A discourse analysis of english commercial advertisements

THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES TRAN THI HOAI LINH A DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF ENGLISH COMMERCIAL ADVERTISEMENTS M.A THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 8220201 THAI NGUYEN - 2021 Tai ngay!!! Ban co the xoa dong chu nay!!! THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES TRAN THI HOAI LINH A DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF ENGLISH COMMERCIAL ADVERTISEMENTS M.A THESIS (APPLICATION ORIENTATION) Field: English Liguistic Code: 8220201 Supervisor: Le Van Canh, Assoc Prof THAI NGUYEN - 2021 ĐẠI HỌC THÁI NGUYÊN TRƯỜNG NGOẠI NGỮ TRẦN THỊ HỒI LINH PHÂN TÍCH DIỄN NGƠN TIẾNG ANH QUẢNG CÁO THƯƠNG MẠI LUẬN VĂN THẠC SĨ (Định hướng ứng dụng) Ngành: Ngôn ngữ Anh Mã số: 8220201 Cán hướng dẫn: PGS.TS Lê Văn Canh THÁI NGUYÊN - 2021 DECLARATION I declare that this thesis entitled “A discourse analysis of English commercial advertisements” is an original work done by me for the degree of Master of Arts in School of Foreign Languages, Thai Nguyen University I also declare that this thesis has not been submitted for award of any degree, diploma, title or recognition before Approved by Supervisor Thai Nguyen, April 2021 Signature Assoc Prof Le Van Canh Tran Thi Hoai Linh i ACKNOWLEDGEMENT First of all, I would like to express my special thanks of gratitude to my supervisor Assoc prof Le Van Canh, who has guided me throughout the process of the master thesis He always creates the best conditions for me, allows me to express my opinions, and at the same time gives comments, suggestions, guides me in the right research direction Secondly, I would also like to thank the teachers in Thai Nguyen University of Foreign Languages who imparted in-depth knowledge of their subjects during the course of study so that I have a great foundation of knowledge to support the process present thesis I also want to express my deep thanks to Dr Nguyen Thi Hong Minh, who is my sister as well as my boss for facilitating, encouraging me throughout the research process Finally, I would like to thank my family and friends for always supporting and encouraging me throughout the years of studying and writing this thesis Limitations and shortcomings are indispensable in the thesis I hope to receive many valuable contributions from the teachers to further improve the topic and have practical meaning to apply in real life Thank you very much! ii ABSTRACT With the rapid development of the world economy, the diversification of products in the same industry makes manufacturers think about how to make their products stand out and be known to customers, thereby advertisement also development and is associated with the development of the product The purpose of advertisement is to convince potential customers to buy their products with impressive language, so advertisers are very careful in choosing words In order to compete with many other similar advertisement messages and achieve high advertisement efficiency, advertisers always use a variety of language means to attract the reader’s attention, spark desire and promote their actions In this thesis, advertising is analyzed from aspects of structural and lexical discourse according to MAK Halliday’s approach to linguistic functions Accordingly, the emphasis on the social function of the language is an important factor for success in advertising In order to convey their ideas and product features, advertisers have used language as the primary means of communication, connecting people with their products We can prove that advertisement is an art where advertisers must be very intelligent and knowledgeable about the language At the same time shows the diversity of languages Key words: discourse analysis, commercial advertisements, discourse strategies, linguistic features iii LIST OF TABLES Table 1: The factors that make the text cohesion Table 2: The processes of empirical meaning Table 3: Criteria to classify advertisement Table 4: Types and characteristics of advertisement Table 5: The purposes of non – commercial advertisement Table 1: The rate of lexical features used in the English commercial advertisements Table 2: Verbs used in advertisements Table 3: Adjectives used in advertisements Table 4: Personal pronouns in advertisements Table 5: The imperative sentences in advertisements Table 6: The ellipses in advertisements Table 7: The Passive voice in advertisements Table 8: The affiliate methods are used in advertising templates Table 9: The reference in advertisements Table 10: The conjunction in advertisements Table 11: The lexical cohesion in English advertisements Table 12: The lexical cohesion in each English advertisement fields iv LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: US advertisement media market sizes 2016 v 2020 from website https://www.marketingcharts.com/featured-68214 Figure 2: US advertisement media market sizes ($B), 2020 v 2024 from website