A descriptive analysis of linguistic features of advertising language used in English slogans for food and drink products

A descriptive analysis of linguistic features of advertising language used in English slogans for food and drink products Bùi Thị Kim Ngân Trường Đại học Ngoại ngữ Luận văn Thạc sĩ ng

A descriptive analysis of linguistic features of advertising language used in English slogans

for food and drink products

Bùi Thị Kim Ngân

Trường Đại học Ngoại ngữ Luận văn Thạc sĩ ngành: Ngôn Ngữ Anh; Mã số: 60 22 15

Người hướng dẫn: TS Kiều Thị Thu Hương

Năm bảo vệ: 2012

Abstract: Creating advertising slogans can be called an art of copywriters

Investigation into successful slogans is a good way to discover the effectiveness of exploiting a language to persuade and make impressions on other people especially consumers Different advertising slogans of many famous food and drink products are analyzed on the phonological, lexical, semantic and syntactic levels Such issues such

as the complexity of sentence structure, sentence types, the most frequently used words, the use of some figures of speech and rhetorical sound devices in advertising slogans for food and drink products are concentrated As a result, many linguistic features have been discovered, which can help linguists, copywriters and individuals who concern this subject matter in capturing an overview of how advertising language

is utilized in food and drink slogans The investigation hopefully can serve as an informative source for both pedagogical and research purposes and becomes a

motivation for other researchers to carry out further studies

Keywords: Ngôn ngữ khẩu hiệu; Ngôn ngữ quảng cáo; Tiếng Anh

Content

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Statement of the problem and rationale for the study

According to Bovée et al (1995:16-20), advertising has never been as ubiquitous as it

is nowadays Language in advertising is typified by a slogan which is present in every advertisement Slogans can be considered the heart of advertisements wherever they appear

Angela Goddard in her book “The language of advertising” titles these slogans the hooks which she calls “the initial piece of attention-seeking verbal language used to draw the

reader in” (Goddard, 1998:106)

Slogans are the most important and condensed messages advertisers would like to send to their customers Sharp and intelligent slogans can help advertisers leave unforgettable impressions on their potential customers’ minds They provide continuity for a campaign and reduce a key theme or idea the company wants to be associated with its product or itself to a brief statement (Bovée and Arens, 1992:274) However, creating a successful slogan is never

an easy task Hence, the study on some successful slogans promises to bring about a lot of interesting facts in the art of using language especially among not only marketers but also sociologists, psychologists and especially linguists

In this study, the researcher chooses to analyze the advertising slogans of some

world-famous food and drink products in English for some main reasons First of all, when those

products can be called famous, they must be successful in many aspects They may have a special secret of creating a great or even unique taste or they may have a long history of building their own prestige and class But one thing that can be ensured is their successful advertising campaigns in which slogans play a vital part The investigation into those slogans will hopefully reveal interesting features in language used in slogans in general and food and

drink slogans in particular Second, food and drink products play a very important part in our

daily life as an indispensible demand, so they have a wide scope of activities with customers

of different ages, backgrounds, religions, beliefs and values In this way, the slogans of those products, in a current competitive market today, need to be created with a very careful choice

of language to persuade their wide variety of demanding customers Hence, an investigation into linguistic features of advertising slogans can be of great value to producers if they want

to create a persuasive and effective slogan to advertise their products Last but not least,

investigations into slogans in general and into linguistic features of slogans in particular are limited and outnumbered by investigations into other fields of advertising In fact, while there exist quite a lot of papers on advertising language, there are only a few studies on linguistic

features of slogans such as “An investigation into the style of the English language used in

advertising slogans issued by some world-famous airlines” (Bui, 2008) or “Presupposition and implicature in English and Vietnamese advertising slogans” (Tran, 2007) However,

these studies only yield insight into some surface linguistic features of slogans or they only analyze slogans in light of some sub-branches of pragmatics Moreover, this is the first time slogans for food and drink products have been discussed among MA theses in ULIS and becomes one of the few papers on food and drink slogans in the world

For all the reasons mentioned above and be motivated by previous studies, a study

entitled: “A descriptive analysis of linguistic features of advertising language used in

