On the Artistic Features in English Advertisement.doc

on the artistic features in english advertisement论广告英语的艺术性contentsacknowledgementsiabstractii摘要iii1 introduction12 the artistic features in english advertisement32.1 linguistic attributes of english advertisement32.1.1 sound artistry of english advertisement32.1.2 lexical features52.1.3 syntactic features82.2 features of advertisement headline102.3. rhetorical devices113 the artistic features of advertisement in other fields193.1 the artistic features from pragmatics field.193.2 the artistic features from other views194 conclusion21references2323acknowledgementsi would like to thank all those who have given me their generous helps, commitment and enthusiasm, which have been the major driving force to complete the current paper.firstly, a special acknowledgement should be shown to my respected supervisor. i am greatly indebted to him for his original suggestions and exhaustive revisions to the dissertation. secondly, i want to express my thanks to all the teachers of my college courses who helped me in every stage of my development. i also want to thank my room mates whose advises really improved the quality of this paper. thirdly, i must express my hearty thanks to my brother, whose encouragement are vital to this paper. last but not least, i want to take the opportunity to thank the library assistants who supplied me with reference materials of great values.abstractadvertising language is an artistically concentrated business language. influenced by such sciences as linguistics, psychology, marketing, sociology, aesthetics, etc, its diction has various values for research. it is now more and more catching peoples attention for its unique functionin modern age, we were surrounded by various advertisements，cant imaginewhat our life will be if one day there were no advertisement.advertising language is a highly artistic language, it has some distinct characteristics in its use of words. in the language performance aspect, the advertisement language has its unique character in word usage, syntax, grammar, the rhetorical flavor and the literary style. the application of rhetoric in advertising english has made english vivid，terse，humorous and rhythmic，thus displaying its unique charmwith many classic english advertisements, this paper analyses and summarizes how contrast, personification, simile, repetition, pun, exaggeration, parody, rhyme and other artistic features are used in advertising english.key words: advertising english; artistic feature; art of rhetoric 论广告英语的艺术性摘要广告语言是一门浓缩的艺术化商业语言,其用词受语言学、心理学、营销学、社会学、美学诸多学科影响,具有多方面的研究价值。它以其独特的功能越来越受人们的重视。我们的日常生活被各种广告所包围。很难想象没有了广告我们的生活会是什么样子。广告英语是一门艺术性很强的语言，其词汇的使用具有鲜明特色。在语言表达方面，广告语言有其独特的用词特色、句法特色、语法特色、修辞特色和文体特色，在广告英语中运用各种修辞手法能使广告语言生动形象、幽默简洁、富有节奏和韵律。本论文通过多例经典广告进行了分析、归纳与总结来研究拟人，对比，比喻，重复，双关，夸张，押韵等一系列修辞手法和其它一些方法对达到广告目的的作用。关键词：广告英语；艺术性；修辞艺术性1 introductionnowadays, commodities are developed fast as a marketing commodity carrier; advertising is playing the vital role in our countrys economic development. when introduce the overseas quality product and the service to china, or sell the chinese product to overseas, all of those must be done with the help of advertisement. because of its unique language charm and summoning force, advertisement english has bloomed out from english family, it has unique characters both in the glossary and the sentence type. a good piece of advertisement must easy to understand, easy to record, only by this way can make deep impression in the public. as an important component, advertisement english not only retained the basic character of english, but also bought in various countries way of advertisement word usage, thus gradually formed its own unique style. advertising is a kind of communication. advertisers frequently call themselves “communicators”. communication refers to the transmission of information between a sourer and a receiver using a signaling system (fatihi, 1991:79). if advertiser selects the straightforward method, it may easily be considered as intentionally exaggerate the product, and may led to customers repugnance. therefore, most of advertisements does not directly express the actual meaning, but chose the tortuous way to implicitly express, put the implication in the analogy, the personification, double meaning, the exaggeration, imitates plans etc, it may achieves the effect which the tune refined language expresses ones idea.through this way, it is not only an advantage for the consumer to have a more thorough understanding but also for the editor to vividly express thoughts, it may causes advertisement sentence to have the persuasive power, and the artistic charm. so, it is of great importance for us to understand advertisement english. it is not only has the advantage to understand english advertisement, but also profits us to understand english advertisements propaganda strategy and the skill, thus can applies it in the chinese products advertisements propaganda. it may cause the chinese product to have the international competitiveness; moreover it also has certain help for us to study english. therefore, to understand advertisements propagandas important carrier - - advertisement english appears especially important. through the way of example analysis, this article appreciates language beauty of art which each method brings, in order to have a benefit to english advertisements creation as well as appreciate of the advertisement. it will be discussed in the following part.2 the artistic features in english advertisement advertising forms an integral part of modern life, as it plays an indispensable role in promoting sales and guiding consumption. through it a wider sense of the world can be seen. but what is advertising exactly? the cambridge encyclopedia (1992: 12) defines advertising in the