a comparative analysis on the discourse of american and vietnamese movie trailers = so sánh đối chiếu đặc điểm diễn ngôn quảng cáo phim mỹ và phim việt

Linguistic features of Vietnamese movie trailers and a comparison between American and Vietnamese movie trailers‟ linguistic features ……… 3.2.1.. The aims The principal purpose of this

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES

NGUYỄN THỊ HỒNG HÀ

A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS ON THE DISCOURSE

OF AMERICAN AND VIETNAMESE MOVIE

TRAILERS

SO SÁNH ĐỐI CHIẾU ĐẶC ĐIỂM DIỄN NGÔN QUẢNG CÁO

PHIM MỸ VÀ PHIM VIỆT

M.A COMBINED PROGRAMME THESIS

FIELD: LINGUISTICS

CODE: 60 22 15

HANOI – 2011

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES

NGUYỄN THỊ HỒNG HÀ

A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS ON THE DISCOURSE

OF AMERICAN AND VIETNAMESE MOVIE

TRAILERS

SO SÁNH ĐỐI CHIẾU ĐẶC ĐIỂM DIỄN NGÔN QUẢNG CÁO

PHIM MỸ VÀ PHIM VIỆT M.A COMBINED PROGRAMME THESIS

FIELD: LINGUISTICS

CODE: 60 22 15

SUPERVISOR: NGUYỄN HÒA

HANOI – 2011

Abstract

Acknowledgements ………

Table of contents ………

PART A: INTRODUCTION ………

1 Rationale ………

2 The aims and scope of the study ………

3 The research questions ………

4 Methodology………

5 Significance of the study ………

6 Design of the study ………

PART B: DEVELOPMENT ………

Chapter I: Theoretical background ………

1 Theories of discourse ………

1.1 The concept of discourse ………

1.2 Discourse analysis ………

1.3 The functions of language ………

1.4 Register and genre in discourse analysis ………

1.4.1 Register ………

1.4.2 Genre ………

1.4.3 Register and genre in discourse analysis ………

1.4.4 Advertisements as “style”, “register” and “genre” ………

1.5 The language of advertising ………

1.5.1 Definition of advertising ………

1.5.2 Functions of advertising ………

1.5.3 A model of advertising process ………

1.5.4 General features of advertising language ………

1.6 Movie trailer ………

1.6.1 What is a movie trailer? ………

1.6.2 History of movie trailers ………

1.6.3 Media used to advertise movie trailers ………

Chapter II: Features of American movie trailers ………

2.1 Structure of American movie trailers………

2.1.1 Defining discourse mode of movie trailers ………

2.1.2 Structure of American movie trailers ………

2.2 Features of language used in American movie trailers………

2.2.1 Grammatical features ………

2.2.2 Lexical features ………

2.2.3 Rhetorical features ………

2.3 Explanation of the relationship between discourse processes and socio-psychological processes in movie trailers ………

2.4 Concluding remarks ………

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3.2 Linguistic features of Vietnamese movie trailers and a comparison between

American and Vietnamese movie trailers‟ linguistic features ………

3.2.1 Grammatical features ………

3.2.2 Lexical features ………

3.2.3 Rhetorical features ………

3.3 Concluding remarks ………

PART C: CONCLUSION ………

1 Summary of the study ………

2 Summary of the main findings ………

2.1 Similarities ………

2.2 Differences ………

3 Conclusion ………

4 Implications for English language teaching and learning ………

5 Suggestions for further study ………

REFERENCES………

APPENDIX ………

53 53 57 60 65 67 67 67 67 68 69 69 70 71 I

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

The primary goal of any industry is sales – producers spare no efforts to sell as many of their products as possible The same trend can be seen in movie industry in which the product is

of a very special kind: it is “an experience of an entire show that eventually would feature

one special film that would run only for a certain period of time and be replaced by a similar – but different – movie” (Cinema Journal, Vol 29, No 3, Spring 1990)

Adapting the notion that merely supplying the movie is insufficient in new age of film development, film producers, distributors and exhibitors accept the prevailing idea that demand for a movie can be stimulated, directed and controlled by industrially produced representations To achieve the stimulation, direction and control over the demand, a very effective advertising tool – movie trailers - is used to persuade audiences to “buy” the experience of a show

In movie trailers, language is used as an effective means of conveying advertising messages It is obvious that language used in movie trailers is different from that used in other fields such as tourism, technology or law; it has its own characteristics and serves its own functions; and the task of linguists and interested people is to discover and understand these characteristics and functions for broadening human knowledge and exploiting them

to the full in human life

A number of studies have been done on advertising such as commercials or technology advertisements; however, research on movie trailers is still a new area Hence, I realize that filling this gap of knowledge is absolutely a necessity The study of movie trailers can be approached in different directions, each of which provides different aspects of knowledge

on the subject As a Vietnamese student studying English, I am determined to make a comparative analysis of Vietnamese and American movie trailers which is hoped to provide some helpful knowledge for such people who are concerned as advertisers, EFL (English as a Foreign Language) teachers and students

In short, it is clear that studying this issue is beneficial for English teaching and learning

Therefore, I decided to carry out the study:

“A comparative analysis on the discourse of American and Vietnamese movie trailers.”

2 The aims and scope of the study

2.1 The aims

The principal purpose of this study is to contribute a richer and more systematic conceptual understanding of advertising language used in movie trailers Specifically, this study focuses on finding out the structure and linguistic features of advertising language of American and Vietnamese movie trailers It identifies, studies, and compares the similarities and differences in terms of structure and linguistic features between English and Vietnamese movies trailers Besides, it helps teachers, learners, advertisers and translators to have better understanding and interpretation of movie

trailers

2.2 The scope

This study focuses on describing and presenting only the structural and linguistic features

in movie trailers and analyzing those characteristics of the two languages in American and Vietnamese movie trailers Within a limited time and knowledge, it is not my ambition to mention all issues of movie trailers such as music, sound, ect; but only discourse structure

and linguistic features of movie trailers

3 The research questions

This study seeks the answers to three research questions:

1 What structure characterizes American and Vietnamese movie trailers?

2 What are the most effective linguistic features characterizing American and Vietnamese movie trailers?

3 What are the similarities and differences between American and Vietnamese movie trailers in terms of structure and linguistic features?

