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Abstract: The paper explores the main cultural differences from the value, customs and philosophy between China and America. Also, we hope readers can have more cultural connotation from advertising language and avoid cultural misunderstanding in intercultural communication.
Key words: advertising language; Chinese and American cultural difference; value; customs; philosophy
1 Introduction
American Marketing Association defines advertising activity is not only a kind of economy, but also a carrier of a kind of cultures, which is influenced and restricted by the native culture. This paper tries to make a comparison of cultural differences between China and America by analyzing advertising languages from three perspectives: different philosophical viewpoints, different value orientation and different cultural attitudes so as to help people better understand the cultural diversity in the trend of globalization and accelerate the cross-cultural communication.
2 Chinese cultures and its advertising language
In the antiquity of china, the commercial advertising was the main form, and peddle was one kind of the antique advertising language. Anyway to be used to canvass the customers, contribute the culture intention a lot to the shop sign.(宋玉书, 王纯菲, 2004:36) At the same time, the antique advertising language also express the spirit of Confucianism. Such as the phrase “Wish you everything goes well.” The Chinese advertising language reflects Chinese moral principle and aesthetic conceptions. It carries forward the traditional virtue and the national spirit of china.
Because of the Chinese culture, Chinese advertising has its own characters. There are idioms, folk adages or poetries frequently. such as “万事俱备，只欠东风.” (Dong Feng car) Besides, Chinese advertising language often use antithesis and pay attention to symmetry. Most of time, Chinese people do not like to use the uneven artistic form in advertisement. For example:① “要想皮肤好，早晚用大宝.”（Dabao）② “情系中国结，联通四海心.”（China Unicom）
3 American cultures and its advertising language
America did not have long history as China, but its advertisement plays a decisive role in the world’s advertisement industry. Because the immigrants had been oppressed by the local people for a long time, they could not live as they hoped. Then they tried their best to pursue freedom, value human right, and emphasize personality. What is more, its psychological structure is extraordinary complex and inattentive; in addition, the American consider the personality and emphasize the original creation spirit. All of these are considered as the most important things in their lives.So it is easy to find the meaning from the advertising language. For example, “just do it” (Nike); “To me, the past is black and white, but the future is always color.”(Hennessy)
As we can see, the characteristic in American advertising language is different to Chinese advertising language. On one hand, American advertisers not only want to adopt symmetry, but also like to use uneven artistic form. such as the followings, ① “The more hot water you use, the more money it saves.”② “No business too small, no problem too big.” (IBM Company) On the other hand, English advertising language is “linear type”, at the beginning time of the English advertisements the consumers can find the main point easily. For example, “Got milk?” “Fresh-up with Seven-up.”
4 The causes of the differences between Chinese and American advertising language
We know there are many differences between Chinese and American in advertising language. But, what are the causes that make them different? Firstly, from the literature, Chinese character is an old pictographic. Over thousands of years, it has been infused into plenty of implication by intelligent Chinese. According to these, “implication” will be one of the most important characters in Chinese advertising language. Secondly, from the culture, the main reason of the differences between Chinese culture and the west.
For the differences in nations’ forming, such as historic condition, national experience and living environment and so on, it leads to the difference in national psychology, value, philosophy and religious belief. So we can say that national history and national character give birth to the advertising language. Since the advertising language is part of language, we can peer at the difference of the whole social culture from it. Later, we will analyze the causes of the differences between the Chinese and American culture from the point of culture.
4.1 Value: Collectivism and Individualism
In china, we often hear the sentence, “Give top priority to the overall situation.” which embodies well that the Chinese people hold heavily the view of the whole. The Chinese interpersonal view and the order view blend mutually as a whole, and they believe that it’s a virtue for them to unify their own interest and other people’s as well as the collective interest. They believe that family associates closely with society. China has the tradition concepts of “Conscientious” , “Rite” and “Ritual”. To them, family is the core value of their lives and things are done more around this. They have the belief that “家和万事兴” . So, we cannot miss the good expressions for it in the advertising language. ① “可口可乐,大家齐欢乐.”(Coca Cola Company)②“万家乐, 乐万家.”(the Wan Jia Le water heater)
In Americ, people are extremely eager to shake off the difficult position and fetters, and they long for the freedom that they esteem the individualism utterly. “In the American history, the individualism plays an un-replaced role and becomes the nucleus of the value in the American culture.”(庄恩平,1998:135) The Americans believe in the personality dignity, praise highly the independent thought and judgment, and make their personal interest come true by themselves. They also consider that all value is around the human. So it’s easy for us to find the American individualism in its advertising language. ①“It’s you who make everything possible. Nothing is impossible.” ② “It’s your life. It’s your store.” (ACME Supermarket)
4.2Customs
Being different in the condition, the nature environment, the life style, and the religion belief, the nationality with the development of the social life has formed its own manners and customs which shows the common psychology of each nationality and some of which is regarded as the mark of the nation. Inevitably, the advertising language is restricted by the native and customs, reflecting their own cultural characteristic. Let’s take the dragon for exaple.
