A study on linguistic features of english advertising slogans of fashion

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY LÊ THỊ CÚC A STUDY ON LINGUISTIC FEATURES OF ENGLISH ADVERTISING SLOGANS OF FASHION NGHIÊN CỨU ĐẶC ĐIỂM NGÔN NGỮ CỦA KHẨU

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

LÊ THỊ CÚC

A STUDY ON LINGUISTIC FEATURES OF ENGLISH

ADVERTISING SLOGANS OF FASHION

(NGHIÊN CỨU ĐẶC ĐIỂM NGÔN NGỮ CỦA

KHẨU HIỆU QUẢNG CÁO THỜI TRANG TRONG

TIẾNG ANH)

M.A THESIS Field: English Language Code: 60220201

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

LÊ THỊ CÚC

A STUDY ON LINGUISTIC FEATURES OF ENGLISH

ADVERTISING SLOGANS OF FASHION

(NGHIÊN CỨU ĐẶC ĐIỂM NGÔN NGỮ CỦA

KHẨU HIỆU QUẢNG CÁO THỜI TRANG TRONG

CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY

I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report entitled A STUDY ON LINGUITIC FEATURES OF ENGLISH ADVERTISING SLOGANS OF FASHION submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master in English Language Except where the reference is indicated, no other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the text of the thesis

Hanoi, 2015

Le Thi Cuc

Approved by SUPERVISOR

Assoc Prof, Dr Vo Dai Quang Date: December, 1st, 2015

my growth as an academic researcher

A special word of thanks goes to my friends and many others, without whose support and encouragement it would never have been possible for me

to have this thesis accomplished

Last but not least, I am greatly indebted to my family, especially to

my husband for the sacrifice they have devoted to the fulfillment of this academic work

is useful to those who are teaching and learning English as well as the copywriters

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

S : Subject

V : Verb

O : Objective

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Table 1: The frequency of phonological features in English advertising slogans of fashion 35Table 2: The frequency of lexical features in English advertising slogans

of fashion 43Table 3: The frequency of syntactic features in English advertising slogans of fashion 52Table 4: The frequency of pragmatic features in English advertising

slogans of fashion Error! Bookmark not defined.

Figure 1: The distribution of typical phonological features of English advertising slogans of fashion 36Figure 2: The distribution of lexical features of English advertising slogans of fashion 44Figure 3: The distribution of syntactic features in English advertising slogan of fashion 53Figure 4: The distribution of pragmatic features of English advertising slogans of fashion 58

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ii

ABSTRACT iii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS iv

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES v

TABLE OF CONTENTS vi

Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Rationale for the study 1

1.2 Aims of the study 2

1.3 Objectives of the study 2

1.4 Scope of the study 3

1.5 Significance of the study 3

1.6 Structural organization of the study 3

Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 5

2.1 Review of Previous Researches 5

2.1.1 Previous studies overseas 5

2.1.2 Previous studies in Vietnam 5

2.2 Review of Theoretical background 6

2.2.1 Advertising and Advertising Slogan 6

2.2.2 Phonology………16

2.2.3 Lexicon 18

2.2.4 Syntax 21

2.2.5 Pragmatics 24

2.3 Summary………31

Chapter 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 28

3.1 Research-governing orientations 28

3.1.1 Research questions 28

3.1.2 Research setting 28

3.1.3 Research approaches 29

3.1.4 Principles for intended data collection and data analysis 29

3.2 Research method 29

3.2.1 Major methods and supporting methods 29

3.2.2 Data collection techniques 31

3.2.3 Data analysis techniques 31

3.3 Summary 31

Chapter 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 33

4.1 Phonological and lexical features of English advertising slogans of fashion 33

4.1.1 Phonological features 33

4.1.2 Lexical features 36

4.2 Syntactic and pragmatic features of English advertising slogans of fashion 44

4.2.1 Syntactic features 44

4.2.2 Pragmatic features 53

4.3 Implications 58

4.4 Summary 58

Chapter 5: CONCLUSION 60

5.1 Recapitulation 60

5.2 Concluding remarks 60

5.3 Limitations of the study 61

5.4 Suggestions for further studies 62

REFERENCES 63

APPENDICES 66

Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Rationale for the study

Today, with the rapid development of economy around the world, business competition becomes very fierce There is an enormous number of companies in the world Each businesses has its own products or services and how can these companies demonstrate their products or services to the customers? The companies are required to try many ways to exhibit their products or services One of the effective ways to introduce them to the community is advertising The company makes acquaintance goods through all mass media such as television, radio, traditional and modern market, newspaper, internet and magazine