4 Methodology

4.1 Methods

The descriptive method and comparative analysis have been applied to this study

+ The descriptive method

The study follows the descriptive approach as it “involves a collection of techniques used

to specify, delineate or describe naturally occurring phenomena without experimental manipulation” (Seliger & Shohamy, 1989:124) Therefore, the collection of data will be

conducted via non-intrusive and non-manipulative processes The descriptive approach provides an investigation into the frequency of the occurrence of some linguistic features

in American and Vietnamese movie trailers The aim of this type of study is to find out more about the phenomena and capture it with detailed information

+ A comparative analysis:

According to Carl (1980:18), a comparative analysis is viewed as an interlinguistic, bidirectional phenomenon which is concerned with both the form and function of language As such, comparative analysis must view language psycho-linguistically and socio-linguistically as a system to be both described and acquired

The comparative analysis is suitable for the study because it is concerned with the comparison of two subjects: Vietnamese and American movie trailers Furthermore, both the form of the language and its functions in real life are considered The analysis of movie trailers is in close relation with psychological and social basis because the language of movie trailers is only meaningful when not being separated

from these bases

4.2 Data collection and processing

50 movie trailers are collected randomly, 25 American and 25 Vietnamese trailers mainly

on the internet or some established television channels

4.3.1 In terms of discourse structure:

The analysis of discourse structure follows Labov‟s model of narrative structure According to Labov (1972), at a high level of structural analysis, a full-form narrative includes five main parts It begins with an orientation, proceeds to the complicating action, is suspended at the focus of evaluation before the resolution, concludes with the resolution and returns the listener to the present time with the coda (see the table below)

Abstract Orientation Complicating

action Climax

Evaluation

Resolution Coda Table 1: Labov‟s model of narrative structure

4.3.2 In terms of linguistic features

Linguistic features including grammatical, lexical and rhetorical features have been taken into consideration

4.3.2.1 Grammatical features

It is obvious that English and Vietnamese have different grammatical systems because Vietnamese is an analytic language while English is a morphologic-analytic one However, the writer has made an effort to find a shared coding system between language used in American movie trailers and that in Vietnamese ones and the analysis of grammatical features is based on English traditional grammar

Time reference

- In English: According to Bernard Comrie (1976:6), the semantic concept of time reference is grammaticalised in English , i.e it may have a grammatical category that expresses time reference, in which case we say that English has tenses As Fabricius-

Hansen (2006) states in "Tense", in the Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, tense is

usually indicated by a verb or modal verb In English, there are basically two tenses: present and past tense What is commonly called the future tense in English is not a true tense, but a modal construction that does not always appear (it is optional in subordinate

constructions such as I hope you (will) go tomorrow, and is prohibited with other modals

as in I can go tomorrow)

- In Vietnamese: Bernard Comrie (1976) also states that many languages (including Vietnamese) lack tense, i.e do not have grammatical time reference However, Vietnamese

can lexicalise time reference, i.e have temporal adverbials that locate situations in time

Present time reference: is expressed by “đang”, “bây giờ”, “hôm nay”, “hiện thời”… Past time reference: “đã”, “vừa mới”, “xong”, “rồi”…

Future time reference: “sẽ”, “sắp”…

Voice reference

- In English, there are two voices: active and passive The passive voice, which provides

information about the roles of different participants in an event, is formed with the

auxiliary "be" and the "-ed" participle form of the lexical verb

- In Vietnamese, like tense voice is not a recognized grammatical category and Vietnamese

can lexicalize voice reference Passive reference is expressed by “bị” or “được” However, not all sentences including “bị” or “được” are passive one Another criterion

must be based on meaning: if the recipient of the action is the subject of the sentence, it expresses passive

Mood reference

- In English, a verb phrase can also express mood, which refers to the "factual or factual status of events.” There are three moods: indicative, subjunctive and imperative

non-Indicative mood: expresses an assertion, denial, or question

Imperative mood: expresses command, prohibition, entreaty, or advice

Subjunctive mood: expresses doubt or something contrary to fact

- In Vietnamese, mood is not a grammatical category, too Mood reference is expressed by lexical elements

Indicative reference: expresses in statements, questions…

Subjunctive reference: expresses non-factual statements through “giá như, nếu, giả sử…” Imperative reference: expresses command, advice…through “hãy, cứ, đừng…”

Lexical and rhetorical phenomena are not culture-oriented, which means that these phenomena appear in any language whether it is an analytic or morphologic one

4.3.2.2 Lexical features:

First, the use of word layers including: academic words, slangs or dialects, colloquial words is investigated Then there is an analysis of the use of particular kinds of words (descriptive adjectives and adverbs, first and second person addressee and negatives)

4.3.2.3 Rhetorical features:

The following rhetorical devices are taken into consideration: hyperbole, metaphor, metonymy, parallelism, contradiction

5 Significance of the study

“A comparative analysis on the discourse of American and Vietnamese movie trailers” is

expected to have some contributions, both linguistically and pedagogically:

Together with some previous studies on discourse analysis of advertising, the research examines another type of advertising – movie trailers It can contribute some findings to fill in gap-of-the-knowledge in the field of advertising language

In the time when Vietnam‟s economy is on its way to merge with other countries world wide and English is widely-used, this thesis can be useful not only to the field of advertising movie trailers but also to ESP teaching and learning in the area of marketing at tertiary level Besides, it may be beneficial to TESOL teaching and learning because movie trailers (with careful selection) is a very interesting and abundant source of authentic materials

It can be foundation or inspiration for further study on discourse analysis of advertising language

6 Design of the study

Within the required scope, the thesis is organized as follows:

Part A: INTRODUCTION, introduces the rationale, aims, methods, scope, significance and design of the study

Part B: DEVELOPMENT, is the focus of the study and consists of three chapters:

Chapter 1: Theoretical background, deals with the literature review relevant to

the topic

Chapter 2: Features of American movie trailers

Chapter 3: Features of Vietnamese movie trailers and a comparison between American and Vietnamese movie trailers

Part C: CONCLUSION, summarizes the contents of the study, especially its findings and put forward some implications for ESP teaching and learning at tertiary level

PART B: DEVELOPMENT

Chapter I: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

1 Theories of discourse

1.1 The concepts of discourse

Linguistic theories define the term “discourse” in a number of different ways, but in

general, they have something in common According to Crystal, discourse is considered to

be “a continuous stretch of (specially spoken) language larger than a sentence, often

constituting a coherent unit such as a sermon, argument, joke, or narrative” (Crystal,

1992: quoted in David Nunan, 1993:5) Cook (1989:156) has a similar notion of discourse,

he sees it as “stretches of language perceived to be meaningful, unified, purposive” In David Nunan‟s view, discourse is understood as “communicative event involving language

since this is most clearly perceptible as an object.”