English slogans for food and drink products” is carried out By conducting this study, the

researcher hopes to gain better insight into the most significant linguistic features of the advertising language used in English slogans for food and drink products This study with its results is hoped to be served as an invaluable source of reference for teachers and learners of English as a foreign language, translators, advertisers and those who concern themselves about this subject matter

1.2 Aims of the study

The objective of this study is to investigate the advertising slogans for food and drink products in the phonological, lexical, syntactic and semantic aspects to draw out the most significant linguistic features of advertising language used in these English slogans Moreover, the study also grasps some implications especially in ways of creating an effective slogan for food and drink products in the Vietnamese context to achieve success for the brands

1.3 Research question

In brief, the study seeks the answers to this research question:

What are the most significant linguistic features of food and drink slogans in English?

Specifically, the linguistic features of slogans are analyzed based on these four different levels: phonological, lexical, syntactic and semantic levels

1.4 Scope of the study

Within a shortage of time and the limited scale of a M.A thesis, the researcher only

investigates into 112 food and drink English slogans in print advertisements which are listed

in one of the most famous website with a large database of English advertising slogans –

adslogans.co.uk instead of analyzing advertising slogans of all fields and from all sources

Moreover, the study deals with English slogans for food and drink products in four linguistic aspects, namely syntactic features from the aspect of sentence complexity, semantic features including some figures of speech, phonological features including some rhetorical sound devices , and lexical ones which refer to some most frequently-used words in advertising language Stylistic features or some other extra-linguistic factors such as typography and

layout are excluded This choice of areas to be discussed, therefore, helps the researcher obtain insight into the subject matter in a careful and thorough way in order to provide the most valuable results

1.5 Methodology

This study has used descriptive and analytic methods as it “involves a collection of

techniques used to specify, delineate, or describe naturally occurring phenomena without experimental manipulation” (Seliger & Shohamy, 1989:124) These methods have been

utilized to analyze and describe the frequency of the occurrence of some linguistic phenomena

in food and drink slogans The descriptive method helps provide in-depth descriptions of food and drink slogans and the analytic method helps identify and isolate certain aspects to focus

on

The study has also used a combination of both qualitative and quantitative methods The quantitative method has been deployed in collecting and processing the data and the qualitative method is necessary to establish the theoretical framework, examine the data and draw conclusions

DEVELOPMENT

2.1 LITERATURE REVIEW

ADVERTISING AS A DISCOURSE

Discourse and discourse analysis

According to Widdowson (2000:8), discourse is a use of sentences in order to perform acts for communication purposes which cohere into bigger communicative components and set

up a rhetorical model which characterizes language pieces as a whole type of communication

Yule (1996: 139) defines discourse analysis as follows:

In the study of language, some of the most interesting questions arise in

connection with the way language is used, rather than what its components

are…We were, in effect, asking how it is language users interpret what other

language – users intend to convey When we carry this investigation further and

ask how it is that we, as language users, make sense of what we read in texts,

understand what speakers mean despite what they say, recognize connected as

opposed to jumbled or incoherent discourse, and successfully take part in that

complex activity called conversation, we are undertaking what is known

discourse analysis

Advertising as a discourse: Advertisements as Texts

Register can be defined as a set of lexical and grammatical features that come with and help to identify discourse that occurs in a particular recurrent situation (Johnstone, 2002:147) With respect to advertising as a genre, Trosborg (1997:9) states that the defining criterion of any genre is the communicative purpose that it is intended to fulfill Advertising as a genre can be classified under the category of appeal-oriented texts, having the predominant

functions of persuasion In commercial advertising, form and content are “at one in their

overall goal of arousing consumer response” (Reiss, 2000:38) To sum up, it is also shown

that the ultimate communicative purpose of advertising genre is persuasion

ADVERTISING AND ADVERTISING SLOGANS

Definitions of advertising

From a linguistics perspective, Adler (1985:25) defines advertising as “a

communicative situation” in which language can function in reference to the purposes and

real possibilities of this type of communication With a different view on advertising,

Goddard (1998:10) focuses on the aim of advertising with these words below:

Advertising is not just about the commercial promotion of branched products

but can also encompass the idea of texts whose intention is to enhance the

image of an individual, group or organization

Definitions of slogans and adverting slogans

As Whittier (1958: 11) suggests:

A slogan should be a statement of such merit about a product or service that it is worthy of continuous repetition in advertising, is worthwhile for the public to remember, and is phrased in such a way that the public is likely to remember it

An advertising slogan or a tagline is, as Rein (1982:49) defines it as a "unique phrase

identified with a company or brand" A slogan has "to say something about the product uniqueness or values" and it "should command attention, be memorable and be brief" (Rein,

1982: 54)

FEARURES OF ADVERTISING LANGUAGE

Syntactic Features of Advertising Language

According to the increasing degree of complexity, the constituents of sentence are classified into 4 sub-categories: groups, verbless and non - finite clauses, simple sentences, multiple sentences

The group: defined as expansion of a word (Richards, 1996:5)

Toolan (1988:57) and Bruthiaux (1996:79) state that one of the standard features of advertisements is the tendency to use lengthy and complex noun phrases or groups

Verbless and non-finite clauses

A verbless clause is defined as “a clause containing no V element but otherwise

generally analyzable in terms of one or more clause elements” (Quirk and Greenbaum,

1973: 310)

A non-finite clause is defined as “a clause whose V element is a non-finite verb

phrase” (Quirk and Greenbaum, 1973: 310) “The infinitive, the -ing participle and the -ed

participle are the non-finite forms of the verb” (Quirk et al.1990:41)

Simple sentences

Simple sentences are sentences consisting of only one independent clause (Quirk and

Greenbaum, 1973: 166) According to these two authors, simple sentences may be divided into four major syntactic classes including declarative, imperative, interrogative and exclamatory sentences (Quirk and Greenbaum, 1973: 191)

 Imperatives

Both Leech (1966:79-80, 110) and Myers (1994:47) regard imperatives as “the

generic sentence type” for advertisements According to Biber et al (1999:219), imperatives

usually lack a subject, modals and tense as well as aspect markers Leech (1966: 79-80) also agrees that the frequency of imperative clauses is considerably high in advertisements

 Interrogatives

Interrogatives give advertisements a conversational quality as well as establish an interactive relationship between the advertiser and the audience based on the grounds that a question presupposes an answer (Myers 1994: 49, Leech 1966: 111) This type of sentence often contains presuppositions which convey implicit assumptions of power and gender relations (Fairclough, 1995) and becomes a frequently -found feature in advertising language

as well Besides, another typical feature of interrogatives in advertising is that they are often rhetorical

 Declaratives

It can be said that declarative sentences widely appear in advertising language since they are primarily used to convey information and the ultimate aim of advertising is to inform customers of the quality of a certain product or the profit it may bring

 Exclamatory sentences

Exclamatory sentences also suggest personal and interactive communication, which

explains for its frequency in advertisements (Myers, 1994:50-51) They begin with either

what or how and continue with a subject-verb verb pattern (Biber et al., 2002:254)

Multiple sentences

Based on inner complexity, all sentences can be divided into simple, consisting of a

single clause and multiple, consisting of several clauses (Quirk et al., 1985:40) Multiple sentences include complex sentence and compound sentence (Quirk et al, 1985:719) In

advertising, the use of multiple sentences is limited because they can make an opposite intention for its creators

Lexical Features of Advertising Language

Verbal groups

In terms of voice and polarity of verbal groups, O’Donnell and Todd (1980) claim that

the use of passive voice is avoided and negatives are not frequently used in advertising In

respect to finiteness, these authors state that finite verbs do not occur very often in advertising Regarding tense, Leech states that the simple present tense forms are by far the most frequent

finite verbal groups while past tense are much less common in advertising language

Concerning modality, according to Leech (1966), the two most commonly – used auxiliary verbs in advertising are “will” and “can”