Advertising is so familiar to modern readers that it may seem need to ask what an advertisement is Generally, advertising is a written or oral of company using creative and powerful contribution to persuade people in goods

Advertisements are identified as the texts that do their best to get people’s notice to make people turn towards them The purposes of advertisements are to attract, inform, motivate and appeal curiosity of the public to buy and use the products or services

And a slogan is one of the most important communication tools in marketing which triggers the feelings and shows the product or service and company’s claim The language of slogan represents the particular product Slogans can be considered the heart of advertisements wherever they appear 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 However, creating a successful slogan is never an easy task The use

of just a few words in a slogan proves to be harder than it appears It requires

a sophisticated linguistic insight of phonology, lexicology, syntax as well as semantics and pragmatics Hence, the study on some successful slogans promises a lot of interesting facts in the art of using language among advertisers

On the other hand, what can be called a successful slogan is still a question The answer depends on the area of products and services the slogan

is used for, the country or geographical regions it is used in and maybe the population of its target customers Therefore, choosing one kind of products

or services to study the slogans used in it should bring more thorough and detailed results of aspects of language exploited

This study can help the learners improve their understanding of slogans and help the fashion companies write good and impressive slogan, one element that can enhance their competitive ability in the market

1.2 Aims of the study

The thesis is hopefully conducted with a view to helping Vietnamese learners of English to have better understanding the typical linguistic features

of English advertising slogan of fashion Thus they could use English effectively to design advertising slogans

1.3 Objectives of the study

From the aim above, the study is focused on some specific aspects of the language The objectives of this study is to:

- Describing phonological and lexical features of English advertising slogans of fashion

- Point out syntactic and pragmatic features of English advertising slogans of fashion

- Propose some implications for learning English via the linguistic features of advertising slogans of fashion in English

1.4 Scope of the study

The study is mainly focused on some phonological, lexical, syntactic and pragmatic features of English advertising slogans of fashion Sound, image and other features of slogans are out of scope of this study

All the slogans investigated in this study are taken from the advertisements

of fashion companies over the world which are written in English language

1.5 Significance of the study

This research is expected to be useful in both theoretical and practical aspects Theoretically, the study helps to find out linguistic features employed in advertising slogans of fashion in English language Practically,

it helps to find out the effectiveness of those linguistic features when applying to the act of advertising and hopefully suggests some ways of achieving great impression on customers’ minds through the art of using words by advertisers The finding of the study can be a necessary source for suggesting some good implications for teaching and learning the language

of fashion slogans

1.6 Structural organization of the study

The study consists of five chapters

Chapter 1, entitled “INTRODUCTION”, outlines the background of the study In this chapter, a brief account of relevant information is provided on the rationale, aims, scopes, and design of the study

Chapter 2, with the title “LITERATURE REVIEW”, can be considered a slight overview of some previous researches on the same subject both in English and Vietnamese At the same time, it gives a theoretical background to this study with theoretical preliminaries directly related to the investigation of English employed in fashion advertising slogans, namely advertising slogans, lexicon, syntax and pragmatics

Chapter 3 – RESEARCH METHODOLOGY – refers to the research approach of the study and the method to collect and analyze the collected data

to help the author achieve the best results in the study

Chapter 4 is called MAIN FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS, in which the author summarizes her findings in the characteristics of the English language used in fashion advertising slogans and also her conclusions on the percentage of slogans employing those characteristics

The last chapter is Chapter 5 – CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS, which provides the recapitulations, implications of the study to the creating process of advertising slogans in general and fashion slogans in particular, and suggestions for further studies

Chapter 2 LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Review of Previous Researches