1.2 Discourse analysis

It is widely recognized that discourse analysis is not a method for teaching language, but it

is a way of describing and understanding how language is used as Mc Cathy (1991:5)

observes “discourse analysis is concerned with the study of the relationship between

language and the contexts in which it is used”

It can be seen that discourse analysis is the study of how sentences in spoken and written

language form larger meaningful units such as paragraphs, conversations, interviews

In summary, discourse analysis concerns the description of language above the sentence and an interest in the contexts and cultural influences which affect language in use Discourse analysis examines how stretches of language, considered in the full textual, social and psychological context, become meaningful and unified for their users The ultimate aim of text analysis and discourse analysis is to show how the linguistic elements enable language users to communicate in context

1.3 The functions of language

According to Halliday (1985), language has three main functions, and the structures of

language can be explained in terms of these functions: ideational, interpersonal and textual

The ideational function expresses our experience of the real world and of our inner world One aspect of this function at the level of clause is the system of transitivity It is a choice

between the three main processes that can be represented in a sentence:

(a) a physical or “material” processes as in Fred cut the lawn

(b) a “mental” process as in David saw Mary

(c) a “relational” process as in This view is magnificent

Related to this choice of process is:

(a) The choice of participant: A participant is someone or something involved in the process, e.g in the above example, Fred and the lawn, David and Mary, and

(b) the choice of circumstances, e.g “David saw Mary yesterday / in the garden /

by accident ”

The interpersonal function is the means whereby we achieve communication by taking on

speech roles – the roles adopted and those imposed on the addressee by the speaker, and his associated attitudes This function is reflected in the system of mood For instance, we

can assume the role of questioner, or informer, or commander and so on

Also included in the interpersonal function is the use of language to express an attitude

towards what we are saying, for instance, our expression of the degree of probability or

necessity associated with this context This function is reflected in the system of modality

Language also provides means (devices) for making links with itself and the situational context in which it is used Halliday calls this the textual function, since it is the function

of creating texts or connected pieces of discourse that cohere internally or which are situationaly relevant as opposed to a random set of sentences This function is reflected in

the system of theme

In conclusion, these meta-functions can be summarized as follows:

(i) The ideational function is to organize the speaker‟s or writer‟s experience of the real or imaginary world, that is language refers to real or imaged persons, things, actions, events, states and so on

(ii) The interpersonal function is to indicate, establish, or maintain social relationship between people It includes forms of address, speech function, modality and so on

(iii)The textual function is to create written or spoken texts which cohere within themselves and which fit the particular situation in which they are used

organization of message

e.g theme information cohesion Table 2: The function of language

1.4 Register and genre in discourse analysis

1.4.1 Register

There are different concepts of register According to Halliday (1985), “Register may be

defined as the variety of a language used in a particular situational context” Another

linguist, McCathay (1991) defines that, “Register reflects the degree of technical

specification” in the language of economics, banking and finance, international business,

advertising, medicine, information technology and so forth He also states that, “Discourse

register reflects the degree of formality of particular text by using a characteristic set of lexical and grammatical features”

Besides, Galperin (1977) suggests that, “A functional style of language is a system of

interrelated language means which serves a definite aim in communication” However,

Gregory and Caroll (1987) cited in Swales (1990) defines that register, or functional

language variation, is “a contextual category correlating groups of linguistic features with

recurrent situational features” This category has typically been analyzed in terms of three

variables labeled Field, Mode, Tenor Field indicates the type of activity, in which

discourse operates, its content, ideas and “institutional focus” (Benson and Greaves, 1981,

cited in Swales, 1990) It is the kind of language use which reflects social function of the text Mode refers to the medium of language activity or the channel of communication (prototypically speech or writing) while tenor deals with the relationships between the product announcer and the product information perceiver Thus, field, mode, and tenor are closely tied and work together as determinants of the text through their specification of the register and are systematically associated with linguistic system through the functional components of the semantics

Different definitions of register have been given as presented above, but we could balance that register of functional styles are linguistic variations linked to specific occupations, professions, topics and so on to serve a specific aim in communication through the operations of field, mode and tenor

1.4.2 Genre

Since 1974, genre has been taken into consideration as one of the central components of

communication within a culture and many concepts of genre have been given “By genre”, Hymes (1974:61) wrote, “are meant categories such as poem, myth, tale, proverb, riddle,

curse, prayer, oration, lecture, commercial, form letter, editorial,…The notion of genre implies the possibility of identifying formal characteristics traditionally recognized” In

“Webster‟s Third New International Dictionary”, genre has been defined as “a distinctive

type of category of literary composition”, while the New Yorker has expanded the context

of literary to include colonial promotional tracts and theological world But today genre is

referred to as “a distinctive category of discourse of any type, spoken or written, with or

without literary aspirations” Recently, genre has been regarded as “a formulaic way of constructing particular texts and hence is inimical to the enlightened and enlightening concept that language is ultimately a matter of choice” (Swales, 1990:3) Swales also sees

genre as a socio-cultural value such as literary, linguistics, rhetorical, art and so on Linguistically, genre is seen to have a close relation with speech events (Hymes, 1974:61)

or communication events (Saville-Troike, 1982) It is, moreover, known as the staged purposeful process in which culture is realized in a language (Martin and Rothery (1986:143 cited in Swales, 1990:41)

Through the above observations about genre, we could affirm that, “genre is recognizable

and mutually understood by the number of professional or academic community in which it regularly occurs.” (Bhatia, 1993)

Yet, it is clearly seen that genre is a paramount factor recognizable in any language and discourse of any type (spoken or written), in which there is the language of advertising with specific communicative purposes containing socio-cultural values identified and understood by groups of professional or academic community

1.4.3 Register and genre in discourse analysis

The concepts of register and genre have been presented above, but there is no clear cut on the relationship between genre and the longer established register They are two

interrelated concepts relating to linguistic variation in a particular situational context and a formulaic way of constructing particular texts and it can not be easy to separate one from

the other As Frow (1980:78) cited in Swales (1990) says, “Genre has become

disentangled from register and refers to discourse genre or register” But Martin (1985)

cited an Swales (1990) offers a three-way distinction: genres are realized through language He states as follows:

“Genre are how things get done, when language is used to accomplish them They range from literary to far from literary forms: poems, narratives, expositions, lectures, seminars, recipes, manuals, appointment making, service encounters, news broadcast and so on The term “genre” is used here to embrace each of the linguistically realized activity types which comprise so much of our culture.”