https://www.marketingcharts.com/advertisement-trends-114887 Figure 3: outdoor advertisement example from website https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2020/02/26/out-of-home-advertisement Figure 4: Native advertisement example from website https://www.elle.com/beauty/makeup-skin-care/a19548817/what-is-dermarolling/ Figure 5: An advertisement example from the website https://www.tesco.com/ Figure 6: An example of from the website https://www.saga.vn Figure 7: An example of from the website https://www.verizon.com v TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION i ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ii ABSTRACT iii LIST OF TABLES .iv LIST OF FIGURES v CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale 1.2 Aims and objectives of the study .2 1.3 Research questions .2 1.4 Scope of the study 1.5 Design of the study CHAPTER LITERATURE REVIEW .4 2.1 Discourse and discourse analysis .4 2.1.1 Definitions of discourse 2.1.2 Definition of discourse analysis 2.1.3 Context 2.1.4 Thematization 2.1.5 Cohesion 2.2 Text and characterization of the text in discourse analysis 2.3 Grammatical factors in discourse analysis .10 2.3.1 The role of grammar in discourse analysis 10 2.3.2 The empirical meaning across systems of process types 10 2.3.3 Personal factors in the mood structure 11 vi 2.3.4 2.4 Meaningful text through thematic structures 12 Advertisement 12 2.4.1 Definition of advertisement 12 2.4.2 Classification of advertisement .13 2.4.2.1 Commercial advertisement 18 2.4.2.2 Non – commercial advertisement 20 2.4.3 2.5 Objectives of advertisement 21 Linguistic features in English commercial advertisements 22 2.5.1 Vocabulary aspect 22 2.5.2 Rhetorical devices 26 2.5.3 Discourse strategies used in advertisements 26 CHAPTER III: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY .28 3.1 Research methods .28 3.2 Data source .30 3.3 Data analysis techniques 31 CHAPTER IV: FINDING AND DISCUSSION 34 4.1 Lexical features: .34 4.1.1 Verbs .35 4.1.2 Adjectives .36 4.1.3 Personal pronouns 37 4.2 Syntactic features .39 4.2.1 Imperative sentences .39 4.2.2 Ellipsis in declarative sentences 40 4.2.3 Passive and active voice .41 vii When analyzing each advertising industry clearly, we see a difference between the rates of using the conjunction as shown in the table below: No Advertisement fields Beauty Food Household appliances Occurrence times/ 10 advertisements times/ 13 advertisements times/ 22 advertisements Rate 20% 7,69% 22,73% Table 10: The conjunction in advertisements Looking at the table above it is clear that, in the food field, advertisers limit the use of conjunctions Instead, the household appliances field uses the most conjunctions in its advertising (22,73%) With the need to clearly state product features, household appliances advertisements give preference to listing in advertisements That is why the use of the conjugate is necessary for products that require details and complex explanations Look at the following example: “The new RIMOWA Essential colours include Coral, inspired by Pink Lake in Western Australia; and Sage, reflects the green shades of the Lake District in northeast England.” When it is necessary to introduce a lot of information in an advertisement, the writer needs to include links in the article to link the information In this sentence the conjunctions “and” are used 4.3.2 Lexical cohesion The most commonly used lexical cohesion in advertisement is word repetition According to Halliday and Hasan, reiteration includes repetition, synonyms, metaphors, and general words However, for the purposes of unification in analysis, 45 only three types of reiteration, including repetition, synonym and metaphor, are exploited The repeated use of words as a tool for lexical cohesion in English advertisement is shown in the following table: Detail Reiteration Occurrence Rate Repetition 11/45 advertisements 24,44% Synonym 2/45 advertisements 4.44% Metaphor 9/45 advertisements 20% Table 11: The lexical cohesion in English advertisements It can be seen that the use of repeating words is very common in English advertising (24,44%), using word repetition helps customers remember and be more impressed with the product, increasing the effectiveness of the advertisements Metaphors are also used in advertising According to advertisers, using metaphors can be effective at both the thinking and emotional levels, so they are very important for brand communication The more emotional depth a brand creates for customer, the more customer understand and easily become loyal customers of that brand Metaphors must be based on the true core values of the brand, otherwise they will be simply fancy lies That cannot tie the long-term relationship between a brands to a customer It is abstract but diverse and it can be expressed in words or images Advertisers will often make full use of metaphors in their advertising For example: in advertising “It’ll blow your mind away” with the image of a girl eating Burger King Although not mentioning the Burger King