A study on english advertising slogans of cars

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY M.A THESIS A STUDY ON ENGLISH ADVERTISING SLOGANS OF CARS (NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ KHẨU HIỆU QUẢNG CÁO XE HƠI TRONG TIẾNG ANH) ĐÀO THỊ VIỆT Hanoi, 2016 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY M.A THESIS A STUDY ON ENGLISH ADVERTISING SLOGANS OF CARS (NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ KHẨU HIỆU QUẢNG CÁO XE HƠI TRONG TIẾNG ANH) ĐÀO THỊ VIỆT Field: English Language Code: 60220201 Supervisor: Assoc Prof Dr Phan Van Que Hanoi, 2016 Certificate of originality I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report entitled A STUDY ON ENGLISH ADVERTISING SLOGANS OF CARS submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master in English Linguistics Except where the reference is indicated, no other person‘s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the text of the thesis Hanoi, 2016 Dao Thi Viet Approved by SUPERVISOR Date:…………………… Acknowledgements This thesis could not have been completed without the help and support from a number of people First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Assoc Prof Dr Phan Van Que, my supervisor, who has patiently and constantly supported me through the stages of the study, and whose stimulating ideas, expertise, and suggestions have inspired me greatly through my growth as an academic researcher A special word of thanks goes to my family 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 for the sacrifice they have devoted to the fulfillment of this academic work LIST OF ABRIVIATIONS e.g.: for example N: Noun NP: Noun phrase V: Verb O: Objective S: Subject Prep.P : Prepositional phrase ad : Advertisement LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Chart 1: Slogans language at phonological level 38 Chart 2: Slogans language at syntactic level 53 Chart 3: Number of pronouns in the study (also includes the inflected 58 forms, e.g us, our, ourselves) Chart 4: Slogans language at lexical level 62 Chart 5: Common verbs used in advertising slogans of car 63 Table 1: The average sentence length of each sample advertising 40 slogans Figure 1: The ten most popular adjectives and verbs in Leech's (1966) 19 sample Figure 2: The communication process in advertising 24 TABLE OF CONTENTS CERTIFICATE OF ORINALITY i ACKNOWDEDGEMENTS ii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS iii LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES iv TABLE OF CONTENTS v Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale for the research 1.2 Aims of the research 1.3 Objectives of the research 1.4 Scope of the research 1.5 Significance of the research 1.6 Structural organization of the thesis Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Review of previous studies 2.1.1 Previous studies overseas 2.1.2 Previous studies in Vietnam 2.2 2.2.1 Review of theoretical background Theoretical framework 2.2.1.1 Theory of discourse 2.2.1.2 Theory of discourse analysis 2.2.1.3 Theory of phonological, syntactic, and lexical strategies used in 12 advertising 2.2.1.3.1 Phonological strategies 12 2.2.1.3.2 Syntactic strategies 13 2.2.1.3.3 Lexical strategies 18 2.2.2 Theoretical background 23 2.2.2.1 Advertising 23 2.2.2.2 Slogan 27 2.3 30 Summary Chapter 3: METHODOLOGY 31 3.1 Research-governing orientations 31 3.1.1 Research questions 31 3.1.2 Research setting 31 3.1.3 Research approach 31 3.1.4 Principles/criteria for intended data collection and data analysis 32 3.2 Research methods 32 3.2.1 Major methods vs supporting methods 32 3.2.2 Data collection techniques 33 3.2.3 Data analysis techniques 34 3.3 Summary 35 Chapter 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 36 4.1 Findings and discussions 36 4.1.1 In terms of phonological features 36 4.1.2 In terms of syntactic features 39 4.1.3 In terms of lexical features 54 4.2 Possible implications for writing effective, impressive, and 63 fascinating car advertising slogan 4.2.1 In terms of phonological features 64 4.2.2 In terms of syntactic features 64 4.2.3 In terms of lexical features 65 4.3 Summary 66 Chapter 5: CONCLUSION 67 5.1 Recapitulation 67 5.2 Concluding remarks 68 5.3 Limitations of the current research 69 5.4 Recommendations and suggestions for future researches 70 BIBLIOGRAPHY APPENDICES Chapter INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale for the research Advertisement has become an indispensable part in modern life and it has considerable impact on people‘s purchasing behavior Advertisement appears everywhere from the media like TV, Internet, radio, or public places such as billboards, buses, bus stops, ect Using advertisements is considered a solution of seeking a channel for organizations or companies to reach out the world with their messages Slogans are taken as the heart of advertisements and they help advertisers to transmit the advertised products‘ messages to the customers as well as persuade them to take action of purchasing products However, how to create a good and successful slogan to bring in customers‘ mind the image of the product and encourage them to buy is not always an easy task Being aware of the importance of advertising slogans in conveying products‘ messages to customers and gaining profits for producers, many researchers have been done to study the topics of advertising slogans to reveal characteristics