(Martin, 1985:250 cited in Swales, 1990:40) Accordingly, it is obvious that genre and register are the two related determinants of linguistic system which serve a specific aim in communication and in which register and genre are vital and of deep considerations in discourse analysis In particular, the language

of advertising in movie trailers is also regarded as a language variable to function a specific aim in communication

1.4.4 Advertisements as “style”, “register” and “genre”

The language of advertising is “loaded”, so it is not difficult to justify why one should study the discourse of advertisements Most people with an interest in advertising would argue that the language of advertising is often contrastive in style and grammar with conversational discursive usage However, it is important to stress that although the language used in advertisements displays an individual style in much the same way as other forms of minimal texts (Wallace, 1987:29), which may be called “environment print” (ibid:24), for instance, street signs or notices on public transport – it should not be view as an aberrant form of other varieties of the language (Leech, 1981:257) It is true

that the dependence of advertisements on the use of “disjunctive grammar”, for example,

as in newspaper headline (ibid:256), is one of the distinguishing features of advertising

style, but we would agree with Leech (ibid:257) that “since the characteristics of a style

are only meaningful by reference to the language to which it belongs, the act of isolation should be accompanied by an act of synthesis.”

In order to consider advertising as a genre, we should consider its socio-cultural aspects Wallace (1987:30) assesses genre as “social events” She concludes that the term “genre”

has more recently been extended to incorporate “the whole range of culturally

recognizable type of language activity”, which includes advertisements Swales (1990)

describes genres as “communicative events which are socio-culturally recognizable” This

view reflects more recent emphasis in genre analysis on social purpose, which sets genre apart from the notion of “register” One may correctly talk of advertising as a register, but according to many this categorization fails to acknowledge to vital socio-cultural

components, of which one of the most prominent is “culturally recognizable language”

(Wallace, 1987:32), that is, language from which one can immediately identify a given text

as an advertisement

1.5 The language of advertising

1.5.1 Definition of advertising

The word “advertise” originates from the Latin advertere, which means “to turn toward” or

“to take note of” Certainly, the visual and verbal commercial messages that are a part of advertising are intended to attract attention and produce some response by the viewer Advertising is pervasive and virtually impossible to escape Newspapers and magazines often have a lot of advertisements; radio and television provide entertainment but are also laden with advertisements; advertisements pop up on Internet sites; and the mail brings a variety of advertisements Advertising also exists on billboards along the freeway, in subway and train stations, on benches at bus stops, and on the frames around car license plates In shopping malls, there are prominent logos on designer clothes, moviegoers regularly view advertisements for local cinemas, restaurants, hair salons, and so on, and live sporting and cultural events often include signage, logos, products, and related

information about the event sponsors The pervasiveness of advertising and its creative elements are designed to cause viewers to take note

There are various ways to define advertisings, each of which looks at advertising at

different perspectives Dibb et al (1991:400f) defines advertising as “a paid form of

non-personal communication about an organization and its products that is transmitted to a target audience through a mass medium such as television, radio, newspapers, magazines, direct mails, public transport, outdoor displays, or catalogues.”

Unlike personal communication in which speakers and hearers have opportunities to interact with each other, advertising is a kind of non-personal communication which is not aimed at any individual but aimed at the public or certain groups of people

It is a form of persuasive communication that offers information about products, ideas, and services that serves the objectives determined by the advertiser Advertising may influence consumers in many different ways, but the primary goal of advertising is to increase the probability that consumers exposed to an advertisement will behave or believe as the advertiser wishes Thus, the ultimate objective of advertising is to sell things persuasively and creatively Advertising is used by commercial firms trying to sell products and services; by politicians and political interest groups to sell ideas or persuade voters; by not-for-profit organizations to raise funds, solicit volunteers, or influence the actions of viewers; and by governments seeking to encourage or discourage particular activities, such

a wearing seatbelts, participating in the census, or ceasing to smoke The forms that advertising takes and the media in which advertisements appear are as varied as the advertisers themselves and the messages that they wish to deliver

Because of the non-personal features of advertising, the dissemination and operation of it must be restricted by laws, policies and rules, the moral standards and people‟s psychology

Secondly, because advertisers have to pay much money for the messages about the product transferred to the consumers in only limited time, the advertisement must be brief, concise, well-chosen and meaningful It can be said that advertising language is also a kind of art

like others; it is a style of immediate impact and rapid persuasion This can be achieved through the process of brainstorming, writing, rewriting, testing, modifying and so forth

According to Churchill, Jr and Peter (1982:142),

“Advertising is noted as any announcement or persuasive message placed in

the mass media in paid or donated time or space by an identified individual,

company, or organization to serve a number of audience about products and

persuade or remind them of buying, to convey information about the

organization itself or issues important to the organization in order to create or

enhance perception of the quality or reliability of a product, thus encouraging

customer loyalty and repeat purchases.”