that “blow your mind away” but there are opinions that viewers will be curious and appealing about the taste of that Burger 46 Use of the lexical cohesion is also different for each advertising field Look below the table below to see the difference in usage: Advertisement fields Occurrence and Beauty Food (10 (13 advertisements) advertisements) Rate Household appliances (22 advertisements) Repetition times/ 20% times/ 30,77% times/ 22,73% Synonym 0 times/ 9,09% Metaphor times/ 23,08% times/ 27,27% Table 12: The lexical cohesion in each English advertisement fields Looking at the table above can show that, for the beauty field, advertisers mostly use repetition as the lexical cohesion method in their advertisements As for the other two fields, repetition is also a popular method and is more applicable than the rest of the lexical cohesion methods 4.4 Visual elements in the advertisements In advertisement, images are a very important factor in determining the likelihood of customers paying attention to advertisement or not? If the image that advertiser choose is not really appealing from the first time customers see it, no matter how good content is, the advertisements of customers will just glance without stopping to read or click to find out That is why out of 45 advertisement samples, 100% of the samples used images in their advertisements In each advertisement field, advertisers will use content related to the advertisement product such as: + Beauty field: use the images of women, especially beautiful girls to represent product According to statistics on 10 advertisement samples, only advertisement does not use a model as an advertisement image, but only a product image 47 + Food field: use the images in which the product is in the state of being used, combined with the facial expression of the model to reveal the authenticity of the product, bring more emotions to the viewers, they can feel like myself using that product, creating more trust with customers + Household appliances fields: Usually not use images of people in advertising, instead, home appliance advertisement use only images of the product to showcase their products In addition to the factors mentioned above, advertisers often avoid using too sexy images, avoid putting logos of other major brands on photos to avoid censorship when posting on other media 48 CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION 5.1 Conclusion This study does not focus on discursive analytical theory however, it highlights the fact that discursive analysis is an effective tool in using linguists, especially advertisement language The thesis has pointed out some typical characteristics of English commercial advertisements about the structure, the tendency to use certain types of coherence to create coherence, as well as the types of topics used From analyzing 45 English advertisements samples in three different fields, I came to the following findings: + In terms of the structure, English advertisement discourse uses a 10 step dialogue structure including Target Market, Product Explanation, Product Description, Reputation, Verification, Motivation, Pressure Tips, Get Feedback, Title, and Slogan / Logo The advertisement writer designs a layout of words and images that are appropriate to the customer’s reading and understanding, such as the part of images and words placed above or to the left of the ad discourse is information old, and the images and words placed below and to the right of the advertisement discourse are new information + In terms of the lexical and grammar figure of advertisement discourse in English: the writer uses a large number or verb in advertisement (73,33%) These verbs represent products in many fields in many different ways: to care for, to protect, to help and to treat Their main difference, however, is shown in appearance rates between verbs that denote the benefit of the product in the advertisement We also see adjectives used a lot in advertisement (64,44%) However, the most used field for adjectives in advertising is beauty (210%) In addition, the advertisement writer breaks the standards in the language to create a break or standard deviation to create eye-catching advertisements, attract attention, and persuade the advertisement recipient to buy products or services Adjectives are used in the comparative and superlative form And according to statistics show that only positive adjectives are used rather than negative adjectives This indicates a tendency for 49 advertisers to want to make a pleasant impression on people who read these advertisements + The use of personal pronouns, specifically the first and second pronouns in English advertising, is quite common (46.67%) It is noteworthy that the total number of pronouns found in the Food advertisement is the largest of the three research advertising fields (53.85%) Furthermore, second-person pronouns in advertising account for a larger proportion than first-person pronouns + Regarding the syntactic features, the thesis mentions