies the linguistic theory of his time to do a comprehensive analysis of the register of advertising language. However, he hardly explores further the motivation hidden behind those linguistic devices used by advertisers as well as their cultural, economic or social consequences.
2.2 Vestergard & Schroder’s approach to advertising English
Torben Vestergard and Kim Schroder’s The language of advertising (1985) is a pioneering work analyzing the advertising language from the perspective of sociolinguistics. Focusing on magazine and newspaper advertising, the authors illustrate the range of linguistic and visual techniques advertisers use to achieve emphasis and special effects. They consider how advertisements single out specific audiences for their address, and reveal the ways in which the advertiser preys on beliefs about sex roles and prejudices about social groups (Fan, 1996, p.14). It seeks throughout to “equip the reader with the techniques for his or her own examination of advertising ideology and of the social functions of advertising today” (Vestergard & Schroder, 1985, p.74).
2.3 Cook’s approach to advertising English
Guy Cook’s The discourse of advertising (1992) is a comprehensive introduction to advertising discourse. This book provides a framework for the analysis of advertisements as a discursive genre. He explores further the relationship between language and ideology, language and gender, language and persuasion, areas which can be illuminated by taking advertising discourse as a main textual source, but his main interest is to draw explicit attention to analogies between literary representation and the kinds of representation found in advertisements (Cook, 1992, p.1).
2.4 Focus of this study
My paper investigates English advertising language on the lexical level, from the perspective of sociolinguistics. To be more particular, it focuses on the cultural influence. As Robertson (1981) observes, “culture consists of all the shared products of human society” (p.20). But in this thesis, following the definition of Eugene A. Nida, the term culture refers to “the totality of beliefs and practices of a society” (Nida, 1993, p. 10). As a part of culture, language is influenced and shaped by culture; it reflects culture. “In the broadest sense, language is the symbolic representation of a people, and it comprises their historical and cultural backgrounds as well as their approach to life and their ways of living and thinking” (Deng & Liu, 1989, p.15). The influence of culture on language is best seen in the world of advertising.
The study is mainly based on advertising material from the following publications:
China Daily (2006/7-2007/6)
Reader’s Digest (2006/7-2007/6)
Times (2006/7-2007/6)
3 An overview of advertising
This part presents a panoramic view of English advertising in western society: its definition, general features, functions and structure.
3.1 Advertising and advertising language
3.1.1 Definition of advertising.Advertising is a familiar word to us, but to give advertising an adequate definition is not an easy job. Throughout the history of advertising, the word “advertise” derives from Latin, originally meaning, intransitively, to take note or to consider (Deng & Liu, 1989, p.15). As language changes with the development of society, the meaning of “advertise” is extended to “arouse people’s attention to certain article” (Nida, 1993, p.45). The widely quoted definition of advertising is given by L. Bovei and William F. Arens and adopted by American Marketing Association (AMA):
“Advertising is the non-personal communication of information usually paid for and usually persuasive in nature about products, services or ideas by identified sponsors through the various media.” (1989, p.7)
From the definition, we can note some common properties familiar to advertising. It is a public and one-way communication directed to certain group of people, conveying persuasive messages mainly about products or services through certain media or forms.
3.1.2 Classification of advertising .Advertising maybe classified by medium (newspaper, magazine, radio, television), by target audience (consumer, industrial, business), by geography (national, international, regional, local), or by its function or purpose (product or non-product, commercial or non-commercial, direct action or indirect action). But according to Vestergard & Schroder, in all, advertising can be classified as commercial and non-commercial advertising (1985). Commercial advertising promotes goods, services or ideas for a business with the expectation of making a profit. Non-commercial advertising is sponsored by charitable institutions, civic groups, or religious, political groups (Vestergard & Schroder, 1985). The general purpose of the non-commercial advertising is to inform people and persuade them to accept a particular idea, or philosophy being advertised.
In this thesis, commercial advertising, especially the advertising on newspapers and magazines will be mainly focused.
