An Analysis of Linguistic Features of Advertising English1.doc

浅析广告英语的语言特征an analysis of linguistic features of advertising english contentsabstract1key words1i. introduction21.1 rationale of the study 21.2 general information about advertising 21.3 focus of the present study31.4 sources of data 3ii lexical feature42.1 similarities at the lexical level42.1.1 simple and novel 42.1.2 use of positive words62.1.3 use of weasel words 62.2 differences at the lexical level 72.2.1 selection of adjectives 82.2.2 use of compound words8 2.2.3 use of pronouns92.2.4 differences on the audiences part10iii. syntactical features 11iv rhetoric features134.1 use of analogy (simile, metaphor, metonymy) 144.2 use of personification144.3 make pun and alliteration144.4 make contrast154.5 use of hyperbole154.6 use of zeugma15v. conclusion 155.1 lexical features 155.2 syntactical features165.3 rhetoric features 16references17an analysis of linguistic features of advertising english摘 要： 本文旨在通过对书面广告英语的语言特征的分析总结出广告英语在词汇句法修辞上的语言特点。通过对日用品广告科技设备广告服务业广告的深入细致的定量和定性分析，总结出广告英语在此三类广告中的相同点与不同点,并且根据语言意义,风格及功能解释广告英语的共性以及广告英语在不同类型广告中的特殊性。关键词: 广告英语 词汇 句法 修辞 abstract：this paper presents an analytical study of the linguistic features of advertising english at lexical, syntactic and rhetoric levels. it is hoped that through the detailed survey as well as quantitative and qualitative study of three types of advertisements: namely, daily consumer goods advertisements, technical equipment advertisements, service advertisements, similarities and differences in advertising language features can be summarized and possible reasons will be given in the light of the meaning, and function of language.key words: advertising english lexical syntactic rhetoric an analysis of linguistic features of advertising englishi. introduction 1.1 rationale of the study we live in a world of advertising. it is the fact that advertisements have become an vital part of our daily lives in this increasingly modernized world. wherever on newspapers, magazines, television, radio, posters and the internet or via other various media, advertisements offer us information about nearly all sorts of products, ideas and services. advertising provides society and its members with a valuable service, firstly, it defines for consumers the meaning and the role of products, services, and institutions. secondly, it shows the difference that exists between brands of products and alternative services, as well as the distinguishing characteristics of companies and institutions. thirdly, advertising also indicates the consumer the functions of a specific product, brand or service. thus, it helps him or her to understand and evaluate experience with the products and services that he or she uses. whats more, by making people aware of products, service and ideas, advertising promotes sales and profits. last but not least, advertising is one of the major forces that are helping improve the standard of living around the world. combined with all these communicational, marketing and social functions, advertising has become indispensable in the modern world.1.2 general information about advertising what is advertising? according to the definition committee of american marketing association, advertising is defined as follows: advertising is the nonpersonal communication of information usually paid for and usually persuasive in nature about products, services or ideas by identified sponsors through various media. generally speaking, advertisements mainly fall into two categories; public relation advertisements and commercial advertisements. the former tries to advocate reputation for a social group, whose purpose is to leave a favorable impression upon the potential audience. while the latter aims at leading to the act of purchasing the products or using the recommended service. commercial advertisements are much more presented through mass media for the reason that manufacturers and companies are willing to spend a huge amount of money to make a certain product known or to boost the image of a certain brand. in many cases, competitors, like coca-cola and pepsi, even spare no expense to launch advertising campaigns to win over the market share. according to the target audience, commercial advertising can also be divided into two groups: consumer advertising and business advertising. most of the advertisements in the mass media are consumer advertisements. they are typically directed at consumers. on the contrary, business advertising tends to be concentrated in specialized business publications, professional journals, trade shows targeting at a certain group of people involved in a particular business. since consumer advertising is most accessible to common people, the present study will mainly focus on consumer advertising. generally speaking, subjects involved in consumer advertising are daily consumer goods, technical equipments and service. daily consumer goods are necessities of daily life, such as food, clothes, detergent, hygiene, etc. technical equipment involves technical toys and electric equipment such as camera, vehicle, hi-fi, etc. service covers bank, insurance, fund, etc. actually, advertising dose not always work effectively, whats worse, it may become misleading in some specific cases. the reason lies in that these advertisements fail to convey positive information to the consumer, even leaving negative image on the readers mind. let alone talking the consumer into accepting their products, service and ideas.1.3 focus of the present studyas a rule, advertising communicates information in three ways: audio, visual, and language. it is a more common case that an