TV and
advertising
specificity of language and style
FL: 2FL
Ilyassova Symbat
Zamanbekova Zhansaya
PLAN:
Introduction: What is advertising?
1. The functions of advertising and its language
2 . T h e B a s i c Pr i n c i p l e s o f A d v e r t i s i n g L a n g u a g e
3 . Wi d e u s e o f n o u n s i n b r a n d n a m e s
4. Extensive use of monosyllabic and simple words
5. Stylistic devices: simile, metaphor and repetition
Conclusion
Bibliography
Advertising is with
us all the time.
Whenever we open
a newspaper or a
magazine, turn on
the TV,
. or look at
the posters in
underground
stations or on
buildings, we are
confronted with
advertisements.
Then what is
advertising?
What is
advertising?
definition
Then what is advertising?
The word advertising first appeared around
1655. It was used in the Bibleto indicate
notification or warning. An advertisementis a
public announcement, generally printed or
oral, made to promote a commodity,
service, or idea. (Encyclopedia Britannica)
American Marketing
Association defines
advertising as “the nonpersonal communication of
information usually paid for
and usually persuasive in
nature about products,
services or ideas by
identified sponsors through
the various media”
“Advertising is a paid nonpersonal communication form
with an identified sponsor using
mass media to persuade or
influence the audience”
(Wells & Burnett & Moriarty,
1989:8).
History
Advertising as a way of propaganda has long
existed. At first, people were unconscious of it.
Early in 3000 B.C, ancient Babylonians had already
publicized the ointment sellers, book-copiers and
shoes-makers. In ancient Greece, most messages
were delivered by criers who stood on street
corners, shouting the wares of their sponsors. In
ancient Rome, stores and merchandise that people
carried were identified by signs － a row of ham
represented the butcher, a cow stood for the
dairy, a leather boot meant the shoes shop and so
on. In ancient times, advertising was a kind of
early commercial information. Information rather
than persuasion was its aim
The
functions of
advertising
and its
language
Up to now, advertising has fully developed. It’s very
crucial not only to consumers, but also to social
development. It performs three basic roles in society.
1.Marketing role－helping companies sell their products
or services. To the producers, advertising provides the
chances of promoting the products or services,
communicating with the consumers and developing the
business, which does much good to economic
development.
2.Educational role－helping people learn about new
products and services. As consumers, we can get
information of the world from advertisement. Then it
performs the educational role. We can compare the
products or services of one brand with another from
which we can make our choices.
3.Social role－helping increase productivity and raise the
standard of living. To the society, advertising can
accelerate the growth of economy, and thus improve the
standard of living. It also promotes the mass-media and
gives the society very rich cultural meaning.
. Lund (1947:83) summarizes the task of the adman
as being to:
1.attractattention;
2.arouse interest;
3.stimulate desire;
4.create conviction;
5.get action
The Basic
Principles of
Advertising
Language
Professor Xie and Professor Liu summed up the following four principles in Advertising English.
First of all, an advertisement must be attractive. Besides the pictures or music, the words in an
advertisement should be exotic or fresh if the sponsor wants to arouse the consumers’interests.
Using sentence fragments or puns will catch people’s eye and make them curious about the
product or services. Thus, the advertisement works.
Secondly, the advertising text should be easy to read. It is necessary to choose easy or
colloquial words and to use simple sentences. Because they will let the readers. keep
reading. Too difficult sentence structures or too long passages will make the readers feel
tired. Of course, when choosing the language, targeted consumers’level should be
considered. Advertisement writers should use the language that is suitable to the
consumers which the products or services aim to.
Thirdly, the advertising text must be memorable. If the consumers can
remember the advertisement, then they will be the potential customers.
Using parallelism or alliteration or other rhetorical devices will make the
advertisement impressive. E.g.
In love there is no lack.
The best marks man may miss the mark.
...I came sudden, at the city's edge,
On a blue burst of lake...
(The Harbor, by Carl Sandburg)
Lastly, the ad text should so well designed as to stimulate
consumption. The final aim of advertisement is to promote products or
services. So the advertising language should be vivid and have the force to
drive the readers to consume.
Extensive
use of
monosyllabic
and simple
words
Monosyllabic and simple words are preferred in
advertising, for they are smooth to read and easy to
understand. G. N. Leech, a great English linguist,
lists 20 most common verbs in his English In
Advertising: Linguistic study of Advertising In Great
Britain. They are:
make, get, give, have, see, buy, come, go, know,
keep, look, need, love, use, feel, like, choose, take,
start, taste.
We often read simple advertisements. E.g.
Buy one. Use it. We make... One will give you what
you need. You’ll love one. Get one free.