3.1.3 General features of advertising language.The language of advertising is a message vehicle that is used in efforts to persuade or otherwise entice people to purchase products or services (Vestergard & Schroder, 1985, p.41). The messages of advertising are purposefully weaved to provoke an expected response from the customers (Vestergard & Schroder, 1985, p.45). On the micro level, advertising language, to achieve its persuasive purpose, makes use of various linguistic features: lexical features, syntactic features, rhetorical features, modality features and conversational features, etc. On the macro level, advertising language is utilized in a broad social-cultural context. It functions on the basis of the shared knowledge between the persuader and persuadee as an index of social ideology. To sum up, “ advertising language is the language used in ads which is a vehicle of elaborately-planned messages loaded with persuasive intention for sakes of promotion or other purposes” (Fan, 1996, p.7).
3.2 Function and structure of advertising
Advertising has consistently played a very important role in the development of capitalism. Some people point to the vital role ads played in the settlement of the New World: Brochures published in England in the 17th century were full of hopeful overstatements, half truth, and downright lies, along with some facts, by which the promoters for the American colonies enticed people to settle in there (Fan, 1996, p.10). Nowadays, advertising perform four basic roles in society:
(i) Marketing role—helping companies sell their products or services;
(ii) Educational role—helping people learn about new products and services;
(iii) Economic role—encouraging competition in products improvements and lower price;
(iv) Social role—helping increase productivity and raise the standard of living.
4 Lexical features of advertising
In order to make the information accessible to audience effectively, the choice of words in advertising is very cautious and skillful. Advertisers wish to capture the attention of the members of a mass audience and by means of impressive words to persuade them to buy a product or behave in a particular way. They will make full use of every word to get their aim. So both linguistic and psychological aspects are taken into consideration in the choice of words.
For the purpose of drawing consumers’ attention by advertisements, words and phrases used in advertising must be simple and easy to understand. In the meantime, in order to impress more consumers, coinages, slang and intentional misspelling are used to make advertisements unique and appealing. The following points are some prominent similarities.
4.1 Use of adjectives
Advertising language is supposed to be vivid and impressive, which demands a great quantity of modifiers. Since adjectives can not only modify nouns effectively but also function freely as subject complement and object complement, they are favored by most copywriters to project favorable images of products and deepen the impression of advertisements.
A comfortable new place to be. (Northwest Airlines)
It’s healthy and it tastes good. (Post Shredded Wheat)
Good time. Great taste. Macdonald’s. (Macdonald’s)
Clean, crisp…one of the best buys. (Folonari Soave Wine)
Despite the immeasurable range of adjectives in the English language, G.N. Leech managed to list sixteen most frequently-used adjectives in advertisements: new, crisp, good/better/best, fine, free, big, fresh, great, delicious, real, full, sure, easy/bright, clean, extra, safe special, rich. Though published in the late 1960s, this well-selected list is still active in modern advertisement and becomes even longer in accordance to increasingly vivid advertising language. Other adjectives that patronize modern English advertisements are listed below: absolute, advanced, beautiful, classic, comfortable, creative, delicate, different, economical, enjoyable, excellent, experienced, extraordinary, fashionable, fast, flawless, latest, local, luxurious, modern, original, outstanding, perfect, pure, simple, smooth, splendid, unique, universal, valuable, vital (Deng & Liu, 1989, p.34).
4.2Abundance of compounds
Advertisement aims to transmit the most information to the consumers within the shortest time. Compounds just meet this requirement in that they condense several information units into one. They have the flexibility in word building, which satisfies the need of creativity in advertising. Thus, many product names apply hyphenation process for conveying message as much as possible to the consumers. The following list of product names will give a clearer idea about this point.
Dress-Me (a teddy bear used for teaching children to dress themselves)
Tidy-Bowl (toilet bowl cleaner)
Play-Doh (children’s modeling clay)
Easy-Does-It (food made with prepared sausage)
Forget-me-Not (perfume)
Cross-Your-Heart (bra)
Silence-Is-Golden (cough medicine)
This hyphenation process applies to modifiers of these products as well. McDonald’s is advertised as the “come-as-you-are” place to eat. Kodak advertises a projector as an “edge-to-edge” slide sharpener.
However, the most conspicuous and abundant compound in advertisements is adjective compound. For example:
(1) If you were designing a state-of-the-art cell sorter, which feature would you need?
(2) Do it right, first-rate, top-notch, without a hitch and absolutely flawless.