advertisement is a mixture of the three. in radio advertisements, music is always accompanied with language; on tv and motion pictures, music and language illustration are mixed with each other. in posters, magazines and newspapers, advertisements are a combination of pictures and language of written information. it is true that music and pictures can provide some hints, or create a kind of atmosphere, however, the information about the product is limited. whats worse, they tend to send wrong information to the audience. thus, it is safe to say that language in a way provides more accurate, detailed and reliable information whereas music and pictures only act as a supplementary means in advertising. advertising language, playing a role of communication and persuasion, has developed its own features. this paper will focus on the language features of english advertisements at lexical, syntactic and rhetoric levels. it is hoped, by a contrastive study of advertisements on three types of products (daily consumer goods, technical equipment and service), similarities and differences of the three types of advertisements will be summarized and possible reasons will be given in the light of the meaning, and function of language. 1.4 sources of data all the advertisements studied in this paper are taken from english magazines. they are chosen from time, people and newsweek (issues from 1999-2000), because these three magazines have a huge circulation, covering all kinds of audience. almost all kinds of advertisements are available in these magazines. conclusions will be drawn through quantitative and qualitative studies of the vivid cases.ii lexical featurein order to make the information accessible to audience effectively, choosing words in advertising calls for caution and skill. to acquire an excellent performance from the advertisement, both linguistic and psychological aspects are taken into consideration in the choice of words. sharing the same purpose of advertisingto familiarize or remind consumers of the benefits of particular products in the hope of increasing sales, the techniques used at the lexical level by advertisers do not vary markedly. the following points are some prominent similarities.2.1 similarities at the lexical level2.1.1 simple and novel as shakespeare said, simplicity is the soul of wisdom. it is true with advertising english. being well aware that one word saved means one buck earned, advertisers make great effort to transit as much information as possible in limited space. thus the following advertisements are frequently seen on posters, newspapers and magazines; buy x. use it. we make x will give you what you need. youll love x. get x. well make this quick. (hertz car return) get great coverage thats so weightless and water-fresh. (almay) all you need is a taste for adventure. (millstone coffee) youll love it. (olympus camera) dont have much of a personality? buy one. (honda motor) as a matter of fact, the shorter the advertising slogan is, the easier it is to remember. thus, as examples above show, successful advertisements prefers to use monosyllabic verbs and most of them have anglo-saxon origin that is the common core of english vocabulary. linguistic study shows english native speakers tend to use words of anglo-saxon origin, because native words have comparably stable meaning. the most frequently used verbs in advertising are; make, use, own, have, do, get, give, see, buy, come, go, know, keep, look, need, love, etc. these simple words can win the consumers by their exact, effective expression and a kind of closeness. etymological studies show that the verbs listed before, except use and taste which are from ancient french, all are anglo-saxon origin. even the two words, use and taste have long become indispensable lexical items in the stock of common core vocabulary of the english people, developing their stable meaning and usage.it is believed that advertisers are excellent experts at playing the game of words. they are inclined to have words with which we are familiar misspelled intentionally or coin new words by adding prefix or suffix to the original one. as much the coined new words differ from the original word in spelling or pronunciation, even in form, instead of losing their original meaning, they have originality of their own. for example, the orangemostest drink in the world. orangemostest. (orange juice)the new word is made up by orange and two superlative postfix, most and est. obviously, this is a case of coinage which indicates that the orange juice of this brand is of excellent quality. more examples;in a cookout, it outcooks. (webeb)going east, staying westin. (westin hotel)for twogether the ultimate all inclusive one price sunkisseed holiday. (hawaii)let take a look at another instance; cooool! a fabulous sort-of-soft drink thats light with kahlua, fresh with cream or milk.(drink)this is a case of intentional misspelling. “cool” is colloquially popular among young people which means fabulous, and wonderful. the advertisers successfully capture the reader attention by having the word misspelled. in addition, its original meaning, “giving a pleasant feeling of not hot” makes the reader feel comfortable in hot summer days.advertisers, on one hand, are racking their brain to make the advertising slogan as simple and short as possible; on the other hand, they are having some keywords, sentences repeated intentionally. the following are examples;fresh up with seven-up. (seven-up)make time for time. (time)persil washes whiter and it shows. persil takes care of whiteness. (persil)finish the job in less time,with less fuel and less noise. (mobie)free hotel! free meals! free transfers! (hilton)easy to use, easy to clean, easy to use, easy to assemble. (sunshine hanger)dish after dish after dish after dish. people expect us to be better.take toshiba，take the world.