2.1.1 Previous studies overseas

In the US and European countries, advertising is a kind of industry Studies have been carried out in the aspect of advertising language, of which some well-known studies are “English in advertising: A linguistic study of advertising in Great Britain” by Geoffrey N.Leech (1996), “Advertising as communication” by Gillian Dyer (1982), “English for sale: A study of the language of advertising” by Lars Hermeren (1999), or “The discourse of advertising” by Guy Cook (2001) There are also some studies which only focus on certain language features of advertisements Some of these are

“Selling America: Puns, language and advertising” by Michel Monnot (1982),

“Pictorial Metaphor in Advertising” by Char Forceville (1998) There are also some contrastive studies which compare the advertising language in English and that in other languages, for example “Advertising language: A pragmatic approach to advertisement in Britain and Japan” by Keiko Tanaka (1994)

2.1.2 Previous studies in Vietnam

In Vietnam, advertising activities are quite new and have been rapidly expanded for the last few years Therefore, the number of studies in this field

in Vietnam is limited Some notable researches on the language of advertising include two PhD theses done by Mai Xuan Huy (2001) on “Các đặc điểm của ngôn ngữ quảng cáo dưới ánh sáng của lý thuyết giao tiếp” (Features of advertising language in the light of communicative theory), and Ton Nu My Nhat (2005) “A contrastive discourse analysis of travel advertisements based

Besides, there are many articles on the matter of advertising language which are collected by Nguyen Kien Truong (2004) in a book called “Quảng cáo và ngôn ngữ quảng cáo: (Advertising and the language of advertising) Also, there are some MA theses carried out at institutional level For example, at Vietnam National University, Hanoi College of Foreign Languages,

a thesis on advertising language used in trade was studied by Hoang Thi Thuy (2005); “Presupposition and Implicature in English and Vietnamese Advertising Slogans” by Tran Thien Tu (2007) and “An Investigation into the Style of the English Language used in Advertising Slogans issued by some World-famous Airlines” by Bui Thi Bich Thuy (2008)

All these works have revealed typical and very interesting features of advertising language in general and slogans in particular Also in the spirit of inheriting and upholding the previous studies, what is being done hereafter is

to partially find out some similarities and differences in certain stylistic features between some English and Vietnamese advertising slogans

2.2 Review of Theoretical background

2.2.1 Advertising and Advertising Slogan

2.2.1.1 Advertising as a kind of Communication

a Communication

Communication plays a vital role in human life In his work, Fiske (1990:51) defines communication as social interaction through messages It can be inferred that communication appears in social contexts among people with messages to be transferred Here, he emphasizes that the messages are not only information but also relationship between the speakers and the hearers However, this definition seems too broad and blurred in meaning

According to Bovee and Thill (2000:57), communication can occur in various forms, written or spoken, verbal or nonverbal, to show a process of

sending and receiving messages This concept has much to share with the definition given by Saundra Hybels and Richard L Weaver (1992: 7) which says “communication is any process in which people share information, ideas, and feelings That process involves not only spoken or written word, but also the body language, personal mannerism and style, the surroundings – anybody that adds meanings to a message.” As seen from this definition, communication itself is an on-going process with a lot of factors that help Based on particular situations, communicators will choose to make use of some factors that are most useful and available in such cases to make their messages understood

For Shannon (1948:379-423 and 623-656), he breaks the process of communication down into eight discrete components:

1 An information source Presumably a person who creates a message

2 The message, which is both sent by the information source and received by the destination

3 A transmitter

4 The signal, which flows through a channel

5 A carrier or channel The most commonly used channels include air, light, electricity, radio waves, paper, and postal systems

6 Noise, in the form of secondary signals that obscure or confuse the signal carried Today we use noise more as a metaphor for problems associated with effective listening

7 A receiver In Shannon's conception, the receiving telephone instrument In face to face communication a set of ears (sound) and eyes (gesture) In television, several layers of receiver, including an antenna and a television set

8 A destination Presumably a person who consumes and processes the

The model of the communication process by Shannon (1948) provides,

in its breakdown of the flow of a message from source to destination, an excellent breakdown of the elements of the communication process that can

be very helpful to students who are thinking about how they communicate with others

b Advertising

In business, advertising is a form of marketing communication used to encourage, persuade, or manipulate an audience (viewers, readers or listeners; sometimes a specific group) to take or continue to take some action Most commonly, the desired result is to drive consumer behavior with respect to a commercial offering, although political and ideological advertising is also common This type of work belongs to a category called affective labor (Wikipedia.org)