of good slogans One of the most renowned studies on the language of advertising was conducted by Geoffrey N Leech (1966), who described British television advertising from a linguistic point of view In his study, Leech developed the concept of ―Standard Advertising English‖ by listing the most prominent and widespread characteristics in his research of advertisements Although some common linguistic features of advertising in English have been revealed in his research, those features of a specific product have not been mentioned Besides researches on language of advertising in general and on topics about certain products such as cosmetics, house ware, food, medicine, ect, that appear in high frequency on media and billboards and other means of advertisements, a comprehensive study on advertising slogans of cars has not been dealt with so far although the demand for this product is constantly increasing due to the Firstly, using common verbs and adjectives in advertisement in general is one of the basic skills in creating good and fascinating slogans in order to attract customer‘s attention on their products Secondly, using comparisons is an excellent way to emphasize the quality as well as the outstanding features of a product to make it different and distinctive among millions products at the same range in the market Following is the chart that shows common verbs used in advertising slogans of cars 12 10 Drive Get Have Build Others(try, do, think…) Chart 5: Common verbs used in advertising slogans of car 4.2 Possible implications for writing effective, impressive, and fascinating car advertising slogans Based on the findings and discussions of the research, some possible implications of the study are given to write effective, impressive, and fascinating car advertising slogans 4.2.1 In terms of phonological features Although slogan language at phonological level could bring the great impression on the potential customers, it is not easy for advertiser to write interesting slogan this way Based on the findings of the study, instead of using rhymes, advertisers had better use alliteration to create good advertising slogans of cars in English This can be explained that repeating the first consonant sound seems to be easier than using the same vowel sound in the same sentence 4.2.2 In terms of syntactic features There are many techniques used in creating advertising slogans of cars at syntactic level However, not all techniques are easy and have good effect on the audience Looking at the statistics found in the study‘s findings, it can be clearly seen that use of interrogative sentences and exclamations are not favorable by car advertisers Instead, short simple sentences, verb phrases, and noun phrases are highly appreciated As a result, the implication here is advertiser should use short simple sentences, verb phrases, and especially noun phrases in their advertising slogans of cars This is easy to understand since short and condense slogans are easy to be accepted by the audience than the long and complicated slogans Besides, advertiser of car should circumscribe the use of questions and exclamations because exclamtions often show personal and subjective opinion may not arouse the customers‘ interest in their products and questions make the intended message neglected When using verb phrases, advertisers should use fine verb phrases instead of non-finite verb phrases Simple present form is advised to be used here since is it helps satisfy the customer and provoke the customer‘s desire for the product in that particular moment 4.2.3 In terms of lexical features It can be clearly seen that lexical features appear with high frequency in the collected data Using brand names and personal pronouns creates good effect on the potential customers of car There are nearly a quarter of collected data uses personal pronouns and among them personal pronoun ―you” is highly used by advertisers of cars Thus, this pronoun should be used in their advertising slogans to create the impression of friendly face-to-face interaction, which was often further strengthened by the use of an imperative construction in the same sentence Moreover, brand names are also good choice for advertiser of car as when people read the slogans, they will recognize name of the car or name of the company that produces that car am it also affects their consuming behavior to purchase their product Besides personal pronouns and brand names, comparatives is a good choice to consider when creating advertising slogans of cars as comparison is an excellent way to emphasize the quality as well as the outstanding features of a product to make it different and distinctive among millions products at the same range in the market In addition, based on the findings of the research, advertising slogans of car get good effect on potential customers when they use verb “drive” which describes the product‘s function and bring them a desire to try the car and buy it In terms of adjectives, the common adjectives like good, better, best, new, like in other advertisement, are favourable in the collected data Thus, is would be good idea to use them to create good advertising slogans for car advertisers In terms of adjectives, the findings shows that it is not very common to use adjectives in the collected data; therefore, when creating advertising slogans, advertisers not need to pay too much attention