following words:the practice of informing and influencing others not personally known to the communicator through paid messages in the media: also the advertisements themselves. as a way of propaganda, the usage of advertisement is to spread information, broad market. the advertisement language has the features of interesting, attractive; besides, it usually uses all kinds of figures of speech to enhance its artistry. this thesis tries to analyze the artistic features in english advertisement.2.1 linguistic attributes of english advertisementas a branch of pragmatic, we can use linguistic view to analyze english advertisement. it can be discussed in the following parts: sound, lexical, syntactic.2.1.1 sound artistry of english advertisement analyzed from many classic advertisements, sound artistry plays an important role. ill discuss it in the following elements: alliteration, rhyme, onomatopoeia.1) alliterationin alliteration the same consonant sound of words is repeated at intervals in the initial position of words. ( feng cuihua，1995: 134) in advertisements, this device can be used to impress the name or the characteristic of product on audiences memory through sheer repetition of the same initial sounds. (1) bp, who brings billions of barrels from the back of beyond, now bakes biscuits in berlin.this advertisement of british petroleum company ltd. is typical of the use of alliteration. that the initial sound b repeats for nine times makes the advertisement special and striking in sound effect. the repeated b makes the words sound clear and sharp and the sentence flow quickly and actively, which suggests that bp company is efficient and vigorous.2) rhymethe tail rhyme is the rhyme used in the end of word, which strengthened the rhythm of advertisement language.(2) big thrills，snail billsthis is the budget rental cars advertisement, thrills and bills signs the rhyme, the advertisement has a neat structure, and full of rhythm.3) the mixed use of alliteration and rhythm(3) my goodness! my guinness! this is a beer advertisement，goodness and guinness is the usage of alliteration and rhyme, which reads like flowing stream. it vividly portrays the scene when people drink and sing highly of this beer, it strengthened the advertisements effect.4) onomatopoeiathe onomatopoeia refers to the simulation of people, animal as well as other sounds; it may have the effect of vividly.(4) shhhhhhh this is the dish washer advertisement. in order to prominent the operation of machine doesnt have noise, the advertisement selected “shhhhhhh” to simulate the slight si si sound when machine operation sends out, it strengthened the products entity character and more expressive, can definitely meet consumers requirements.2.1.2 lexical featuresnovelty is closely associated with “new”, “fresh” and “creative”. “with every new idea, new expressions come into existence in the language of advertisement”. (fatihi, 1991:38). this is usually realized in diction and in form. in advertisements, the words used are creative, sometimes unprecedented. they can be compound words or pure coinage. they follow the rules of word formation. advertisers drain their brain to find or invent a new word or phase to express an idea in a quite unexpected but acceptable way, such as compounding, clipping, blending, coining and affixation.1) use popularity spoken words the word is simple and brief, easy to understand, full of colloquial. for different age group and social class, the spoken language is easy to understand, the widely known effect. for example, “to me, the past is black and white, but the future is always color”. it directly tells people the unique charming character xuan ni shi liquor sends out. when tastes the xuan ni shi wine, your vision, taste, feeling will lingered in the wine, you may have the sense of beauty. your life will therefore colorful, your spirit will achieve a new altitude. 2) frequently use monosyllable or few letter verbsthe famous british linguist geoffrey leech(1996) had listed the frequent used 20 verbs in his advertisement englishthe analysis of advertisement language, they are as fellows: make , get , give , have , see , buy , come , go , keep , look ,need , love , use , feel , like , take , start , choose , taste ,etc. these verbs are mainly monosyllable ones that are commonly used in everyday language by native speakers. they are verbs in advertising which can make “infinite use of finite means.” for example: getting places in the business world is easier if your banker is there to meet you. this is an advertisement of a bank. in this advertisement “get” and “meet” these two verb vividly expressed that bank was also may provide visits to serve, in the fierce competition today, only the business man then does everything possible to provide the most quality, the convenient service, better blooming. 3) exact and original in dictionas a result of length limit, and to let the people remember well, english ads use short words, eulogized words, proper words and abbreviations appear more often than others. for example：“cpu”is the abbreviation of “central process unite”. also abbreviation is convenient for requirement during purchases. here wed like to list the commonly used abbreviations: mo=month, dy=day, wk=week, expd=experienced, ft/pt = full time / part time, wpm = words per minute, prefd = preferred, reqd = required, refs = references, incl = include, hrs = hours, min =minimum, atten. = attention, temp = temporary, perm = permanent, comm. =commission, ext = extension, pos. = position, evs = evenings, sr = senior, fab = fabulous, avail = available, coll. edu. = college education, n /s = nonsmoker, dm = divorced male, cond = condition, so on and so forth.this is an advertisement on girl seeking and you will find some abbreviations are used.