In a research on advertising language, Leech (1966:20) presents a list of 20 most common lexical verbs When Leech’s list of verbs is compared with the twelve most common

lexical verbs collected by Biber et al (2002:110), there appear many similarities The verbs

make, get, give, see, come, go and know are on both lists, for instance

Adjectives

Adjectives play an important role in people’s communication and adjectives in the

advertisements often act as “the wrapping ideal goal of what is intended to be sold or

provided” (Goddard, 1998:205) Jefkins (1994:202) also states that “if advertising experts were asked to use only one word, they will probably use an adjective” In general, adjectives

are essential in advertising because they are used to “add prestige and desirability and

approval for the consumer” (Dyer, 1982:149 In general, adjectives can appear in basic, comparative and superlative forms in advertising language

Brand names

Leech (1966:28-29) maintains that repetition plays an important role in enhancing the ability to memorize so this is the reason why the name of the product or the service provider

is often mentioned in advertisements and slogans as well

Personal Pronouns and Possessive Determiners

According to Williamson (1978:50), the pronoun “you” which is so common in advertisements is regarded as referring to you – the reader or the listener of the advertisement, although there is no logical reason to assume that it was specifically “you” that the advertiser

had in mind before

The pronoun “we”/“us” can be used in both exclusive and inclusive senses in advertising (Biber et al., 2002:94, Myers 1994:81)

The pronoun “I” most frequently refers to the potential customer, the expert of the

product, or the sceptic (Myers, 1994:83; Cook, 1992:155) According to Myers (1994:

83,85), “I” is used in advertising to offer readers a new way to characterize themselves and to

be unique individuals Together with personal pronouns, their corresponding possessive

determiners (your, my, our) are also used in advertising

New words and phrases

In order to keep the public’s attention, advertisers often “break the rules of English”

by spelling words incorrectly, coining new words, blending two words to form a new one, etc Some of the most common ways to create, change and turn words are compounding, blending, coinage and conversion

Semantic Features of Advertising Language

Metaphor

Metaphor is regarded as the most commonly-used figure of speech in advertising

Metaphor is defined as “a figurative expression in which one notion is described in terms

usually associated with another The linkage between them is implicit” (Crystal, 2003:465)

Hyperbole

Hyperbole is defined as “a way of describing something by saying it is much bigger,

smaller, worse, etc than it actually is” (Longman dictionary of contemporary English,

1995:704)

Personification

According to Leech (1966:183), personification is a special kind of metaphor in which human attributes are given to inanimate objects or abstractions In advertising, this figure of speech is widely employed especially when the connection of the product features with human emotions is desired

Metonymy

Moises (1978:30) identifies metonymy as “the use of one word instead of another,

with which it establishes a constant and logic relation of contiguity” The concept of

metonymy is highly exploited in advertising since it offers copywriters a chance to convey messages in a concise and effective way

Phonological Features of Advertising Language

Rhyme

Rhyme is defined as “a repetition of identical or similar sounds between words or

verse-lines and often used in poetry as well as advertising…” (Myers, 1994: 34) Rhyme

which refers to sounds, not spelling is widely found not only in literature but also in advertising including slogans

Alliteration

Alliteration is “the use of words that begin with the same sound in order to make a

special effect, especially in poetry” (Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, 1995:35)

Like rhyme, alliteration “catches the attention of the audience and makes the idea impressed

deeply on the audience and thus easier for them to remember” (Jefkin, 1994:206)

Assonance

Another sound device is assonance which is defined as “the repetition or resemblance

of vowel sounds in the stressed syllables of a sequence of words, preceded and followed by different consonants” (Zhang, 2005:93)

Onomatopoeia

Onomatopoeia is “a term used to describe the phenomenon of language sounding like

the thing it refers to” (Zhang, 2005:97) Like other phonetic figure of speech, onomatopoeia is

also broadly found in literature as well as advertising

2.2 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

RESEARCH APPROACH

Descriptive research is widely used “to describe systematically the facts and

characteristics of a given population or area of interest, factually and accurately” (Isaac &

Michael, 1981:18) This kind of research helps the researcher “describe naturally occurring

phenomena” and explain “what exists” with respect to variables or conditions of a situation

Seliger and Shohamy (1989:124) A variable “is a characteristic or attribute of an individual

or an organization that (1) researchers can measure or observe (2) varies among individuals

or organization studied” (Creswell, 2005:118)

RESEARCH SAMPLES

All the advertising slogans chosen for the research in the website adslogans.co.uk

were supposed to fulfill the criteria hereafter:

 Being an advertising slogan for a food/drink product

 Appearing in print advertisements (referring to slogans listed under the letter “P” standing for Print in the Media column)

 Being advertised in the UK or/and the US

Regarding those criteria, 59 food slogans and 53 drink ones were chosen for analysis

DATA COLLECTION PROCEDURES

Phase 1: The list of advertising slogans was downloaded from the Internet

Phase 2: All the food and drink slogans falling into the category of print advertising were

picked out That is, slogans belonging to other categories such as health and beauty, household appliances, leisure / entertainment, travel and transport etc as well as food and drink slogans listed under the letters including “T” (Television), “R” (Radio), “O” (Outdoor) and “Ot” (Other) were excluded

Phase 3: 112 food and drink slogans (including 59 food slogans and 53 drink slogans) were

chosen for analysis

DATA ANALYSIS PROCEDURES

After collecting 112 slogans for food and drink products, the researcher made a linguistic analysis of them and determined the linguistic means used in terms of phonological, lexical, syntactic and semantic aspects All the features of advertising language from those

four aspects which were studied in the research are called variables

After that, all the sub-categories of each linguistic aspect were coded and put into the Microsoft Excel next to 112 slogans A table of attributes for exact enumeration of linguistic means was produced and all the features in each slogan were examined most qualitatively by identifying which sub-category of sentence structure each slogan belongs to, finding out how lexical devices are used in each slogan, discovering whether or not each slogan contains at least one figure of speech or rhetorical sound device and making it clear how those linguistic devices are used thanks to discourse analysis

Later, general statistics were made as a consequence thanks to descriptive, synthetic and analytic methods and quantitative methods were deployed to measure the frequency level

of occurrence of each sub-category of sentence structure, each sentence type, verbal groups, adjectives, brand names, pronouns and determiners, new words/phrases, each figure of speech and each rhetorical sound device as well

2.3 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

SYNTACTIC FEATURES OF FOOD AND DRINK SLOGANS

Complexity of sentence structure

As can be seen from Figure 1, based on the complexity of sentence structures, the

most frequently employed unit of communication is the simple sentence which counts for nearly a half of the whole corpus Surprisingly, the groups account for only 28% of the whole corpus Among 39 groups appearing in the present study, noun groups constitute nearly 73% whereas adjectival and prepositional ones make up the rest Multiple sentences appear to be quite uncommon among 112 advertising (only 13%) Verbless and non-finite clauses are by far the least common constituents of sentence in the present data (about 10%)

Figure 1: Distribution of four sub-categories of sentence structure

Looking at Figure 2, there is a relatively low number of interrogatives and

exclamatory sentences in the data (only 6% and 4% respectively) The most widely used sentence type is declarative ones which account for 48% 42% of simple sentences are

imperative ones regarded as “the generic sentence type” by many researchers

Distribution of four sentence types in the corpus LEXICAL FEATURES OF FOOD AND DRINK SLOGANS

Verbal groups

There are 80 lexical verbs appearing in 63 advertising slogans in the corpus The most frequently used verbs found in the samples are

“make”, “say”, “know”, “get” and “keep”

Compared to the two lists created by Leech (1966) and Biber et al (2002:110) , there are 5 verbs including “make”, “get”, “see”, “go” and “give” occurring on three lists

Use of finite and non-finite verbs

The analysis indicates that finite verbs which amount to approximately 78% are nearly four times as common as non-finite ones

Use of modal verbs

In the corpus, modal verbs merely appear in 8 slogans which are equal to roughly 7%

“will” and “have got to” become the most widely used modals whereas “can”, “should” and

“would” occur only once

Use of tense

On the basis of the present data, simple present forms are the most frequent finite verbal groups and account for 94% of all slogans containing finite verbs whereas past tense and future ones are much less common (only appearing in 1 and 3 slogans respectively) In

fact, there is only one slogan which contains “would” which is commonly supposed to be the past form of “will”

Use of negation

Only 9% of the whole corpus contains negation and by inserting “not” and giving emotive intensification to a negative by using words like “never”, “no” or “nothing”, the

message of the slogan is put much emphasis on

Use of voice

In fact there are no slogans containing a completely a grammatically complete passive construction in the corpus However, there appear some constructions which seem to involve the passive voice even though some necessary elements are missing