According to Bovee (1992) “ Advertising is the nonpersonal communication of information usually paid for and usually persuasive in nature about products, services or ideas by identified sponsor through the various media” (Bovee, 1992: 7)

Advertising is the nonpersonal communication of information because

it is not aimed at any individual; it aimed at the public or a certain group of people It is different from interpersonal communication in which both speakers and hearers are there to interact with each other

According to Churchill and Peter (1998) “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” (Churchill, 1998:142)

For Geis (1982) advertising is a promotion or "any means of promoting sales and use of a product" (Geis, 1982: 1) Dyer (1982), on the other hand, defines it as ''drawing attention to something or notifying or informing somebody of something'' (Dyer, 1982: 2) The former definition is valid only for those products that are advertised with the single purpose of being sold

As we all know, there are also advertisements which offer certain services or try to encourage or move recipients to do something without the intention of selling anything; and here the latter definition holds true

Cook (2001: 182) stated that advertising is not some “external curiosity” into which we investigate but it is “something of which we are part, and which is part of us”

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 An advertisement

is identified as a public notice created so as to spread information with the intention of promoting the sales of goods and services in the market (Vestergaard and Schroder, 1985:2)

Basing upon the above definitions, we might summarize the features of advertising as follows: Advertising is to tell about or praise products, services, ideas,… publicly, not personally; Advertising draws support from mass media,

such as newspaper, radio, TV and internet The aims of advertising are to increase the sales of the product or service to create and maintain a brand identity or brand image, to communicate change in the existing product line,

or to introduce a new product or service

c Advertising as kind of communication

Churchill, Jr and Peter (1998:142) show their opinions about advertising by stating as follows: 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, in its nature, a form of communication

between advertisers and customers

Goddard (1998) discusses the communication of advertising under the idea of narrators and narratees She states that the writer is the person who constructs the text in reality (in advertising texts, the real writers are the copywriters and artists who work in an advertising agency’s creative department), while the narrator is the storyteller within the text Copywriters can “construct all sorts of different narrators to convey to us the message of

an advert” (Goddard, 1998:29), for example, a female writer can construct a male narrator, or an adult writer can construct a child narrator Narratees are,

on the other hand, people who appear to be addressed In fact, in advertising communication, a narratee is not a certain person, but at least a target group,

or the whole public

The communicative situation of advertising is a type of communication called mass communication The participants of advertising communication are a copywriter and audience who do not refer to any single person but also

to a collective The first category is usually represented by an advertising agency where a group of people works on the production of a certain message

on behalf of the advertiser The second category stands for a group of people

or audience who are usually exposed to advertising from different sources The audience differs in terms of sex, education, social status, age and income Hence, the copywriters have to take who different advertisements are made for into great consideration Then, the objects of the communication are products and services which are advertised Finally, the most important distinction of media is between speech and writing

2.2.1.2 Functions of Advertising

Although the primary objective of advertising is to persuade, it may

be achieved in many different ways One of the most commonly advertising formula used to creating an advertisement is the acronym AIDA- Attention, Interest, Desire and Action In other words, an advertisement should have four functions:

Attention: a good advertisement should attract the consumer to direct their attention to the product of it Most advertising campaigns rely on a mix

of visual stimulus to capture the viewer’s attention, using images to help an advertisement stand out and create a lasting impression

Interest: Once the product or service has secured people's attention, the next job is to hold their interest This is done by promoting product features and clearly stating the benefit the product has to offer The aim at this stage is

to provide the customer with information that will move them to the next stage of the process, desire

Desire: the publicity of advertising should stimulate consumers’ desire to buy the product, and make them realize that this product is just what they want

Action: the advertising makes consumers to response to the advertising information and evokes them to take the action of purchasing It is here that the topmost task of advertising is fulfilled

2.2.1.3 Types of Advertising

Advertisements are classified based on different criteria Geographically, there are local, national and international advertisements In terms of advertising medium, they are divided into print and electronic categories Besides, as for their purposes, advertisements can be classified

into commercial and non-commercial categories The basic difference is

that “commercial consumer advertising is directed towards a mass audience with the aim of promoting sales of a commercial product or service” (Leech, 1966:25) while the non-commercial is produced by governmental agencies or associations In other words, the most important aim of commercial advertising is to sell a product or service whereas the objective of the non-commercial one is to influence the public through political propaganda or through the contribution to charity

