Output file VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES DƢƠNG BÍCH THUẬN LEXICAL REITERATION IN THE LANGUAGE OF ICT PRODUCT AD[.]
VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES _ DƢƠNG BÍCH THUẬN LEXICAL REITERATION IN THE LANGUAGE OF ICT PRODUCT ADVERTISEMENTS: A COMPARATIVE STUDY IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE (LẶP TỪ VỰNG TRONG NGÔN NGỮ QUẢNG CÁO SẢN PHẨM CÔNG NGHỆ THÔNG TIN VÀ TRUYỀN THÔNG: NGHIÊN CỨU SO SÁNH ANH-VIỆT) M.A Minor thesis Field: English Linguistics Code: 60 22 15 Hanoi-2012 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES _ DƢƠNG BÍCH THUẬN LEXICAL REITERATION IN THE LANGUAGE OF ICT PRODUCT ADVERTISEMENTS: A COMPARATIVE STUDY IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE (LẶP TỪ VỰNG TRONG NGÔN NGỮ QẢNG CÁO SẢN PHẨM CÔNG NGHỆ THÔNG TIN VÀ TRUYỀN THÔNG: NGHIÊN CỨU SO SÁNH ANH-VIỆT) M.A Minor thesis Field: English Linguistics Code: 60 22 15 Supervisor: Dr Kiều Thi Thu Hƣơng ̣ Hanoi-2012 TABLE OF CONTENT CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALTY i ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii LIST OF FIGURES iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND CONVENTIONS v TABLE OF CONTENT vi PART I: INTRODUCTION 1 RATIONALE AIMS OF THE STUDY RESEARCH QUESTIONS METHODS OF THE STUDY SCOPE OF THE STUDY DESIGN OF THE STUDY PART II: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 1 REVIEW OF RELATED STUDIES 1.2 OVERVIEW OF ADVERTISEMENTS AND ADVERTISING LANGUAGE…6 1.2.1 Advertisement 1.2.1.1 Definition 1.2.1.2 Functions 1.2.1.3 Categories of advertisements 1.2.2 Features of advertising language 10 1.2.2.1 Lexical features 10 vi 1.2.2.2 Syntactical features 12 1.2.2.3 Rhetorical figures 12 1.3 OVERVIEW OF ICT AND ICT PRODUCT ADVERTISEMENTS 14 1.4 LEXICAL REITERATION 15 1.4.1 Definition 15 1.4.2 Classification 17 1.4.2.1 Repetition 17 1.4.2.2 Synonym or near synonym 17 1.4.2.3 Superordinate 18 1.4.2.4 General word 18 CHAPTER 2: LEXICAL REITERATION IN ICT PRODUCT ADVERTISEMENTS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE 20 2.1 LEXICAL REITERATION IN ICT PRODUCT ADVERTISEMENTS IN ENGLISH 20 2.1.1 Repetition 20 2.1.2 Synonym or near synonym 21 2.1.3 Superordinate 22 2.1.4 General word 23 2.2 LEXICAL REITERATION IN ICT PRODUCT ADVERTISEMENT IN VIETNAMESE 23 2.2.1 Repetition 23 2.2.2 Synonym or near synonym 27 2.2.3 Superordinate 27 2.2.4 General word 28 CHAPTER 3: SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES BETWEEN LEXICAL REITERATION IN ICT PRODUCT ADVERTISEMENTS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE 29 vii 3.1 SIMILARITIES 29 3.1.1 Popularity ………………………………………………………………… 29 3.1.2 Flexibility 31 3.1.3 Kind of reiterated items 33 3.1.4 Combination with other rhetorical figures 34 3.2 DIFFERENCES 34 3.2.1 Coinage in ICT product advertisements in English 34 3.2.2 Loanwords in ICT product advertisements in Vietnamese 34 PART III: CONCLUSION 36 RECAPITULATIONS 36 1.1 Popularity 36 1.2 Flexible use 36 1.3 High reiterating frequency of brand names and striking features of ICT products 36 1.4 Diverse combination with other rhetorical figures 36 1.5 Different choices in making creative advertisements of ICT products 37 IMPLICATIONS 37 LIMITATIONS 37 SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY 38 REFERENCES I APPENDIXES VI APPENDIX VI APPENDIX X viii PART I: INTRODUCTION This session carries the goal of providing the readers an overview of the study, consisting of the reason why the author chose this thesis, the aims of the study, the research questions, the method, the scope and the design of the study RATIONALE The term “global village” first appeared in “Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man”, a work by McLuhan (1964:106) to describe closer contact between different parts of the world, with increasing possibilities of personal exchange, mutual understanding and friendship between “world citizens,” as well as creation of a global civilization Indeed, information and communication technology (ICT) is breaking through geographical barriers and distance, integrating the entire world into a village We now have access to information about global events and news as and when they occur In the 14th minute of the EURO 2012 Final, Andrés Iniesta got the ball and passed it to Cesc Fàbregas Cecs beat Giorgio Chiellini to the end line and then passed the ball to Silva This player headed it into the upper left corner, giving Spain a 1-0 lead We definitely saw all of these simultaneously with all spectators at the Olympic stadium thanks to a TV, an Internet-connected personal computer or a smart phone of any kind Distance has obviously become a thing of the past Everything not only comes closer but also rolls faster Something modern today may get out of date right the next day Generations of personal computers, from desktop and then laptop