It’s no doubt that nouns are most widely used in
advertising. Almost every sentence and every phrase
have nouns because nouns are the key words. They are
crucial and indispensable. The most representative use
of nouns in advertising lies in the brand names of the
products or the services. A brand name, also a
trade name, is “an arbitrarily adopted name that is
given by a manufacturer or merchant to an article
or service to distinguish it as produced or sold by him
that may be used and protected as a
trademark.”(Webster’s, 1994:1250) A good brand
name can help develop the consumer’s loyalty to a
specific brand or product. It also gives the
consumers different feelings about different products
or services.
Wide use
of nouns
in brand
names
Nouns are also widely used in simile, metaphor and metonymy. For example: Laurent
Beaute invites you to discover his new collection of colors, as warm and sheer as a
summer breeze: delicate corals, pink sand peaches for lips; matte, muted earthy
neutrals for eyes; and whisper of color for nails....” (New York Times Magazine,
(NYTM), Sept. 1993).
As to adjectives, monosyllabic ones are also preferred with the same
reason. The most frequently used adjectives are as follows:
new, good/better/best, fresh, free, delicious, sure, full, clean, wonderful,
special, crisp, real, fine, great, safe, and rich.
About 89% of frequently employed adjectives in English advertising
are monosyllabic words. Such simple words are compact and crisp.
Smile and metaphor are used in advertisements to
illustrate the characteristics of the advertised products or
services. A simile is a figure of speech which makes a
comparison between two unlike elements having at least one
quality or characteristic in common. A metaphor, like a simile,
also makes a comparison between two unlike elements, but
unlike a simile, this comparison is implied rather than
stated.
An example of simile:
No wonder people say our service is legendary. ...Smooth as
silk.(You’d better cite complete sentences!!!)
Silk is known for its quality of smoothness. Here the advertiser
uses simile, which is usually introduced by “like” or “as” to
associate its excellent services provided for the passengers and
thus help create an impressive vivid image in the mind of
the passengers
Simile
and
metaphor
Clean skin from head to toe.
Neutrogena Body Clear body wash treats, even prevents body breakouts. (Cosmo Girl,
Oct. /Nov., 1999:8) (This sentence does not involve any use of metaphor)
It's a country rich in art, with a wealth of museums.
Blessed by year round good weather, Spain is a magnet for sunworshippers and
holidaymakers. (Spain Traveling Advertisement）
Repetition
Repetition is defined by Grolier Academic Encyclopedia as the
repeating of any element in an utterance, including sounds, a word or phrase, a
pattern of accents, or an arrangement of lines. In advertising repetition is applied
to emphasize the important features of the products or services. It can also
make the advertising messages impressive and persuasive. Let’s see an example.
Everything is extraordinary. Everything tempts. (Cartier)Cartier is a well-known
brand for watches in the world so it is unnecessary to emphasize the brand. It
only emphasizes “everything” to tell the advantages of Cartier.
Furthermore, an advertisement often pretends to be talking to
the prospective customer. There is therefore heavy use of “You”. You want
to brighten your teeth, You travel a lot and want a high-quality portable
toothbrush. “You” is repeatedly used to bring the product and the
audience much closer. “You” often has two meanings in advertising
language. One is generic reference to “all” or “everyone”; the other is
specific reference to “the audience”. Here, “you” means the audience.
Conclusion
As to lexical features, nouns are widely used as brand names. They help to
make the consumers remember the products or services and deliver the
information very well. Monosyllabic and simple words, such as get, make, good
and new, are often used. These short words can hit the goals in the shortest
time.
As to rhetorical devices, smile and metaphor are used in advertisements to vividly
highlight the characteristics or special features or functions of the advertised products
or services.
In short, no matter which structure and what words are used in an advertisement, all
of them serve the purpose of attracting the audience, conveying information to them,
urging them to purchase the product or to use the service. That is what an ad for, and
that is also the function advertising language performs.
In short, no matter which structure and what words are used in an advertisement, all
of them serve the purpose of attracting the audience, conveying information to them,
urging them to purchase the product or to use the service. That is what an ad for, and
that is also the function advertising language performs.
Bibliography
[1] Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc. 1984. The New Encyclopedia Britannica[Z]. 15thed.
Chicago: William Benton Publisher.
[2] Fries, Peter. 1992. The structuring of information in written Englishtext[J]. In
Language Science 14:4; 461-468. Oxford, New York: PergamonPress.
[3] Greg,M. 1994. Words in Ads[M]. London: Green Gate Publishing Services.
[4] Leech, G. N. 1966. English in Advertising[M]. London: Longman.
[5] Leech, Geoffrey. 1978. Semantics[M]. London: Penguin.
[6] Lund, J.V. 1947.Newspaper Advertising[M]. New York: Prentice-Hall.
[7] Merriam-Webster Inc. 1994. Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary[Z]. 10thed.
Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster Inc.