Therefore, advertising is a type of communication between advertisers and consumers The process of getting advertising messages transmitted is diagramed in the model that follows

Figure 1: The process of getting the advertising messages transmitted

(Hoang, T & Nguyen,V.T, 2000)

e

Decode

d messag

s Selecti

ve awarene

ss

Selecti

ve memorization

Satisfied Noise

It is clearly seen from the model that in advertising, the intended message is transferred to the receiver in an indirect way In the process of advertising, the message is always decoded, which makes the message sound implicit This can be traced in two reasons Firstly, advertisers have to spend a lot of on advertising information so their messages must be decoded to convey as much as possible to customers with the minimum number of words Secondly, it is strongly believed by copywriters that human beings are born with an ability of inferring According to Geis (1982:46), human beings are “inferencing” creatures, trained to read into what is said as much as is consistent wit the literal meaning

of what is said and the context of what is said

1.5.2 Functions of advertising

In Encyclopedia of Communication and Information, Schement (2002) has described three

fundamental functions of advertising Although the primary objective of advertising is to persuade, it may achieve this objective in many different ways An important function of advertising is the identification function, that is, to identify a product and differentiate it from others; this creates an awareness of the product and provides a basis for consumers to choose the advertised product over other products Another function of advertising is to communicate information about the product, its attributes, and its location of sale; this is the information function The third function of advertising is to induce consumers to try new products and to suggest reuse of the product as well as new uses; this is the persuasion function

The identification function of advertising includes the ability of advertising to differentiate

a product so that it has its own unique identity or personality One famous example of this

is found in the long-running advertising for Ivory Soap In the late 1800s, a soap maker at Procter and Gamble left his machine running during his lunch period and returned to find a whipped soap that, when made into bars, floated The company decided to capitalize on this mistake by advertising Ivory Soap with the phrase “It Floats.” This characteristic of Ivory Soap served to uniquely identify it and differentiate it from other bars of soap

The information function of advertising can also be found in advertising for Ivory Soap For more than one hundred years, advertisements for Ivory Soap have focused on such product characteristics as purity of ingredients, child care, and soft skin These characteristics, in turn, were often related to key benefits that could be obtained from using Ivory Soap Thus, various advertisements emphasized “That Ivory Look,” which focused

on the relationships between product characteristics and the benefits of obtaining a fresh and healthy appearance

The third and most important function of advertising - persuasion, is also evident in the long-running Ivory Soap advertising campaigns The advertiser, Procter and Gamble, has linked Ivory Soap with obtaining benefits that are important to customers: a fresh and healthy appearance for women, a mild, nonirritating method for bathing babies, and a novelty for children in the tub (since it floats) The benefits of the product suggest reasons

to buy and use Ivory Soap and thus provide a basis for persuading consumers Different benefits are important to different customers Thus, to realize its full potential as a persuasive tool, advertising must often be tailored to emphasize those benefits that are important and meaningful for a particular type of customer or a particular use of the product

1.5.3 A model of advertising process

As previously stated, advertising is actually a form of communication Like other forms of communication, advertising has many different effects and these effects are often related to one another Jones, J P (1998) mentions the best known framework for understanding these multiple effects and their interrelationships - the hierarchy of effects model called DAGMAR (Defining Advertising Goals for Measured Advertising Results), implying a rational consumer being moved by advertising through a sequence of steps to purchase of the product The hierarchy of effects model identifies different stages in the communication process as follows: Awareness – Comprehension - Conviction – Action Jones quotes from Russell Colley, who was incidentally one of the invited speakers at the

1976 ESOMAR seminar:

All commercial communications that aim at the ultimate objective of a sale must carry a prospect through four levels of understanding: from unawareness to Awareness – The prospect must first be aware of the existence of a brand or company; Comprehension – He must have a comprehension of what the product

is and what it will do for him; Conviction – He must arrive at a mental disposition or conviction to buy the product; Action – Finally, he must stir himself to action

DAGMAR has the great merit of proposing that there could be quantifiable objectives for advertising (in terms of awareness level, brand ratings and so on) over and above sales objectives

1.5.4 General features of advertising language

As seen, language is used to transmit information, in both verbal and non-verbal communication, form the addresser to addressee Also in different aspects, there are various languages used to serve their own purposes Language, therefore, according to Thompson (2003), is used in a very broad metaphorical sense to refer to any system of communication As many people refer, language can be used for different purposes such as the language of mathematics, computer science, law, politics, art and advertising and so

on

As far as language of advertising is concerned, it is used as a means of communication and providing information to the audience It is a linguistic system, verbal and non-verbal, which consist of words, sounds, images and even empty spaces, as Goddard (1998) argues They are all in combination to express certain meanings to the audiences Specifically, language of advertising has been seen as a special language, the so-called paralanguage with the use of yawns, grunts, loudness, tempo and specific words in a persuasive message

to convey information to capture attention upon the audience about not only the product itself but also an image of the company or organization Through the study of the language

of advertising, it is notable that it is very simple It may sometimes be the use of separate words, just adjective or phrases without any grammatical structures or sentences, but it is,

indeed, charming, seductive and persuasive with the conveyance of information to the intended customers

It is, however, not easy all the time to comprehend fully of this kind of language as

Goddard (1998:10) has said, “the idea of advertisements as simple texts which operate on

a single level has been challenged: instead, advertising texts are seen as potentially involved in complex notions of audience, where readers have to work hard to decode messages and understand different address relationships”

1.6 Movie trailer

1.6.1 What is a movie trailer?

Movie trailers have now become popular on the Internet Of some 10-billion videos watched online annually, movie trailers rank the third, after news and user-created video

A trailer or preview is an advertisement for a feature film that will be exhibited in the

future at a cinema, on whose screen they are shown The term "trailer" comes from their having originally been shown at the end of a feature film screening That practice did not last long, because patrons tended to leave the theater after the films ended, but the name has stuck Trailers are now shown before the film begins

Movie trailers provide consumers with the ability to judge whether they would like to see a movie by sampling part of the complete experience According to Katz (1980, p.1145), a

movie trailer is “… a short publicity film, shown as part of a regular program at a theater,

advertising the merits of a forthcoming motion picture….the trailer consists of highlight

scenes appropriately cut to create an impression of excitement…”

Trailers consist of a series of selected shots from the film being advertised Since the purpose of the trailer is to attract an audience to the film, these excerpts are usually drawn from the most exciting, funny, or otherwise noteworthy parts of the film but in abbreviated form For this purpose the scenes are not necessarily in the order in which they appear in the film A trailer has to achieve that in less than two and a half minutes, the maximum length allowed by the MPAA (Motion Pictures Association of America) Each studio or

distributor is allowed to exceed this time limit once a year if they feel it is necessary for a particular film