to tablet PCs or versions of iPhone developed one by one are examples of this fast-changing world No one wants to be lag behind We, therefore, should keep pace with the development of the ICT world Luckily, information about these products is nowhere but right around us, in advertisements of all kinds Right from morning till night we come across a number of advertisements in newspapers, in magazines, on the roads, in shops, on the radio, TV and the Internet In fact, no mater where we are, at home, at work or away on holiday, we can not refuse to encounter them However, because of their massive popularity, we often take them for granted and rarely thoughts of advertising origin or language pop into our mind though they deserve some recognition Thus, this paper seeks to make some investigation into the language of advertisements of ICT products or lexical reiteration in the language of ICT product advertisements in English and Vietnamese, specifically As such, the use of lexical reiteration in the language of ICT product advertisements in the two languages will be compared to facilitate our catching up the message of an advertisement in this field AIMS OF THE STUDY This study is targeted at: 2.1 Investigating how many subtypes of lexical reiteration are used in the language of ICT product advertisements in English and Vietnamese 2.2 Pointing out some similarities and differences between lexical reiteration in the language of ICT product advertisements in English and Vietnamese RESEARCH QUESTIONS When conducting this paper, I would like to address two following research questions: 3.1 How many subtypes of lexical reiteration are employed in the language of ICT product advertisements in English and Vietnamese? 3.2 What are the similarities and differences in lexical reiteration in the language of ICT product advertisements in English and Vietnamese? METHODS OF THE STUDY The study is a descriptive investigation because it “involves a collection of techniques used to specify, delineate, or describe naturally occurring phenomena without experimental manipulation” (Seliger & Shohamy, 1989:124) This research type aims to “find out more about a phenomenon”, here lexical reiteration in the language of advertisements of ICT products in English and Vietnamese and “capture it with detailed information” (Wisker, 2001: 118) First, the study explores which subtypes of lexical reiteration appear in advertisements of ICT products in English in Vietnamese and sees what is often reiterated in such ads Second, it examines measures of frequency, here, of the occurrence of the subtypes of lexical reiteration in English and Vietnamese advertisements of ICT products Thus, this study uses a combination of both qualitative and quantitative methods to answer its two research questions Moreover, comparative and contrastive methods are utilized to point out the similarities and differences in the use of lexical reiteration in the language of ICT product advertisements in English and Vietnamese As for data collection, 30 English advertisements of ICT products and 30 others in Vietnamese are picked at random from magazines like “Maximum PC”, “PC World Việt Nam - Thế Giới Vi Tính”, “Thế Giới Số” and “Tin Học Đời Sống” issued from 2008 up to now and on the Internet, mostly homepages of ICT products, accessed at the same period of time, are taken into consideration Next, advertisements which make use of lexical reiteration in each language are gathered into different groups, namely repetition, synonym or near synonym, superordinate and general word (i.e four subtypes of lexical reiteration as classified by Halliday and Hasan, 1976: 278) and taken into consideration in separate sessions To find out the popularity and frequency of lexical reiteration subtypes used in English and Vietnamese advertisements of ICT products, advertisements with this means of lexical cohesion will be enumerated and classified into its groups Necessary measurement will be conducted to find out the proportion of each group in each language The steps of the study are in the order as follows: Collect 30 ICT product advertisements in English and Vietnamese respectively from magazines or the Internet Pick out ICT product advertisements with lexical reiteration in each language Classify them into different groups on the basis of lexical reiteration subtypes they fall into Work out the similarities of reiterated items in these advertisements Point out their differences SCOPE OF THE STUDY Within the scope of this study, just lexical reiteration classified by M.A.K Halliday and Hasan (1976:278) is taken into consideration The study makes no efforts to cover advertisements of all kinds in English and Vietnamese but ICT product advertisements in the magazines and on the Internet in these two languages only DESIGN OF THE STUDY Part I: Introduction represents the