(toshiba) as a matter of fact, making repetitions gives a full emphasize on the information about the product, displays the advertisers emotion and makes the advertising slogan memorable and readable. moreover, advertisers inclined to make full use of the principle of cohesion to make the information or message they intend to convey to the consumer more conspicuous and noticeable. meanwhile, they achieve the goal of making the memory value of the advertisements come true. making repetition also call for a lot techniques, a well-done one is a combination of intelligence, technique and wisdom. by using simple words, the advertisers make the advertisement readable and unforgettable; by coinage and making repetitions, advertisers succeed in capturing the ordinance attention. however, all these techniques help them successfully achieve the goal of making the products noticeable and promoting the products to consumers.2.1.2 use of positive wordsin order to leave a favorable impression on the consumers minds and build up the image of the brand, positive words, especially some evaluative adjectives are favored by the advertisers. they are: good, rich, fresh, delicious, sure, wonderful, fine, real, great, nice, etc. for instance,lets make things better. (philippe) the taste is great. (nesto)feel the new space. (sansung)nothing comes closer to home. (vegetable and chicken pasta bake) think lysol is the best disinfecting spray. (disinfecting spray)to be true forever. (heir)smooth, rich, rewarding. (mild) the worlds coolest cds arent made in new york, london or l.a. they are made in my apartment. (philips cd recorder) the compaq armada family is lighter, with new rounded edges for easier packing. (compaq)in our study, we also find some stereotype phrase helping to express positive massage in advertisements, such as; fashionable and attractive packages; quality and quantity assured; have a long history in production and marketing; popular both at home and abroad; comfortable and easy to wear; sophisticated technologies; complete in specifications; catch up with and surpass advanced world level; a wide selection of colors and designs; with a long standing reputation; fashionable styles, rich varieties; sufficient supplies; ample supply; reasonable price; fine craftsmanship; economy and durability; rank first among similar products; complete range of articles; excellent in quality, etc. 2.1.3 use of weasel words a weasel word is defined as “a word used in order to evade or retreat from a direct or forthright statement or position” according to webster dictionary (philip babcock gove, 1976). the use of weasel words has become a device in advertising. weasel words make people hear things that arent being said, accept as truth that have only been implied, and believe things that have only been implied and suggested. lets take a look under a strong light at the following frequently used words. help ocean spray cranberry juice cocktail helps maintain urinary tract health. it helps control the bacteria in this system.a breakthrough way to help stop wear-out help finance the video equipment.all the examples shown are from our corpus. 23% advertisements of all samples use the word “help”. these helps can be omitted because they have lost their original meaning: aid, assist. yet, “help” in advertising english is never redundant. it has magic power in advertisers eyes. “help” is the great qualifier; once the advertiser says it, he can say anything after it. “help” qualifies everything. the audience has never heard anyone say, “this product will keep you young,” or “this toothpaste will positively prevent cavities for all time.” obviously, advertisers never say anything like that, because there is no such product like that. but by adding that “help” in front, they can use the strongest language possible afterwards. and the most fascinating part of it is that the readers are immune to this word. the readers literally dont hear the word “help”. they only knew what comes after it. as a matter of fact, this seems useless word brings certainty and persuasion to the readers.likeits like getting on bar free.cleans like a white tornado.its like taking a trip to portugal.“like” is also a qualifier, and is used in much the same way as help. but “like” is also a comparative element, with a very specific purpose; advertisers use “like” to get the audience stop thinking about something else that is bigger or better than or different from the product which are being sold. in other words, they succeed in convincing the audience that the product is more than it is by likening it to something else. like “help”, “like” doesnt catch much attention. however by using it, almost anything can be said and promised afterwards. 2.2 differences at the lexical level a great deal of similarities does exist in the diction of english advertisements, while a lot delicate differences is found in the process of our study. as far as language is concerned, it functions not only as a means of communication, but also as a carrier of personality of a person, even of culture of a group of people. the fact is that language applied differs according to different audience. the same is true with advertising language. advertisers are wise enough to understand this point. as a result, they speak in different ways when talking to different audience. 2.2.1 selection of adjectives in the study of the selection of adjectives, we have first