Even though there exist other types of advertising, it is the commercial one which uses the largest amount of money, professional skill as well as space in the media Vestergaard and Schroder (1985, p1-2) consider three types of commercial advertising:

- Prestige or good-will advertising - where firms advertise a name or

an image

- Industrial or trade advertising – where a firm advertises its products

to other firms

- Consumer advertising – where a firm advertises its products to potential consumers

Most television, radio, newspaper and magazine advertisements are consumer advertisements The consumer advertising includes alcoholic ads, cigarette ads, drink ads, food ads, wear ads, cosmetic ads, automobile ads, home electric appliance ads, and other products which are used and purchased by ordinary people To this kind of advertisements, most people have developed a kind of ambivalent psychology On one hand, they are bored with the endless advertisements hiding in the newspapers and magazines, clamoring on the radio,

or dazzling on the TV On the other hand, they still need the information to guide their purchasing Therefore, to attract the consumers’ attention is the most important task for an advertising copywriter.All advertising slogans which are analyzed in this study belong to consumer advertising category

Non-commercial advertising can be also called Public Interest

Advertising The general objective of public interest advertising is to inform, persuade, or remind people about the particular idea, cause, or philosophy being advertised This kind of advertising is often used by non-business institutions, such as schools, hospitals and charitable organizations We also see advertising by associations or government organizations Much government advertising announces the availability of such valuable government services as consumer assistance, welfare aid, or career guidance Many state governments use advertising to attract new businesses, tourists, or workers to aid their economy Due to the fact that public interest advertising

is nonprofit, the words it uses are much more different from the other three kinds of advertising Its purpose is not to urge readers to spend their money, but to disseminate a kind of concept or advocate a social ethic

(2) Advertising Fee

The advertising fees are paid by the advertiser no matter it’s operated

by itself or other agency Because advertising is a kind of marketing action,

an advertiser has to pay for its advertisement

(3) Advertising Information

Advertising information is the principal contents an advertisement wants to disseminate Advertising is a series of planning actions, so the information of advertising should be aimed at the certain target market and consumers, and should avoid aimlessness The dissemination of information should be accurate, definite, recognizable and moderate in length

(4) Advertising Media

Media are the means of the dissemination of advertising, including newspaper, magazine, broadcast, TV program, billboard and mail The newspaper, magazine, broadcast and TV are called the four main media of advertising Moreover, any kind of objects or tools can be a medium for the advertisement, such as airplane, train, bus, building, neon light, movie, package, exhibition, and etc Different kinds of media have different features,

disseminating area, target audience and speed

Within the advertisement itself, the components are headline, body

copy, slogan, illustrations and colors, trademark, and brand name These elements are named as visual elements Another kind of elements - audio elements are advertising commentary, advertising music and advertising sounds In these elements, headline, body copy and slogan are the most important elements in an advertisement In this study, I would like to pay more attention to slogans, which carry the features of being explicit, refined and inflammatory

2.2.1.5 Advertising Slogan as an Essential Part of an Advertisement

a Definition of a Slogan

The word slogan is derived from a Scottish Gaelic word sluagh-ghairm pronounced as slogorm which used to mean battle-cry

According to Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (1995), “a

slogan is a short easily-remembered phrase used by an advertiser, a politician, etc.”

A slogan is defined as a memorable motto or phrase used in a political, commercial, religious, and other context as a repetitive expression of an idea

or purpose Slogans vary from the written and the visual to the chanted and the vulgar Their simple rhetorical nature usually leaves little room for detail and a chanted slogan may serve more as social expression of unified purpose than as communication to an intended audience (Wikipedia.org)

An advertising slogan or a tagline is, as Geis (1982:49) defines it, a "unique phrase identified with a company or brand" It is often a summarized "big idea" which gives the product or the company a concept in the contracted form and "ties together all of the elements in an advertising campaign" (Geis, 1982: 54) A slogan has "to say something about the product uniqueness or values" and it