Some trailers use "special shoot" footage, which is material that has been created specifically for advertising purposes and does not appear in the actual film (the trailer featured elaborate special effects scenes that were never intended to be in the film itself) Some trailers that incorporate material not in the movie are particularly coveted by collectors, especially trailers for classic films

Movie trailers can serve as a trial of the movie experience (Cooper-Martin, 1992; Faber and O‟Guinn, 1984) Thus, they function like a product trial that gives good guidance as to the experiential qualities of something new Consumers‟ evaluation of the movie trailer experience and subsequent decision making remained to be explored

It is reasonable to predict that movie trailers influence audience size Ultimately a large audience is necessary for box-office revenue to cover the increasing production and marketing expenditure involved in movie production and release (Motion Picture Association, 2004) Furthermore, the transient lifecycle of new movies usually launched on thousands of screens simultaneously (Ainslie and Dréze, 2002) increases the value in understanding the effects of movie trailers on consumers‟ movie-going intentions

Movies provide the benefit of enjoyment The value from a movie is derived from its ability to engage the consumer – to arouse feelings or emotional reactions and to provide a consumption experience (Holbrook and Hirschman, 1982) When evaluating a movie, consumers are likely to take into account their own preferences for types of experiences Genre provides a consumer with the rules regarding movie content, structure, without having to watch the whole movie in advance (Hennig-Thurau, Walsh and Wruck, 2001) Examples of genre labels for movies are „comedy‟ or „action‟ Genre provides a broad theme for construction of a framework regarding interpretation of movie trailers

Consumers are likely to predict the movie experience by matching content in the movie trailer with expectations evoked by their cognitive schema about a genre Secondly, categorisation of the movie, interpreted from the movie trailer is likely to convey the

perceived value of the movie to a consumer A likely reason is that pre-established knowledge structures or schemas also contain information about expected affect towards a product category (Fiske and Pavelchak, 1986, cited in Lee, 1990, p.210) Assuming there is

a match between the trailer content and schema about a genre category, the consumer will evaluate the movie based on their affect for that genre category Furthermore, genre is likely to communicate the target audience for a movie The romance genre is assumed to fit into the female domain; genres such as action and sports are assumed to fit into the male domain (Oliver, Weaver and Sargent, 2000) These above observations imply that embedded within consumers‟ schemas regarding genres are assumptions about the target audience for a movie Movie-going often occurs in mixed-gender groups such as a boyfriend-girlfriend situation Therefore, from content in a movie trailer, consideration of with whom the consumer should attend the movie may also be communicated via genre

1.6.2 History of movie trailers

Beginning

Daniel Septak (2008, p3-5) provides a short history of movie trailers in his study Trailers have been around since before the First World War The first trailer of record was displayed north of New York City in 1912 After a showing of “The Adventures of Kathlyn,” a short video clip enticed the audience to view the following week‟s episode in the series Thus, when that style of advertising for films caught on, the term “trailer,” for coming after film features, stuck Advertising for movies continued in this fashion through

1919, when the National Screen Service (NSS) came on the scene NSS was a company that began making rough advertisements for movies and sold them to film exhibitors These unsophisticated trailers were simply a cut-and-paste of different scenes from a film However, NSS produced these ads without the permission of the studios to which the subject of the trailers belonged Fortunately, the studios were interested in the work of NSS and started to hire them to produce trailers, providing the company with film footage for its usage

Throughout the 1920‟s, NSS had the exclusive right to all major studios film footage in order to produce trailers for them Then in 1928, Warner Bros studios decided to produce its own ads, opening an in-house trailer department Several years later, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) and other major studios did the same In-house trailer production became the norm until the 1970‟s when small creative boutiques in Hollywood became popular and recognized The boutiques offered perspectives and specialties that the studios did not

have Today, only a couple of the major studios maintain large trailer departments

Modern times

Contemporary times have been reshaped by the introduction of the television and its effect

on advertising to the public In the 1950‟s, small independent films used to move from city

to city, being released singularly These regional releases would be supported by heavy advertising on TV The major studios reluctantly followed the lead of these independents

in the late 60‟s after they realized admissions were being hurt by the television‟s popular adoption Today, video media makes up the majority of a film‟s advertising budget on average According to Septak, in 2003, the average film spent 77.4% of its total advertising

costs on different television advertising slots for its trailers and spots

1.6.3 Media used to advertise movie trailers

As mentioned above, advertising is any announcement or persuasive messages placed in the mass media in paid or donated time or space by an identified individual, company or organization Means used to convey advertising messages is of great significance in all kinds of advertisements, especially in movie trailers Because a trailer is an advertisement

in which some of the best scenes must be extracted from the movie and shown to the audience, it is obligatory that television and internet must be chosen as the media of advertising

The advantages of advertising on television and on the internet are numerous The trailer can be presented visually while the narrators describe its merits One of the emerge things easily recognized in movie trailers is that language is used in combination with attractive visuals and striking sounds including music, songs, images or pictures in full motion

In reality, it is clearly seen that movie trailers are usually short in the amount of time and space; therefore, advertising messages are often in its brevity and compactness Furthermore, advertising messages can be expressed though/via images so the colors and motions pictures used are important to illustrate emerging features of the trailers However,

as for Rosen, “advertising may appear to be relying less on language, but language is

simply functioning on a deeper level It has not, in any sense, gone away.” This

emphasizes the significance of language in advertising as well as in movie trailers despite the fact that modern television and internet has allowed the use of other attractive ways (motion images or sounds) than language to convey advertising messages

In short, the combination of language, motion pictures and sounds is one major advantage

of television and internet which can make many film producers spend many folds of dollars even though they cost so much of their budget in a very short period of time Advertising a movie trailer requires a lot of expenses; however, effective results derived from it could be much higher than the money which was spent because the number of the audience is so large, so the messages sent to the intended audience are indeed effectively functioning The undoubted results clearly seen are the increasing revenues of the movie advertised