4.3 High frequency of certain prefixes and suffixes
Mario Pei (1970) points out in Words in sheep’s clothing that super- is the prefix of top frequency and ex is the suffix of top frequency in advertising copy (as cited in Fan,1996). Supper- means “surpass and be superior to”, while ex is regarded as the clipping form of excellent. Both of the two affixes indicate the high quality of the commodity. See Kleenex (a facial tissue) and Rolex (a watch) as examples. Furthermore, -y carries the meaning of “somewhat like, characterized by” is also freely used with largely concrete nouns to form gradable adjectives, often of colloquial tone, as in bubbly beer, milky flavor, silky fabric splashy spectacles, toasty bread, etc. In addition, quite a few commodity brands like Footique, Bootique imitate the French word boutique, which means “mall shop selling clothes and other articles of the latest fashion”, in order to add the sense of popularity to the advertising message (Fan, 1996, pp.11-14).
4.4Use of alliterations
Alliteration is the use of words that begin with the same sound in order to make a special communicative effort (Myers, 1994). Usually they are pleasing to ears because of the clever choice of the word by the advertiser. In addition, the repetition of the beginning sound emphasizes the meaning the advertisement wants to express (Myers, 1994). For example:
(1) Together Towards Tomorrow.
(2) Hi-fi Hi-fun Hi-fashion only from Sony.
(3) Bathing Beauty Discovered in Interior Decorator’s Bathroom.
Example (1) is an advertisement for the 16th Asian Advertising Congress 1989 held in Lahore, Pakistan. The soft consonant “t” in each word of the advertisement makes it smooth and rhythmic but also presents fully the aim of this congress, therefore serves the subject well. Hi-fi is the short from for high fidelity. The sound “h” appears four times in (2), leaving readers an inerasable impression about the high quality of Sony sound system. Example (3) is about a kind of ceramic tile. Bathing, beauty, bathroom and discovered, decorator make consumers form an interrelationship between decoration and beauty. Who will refuse the miraculous effort brought by the ceramic tiles? Other examples:
(4) Health, Humor and Happiness…Gifts we’d love to give. (Saturday Evening)
(5) Sea, Sun, Sand, Seclusion and Spain! (Spanish Beech Hotel)
(6) My Goodness! My Guinness! (beer)
4.5 Use of puns
Pun is an amusing use of polysemy, i.e. a word or phrase which has two meanings, or of homonymy, i.e. words with the same sound but different meaning (Myers, 1994). The purpose of pun is usually two-fold, its referential purpose is to describe something; its pragmatic purpose, which is simultaneous, is to appeal to the sense, to interest, to clarify, to please, to delight, to surprise. Pun, the game of words, will leave a deep impression on readers by its readability, wit, and humor (Myers, 1994). However, to make a successful and impressive pun is not easy. Except for its own meaning, the word used as a pun is usually closely related to the characteristics of a certain product or the brand name of the product. There are three types of pun: homophonic pun, homographic pun and sylleptic pun (Myers, 1994).
Homophones are words identical in sound but different in spelling and meaning. The purpose of using them is to create humorous effect. For example,
(1) Make your every hello a real good-buy. (telephone)
(2) More sun and air for your son and heir. (beach )
(3) Trust us. Over 5000 ears of experience. (audiphones)
Hello and goodbye are the common way of opening and closing in telephone conversations. Good-buy and goodbye are homophones in example (1), meaning that the telephone is worth buying. In example (2), sun and son, air and heir are homophones which tell readers that the beach not only provides you with adequate sunshine and fresh air but everything they do is for the best interest of your descendents. Ear and year are homophones in example (3) emphasize the high quality of the audiphones which have been examined by 5000 ears over 5,000 years, implying its long history and long-tested quality.
Homographs are words identical in spelling but different in sound or meaning. For example:
(4) Understanding comes with TIME.
(5) All it takes it TIME.
(6) There’s never been a better TIME.
(7) Ask for More.
(8) The unique Spirit of Canada.