to adjectives If possible, better and best are two adjectives that advertisers should consider to put them into the slogans 4.3 Summary In conclusion, chapter four shows some findings about phonological, syntactic, and lexical features of English advertising slogan of car At phonological level, the use of rhymes and alliteration were found at some slogans In terms of syntactic features, short simple sentences, imperative sentences, interrogative sentences, exclamations, noun phrases, and verb phrases all appeared in the collected data At syntactic level, brand names, personal pronouns, comparisons, common adjectives and verbs were taken advantaged of to make the slogans fascinating and effective In addition, some discussions on those matters are made to bring the overview on the current trend of creating car slogans In the first aspect, phonological features, alliteration and rhymes seem not to be used frequently in advertising slogans of cars In contrast, at syntactic level, the occurrence of the linguistic features happened more frequently with the highest position belongs to noun phrases and finite verb phrases Interrogatives and exclamations rarely appear in the data In the last aspect, lexical features, the use of brand names dominates the slogans to make it easy to remember and attract the potential customers by its fame Besides, some implications of the findings was stated CHAPTER CONCLUSION 5.1 Recapitulation The thesis studies advertising slogans of car companies from the linguistic point of view It is composed by five parts namely introductions, literature review, methodology, findings and discussions, and conclusion The focus of the study is on the phonological, lexical, and syntactical features of advertising slogans of cars in English The first part, introduction, shows overview of the thesis including rationale, aims of the research,objectives of the research, scope of the research, significance of the research, and structure of the research should be established The literature review of the thesis reviews some previous related studies in both English and Vietnamese as well as books on linguistics and English learning Besides, this part presents some the theoretical background of discourse, the existing theory on phonological features, lexical features, syntactic features in English In addition, definition of advertising, slogans and related issues are added to give the common understanding on the issues discussed The third part, methodology, indicates the research-governing orientations and research methods of the study In this part, descriptive research method was used in order to get the finest result The data for analysis was 100 advertising slogan of car in English of many world-famous car companies, and the biggest ones of some developed countries.The study aims to draw out some hints for advertisers in car industry to create effective, impressive, and fascinating advertising slogans As a result, two research questions are addressed: (1) What are the phonological, lexical, and syntactic featuresof car advertising slogans? (2) What are the implications of the study for writing effective, impressive, and fascinating advertising slogans of cars? After the results was presented in part four, findings and discussions, the discussion to answer two research questions were made, and some implications on writing advertising slogans was introduced The fouth part, findings and discussions, comes to review the major findings recorded from the study and a discussion on them To be more specific, the thesis revealed the typical phonological features, syntactic features, and lexical features of the collected data In addition, some possible implications for writing effective, impressive, and fascinating car advertising slogan are also given The last chapter, conclusion, gives a brief summary of the main points presented in the thesis, concluding rrecapitulation, concluding remarks, limitations of the current study, and provides some suggestions for further studies 5.2 Concluding remarks Focusing on the objective of the study which was to find out the phonological, lexical, and syntactic features of advertising slogan of car in English, there were many interesting characteristics identified Firstly, in terms of phonological features, although it has various aspects should be discussed in the thesis, only rhyme and alliteration found in the collected data with small number: three samples used rhyme and eight used alliteration This proves that the use of phonology in creating advertising slogan of car does not popular despite of its obvious positive effects on the audience Secondly, at lexical level, some common characteristics of advertising were pointed out in the study That is the use of adjective best and better in superlative and comparative which is quite common in advertising in general Personal pronouns like you and we are used quite often here with 19% However, ranking the first position in lexical level is the use of brand name in advertising slogans of car There are up to 39 slogans out of 100 slogans which accounts for 39% are created with its brand names This proves that brand name is an important factor that the car advertisers should take much consideration when creating effective slogan in order to attract their potential customers Lastly, in terms of syntactic features, there were not much new facts in comparison