For example:

Refreshment refined (Carling Chrome beer)

Adjectives

In the slogan corpus, there are 45 (roughly 40%) out of 112 slogans containing adjectives However, there appears an immense diversity in adjectives chosen for the selected slogans The most commonly found adjectives are “good/better/best”, “fresh”, “big”, “pure”

Compared to Leech’s (1966) list, only two adjectives “good / better / best” and “fresh” are

prevalent in both corpora

Brand names

Surprisingly, slogans containing adjectives and ones including brand names account for the same percentage (approximately 40%) of the whole corpus The occurrence of product names in advertising slogans as well as in advertising texts can help the consumers memorize the company and its service much more easily

Personal pronouns and possessive determiners

24 (about 21%) out of 112 advertising slogan for food and drink products contain

pronouns or/and possessive determiners and “you” and “yours” becomes the most frequently used one of the total pronouns and determiners appearing in the whole corpus Besides, “we”

is also used in the samples

New words and phrases

In the present corpus, new words and phrases appear in just around 17% of 112 slogans In total, 32 original words and phrases which are formed by means of compounding, blending and coinage help create the feeling of novelty and surprise Among them, conversion

is the most favourite employed formation method of new words

SEMANTIC FEATURES OF FOOD AND DRINK SLOGANS

92 (equal to about 82%) among 112 slogans contain at least one of the four figures of speech which are examined in the research

Figure 3: Occurrence of four figures of speech in the corpus

It can be seen from Figure 3, metaphor becomes the most popular rhetorical linguistic

device used in 112 food and drink slogans The second most frequently used figure of speech

is metonymy which is employed in nearly one third (32 out of 92) slogans using rhetorical devices The most common type of relation appears to be the relatedness between brand

names (proper names) and the products (common names)

Following metaphor and metonymy, hyperbole is found in 20 slogans Personification – a special kind of metaphor is used in only 6 out of all slogans utilizing figurative language There are some slogans which contain more than one figure of speech

Use of metaphor

For example:

The Coke side of life (Coca cola)

In the example above, it can clearly be seen that life here is understood as an entity which cannot be defined only by using the information provided However, at least certain characteristic of this entity can be determined by examining the word “side” Life is conceived as a thing which has at least two sides and in everyday life, it is always encouraged that we should look on the bright/positive side of life when things go wrong instead of thinking about the negative one This slogan seems to confirm the conventional way of conceiving life With or without Coca cola can affect two sides of our life Since advertising slogans are created to have positive meanings, the Coke side of life would probably refer to the bright side of life

For example:

Start your day the Kellogg's way (Kellogg’s cereal)

In Kellogg’s slogan for its cereal product – which is commonly used for breakfast, it is suggested that there are many ways to start a new day but eating Kellogg’s cereal is implicitly regarded as one of the best ways which can give you energy for the whole long day to come This way of using metaphor partly contributes to urging consumers to buy this product through the use of an imperative sentence

Use of metonymy

For example:

Guinness is good for you (Guinness beer)

In the example mentioned above, all brand names refer to the products (namely beer or orange juice)

For example:

It's finger lickin' good (KFC’s fast foods)

Back to this famous slogan for KFC’s food products, together with the occurrence of

an adjectival compound as a new word, there appears metonymy here with the connection

between “fingerlicking” and “good taste” of the product It is common knowledge that after

finishing eating something delicious, sometimes people may lick or suck their fingers

Use of personification

For example:

Picadilly pack a promise (Picadilly tea)

The tea is given human qualities which can keep a promise which is likely to be inferred that this kind of drink can ensure the flavour and quality

Use of hyperbole

For example:

The very best juice for the very best kids (Juicy Juice)

The adjective “good” in its superlative form evokes strong feelings and partly creates a

strong impression on the readers Through this slogan, the advertiser wants to make a claim that this kind of beverage is better than any other products of the same field and the greatest kids deserve to use it

PHONOLOGICAL FEATURES OF FOOD AND DRINK SLOGANS

64% of the whole corpus using sound devices to make the slogans more outstanding,

original and memorable