CHAPTER II: FEATURES OF AMERICAN MOVIE TRAILERS

It can be seen that there is a close relationship between features of advertising style and narrative mode of discourse in movie trailers It can be traced back to the main purpose of movie trailers – advertising To achieve this purpose, movie trailers must be both persuasive and informative Advertising strategies can help movie trailers obtain persuasiveness and narrative language does the rest – making movie trailers informative The advertiser has to retell the movie he/she wants to advertise in a very delicate and beautiful way He/she always does his best to display the product so that the audience is forming a good image of the movie and to convince them that the content of the movie is worth paying money and watching on the big screen

2.1 Structure of American movie trailers

2.1.1 Defining discourse mode of movie trailers

According to Alexandra, G (1997) texts (and genres) have been classified by reference to

general modes of organization basically including:

 narration: the telling / writing of a story, consisting of a unique sequence of events

that took place at a specific point in time;

 description: presentations of how something looks (smells or tastes…)

 argumentation: the process of supporting or weakening arguments, views, theories

Many models (e.g Kineavy, 1971) add a fourth category, namely exposition Other models

include distinct persuasive, poetic and scientific modes (eg Moffett 1968)

Movie trailers are characterized by these defining features (Bruner 1991):

General Narrative discourse

of equilibrium Reconstructed events Personal

Under negotiation

Table 4: Defining characteristics of narrative mode After considering the characteristics above, I can reach the conclusion that movie trailers uses narrative mode of discourse

2.1.2 Structure of American movie trailers

The analysis of discourse structure follows Labov‟s model of narrative structure In this part, a comparison between Labov‟s narrative structure and structure of American movie trailers has been made According to Labov (1972), at a high level of structural analysis, a full-form narrative includes five main parts It begins with an orientation, proceeds to the complicating action, is suspended at the focus of evaluation before the resolution, concludes with the resolution and returns the listener to the present time with the coda Abstract: The abstract encapsulates the point of the story It may be a brief summary statement of the substance of the narrative as viewed by the narrator or some kind of

opener signaling transition to the story (e.g Did I ever tell you about…? I had a funny

experience the other day…)

Orientation: (introduction) is equivalent to “setting” in which the characters, situations,

place and time of the story are established Usually answers who? when? where? eg Mr

Wolf went out hunting in the forest one dark gloomy night

Complication or problem: The complication usually involves the main character(s) (often mirroring the complications in real life) Complication or problem often contains conflict – the struggle between two opposing forces and climax - the strongest part of the story, where the conflict builds up to the emotional peak

Resolution: There needs to be a resolution of the complication The complication may be resolved for better or worse/happily or unhappily Sometimes there are a number of complications that have to be resolved These add and sustain interest and suspense for the reader

Coda: The resolution is followed by the coda, an optional part, not found in all narratives, which provides the story‟s ending and attempt to bridge the gap between the narrative time and our present time The coda can take the form of a general observation or a statement

about the effects of the events on the narrator, such as “so there we are, and ever since I ,

It was very funny/scary…”

Evaluation: Evaluation comprises the devices by which the narrator indicates the point of the narrative It reveals the narrator‟s attitudes and emotions towards the events related Components of Labov‟s narrative structure have been presented above Basing on them, an analysis on the structure of American movie trailers is carried out After examining 25 American movie trailers collected, it can be seen that although the movie trailer is a kind of narrative, it does not necessarily contain all the parts discussed above

Most American trailers are begun with the introduction of targeted audiences as the abstract of the narrative, for example:

The following preview has been approved for appropriate audiences by the Motion Picture Association of America, INC

The film advertised has been rated

PG 13 Parents strongly cautioned

Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13

Violence including sequences of intense warfare, and some sexual content

(Robin Hood)

Besides the introduction of targeted audiences, a very emotional and impressive opening can be presented:

At sundance it received three standing ovations

It will shake you to your core

If you love your planet…

If you love your children…

You have to see this film (An inconvenient truth)

Or

CleverTV

Planning to make a whole day of nines September 9 th , 2009 brings us the movie

“9” featuring a whole slew (a lot) of names like Tim Burton and Elijah Wood; this might be one of the best pedigreed animated films in a very long time.(9)

The next part of most American movie trailers is orientation In this part, the place where, the time when and the situation in which the events take place, the main characters are introduced

We can see those functions clearly in the orientation of the movie trailer “Killer”

Watching the first few scenes of the trailer, we can recognize that one of the main

character is a young girl who is still single and has not got a boyfriend The place is in a resort near the beach and the story begins when she and her parents are receiving their rooms in a hotel as they are going on a vacation here The time may be in summer because all the people here wear summer clothes and the sun is shining brightly

Then comes the complication accompanied by a climax These can be considered the most important things in the movie trailer If there were no complication and climax, the audience would have nothing to watch This part is the knot and the audience would expect

to see the untying of the knot

We can see complication accompanied by climax in the trailer “Precious”: Precious is a 16 year old black girl who is fat and not pretty at all She is often teased by others including her schoolmates Nobody is her friend She does not have a father and lives with her mum

in a bad house She lives unhappily in her home; her mother often insults or even beats her After the orientation comes the complication: She is only sixteen and still in junior high school, and now she has been pregnant with her second child

The complication reaches its highest point – climax: She is totally hopeless with no help,

no friends, no home This climax urges the audience to find out the solution to her miserable problem

After the complication is sometimes resolution; however, the presence of resolution is quite rare in American movie trailers This can be understandable because lacking resolution means that the problem raised in the previous part (complication and climax) is left unsolved The resolution is the secret the trailer producer wants to keep and the only way to discover this secret is to watch the movie This strategy raises the audience‟s curiosity and stimulates them to satisfy it

For example, in the movie trailer “2012” in orientation part, a terrible disaster is going to happen The complication shows that disaster in details: a lot of people die, buildings collapse, and everything is in ruin…The story develops to a climax: human beings are in danger so they have to find their way to fight for their life However, how they solve this terrible problem and if they can survive after that are not revealed to the audience

When a film does give the resolution part, it is only very brief and how resolution is achieved is not available in the trailer For example, in “Precious” the way to solve the main character is revealed - with the help of a warm-hearted educator; however, how she is

helped is still in secret and promises to come in the light in the movie The brief and inspiring resolution exerts the same effect on the audience as lack of resolution