rationales, the aims, the research questions, the methods, the scope, and the design of the study Part II: Development Chapter presents the theoretical background of the study Chapter explores lexical reiteration in Vietnamese and English advertisements of ICT products Chapter points out several similarities and differences between lexical reiteration used in Vietnamese and English advertisements of ICT products Part III: Conclusion sums up the study outcomes, points out the implications and limitations of the study as well as suggests ideas for further research PART II: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER THEORETICAL BACKGROUND This first chapter presents an overview of advertisements, advertising language, ICT and lexical reiteration Understanding this background knowledge will prepare us in the investigation presented in the latter chapter where lexical reiteration in the language of ICT product advertisements in English and Vietnamese is explored 1 REVIEW OF RELATED STUDIES Together with the pervasion of advertisements, more and more studies have been conducted to explore advertising language in general and that of ICT product advertisements in particular Leech (1966) examines standard advertising language in his research “English in Advertising: A Linguistic Study of Advertising in Great Britain” According to Leech, disjunctive grammar, the low frequency of function words, complexity of nominal groups and simplicity of verbal groups are some of the most distinctive properties of advertising language Dyer (1982) investigates advertising as a kind of communication in modern societies, which involves both cultural and economic context for discussion Cook (1992) investigates the discourse of advertising He offers a comprehensive introduction to advertising discourse by examining the language of complementary advertisements Vietnamese scholars also work on advertising language and its features from different perspectives Mai (2000) carries out his doctoral dissertation in advertising language, laying the foundation for a number of studies worked on later In this dissertation, he studies major features of advertising language in light of communicative theory (semanticsapplied linguistics of advertisements discourses) Nguyen (2004) conducts a study on cohesive devices in ICT advertisements to fulfill her M.A course in English linguistics She works out cohesive devices in ICT advertisements, realizes the meaning of these devices in ICT advertisements and finds out features of ICT ads to catch up the main message Ton (2005) continues on this topic by investigating the discourse analysis of travel advertisements in English and Vietnamese She points out lexico-grammatical and textual features which are the characteristic of the travel advertisements in English and Vietnamese in order to improve Vietnamese advertisements and help them meet both commercial and cultural ends as well as to effectively adapt the travel advertisements written in English by the Vietnamese professionals to meet English speaking target readership The most recent research on this issue was carried out by Bui (2012) who analyzes linguistic features of advertising language used in English slogans for food and drink products on the phonological, lexical, semantic and syntactic levels 1.2 OVERVIEW OF ADVERTISEMENTS AND ADVERTISING LANGUAGE 1.2.1 Advertisement 1.2.1.1 Definition The term “advertisement” owes its origin to the classical Latin word “advertere” which means “to turn” or to “face to”, using the Latin prefix “ad-” (to, in addition), derived from the word “vertere” (to turn; turn, turn around; change) (Retrieved from http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=advertise&allowed_in_frame=0) Later on, it became a term employed to indicate whatever draws attention or informs something There are different definitions of advertisements Lord and Thomas (1900:9) gave the very first definition which was considered to change the history of advertising i.e advertisements were “salesmanship on paper” This definition was provided a long time before the advertisements of radio, television and the Internet came into being, so it is inappropriate in modern time In addition, advertisements may be considered “a public notice designed to spread information with a view to promoting the sales of marketable goods and services” (Vestergard and Schroder, 1985:2) or “paid public messages designed to describe or praise a product” by Arjun Kumar Bhatia (2000:273) These definitions are not perfect, either, sadly speaking, because it is quite easy to find many non-paid or non-marketable things advertised like a volunteer environmental protection campaign Oxford Advanced Learner‟s dictionary (2003: 23) defines “advertisement” as “a notice, picture or film telling people about a product, job or service” This definition