Examples (4) (5) and (6) are advertisements for Time, the most popular magazine in the United States. Time makes a lot of advertising for itself, in which pun is frequently found. The pun involved is a common play on the word “time”. It involves interpreting TIME (the magazine) as the abstract noun time, a continuous measurable quantify from the past, through the present, and into the future. More is a brand name for a famous lady’s cigarette, but the word more itself has the meaning of a greater number or amount. Therefore, the word more in example (7) leaves readers the impression that if you take one cigarette of the brand More, then you may not resist its seduction for taking more More cigarettes. The word spirit in example (8) has many different meanings, while in this advertisement two of them are employed: one is a person’s soul or mind, the other is a strong alcoholic drink. Since the alcohol could stand for the spirit of a country, who will doubt the taste and quality of it?
Sylleptic pun is based on the use of polysemy, which is one of the sense relationships that the same word has more than one meaning. For example,
(9) Your personality needs layers. Your face does not.
(10) Spoil yourself and not your figure.
Example (9) is an advertisement for a kind of foundation cream. The advertisers make use of the double meanings of the word layer in the given context, conveying much information to readers. Women need colorful personalities, but their faces should not be full of wrinkles. In this sense, the cosmetic manufacturers are selling hope and vitality in addition to the cream itself to consumers. Example (10) is an advertisement of an ice cream (Weight-Watcher) which aims at those who are on a diet. You could treat yourself very well (spoil yourself) by having the ice cream without becoming fat (spoil your figure).
By using pun, advertisements will be easily remembered by the readers. In addition, filled with wit and humor, puns help the advertised product win favor from readers (Cook, 1992).
5 Conclusion
Understanding the language features in English advertisements could help us not only understand the advertisement itself better, but also understand the western culture better since advertisements are the most active element in the high-developed economic societies. This paper specifically studies the lexical features of English advertising language. Generally speaking, the language of advertising appeals to our emotional needs under the skillful craftsmanship of the copywriter. It is a simple language but edited and purposeful as well as rich and arresting.
References
1 Cook, G. (1992). The discourse of advertising. London: Routledge.
2 Fan, Y.-G. (1996). Towards a “C +A” model of adverting language. Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation, Fudan University, Shanghai.
3 Geis, M.L. (1982). The language of television advertising. New York: Academic Press.
4 Halliday, M.A.K. (1985). An introduction to functional grammar. London: Edward Arnold.
5 Leech, G. H. (1986). English in advertising: A linguistic study of advertising in Great Britain. London: Longman.
6 Myers, G. (1994). Words in ads. London: Edward Arnold.
7 Nida, E. A. (1993). Language, culture and translation. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press.
8 Robertson, I. (1981). Sociology (2nd ed.). London: Worth Publishers.
9 Vestergard, T., & Schroder, K. (1985). The language of advertising. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
10 Wortham, S., & Locher, M. (1996). Voicing on the news: An analytic technique for studying media bias. Text, 16 (4), 557-585.
11 崔剛(Cui Gang),.广告英语.北京：北京理工大学出版社.
12 邓炎昌,刘润清(Deng Yanchang & Liu Runqing).语言与文化.北京:外语教学与研究出版社,1989.
13 胡曙中(Hu Shuzhong).英语语篇语言学研究.上海：上海外语教育出版社,2005.
14 王铭玉,宋尧(Wang Mingyu & Song Yao).符号语言学.上海:上海外语教育出版社,2005
15 赵静(Zhao Jing).广告英语.北京:外语教学与研究出版社,1995.
Key words: advertising English; lexical features; persuasion
1 Introduction
We are residents in a world of advertising. We see and hear advertisements everywhere. As potential consumers, we are unable to avoid contacting different kinds of products or service information from various media including newspapers, magazines, televisions, radios, posters and the Internet, etc. While as marketers, we must adopt the emotional, non-logical persuasive techniques of advertising to stimulate the market, to win converts to a product, service, or idea, to convince the consumers that the purchased products will add pleasure to life. Today, with the development of the technology and the diversity of the mass media, advertising has influenced us pervasively in our daily life.
By the analysis of lexical features and persuasive techniques employed in English advertising, this paper aims to provide some inspiration for advertisers in our country in producing international advertising for promoting popularity of domestic products. Meanwhile, it is hoped that it will raise language learners’ awareness of the features of English advertisements and so as to have a better understanding about them.