"should command attention, be memorable and be brief" (Geis, 1982: 54)

b Requirements of a good advertising slogan

A perfectly-formed slogan should fulfill several criteria First, it should

be memorable Memorability has to do with the ability the line has to be recalled unaided The more the slogan resonates with the big idea, the more memorable it will be

A good slogan should recall the brand name, and ideally, the brand name should be included in the line A good slogan should include a key benefit In addition, a good tagline should differentiate the brand The distinction here is that the slogan should depict a characteristic about the brand that sets it apart from its competitors A good slogan should also recall the brand name This use of semiotics is immensely powerful when it works, because it forces the viewer to say the brand name

One of the best techniques for bringing in the brand name is to make the tagline rhyme with it A fall-back position is to use a rhyme and mention the brand name without it actually rhyming

An effective slogan should impart positive feelings about the brand Importantly, a good slogan should not be usable by a competitor A slogan should not be able to substitute a competitive brand name and use the line Many slogans have absolutely no competitive differentiation

A good tagline should be strategic: Some companies can effectively convey their business strategy in their lines Catchy taglines also try to

be trendy, often without success

1 Be memorable

2 Recall the brand name

3 Include a key benefit

4 Differentiate the brand

5 Impart positive feelings for the brand

6 Reflect the brand’s personality

14 Help in ordering the brand

A slogan should not

1 Be in current use by others

2 Be bland and generic

3 Prompt a sarcastic or negative response

The most prominent linguistic devices used in slogans are based on repetition

A Goddard claims that in real speech, we “tolerate repetition, and even need it to support our memories;” the same principle is applied by copywriters seeking for a major recall of the slogans they create (Goddard, 1998: 43)

Alliteration – is “a figure of speech in which consonants, especially at the beginning of words or stressed syllables, are repeated” (Cuddon, 2013: 22)

Rhyme – presents a formalized consonance of sounds between words or the endings of words, especially when these are used at the ends of lines of poetry (Cuddon 2013: 608)

Anaphora – “a rhetorical device involving the repetition of a word or group

of words in the beginning of successive clauses” (Cuddon2013: 35)

Epistrophe – “a figure of speech in which each sentence or clause ends with the same word” (Cuddon 2013: 246)

2.2.3 Lexicon

2.2.3.1 Notion of lexicon

In a Cambridge dictionary online, lexicon is defined ad “all the words

used in a particular language or subject, or a dictionary”

- gentle + man + ly = gentlemanly

These words are made up of various smaller meaningful elements These elements are called morphemes As they cannot be divided into smaller meaningful parts, morphemes may be defined as the minimal meaningful language units are used to create words

b The word

The term “word” appears to be a simple concept but in fact, it is extremely difficult to define in either universal or language-specific terms

Some linguists refer to semantics, some refer to phonology and so on, to define the word

Word is a particular physical realization of that lexeme in speech or

writing Thus, we can refer to see, sees, seeing, saw, and seen as five different

For practical purposes, we accept the definition of words: “A words is a

free form that cannot be divided wholly into smaller free forms” (Lac N.H 1999: 29)

For example: driver, uncertain, impossibility, …(Lac N.H,1999: 31)

In these words, the base is a free morpheme

2.2.3.3 Word class

Word class is a set of words that display the same formal properties, especially their inflections and distribution Word class is similar to the more traditional term part of speech

There are two major families of word classes: lexical (or open) classes (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs) and functional (or closed) classes (pronouns, articles, prepositions, auxiliaries and conjunctions)

However, only lexical classes are investigated in the thesis

a Nouns

Nouns are words that refer to a person (such as Ann or doctor), a place (such as Paris or city) or a thing, a quality or an activity (such as plant,

sorrow or tennis) (Hornby, 2010)

Nouns function as the head word in noun phrases

With the single exception of be, each verb in English has between three

and five different forms

For example: cut, cuts, cutting; jump, jumps jumping, jumped; eat, eats,

ate, eating, eaten…

d Adjectives

In grammar, an adjective is a word whose main syntactic role is to qualify

a noun or noun phrase, giving more information about the object signified.Adjectives are one of the traditional eight English parts of speech, though linguists today distinguish adjectives from words such as determinersthat were formerly considered to be adjectives

Most common adjectives, being gradable, can take the suffixes –er and

–est ( quicker, quickest)