The Chinese regard the dragon as their guardian angel and deity who can bring them happiness and propitious. So the advertiser designed the advertising language with dragon. For example, “How high is the sky, just go to ask the dragon.”“天高几许问真龙.”(Zhen Long cigarette). However, dragon is usually portrayed as cruel monster and the enemy of man in European. It’s a symbol of horribleness. In some legend about the saint and hero, the sort of dragons all end up with death killed by the saint and hero. In order to open the Chinese market, the foreign bands try to take this into consider. Such as, “Things go well better with Coca-Cola.” (饮可口可乐，万事如意) “Remy Martin XO. Exclusively Fine Champagne.” (人头马一开，好事自然来)。
4.3Philosophy
Due to the difference in the different nations’ outer-environment and culture, each nation has its own view and expression to the world and philosophy. People in China relied on natures, as a result, they had great reverence to nature and hold the view of “the unity of nature and man” and “the return to the nature”. It is regarded that men should live harmoniously with nature and obey “the way of heaven” as men’s most lofty conduct norm. So, the philosophy of “the unity of nature and man” applied into the advertisements will be able to strike on sympathetic chord, from the following examples we can see that ① 中国名酒，滴滴凝聚天地之精华。② 回归自然，请吃野菜。
Instead, the Americans emphasize the struggle between man and nature, which we called “the disparity between nature and man”. They treat man and nature as the relationship between conquest and passive conquest. Man should be accepted the natural challenge, control and remake nature. The process that man struggle against nature offers them a chance to live and develop further. And this process shows totally that the western people believe in the individual ability. To the western people, the progress of scientific symbolizes the distillation of wisdom and shows the strength man conquered the nature. Such as “Why grow old gradually? Fight it!” (OLAY).
5 Conclusions
To a great extent, advertising language is influenced by the use of culture. A nation’s culture psychology is relatively closed to its culture background and culture custom. The Chinese and American cultures influence the advertising language on many sides from which we know that the differences of culture between Chinese and American affect people to the advertisement receptivity, the way of understanding and psychological reaction. So, choices of the advertising language should accord with national cultural to reduce the cultural misconstruction in advertisement between China and America.
Bibliography
[1] Vestergardt, Schrderk. The Language of Advertising [M].Oxford Basil Blackwell, 1989.
[2] 董立津, Jason Pugh. 广告专业英语—中英沟通实战技巧 [M]. 中南大学出版社, 2003.
[3] 郭尚兴,盛兴庆. A History of Chinese Culture [M].Henan University Press, 2002.
[4] 宋玉书, 王纯菲. 广告文化学 [M]. 中南大学出版社, 2004.
[5] 庄恩平. 东西方文化差异与对外交流 [M]. 华东理工大学出版社, 1998.
Key words: advertising language; Chinese and American cultural difference; value; customs; philosophy
1 Introduction
American Marketing Association defines advertising activity is not only a kind of economy, but also a carrier of a kind of cultures, which is influenced and restricted by the native culture. This paper tries to make a comparison of cultural differences between China and America by analyzing advertising languages from three perspectives: different philosophical viewpoints, different value orientation and different cultural attitudes so as to help people better understand the cultural diversity in the trend of globalization and accelerate the cross-cultural communication.
2 Chinese cultures and its advertising language
In the antiquity of china, the commercial advertising was the main form, and peddle was one kind of the antique advertising language. Anyway to be used to canvass the customers, contribute the culture intention a lot to the shop sign.(宋玉书, 王纯菲, 2004:36) At the same time, the antique advertising language also express the spirit of Confucianism. Such as the phrase “Wish you everything goes well.” The Chinese advertising language reflects Chinese moral principle and aesthetic conceptions. It carries forward the traditional virtue and the national spirit of china.
Because of the Chinese culture, Chinese advertising has its own characters. There are idioms, folk adages or poetries frequently. such as “万事俱备，只欠东风.” (Dong Feng car) Besides, Chinese advertising language often use antithesis and pay attention to symmetry. Most of time, Chinese people do not like to use the uneven artistic form in advertisement. For example:① “要想皮肤好，早晚用大宝.”（Dabao）② “情系中国结，联通四海心.”（China Unicom）
3 American cultures and its advertising language
America did not have long history as China, but its advertisement plays a decisive role in the world’s advertisement industry. Because the immigrants had been oppressed by the local people for a long time, they could not live as they hoped. Then they tried their best to pursue freedom, value human right, and emphasize personality. What is more, its psychological structure is extraordinary complex and inattentive; in addition, the American consider the personality and emphasize the original creation spirit. All of these are considered as the most important things in their lives.So it is easy to find the meaning from the advertising language. For example, “just do it” (Nike); “To me, the past is black and white, but the future is always color.”(Hennessy)
As we can see, the characteristic in American advertising language is different to Chinese advertising language. On one hand, American advertisers not only want to adopt symmetry, but also like to use uneven artistic form. such as the followings, ① “The more hot water you use, the more money it saves.”② “No business too small, no problem too big.” (IBM Company) On the other hand, English advertising language is “linear type”, at the beginning time of the English advertisements the consumers can find the main point easily. For example, “Got milk?” “Fresh-up with Seven-up.”