2Literature review
The study of advertising language has been an academic topic studied in the West for the past few decades. While in China, it still remains at a rudimentary level, and mainly focuses on rhetorical analysis. As a matter of fact, the use of language in advertising has its own model and patterns, which have more regard for persuasive effect and communicative function than the rhetorical devices themselves (Fan, 1996, p.1). Various approaches have been employed for the study of language features. To provide a basis for further study, a literature review is given before the analysis of the lexical features of advertising language.
2.1 Leech’s approach to advertising English
G.H. Leech’s English in advertising: A linguistic study of advertising in Great Britain (1986) is the classic research work on advertising language, which focuses on the style of advertising language with a quantitative research method, he describes advertising language scientifically. For example, he lists the 20 most frequent adjectives used in advertising language successively: new, crisp, good/better/best, fine, free, big, fresh, great, delicious, real, full, sure, easy/bright, clean, extra, safe special, rich (Fan, 1996, p.3). He also applies the linguistic theory of his time to do a comprehensive analysis of the register of advertising language. However, he hardly explores further the motivation hidden behind those linguistic devices used by advertisers as well as their cultural, economic or social consequences.
2.2 Vestergard & Schroder’s approach to advertising English
Torben Vestergard and Kim Schroder’s The language of advertising (1985) is a pioneering work analyzing the advertising language from the perspective of sociolinguistics. Focusing on magazine and newspaper advertising, the authors illustrate the range of linguistic and visual techniques advertisers use to achieve emphasis and special effects. They consider how advertisements single out specific audiences for their address, and reveal the ways in which the advertiser preys on beliefs about sex roles and prejudices about social groups (Fan, 1996, p.14). It seeks throughout to “equip the reader with the techniques for his or her own examination of advertising ideology and of the social functions of advertising today” (Vestergard & Schroder, 1985, p.74).
2.3 Cook’s approach to advertising English
Guy Cook’s The discourse of advertising (1992) is a comprehensive introduction to advertising discourse. This book provides a framework for the analysis of advertisements as a discursive genre. He explores further the relationship between language and ideology, language and gender, language and persuasion, areas which can be illuminated by taking advertising discourse as a main textual source, but his main interest is to draw explicit attention to analogies between literary representation and the kinds of representation found in advertisements (Cook, 1992, p.1).
2.4 Focus of this study
My paper investigates English advertising language on the lexical level, from the perspective of sociolinguistics. To be more particular, it focuses on the cultural influence. As Robertson (1981) observes, “culture consists of all the shared products of human society” (p.20). But in this thesis, following the definition of Eugene A. Nida, the term culture refers to “the totality of beliefs and practices of a society” (Nida, 1993, p. 10). As a part of culture, language is influenced and shaped by culture; it reflects culture. “In the broadest sense, language is the symbolic representation of a people, and it comprises their historical and cultural backgrounds as well as their approach to life and their ways of living and thinking” (Deng & Liu, 1989, p.15). The influence of culture on language is best seen in the world of advertising.
The study is mainly based on advertising material from the following publications:
China Daily (2006/7-2007/6)
Reader’s Digest (2006/7-2007/6)
Times (2006/7-2007/6)
3 An overview of advertising
This part presents a panoramic view of English advertising in western society: its definition, general features, functions and structure.
3.1 Advertising and advertising language
3.1.1 Definition of advertising.Advertising is a familiar word to us, but to give advertising an adequate definition is not an easy job. Throughout the history of advertising, the word “advertise” derives from Latin, originally meaning, intransitively, to take note or to consider (Deng & Liu, 1989, p.15). As language changes with the development of society, the meaning of “advertise” is extended to “arouse people’s attention to certain article” (Nida, 1993, p.45). The widely quoted definition of advertising is given by L. Bovei and William F. Arens and adopted by American Marketing Association (AMA):
“Advertising is the non-personal communication of information usually paid for and usually persuasive in nature about products, services or ideas by identified sponsors through the various media.” (1989, p.7)
From the definition, we can note some common properties familiar to advertising. It is a public and one-way communication directed to certain group of people, conveying persuasive messages mainly about products or services through certain media or forms.