indicates that an advertisement can take a wide range of forms, and not only products but also jobs or services are advertisement targets However, it does not cover all the aspects of an advertisement; it states the form and the purpose of an advertisement only According to the American Marketing Association (AMA), an advertisement is “Any announcement or persuasive message placed in the mass media in paid or donated time or space by an identified individual, company, or organization” (Retrieved from http://www.marketingpower.com/_layouts/Dictionary.aspx) Four features of an advertisement can be pointed out from this definition First of all, advertisements either inform or influence the consumer to take certain action Second, the message is conveyed through many different kinds of mass media with the target of reaching a large audience of potential consumers Third, advertisements can be paid for or at no charge Finally, the sponsor is identified Therefore, compared to others, the definition offered by the AMA seems to be most precise and comprehensive There is another point that we should notice when exploring the language of advertisements People often define advertising along with the term “marketing” or PR (public relations) Advertising is not marketing; rather, it is another tactic, besides PR, that is used by marketers to communicate messages to their customers and other stakeholders 1.2.1.2 Functions An advertisement informs, persuades, and/or reminds customers of business and organizational offerings such as products, services, campaigns, jobs and so on Ogden and Rarick (2010:2) point out that advertising can create an immediate response (e.g., “only two days left in the sale”) or can be used to keep the product and/or business/organization‟s name in front of the consumers so that they remember the product, service, or organization when they are out shopping Advertising should attempt to develop product or company loyalty, provide information to ease the customer‟s decision-making process, and develop awareness among the targeted group about potential offerings that are available to consumers In short, advertising aims at benefiting the producer, educating the consumer and supplementing the salesmen Above all, it is a link between the producer and the consumer 1.2.1.3 Categories of advertisements There are a number of ways to classify advertisements into different categories In this study I would like to take the most popular criterion into consideration i.e means of advertising According to http://www.businessdictionary.com, advertising media are “the means through which advertisements are delivered to the target audience”, using words, speech, and pictures such as press, television, radio, billboards, the Internet, etc Hoang (2005) presents different means of advertisements with their own pros and cons Major means pointed out in her study can be described in brief in the table below MEDIUM ADVANTAGES DISADVANTAGES Large audience reaching in short High cost, especially at Television time special time and channels Vivid messages conveyed by Short exposure using visuals, language, sound and motion simultaneously Wide coverage No visual impact on the Modest cost 2.Radio No target market extensive preparation of tangible illustration Internet A wide variety of information Lack of intrusiveness Low cost Possibility of links‟ being Ability to reach a global audience Magazine Ability to reach ignored specific target Greatly high cost audience Capability of showcasing the products with sophisticated images and full-color, glossy format Newspaper Wide circulation and the degree of Short life span of ads frequency accessible to the Uncertainty audience (published daily) ads in specific date Featuring sections and articles for Difficulty certain advertising items mailing readers or small font words More information No for when an ad has long text Low cost Direct the desired audience will see Ability to reach large audience that Possibility of mails‟ being competing advertised product unchecked or marked as spam No restriction in time, size, High cost color Figure 1: Advantages and disadvantages of means of advertising 1.2.2 Features of advertising language Advertisers use various linguistic means at their disposal to attract target audience‟s attention Within the scope of this study, a small number of these linguistics features in advertisements are discussed briefly and separately 1.2.2.1 Lexical features This session deals with lexical features of word using in advertisements, including the use of monosyllabic verbs, weasel words, favorable words, personal pronouns and neologism as presented by Zhu (2006) o Use of monosyllabic verbs A simple advertisement is intended not only to arouse the reader‟s attention and interest, but also to make consumers remember it right after the first time they