4 The causes of the differences between Chinese and American advertising language
We know there are many differences between Chinese and American in advertising language. But, what are the causes that make them different? Firstly, from the literature, Chinese character is an old pictographic. Over thousands of years, it has been infused into plenty of implication by intelligent Chinese. According to these, “implication” will be one of the most important characters in Chinese advertising language. Secondly, from the culture, the main reason of the differences between Chinese culture and the west.
For the differences in nations’ forming, such as historic condition, national experience and living environment and so on, it leads to the difference in national psychology, value, philosophy and religious belief. So we can say that national history and national character give birth to the advertising language. Since the advertising language is part of language, we can peer at the difference of the whole social culture from it. Later, we will analyze the causes of the differences between the Chinese and American culture from the point of culture.
4.1 Value: Collectivism and Individualism
In china, we often hear the sentence, “Give top priority to the overall situation.” which embodies well that the Chinese people hold heavily the view of the whole. The Chinese interpersonal view and the order view blend mutually as a whole, and they believe that it’s a virtue for them to unify their own interest and other people’s as well as the collective interest. They believe that family associates closely with society. China has the tradition concepts of “Conscientious” , “Rite” and “Ritual”. To them, family is the core value of their lives and things are done more around this. They have the belief that “家和万事兴” . So, we cannot miss the good expressions for it in the advertising language. ① “可口可乐,大家齐欢乐.”(Coca Cola Company)②“万家乐, 乐万家.”(the Wan Jia Le water heater)
In Americ, people are extremely eager to shake off the difficult position and fetters, and they long for the freedom that they esteem the individualism utterly. “In the American history, the individualism plays an un-replaced role and becomes the nucleus of the value in the American culture.”(庄恩平,1998:135) The Americans believe in the personality dignity, praise highly the independent thought and judgment, and make their personal interest come true by themselves. They also consider that all value is around the human. So it’s easy for us to find the American individualism in its advertising language. ①“It’s you who make everything possible. Nothing is impossible.” ② “It’s your life. It’s your store.” (ACME Supermarket)
4.2Customs
Being different in the condition, the nature environment, the life style, and the religion belief, the nationality with the development of the social life has formed its own manners and customs which shows the common psychology of each nationality and some of which is regarded as the mark of the nation. Inevitably, the advertising language is restricted by the native and customs, reflecting their own cultural characteristic. Let’s take the dragon for exaple.
The Chinese regard the dragon as their guardian angel and deity who can bring them happiness and propitious. So the advertiser designed the advertising language with dragon. For example, “How high is the sky, just go to ask the dragon.”“天高几许问真龙.”(Zhen Long cigarette). However, dragon is usually portrayed as cruel monster and the enemy of man in European. It’s a symbol of horribleness. In some legend about the saint and hero, the sort of dragons all end up with death killed by the saint and hero. In order to open the Chinese market, the foreign bands try to take this into consider. Such as, “Things go well better with Coca-Cola.” (饮可口可乐，万事如意) “Remy Martin XO. Exclusively Fine Champagne.” (人头马一开，好事自然来)。
4.3Philosophy
Due to the difference in the different nations’ outer-environment and culture, each nation has its own view and expression to the world and philosophy. People in China relied on natures, as a result, they had great reverence to nature and hold the view of “the unity of nature and man” and “the return to the nature”. It is regarded that men should live harmoniously with nature and obey “the way of heaven” as men’s most lofty conduct norm. So, the philosophy of “the unity of nature and man” applied into the advertisements will be able to strike on sympathetic chord, from the following examples we can see that ① 中国名酒，滴滴凝聚天地之精华。② 回归自然，请吃野菜。
Instead, the Americans emphasize the struggle between man and nature, which we called “the disparity between nature and man”. They treat man and nature as the relationship between conquest and passive conquest. Man should be accepted the natural challenge, control and remake nature. The process that man struggle against nature offers them a chance to live and develop further. And this process shows totally that the western people believe in the individual ability. To the western people, the progress of scientific symbolizes the distillation of wisdom and shows the strength man conquered the nature. Such as “Why grow old gradually? Fight it!” (OLAY).
5 Conclusions
To a great extent, advertising language is influenced by the use of culture. A nation’s culture psychology is relatively closed to its culture background and culture custom. The Chinese and American cultures influence the advertising language on many sides from which we know that the differences of culture between Chinese and American affect people to the advertisement receptivity, the way of understanding and psychological reaction. So, choices of the advertising language should accord with national cultural to reduce the cultural misconstruction in advertisement between China and America.
Bibliography
[1] Vestergardt, Schrderk. The Language of Advertising [M].Oxford Basil Blackwell, 1989.
[2] 董立津, Jason Pugh. 广告专业英语—中英沟通实战技巧 [M]. 中南大学出版社, 2003.
[3] 郭尚兴,盛兴庆. A History of Chinese Culture [M].Henan University Press, 2002.
[4] 宋玉书, 王纯菲. 广告文化学 [M]. 中南大学出版社, 2004.
[5] 庄恩平. 东西方文化差异与对外交流 [M]. 华东理工大学出版社, 1998.