3.1.2 Classification of advertising .Advertising maybe classified by medium (newspaper, magazine, radio, television), by target audience (consumer, industrial, business), by geography (national, international, regional, local), or by its function or purpose (product or non-product, commercial or non-commercial, direct action or indirect action). But according to Vestergard & Schroder, in all, advertising can be classified as commercial and non-commercial advertising (1985). Commercial advertising promotes goods, services or ideas for a business with the expectation of making a profit. Non-commercial advertising is sponsored by charitable institutions, civic groups, or religious, political groups (Vestergard & Schroder, 1985). The general purpose of the non-commercial advertising is to inform people and persuade them to accept a particular idea, or philosophy being advertised.
In this thesis, commercial advertising, especially the advertising on newspapers and magazines will be mainly focused.
3.1.3 General features of advertising language.The language of advertising is a message vehicle that is used in efforts to persuade or otherwise entice people to purchase products or services (Vestergard & Schroder, 1985, p.41). The messages of advertising are purposefully weaved to provoke an expected response from the customers (Vestergard & Schroder, 1985, p.45). On the micro level, advertising language, to achieve its persuasive purpose, makes use of various linguistic features: lexical features, syntactic features, rhetorical features, modality features and conversational features, etc. On the macro level, advertising language is utilized in a broad social-cultural context. It functions on the basis of the shared knowledge between the persuader and persuadee as an index of social ideology. To sum up, “ advertising language is the language used in ads which is a vehicle of elaborately-planned messages loaded with persuasive intention for sakes of promotion or other purposes” (Fan, 1996, p.7).
3.2 Function and structure of advertising
Advertising has consistently played a very important role in the development of capitalism. Some people point to the vital role ads played in the settlement of the New World: Brochures published in England in the 17th century were full of hopeful overstatements, half truth, and downright lies, along with some facts, by which the promoters for the American colonies enticed people to settle in there (Fan, 1996, p.10). Nowadays, advertising perform four basic roles in society:
(i) Marketing role—helping companies sell their products or services;
(ii) Educational role—helping people learn about new products and services;
(iii) Economic role—encouraging competition in products improvements and lower price;
(iv) Social role—helping increase productivity and raise the standard of living.
4 Lexical features of advertising
In order to make the information accessible to audience effectively, the choice of words in advertising is very cautious and skillful. Advertisers wish to capture the attention of the members of a mass audience and by means of impressive words to persuade them to buy a product or behave in a particular way. They will make full use of every word to get their aim. So both linguistic and psychological aspects are taken into consideration in the choice of words.
For the purpose of drawing consumers’ attention by advertisements, words and phrases used in advertising must be simple and easy to understand. In the meantime, in order to impress more consumers, coinages, slang and intentional misspelling are used to make advertisements unique and appealing. The following points are some prominent similarities.
4.1 Use of adjectives
Advertising language is supposed to be vivid and impressive, which demands a great quantity of modifiers. Since adjectives can not only modify nouns effectively but also function freely as subject complement and object complement, they are favored by most copywriters to project favorable images of products and deepen the impression of advertisements.
A comfortable new place to be. (Northwest Airlines)
It’s healthy and it tastes good. (Post Shredded Wheat)
Good time. Great taste. Macdonald’s. (Macdonald’s)
Clean, crisp…one of the best buys. (Folonari Soave Wine)
Despite the immeasurable range of adjectives in the English language, G.N. Leech managed to list sixteen most frequently-used adjectives in advertisements: new, crisp, good/better/best, fine, free, big, fresh, great, delicious, real, full, sure, easy/bright, clean, extra, safe special, rich. Though published in the late 1960s, this well-selected list is still active in modern advertisement and becomes even longer in accordance to increasingly vivid advertising language. Other adjectives that patronize modern English advertisements are listed below: absolute, advanced, beautiful, classic, comfortable, creative, delicate, different, economical, enjoyable, excellent, experienced, extraordinary, fashionable, fast, flawless, latest, local, luxurious, modern, original, outstanding, perfect, pure, simple, smooth, splendid, unique, universal, valuable, vital (Deng & Liu, 1989, p.34).
4.2Abundance of compounds
Advertisement aims to transmit the most information to the consumers within the shortest time. Compounds just meet this requirement in that they condense several information units into one. They have the flexibility in word building, which satisfies the need of creativity in advertising. Thus, many product names apply hyphenation process for conveying message as much as possible to the consumers. The following list of product names will give a clearer idea about this point.