heard it The most common way of reaching this is using popular monosyllabic verbs E.g “Have a break, have a Kit Kat.” (Kit Kat advertisement) o Use of weasel words The expression “weasel word” is aptly named after the egg-eating habits of weasels A weasel will suck out the inside of an egg, leaving it appear intact to the casual observer Upon examination, the egg is discovered to be hollow Words or claims that appear substantial and attractive upon only first look are called “weasel words.” Those words are made great use in advertisements Commonly used weasel words include “help”, “acts”, “works”, “up to”, “as much as”, “refreshes”, “comforts”, “fights” and so fourth E.g “Probably the best beer in the world.” (Carlsberg advertisement) o Use of favorable words As the purpose of advertising is to describe the quality of products, favorable words, especially adjectives, are often employed in advertisements 10 E.g “Toshiba Leading Innovation.” (Toshiba advertisement) o Use of personal pronouns The use of personal pronouns is extremely common, especially “you” and “we” in order to narrow the gap between the advertiser and the reader E.g “We live to deliver.” (FedEx advertisement) o Neologism The creativity of advertising language is best seen in its extensive use of neologismsthe introduction or use of new words or new senses of existing words Generally, neologisms can be categorized as coinage, anagrammatic spelling, and loanwords． Coinage New words or phrases created by means of imitation are not rarely seen in English ads Such newly-coined words and phrases may suggest that the product advertised possesses peculiar qualities as well as the value of novelty E.g “Hi-fi, Hi-fun, Hi-fashion, only from Sony.” (Sony Audio advertisement) Anagrammatic spelling Due to the great number of ads, it is unquestionably important for the advertiser to make his advertising text unusual and memorable He can this by using unexpected letter, such as -q,-x, or -z, or deliberately altering the spelling of words For example, the slogan of an ad by Heinz has been put this way “Beanz Meanz Heinz” (Heinz baked beans advertisement) Loanwords If an advertisement emphasizes the product‟s quality or the origin abroad, loanwords would be the best choice for it E.g “Order it in bottles or in canners 11 Perrier with added je ne sais quoi.” (Perrier beer advertisement) The manufacturer uses a sentence with French words at the end, “je ne sais quoi” (“I don‟t know what”) in order to stress the French flavor of this beverage 1.2.2.2 Syntactical features As a special branch of language, advertising language should be concise and attractive simultaneously with certain syntactical characteristics This part will cover sentential and clausal features employed in advertisements as stated by Zhu (2006) o Sentences A large number of simple sentences can be found in advertisements Complex ones are infrequently selected because they will easily make readers feel bored E.g “The future‟s bright The future‟s Orange.” (Orange advertisement) o Clauses The disjunctive clause which separates a long, complex sentence into several simple ones by using full stop, dash, semi-colon, hyphen, etc is the most frequently employed in advertisements Those sentences are independent in form but are related in content The separated parts are usually the features of the product, so that they could emphasize the good points of the product This is the ad of Amtrak-a rail corporation in the United States- which successfully exploited disjunctive clauses: “Amtrak has created a new Nationwide passenger rail system Literally from the ground up A system that represented a viable alternative for people who fly For business or pleasure.” (Amtrak advertisement) 1.2.2.3 Rhetorical figures Rhetorical figures are often used to make the speech or writing vivid, impressive and interesting For this reason, advertisers often use various figures of rhetoric, including 12 repetition, reversal, substitution and destabilization as presented by Luu (2010) to increase the appeal of an advertisement and to arouse consumers‟ interest of buying the product Frequently used figures of rhetoric are repetition, reversal and substitution will be discussed briefly in the following part o Repetition Repetition- saying something again- especially those of key words or sentences in advertisements is used intentionally to emphasize what is being advertised For examples: “Double your pleasure Double your fun It's the right one, the Doublemint gum.” (Double mint gum advertisement) o Reversal As McQuarrie & Mick (1996) put it, “The rhetorical operation of reversal combines elements that are mirror images of one another in an expression A characteristic of a mirror image, of course, is that it repeats the original, but in reverse […] The English language permits semantic as well as syntactic reversals, in the form of binary pairs in which one term might be thought of as the reverse or opposite of the other (i.e high/low, easy/tough)” This rhetorical figure can easily found in many advertisements Note how, in Tide advertisement, the parallelism is created to make a simple but effective slogan E.g “Tide‟s in Dirt‟s out.” (Tide advertisement) o Substitution The two authors McQuarrie & Mick (1996) also state, “The rhetorical operation of substitution selects an expression that requires an adjustment by the message recipient, aimed at grasping the intended content.” 