（5）swm, 41, 58, never married, drug/disease free, n /s, n /d, easygoing, affectionate, iso s/dwf, 32 - 48, for ltr. . . 7406notes: swm = single white male, n /s (see the above), n /d = nondrinker, iso = in search of, s/dwf = single /divorced white female, ltr = long time relationship.4) intentionally create new wordsome advertisements misspelling the word intentionally, this is familiar to everybody. although the reformer word and the original shape are different, the significance still existed, this can both have the effect of lively, interesting, remarkable, and express the commodity information successfully. besides, people often thought that the advertisement in which the word usage is rich in the innovation, its propagandas product also has the unique merit. for example：(6)“kraft food” the foods business brand “craft” is notionally misspelled as “kraft”, it not only attracted the customer, but also ingeniously retained this words primary meaning: our food undergoes the careful manufacture.(7) we know eggsactly how to sell eggseggsactly is the distortion of exactly, and corresponds in the shape with “egg”, the purpose of this method is to give the product enormous charm, let readers have a kind of wonderful feeling, and thus achieved the effect “saw the wisdom in the humor”.5) the use of homophone the advertisement english always use homophones, which may cause the advertisement have the effect of lively, humorous. for example：(8)dont catch a cold， catch a plane to fiji dont get the flu this winter，be the ones who flew to fijithe use of two homonyms strengthened the advertisements artistic effects. this advertisements goal was to remind people not to catch cold, and could have the opportunity to go to fiji; because the island countrys pleasant weather will cause you to avoid cold.(9)“vip”anatomical comfort variable impact pressure solevips is the abbreviation of: very important persons. but in the preceding text the vips is the abbreviation of variable impact pressure sole (air cushion type shoe sole). the homophone can stimulate consumers vanity, encourages them to purchase.6) repeat key wordsin order to strengthen the expression and tell the consumer the advertisements content, the advertisement english is frequently repeat some key words, the frequently used are the noun, the verb and the adjective. for example：(10) things go better with cocacolaenjoy coca-cola(11) ive had rich scotch and ive had poor scotch. believe me rich is better“scotch” here means scottish whiskey.“have”has the meaning of “eats or drinks”, “expense”, it may lure the consumer to purchase the product.(12)cool as a mountain stream. cool fresh consulatethe repeated use of cool and as to make metaphor, portrays incisively the consulate sign cigarette a kind of like brook neat pleasant characteristic.2.1.3 syntactic featurescompare with other english literary style, english advertisements sentence structure request simply, full of attraction and imagination, therefore, in english advertisement there are many abbreviation sentence, short sentence and so on.1) try to use simple sentencethe succinct striking language has the great attraction, then can hold peoples or hearing all of a sudden, arouses their interest, let customers know what they want to express. for example：(13) obey your thirst！it is the advertisement of spirit which vividly expressed the desire of spirit. may be you are sweating after sport, or make celebrates all night long, no matter where you are and what time is it, if you are thirsty, please drink sprit! the brief expression brings customers endless happiness (wei junying 2004: 79).2) use language which customer familiar with and wide spread onesthe advertising agency always chose idioms or proverbs even songs which are of great populist, sometimes they also adopt some from customers subscript. this kind of advertisement language form is popularization, the diversification and artistic, it may cause the people to easier to remember and understood. thus increased the advertisement exaggeration strength and the attraction, serves the promotion purpose. for example: alligator perfume advertisement song：(14)let me show you the way by natasha thomas. we may took “me” for alligators perfume, along with her, she could then lead us to enter the world which perfume eagerly anticipated. the affable song will cause the people to associate this perfume with an attractive flavor, will cause the people to be out of control to confirm that own idea to be whether correct or not. 3) try to use abbreviation sentencethe sentence pattern are usually used in advertisement, the goal are not the order or request the consumer to do anything, but is make suggestion sincerely, the implication guidance, had the function of persuaded and urgency. for example: (15) “make a global hitkonka electric appliances.”another obvious unique syntax feature in english advertisement language is of the abbreviation sentence, it can transmission more information by the limited content.for example，the advertisement of ford:(16) “ford，safe，quick and with fun，a work of art.”the message has abbreviated the predicate, but it is easier to remember.4) interrogative sentenceinterrogative sentence usually demands an answer and people are more ready to react to it than others (austin j l). so it is often used as the headline or the first sentence of body copy to arouse audiences curiosity and tempt them to read on.(17) why not let the worlds largest real estate sales organization help you? these rhetorical questions can be regarded as more cautious, indirect ways of calling to action than imperative sentences, but their persuasive power is greater.2.2 features of advertisement headlinemany people consider the headline the most important element in an advertisement. the term “headline” refers to the words in the leading positio