Dress-Me (a teddy bear used for teaching children to dress themselves)
Tidy-Bowl (toilet bowl cleaner)
Play-Doh (children’s modeling clay)
Easy-Does-It (food made with prepared sausage)
Forget-me-Not (perfume)
Cross-Your-Heart (bra)
Silence-Is-Golden (cough medicine)
This hyphenation process applies to modifiers of these products as well. McDonald’s is advertised as the “come-as-you-are” place to eat. Kodak advertises a projector as an “edge-to-edge” slide sharpener.
However, the most conspicuous and abundant compound in advertisements is adjective compound. For example:
(1) If you were designing a state-of-the-art cell sorter, which feature would you need?
(2) Do it right, first-rate, top-notch, without a hitch and absolutely flawless.
4.3 High frequency of certain prefixes and suffixes
Mario Pei (1970) points out in Words in sheep’s clothing that super- is the prefix of top frequency and ex is the suffix of top frequency in advertising copy (as cited in Fan,1996). Supper- means “surpass and be superior to”, while ex is regarded as the clipping form of excellent. Both of the two affixes indicate the high quality of the commodity. See Kleenex (a facial tissue) and Rolex (a watch) as examples. Furthermore, -y carries the meaning of “somewhat like, characterized by” is also freely used with largely concrete nouns to form gradable adjectives, often of colloquial tone, as in bubbly beer, milky flavor, silky fabric splashy spectacles, toasty bread, etc. In addition, quite a few commodity brands like Footique, Bootique imitate the French word boutique, which means “mall shop selling clothes and other articles of the latest fashion”, in order to add the sense of popularity to the advertising message (Fan, 1996, pp.11-14).
4.4Use of alliterations
Alliteration is the use of words that begin with the same sound in order to make a special communicative effort (Myers, 1994). Usually they are pleasing to ears because of the clever choice of the word by the advertiser. In addition, the repetition of the beginning sound emphasizes the meaning the advertisement wants to express (Myers, 1994). For example:
(1) Together Towards Tomorrow.
(2) Hi-fi Hi-fun Hi-fashion only from Sony.
(3) Bathing Beauty Discovered in Interior Decorator’s Bathroom.
Example (1) is an advertisement for the 16th Asian Advertising Congress 1989 held in Lahore, Pakistan. The soft consonant “t” in each word of the advertisement makes it smooth and rhythmic but also presents fully the aim of this congress, therefore serves the subject well. Hi-fi is the short from for high fidelity. The sound “h” appears four times in (2), leaving readers an inerasable impression about the high quality of Sony sound system. Example (3) is about a kind of ceramic tile. Bathing, beauty, bathroom and discovered, decorator make consumers form an interrelationship between decoration and beauty. Who will refuse the miraculous effort brought by the ceramic tiles? Other examples:
(4) Health, Humor and Happiness…Gifts we’d love to give. (Saturday Evening)
(5) Sea, Sun, Sand, Seclusion and Spain! (Spanish Beech Hotel)
(6) My Goodness! My Guinness! (beer)
4.5 Use of puns
Pun is an amusing use of polysemy, i.e. a word or phrase which has two meanings, or of homonymy, i.e. words with the same sound but different meaning (Myers, 1994). The purpose of pun is usually two-fold, its referential purpose is to describe something; its pragmatic purpose, which is simultaneous, is to appeal to the sense, to interest, to clarify, to please, to delight, to surprise. Pun, the game of words, will leave a deep impression on readers by its readability, wit, and humor (Myers, 1994). However, to make a successful and impressive pun is not easy. Except for its own meaning, the word used as a pun is usually closely related to the characteristics of a certain product or the brand name of the product. There are three types of pun: homophonic pun, homographic pun and sylleptic pun (Myers, 1994).