Adjectives either precede the noun within an NP (The red pen) or stand

to build phrases, with how phrases areput together to build clauses or bigger phrases, and with how clauses are put together tobuild sentences” In other words, syntax is the study of the relationships between linguistic forms, how they are arranged in sequence, and which sequences are well-formed

2.2.4.2 Syntactic Patterns in Languages

a Phrases

The traditionally, a phrase is “a group of words that does not contain

a verb and its subject and is used as a single part of speech”.(Delahunty,

1994: 176)

There are five phrase types in both English, but in this thesis, Noun Phrase (NP), Adjective Phrase (AP) and Verb Phrase (VP) are dealt with in investigating the fashion advertising slogans because these phrases are quite popular in English

- The Noun Phrase

A noun phrase must contain a headword but needs not contain anything else If the NP has more elements than the head, it may contain one or more premodifiers (which precede the head) and/or one or more postmodifiers (which follow the head) (Delahunty, 1994: 181)

The following is the structure of a NP:

Girl in the room

A beautiful girl in the room

- The Adjective Phrase

The adjective phrase contains a head adjective and optional intensifier and complement in English (Delahunty, 1994: 179)

Intensifier + Head + Complement

He is quite afraid to make any move

- The Verb Phrase

A VP comprises a headword, optionally preceded by one or more auxiliaries and optionally followed by any of its object(s), complement and modifier(s) (except intransitive verbs) (Delahunty, 1994: 199)

The remains will be shipped to Cleveland on Wednesday

(Auxiliary + Head + PP Modifier+ PP Modifier)

(1994) there are eight patterns while twenty patterns are described in Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary and seven patterns according to Quirk and Greenbaum (1987) This difference is up to different points of view of linguists Besides, sentences can be divided into simple, compound, complex and compound complex for their complexity or declaratives, interrogatives, imperatives and exclamations in forms of affirmative and negative in terms of their purpose of discourse

In accordance with the purpose of the utterances, sentences in general (either simple or complex) can be classified into four types:

(i) A declarative sentence is that kind of sentence in which the subject

is always present and generally precedes the verb

For example:

Amelia Earhart was born in 1897

Curiousity is the beginning of knowledge

(ii) An interrogative sentence asks a question It is followed by a

question mark (Warriner,1982:20)

For example:

What do you know about glaciers?

Why do we see only one side of the moon?

Who was the mother of Peruses?

(iii) An imperative sentence gives a command or makes a request It

is followed by a period Strong commands are followed by exclamation points (Warriner,1982: 21)

For example:

Do your homework each night!

Finish your work, John!

(iv) An exclamatory sentence shows excitement or expresses strong

felling It is followed by an exclamation point

Examples:

What a sight the sunset is!

They are off!

Sarah won the portable radio!

2.2.5 Pragmatics

2.2.5.1 Notion of Pragmatics

This research uses pragmatic approach to analyze the language use in fashion advertisement The focus of pragmatic analysis is on the meaning of speaker’s utterances rather than on the meaning of words or sentences There are some definitions from linguists and experts who proposed their views related to pragmatics

In Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, pragmatics is known as the study of the way in which language is used to express what somebody really means in particular situations, especially when the actual words used may appear to mean something different

Pragmatics refers to the study of relations between language and context that are grammaticallized, or encoded in the structure of a language (Levinson, 1983:9) In other words, pragmatics is the study of those aspects of the relationship between language and context that are relevant to the writing

of grammars It concentrates on those aspects of meaning that cannot be predicted by linguistic knowledge alone Based on Yule (1996:3) pragmatics

is the study of contextual meaning It involves the interpretation of what people ,ean in a particular context and how the context influences what is said

In other word Yule (1996:4) states that pragmatics is study about relationship between linguistic forms and the users of those forms Whereas, Mey (2001:

42) defines pragmatics as the study of the conditions of human language uses

as these are determined by the context of society

Hence, the writer can conclude that pragmatics is the study of context and language use It concentrates on aspects of meaning that cannot be predicted by linguistic form knowledge alone and takes into account the knowledge about the physical and social world The focus of pragmatics analysis is on the meaning of speaker’s utterances rather than on the meaning

of words or sentence

2.2.5.2 Speech acts

Yule (1996:47) defines that speech acts are simply things people do through language or actions performed via utterances He divided speech acts into five classes: declarations, representatives, expressives, directives, and commissives, (Yule, 1996:53-54)

(i) Declarations are those kinds of speech acts that change the world

via their utterance

For example:

Priest: I now pronoun you husband and wife

Referee: You’re out!