After complication or resolution (if available) is coda The code part is in a very typical

and simple form In most movie trailers the coda is just the popular phrase “Coming soon”

to show the audience the upcoming of the movie on the big screen Or sometimes the coda

is presented in an imperative sentence functioning as a call for investigating the trailer

advertised like “Find out the truth” in the trailer “2012”

Sometimes trailer designers can add some judgment or evaluation to the trailer to make clear the message they want to convey to the audience The position of evaluation part is quite flexible Normally, it appears before the movie trailer has its last words – the coda; however, it is not always the case Evaluation may appear at any time in the trailer where the designers find it appropriate for representing the advertising message

The evaluation is often emotional, moving and meaningful It is often expressed by narrators or by words, phrases or sentences appearing on the screen For example, in the movie trailer “Precious” a very meaningful message is targeted to the audience:

In short, the structure of American movie trailers is summarized in the following table:

Table 5: Structure of American movie trailers

n

(in flexible

positions)

structure Two fundamental parts which appear in the majority of all the trailers analysed are orientation and complication Other parts such as abstract, coda and evaluation are optional parts The typical position is Abstract – Orientation – Complication accompanied

by Climax – Coda Evaluation can appear in any position except before and after the abstract

The appearances of these parts are as follows: 24 out of 25 (96%) American movie trailers analysed contain an abstract It can be inferred from the proportion of the films using abstract that it is a very popular way of opening and getting audiences‟ attention All of the movie trailers analysed include orientation in which the setting of the story told is presented In terms of complication and climax, the movie trailers containing this account for 96% of the movie trailers analysed As for resolution, it is very notable that most movie trailers (88%) do not have resolution part And over half of the movie trailers collected contain the code part

American movie trailers have their own characteristics in comparison with other kinds of texts which use narrative mode of organization Notably, the structure of American movie trailers follows Labov‟s narrative structure quite closely except for the lack of resolution part The structure is characterized by a high proportion

of those consisting of orientation, the significance of climax in complication and the lack of resolution part Other elements such as coda, abstract or evaluation are also of some importance but they are only the part contributing to the success of a movie trailer, not the determining factors

In conclusion, American trailers are short and concise films which are invested and well-designed for the purpose of advertising Because time limitation, the trailer is required to include the most outstanding and important elements to briefly show the content of the movie ad vertised Although the trailer

well-is only several minutes long, it can present the main points in the movie which help the audience grasp the thread of the story told However, it is an open short film with an opening ending which is used to raise the audienc e‟s interest and curiosity

As stated previously a movie trailer is the combination of both advertising style and narrative mode of discourse, which affects the language used in it One linguistic phenomenon can serve different functions: creating audiences‟ interest (advertising style) or/and telling them stories (narrative mode) However, whatever functions it serves, the ultimate purpose of those linguistic elements is persuading audiences to enjoy the whole movie Therefore, I will analyse all the linguistic features involving this main goal without separating two factors (advertising style and narrative mode) of movie trailers

According to Taflinger, R (2004), advertisements usually have two parts: copy and illustrations Copy refers to the words in the advertisement Illustrations are the pictures or photographs In the case of movie trailers, copy is the narration and illustrations are extracted scenes from the movie advertised Copy is the main tool to give the sales message; as a result, this analysis focuses on the narration in American movie trailers The function of trailers‟ narration is to briefly inform the premise of the movie and give

explanation when needed, often using stock phrases such as “In a world where ” or

“ beyond imagination!” Since the trailer is a concise version, trailers‟ narration helps the

audiences to be clear about the plot as well as the settings of the movie The narration can

be heard or seen on the screen In other words, sometimes the narration appears on the screen or it may be read by a special artist (in this case the narration can also be called voice-over narration) Trailers‟ narration is characterized by various linguistic features;

however, only some notable features are taken into consideration here

2.2.1 Grammatical features

Tense

According to Comrie, B (1985), verbs in English can express grammatical tense which is the use of auxiliary verbs or inflections to convey whether the action or state is before, simultaneous with, or after some reference point The reference point could be the time of utterance, in which case the verb expresses absolute tense, or it could be a past, present, or future time of reference previously established in the sentence, in which case the verb expresses relative tense This part will look at the use of tenses in American movie trailers

narrative is the encoding of previous experiences that took place at a specific point or over specific interval in a past time story world It can be seen from the definition that narratives are generally associated with the events that happen in the past As a result, they are associated with the past tense or with narrative (historic) present, that is, a present which refers to past events This is not an unexceptional rule Generic narratives tell us what usually happens in the present Projective narratives tell about events that have not taken place yet (e.g plans for the future) in the future tense Such narratives have been found very common in some particular context For example, in

an interview candidates are asked not only to talk about their past experiences but also

to map out their future actions, to tell the interviewer where they expect to be and what they expect to do

The use of tenses in American movie trailers is distinctive from other kinds of narratives The use of tenses can be summarized in the following table:

Tenses used Number of sentences

thus filed in a directory labeled a temporal or timeless But there is another aspect of the simple present: its implication of universality

On May 14 th comes the untold story of how the man became the legend

(Robin Hood) Marvel, that you may know that there’s some unusual occurrence all over the world

(Rise of the Silver Surfer)

Only 13,3% of the sentences use the past tenses The use of past tense is related to another point about events in narratives, which is their reference to “real world” event

e.g Mankind’s earliest civilization … warned us … this day would come

The life she always wanted (Simple past)

11% of the sentences collected use the future tenses, which suggests that these are not favourable tenses in American movie trailers

Mood

Aside from tenses, verbs in English also come with moods, which describe its state of being According to Katie W (1989) the basic or unmarked mood in English is the indicative or fact mood which is contrasted with the subjunctive, the mood of un-fact, expressing the uncertain, hypothetical or desirable The imperative is also described as a mood, expressing will and desire In Halidayan grammar, the basic contrast involves distinctions in illocutionary force, and is closely related to the interpersonal component of grammar Thus the indicative mood is normally used for DECLARATIVE sentence type which has the force of statements; whereas the imperative mood is used for IMPERATIVE sentences which have the force of commands or requests

Declarative sentences are the commonest category and the staple of most registers, especially those where information is paramount (e.g reports, journalism, textbooks…) Movie trailers are not the exception; the most popular type of sentences is declarative whose function is to provide information about or content of the movie