13 Three dimensions were pertinent to the analysis of advertising language include: exaggerated/understated claims (e.g., hyperbole); absence/plenitude of expression elements (e.g., ellipsis) and strong/weak assertive force (e.g., rhetorical question) E.g “Adds amazing luster for infinite, mirror-like shine.” (Brilliant Brunette shampoo advertisement) Here in this advertisement, the adman exaggerates the quality of his shampoo by saying that it‟s going to bring customers smooth hair with “infinite, mirror-like shine” 1.3 OVERVIEW OF ICT AND ICT PRODUCT ADVERTISEMENTS ICT stands for Information and Communication Technology It is no longer an unfamiliar concept However, there is not a universally accepted definition of ICT Why is that so? Because the concepts, methods and applications involved in ICT are constantly evolving on an almost daily basis It is difficult to keep up with the changes - they happen with an incredible pace As mentioned at the beginning of this study, something modern today may get out of date right the next day Let us focus on the three words behind ICT, i.e information, communication and technology only From these words, we can see that a good way to think about ICT is to consider all the uses of all technologies to help individuals, businesses and organizations use information and communicate with each other As such, ICT covers any product that will store, retrieve, manipulate, transmit or receive information electronically and serve our communication such as computers, television, telephones, emails, robots, softwares, hardwares, applications and so on But it is worth remembering that when you use your computer to play Solitaire, it is, of course, not the use of ICT because in this process, no information is handled or no communication takes place ICT plays a key role in business today In fact, its use is now so widespread that it is difficult to succeed without it Rapid developments in the ICT sector in the last two decades have produced a huge range of new products and services These include 14 products such as personal computers (PCs), notebooks and fax machine, and services such as e-mail, intranet and Internet Business of all types and sizes use computerbased systems like these because they offer way to work – one which saves time and money ICT is also employed in other fields of the society like education with elearning; politics with governmental e-conferences, economy with e-commerce, and entertainment with music live shows, etc It is, in fact, penetrating into all corners of life to all walks of life and getting known mostly through advertising This study makes no attempt to define an advertisement of ICT product because it doesn‟t make much sense but how to get the message that an ICT ad convey and its roles in the sector as well the society does The advertisements can introduce, modify or declare a new product/application/service in ICT field All advertisements of ICT products exploit technical terms of ICT The wording in these advertisements tends to be simple but exact, which proves to be the language of a branch of natural sciences Moreover, images and sounds are taken great use of in ads of this field We‟ll further explore this in the next chapter of the study to have a better insight in advertisements of ICT products 1.4 LEXICAL REITERATION 1.4.1 Definition Halliday & Hasan (1976:324) propose four types of cohesive relation as presented in the table below Representation in linguistic system Semantic Lexicogrammatical Type of (typically) cohesive relation Conjunction Additive, causal relations, adversative, Discourse adjuncts: and temporal adverbial external 15 groups, and prepositional groups ... differences in the use of lexical reiteration in the language of ICT product advertisements in English and Vietnamese As for data collection, 30 English advertisements of ICT products and 30 others in. .. this paper seeks to make some investigation into the language of advertisements of ICT products or lexical reiteration in the language of ICT product advertisements in English and Vietnamese,... 3.2 What are the similarities and differences in lexical reiteration in the language of ICT product advertisements in English and Vietnamese? METHODS OF THE STUDY The study is a descriptive investigation