(Yule, 1996:53)

(ii) Representatives are those kinds of speech acts that state what the

speaker believes to be the case or not Statements of fact, assertions, conclusions, and descriptions are all examples of representatives

For example:

The earth is flat

Chomsky didn’t write about peanuts

It was a warm sunny day

(iii) Expressives are those kinds of speech acts that state what the

speaker feels They express psychological state and can be statements of pleasure, pain, likes, dislikes, joy, or sorrow

get someone else to do something They express what the speaker wants They are commands, orders, requests, suggestions, and they can be positive or negative

For example:

Give me a cup of coffee Make it black

Could you lend me a pen, please?

Don’t touch that

(Yule, 1996:54) (v) Commissives are those kinds of speech acts that are the speakers

use to commit themselves to some future action They express what the speaker intends They are promises, threats, refusals, pledges, and they can be performed by the speaker alone or by the speaker as a member of a group

For example:

I’ll be back

I’m going to get it right next time

We will not do that

2.3 Summary

Language issues in advertising get the attention of researchers from not only in Vietnam but also in over the world To understand clearly the language of advertising, some concepts related to advertising and advertising slogans was mentioned Advertising is a form of marketing communication used to persuade people to buy product or service Slogan is the most essential part of an advertisement Creating an successful slogan requires a sophisticated linguistic insight of phonology, lexicon, syntax as well as pragmatics In this chapter, the writer also gave a number of theoretical background of phonology, lexicon, syntax and pragmatics

Chapter 3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

3.1 Research-governing orientations

3.1.1 Research questions

This study is designed to investigate the phonological, lexical, syntactic and pragmatic features of some common advertising slogan of fashion in English So that, the research questions in this thesis are:

- What are the phonological and lexical features of English advertising slogans of fashion?

- What are the syntactic and pragmatic features of English advertising slogans of fashion?

- What are implications for learners of English as well as copywriters in producing good advertising slogans?

3.1.2 Research setting

Today, thanks to the rapid development of science and technology, there are thousands of different ways for a business to send a message to the customer Advertiser has a vast array of choices, such as print advertising, outdoor advertising, online advertising… The data in this study are collected from all these types of advertisement, chiefly from the Internet The sites that I get advertising slogan of fashion like namedevelopment.com, brandongaille.com, thinkslogans.com, textart.ru,… these sites officially get information from fashion companies, with source citations, clears figures and dates In addition, the pages which list the slogans are not set up individually, but with votes of many experts, copywriters and consumers over the world I took five months

to collect slogans from these websites from May to September in 2015

3.1.3 Research approaches

This study uses a combination of both qualitative and quantitative methods The reasons for this combination lie in the procedures of the study First of all, the slogans are investigated so that linguistic features appearing in them are discovered Then, they are quantitatively and qualitatively classified

in accordance with the lexical, syntactic and pragmatic features of common advertising slogans of fashion Next, to find out which feature is the most commonly-used in fashion slogans, the quantitative method is employed through systemizing the frequency of the occurrence of each feature in different tables From the parameters and tables, I draw the conclusion for the study as well as an overview picture of general definition for a popular advertising slogan

3.1.4 Principles for intended data collection and data analysis

This study is designed to investigate the phonological, lexical, syntactic and pragmatic features of common English advertising slogans of fashion and provide some suggestions for the advertiser in creating an effective slogan In order to achieve these aims of the study, certain data collection and data analysis techniques are used The first stage, the data collection is used to choose some popular advertising slogans of fashion companies in the world These advertising slogans are taken completely randomly and unintentionally

on phonological, lexical, syntactic and pragmatic features with the purpose of creating objectives of the research Collecting information in this step, I would like to transit to data analysis techniques based on lexical, syntactic and pragmatic features This method helps me to understand thoroughly the language elements that make up advertising slogans become famous

3.2 Research method

3.2.1 Major methods and supporting methods