Homophones are words identical in sound but different in spelling and meaning. The purpose of using them is to create humorous effect. For example,
(1) Make your every hello a real good-buy. (telephone)
(2) More sun and air for your son and heir. (beach )
(3) Trust us. Over 5000 ears of experience. (audiphones)
Hello and goodbye are the common way of opening and closing in telephone conversations. Good-buy and goodbye are homophones in example (1), meaning that the telephone is worth buying. In example (2), sun and son, air and heir are homophones which tell readers that the beach not only provides you with adequate sunshine and fresh air but everything they do is for the best interest of your descendents. Ear and year are homophones in example (3) emphasize the high quality of the audiphones which have been examined by 5000 ears over 5,000 years, implying its long history and long-tested quality.
Homographs are words identical in spelling but different in sound or meaning. For example:
(4) Understanding comes with TIME.
(5) All it takes it TIME.
(6) There’s never been a better TIME.
(7) Ask for More.
(8) The unique Spirit of Canada.
Examples (4) (5) and (6) are advertisements for Time, the most popular magazine in the United States. Time makes a lot of advertising for itself, in which pun is frequently found. The pun involved is a common play on the word “time”. It involves interpreting TIME (the magazine) as the abstract noun time, a continuous measurable quantify from the past, through the present, and into the future. More is a brand name for a famous lady’s cigarette, but the word more itself has the meaning of a greater number or amount. Therefore, the word more in example (7) leaves readers the impression that if you take one cigarette of the brand More, then you may not resist its seduction for taking more More cigarettes. The word spirit in example (8) has many different meanings, while in this advertisement two of them are employed: one is a person’s soul or mind, the other is a strong alcoholic drink. Since the alcohol could stand for the spirit of a country, who will doubt the taste and quality of it?
Sylleptic pun is based on the use of polysemy, which is one of the sense relationships that the same word has more than one meaning. For example,
(9) Your personality needs layers. Your face does not.
(10) Spoil yourself and not your figure.
Example (9) is an advertisement for a kind of foundation cream. The advertisers make use of the double meanings of the word layer in the given context, conveying much information to readers. Women need colorful personalities, but their faces should not be full of wrinkles. In this sense, the cosmetic manufacturers are selling hope and vitality in addition to the cream itself to consumers. Example (10) is an advertisement of an ice cream (Weight-Watcher) which aims at those who are on a diet. You could treat yourself very well (spoil yourself) by having the ice cream without becoming fat (spoil your figure).
By using pun, advertisements will be easily remembered by the readers. In addition, filled with wit and humor, puns help the advertised product win favor from readers (Cook, 1992).
5 Conclusion
Understanding the language features in English advertisements could help us not only understand the advertisement itself better, but also understand the western culture better since advertisements are the most active element in the high-developed economic societies. This paper specifically studies the lexical features of English advertising language. Generally speaking, the language of advertising appeals to our emotional needs under the skillful craftsmanship of the copywriter. It is a simple language but edited and purposeful as well as rich and arresting.
References
1 Cook, G. (1992). The discourse of advertising. London: Routledge.
2 Fan, Y.-G. (1996). Towards a “C +A” model of adverting language. Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation, Fudan University, Shanghai.
3 Geis, M.L. (1982). The language of television advertising. New York: Academic Press.
4 Halliday, M.A.K. (1985). An introduction to functional grammar. London: Edward Arnold.
5 Leech, G. H. (1986). English in advertising: A linguistic study of advertising in Great Britain. London: Longman.
6 Myers, G. (1994). Words in ads. London: Edward Arnold.
7 Nida, E. A. (1993). Language, culture and translation. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press.
8 Robertson, I. (1981). Sociology (2nd ed.). London: Worth Publishers.
9 Vestergard, T., & Schroder, K. (1985). The language of advertising. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
10 Wortham, S., & Locher, M. (1996). Voicing on the news: An analytic technique for studying media bias. Text, 16 (4), 557-585.
11 崔剛(Cui Gang),.广告英语.北京：北京理工大学出版社.
12 邓炎昌,刘润清(Deng Yanchang & Liu Runqing).语言与文化.北京:外语教学与研究出版社,1989.
13 胡曙中(Hu Shuzhong).英语语篇语言学研究.上海：上海外语教育出版社,2005.
14 王铭玉,宋尧(Wang Mingyu & Song Yao).符号语言学.上海:上海外语教育出版社,2005
15 赵静(Zhao Jing).广告英语.北京:外语教学与研究出版社,1995.