the following specific characteristics: imperative sentences, ellipsis in declarations and active and passive voice The tendency is that the affirmative imperative is preferred over the negative Especially the tendency to use the affirmative imperative in the food field is used more than the other (46,15%) Along with the imperative, the simple sentence, and the ellipsis in the declaration show that advertisers tend to use sentences with a simple syntax that makes a strong impression on readers Simple sentences are used by advertisers to talk about product benefits, useful features, and actions + Coherence in English advertisement discourse is mostly coherence outward Advertisers exploit external or non-verbal elements combined with language to help create coherent advertisement discourse The reader must explain the combination of both linguistic and non-verbal elements to fully and correctly understand the advertisement information Advertisers must focus on cultural factors to design content and images to suit local culture, especially advertisements with a global advertisement strategy 5.2 Implication With the researches in this thesis, I hope to help the advertiser in creating advertisement products of high artistic value and high communication efficiency Not only that, but the study of the discourse in the advertisement also helps the advertiser understand what the customer wants, thereby conveying the advertisement content for the right purpose and focus that customers want to see in the product There is no 50 denying that it is difficult to write an effective advertisement because, in order to achieve the goal of the advertisement, the message must appeal to the target audience Therefore, we recommend that advertisers pay attention to some of the typical features identified in this study as they demonstrate the importance of grammatical binding devices to create coherence of discourse is important to an advertisement Thus, these mounted devices should be handled by careful advertisement writing Besides, the choice of topic type is an important factor to attract readers, so advertisers are also very considerate Although these are just a few suggestions for advertisers, we hope that we can contribute a small part in studying advertisement language to help advertisers in creating an effective advertisement From the analysis of English advertisement discourse, the thesis has contributed theoretical and practical values to the field of analyzing English advertisement discourse The thesis also gives suggestions for teaching foreign languages related to the topic of an advertisement + For the teacher: the thesis will provide the necessary language for analyzing advertisement discourse such as structure, vocabulary, grammar The research results of the thesis contribute to clarify the theories of functional grammar, determine the effectiveness of applying this theory to the research and teaching of topics related to advertisement discourse in English Through the forms of discourse in advertisements, teachers can show students specific features of the language, thereby helping students to have a different view of English + For students: through the thesis, learners will be provided with a lot of knowledge related to discourse and discourse analysis Help them have a good framework so that in the future when working in the field of advertisement and marketing, students will apply the knowledge, create good advertisement, are valuable and relevant to the culture 5.3 Limitations of the study Because of the limited time and translation COVID - 19 from the beginning of the year 2020, finding the advertisements from the newspaper made me difficult The 51 average newspaper in 2019 has 5-6 advertisement articles, by 2020 a newspaper will only have about advertisement articles This narrows the analytical data presented in the thesis Discourse analysis is a very broad field, in which there are many different small areas Due to lack of time, references as well as limited language knowledge, my research still has certain limitations My research mainly focuses on semiotic features such as communication function, the combination of language, music, images in advertisement, and style, so it has not reached the depth as expected The cultural differences make it impossible for me to fully understand many aspects of the English advertisement style 5.4 Suggestions for further research The dissertation only focuses on some discursive characteristics from the perspective of Semiotics such as communication function, vocabulary, grammar used in advertisement Besides, since the topic is used as advertisement in general, not focusing on a certain advertisement area, for example: beauty care, food or drinks, the analysis is not in-depth From the above limitation, we would like to give some suggestions for further research as follows: Discourse analysis of advertisement in English in a certain field An investigation of the level of 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