with slogans of other products in advertising found The findings shows that syntactic features like short simple sentences, imperative sentences, interrogative sentences, exclamations, verb phrases, noun phrases were found in the data Ranking the first position with 89%, noun phrases were the car advertiser‘s favorite one in creating effective slogans, so it is proved that noun phrases are a great choice to create excellent advertising slogans of cars in English Short simple sentences with 31% are also a wise choice in this case since they can help the car producers send the message to their potential customers quickly and effectively However, with only 5% for each one, interrogatives and exclamations were rarely used by car advertisers Declarative sentences are a little bit better, but it was not very common in car slogans With the aim at finding out the phonological, syntactic, and lexical features in order to draw out some hints for advertisers in car industry to create effective, impressive, and fascinating advertising slogans of cars in English, some suggestions would be given based on the study‘s findings First, it is recommended that the producer‘s brand names should be attached in slogans to attract and persuade customers to buy the product due to the fame it has gained Second, car advertisers should take advantage of noun phrases, short simple sentences and personal pronouns to create good and fascinating slogans Last but not least, imperative, exclamations, and interrogative sentences should be avoided because they did not make the customers feel good when reading or watching the slogans 5.3 Limitations of the current research Although the research analyzed advertising slogans of cars in several aspects of linguistic features and got some achievement, it is limited to the followings First and foremost, there was a limitation regarding the number of data used in the thesis It is limited to 100 advertising slogans which seem not to be very a huge number Therefore, results of this analysis may not cover all of the linguistic features used in creating a fascinating slogans of cars producers worldwide However, the chosen slogans are from the famous and giant car producers all over the world with guarantee of product‘s quality and success Therefore, the results found are still reliable and they not only share some common features of language of advertising in general but also show its own advertising language in car advertising in person Second, the research has been limited to examination of the phonological, syntactic and lexical features of English advertising slogans of cars, other aspects of the linguistic features are not taken into account This is due to the limit of time to conduct this study as well as the ability of the author in order to cover all of them in the thesis 5.4 Recommendations and suggestions for future research Recommendations Since the study is about advertising slogans, it would be a good recommendation for any advertisers who would like to create effective and catchy slogans Furthermore, car producers can take a look at the results when deciding to choose a slogan for their product when selling it to the market in order to get the best feedbacks from the audience and get huge profits from their products with the aid of advertising slogans Suggests for future research Although some phonological, lexical, and syntactic features of advertising slogans of cars in English have been investigated so far in the thesis, it can not cover all the aspects relating to such broad and changeable from time to time like language of advertising Therefore, further researches can further find out more about this topic Here are some suggestions: - A Study on Linguistic features of Advertising Slogans of Cars in English with Vietnamese equivalents - A Study on the Development of Advertising Slogans of Cars in English and their change over certain periods of time from the linguistic viewpoint - A Study on Presupposition and Implicature in English and Vietnamese Advertising Slogans of Cars - A Study on Metaphor in English Advertising Slogans of Car with Vietnamese equivalents APPENDIX English advertising slogan of car A different kind of Company, A different kind of car.-Saturn An American Revolution-Chevrolet American Luxury-Lincoln And the Plymouth win-you-over beat goes on!-Plymouth Better Ideas Driven by you-Ford Bigger in Texas, Better in a Dodge-Dodge Better Built, Better Backed-Mitsubishi Buick It‘s All Good.-Buick Built Ford tough!-Ford 10.Buick The spirit of American style.-Buick 11.Baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet-Chevrolet 12.Break through.-Cadillac 13.Chevrolet, building a better way (to see the USA)-Chevrolet 14.Chrysler Inspiration comes standard-Chrysler 15.Driving is believing-Hyundai 16.Drive your Way-Hyundai 17.Drive Safely-Volvo 18.Don‘t dream it Drive it.-Jaguar 19.Everything We Do is Driven By You-Ford 20.Eye it-try it- buy it! Chevrolet 21.Find Your Own Road-Saab 22.Ford has a better idea-Ford 23.Grace…space…pace-Jaguar 24.Get the Feeling-Toyota 25.Have Fun Out There-Jeep 26.Have you driven a Ford lately?-Ford 27.Honda First man, then machine-Honda 28.Hummer Like Nothing Else.-Hummer 29.It‘s gotta be a Dodge.-Dodge 30.It‘s a whole new Hyundai-Hyundai 31.Isn‘t it time for a real car?-Buick 32.It‘s Different in a Saturn-Saturn 33.It must be love-Honda 34.It makes you feel like the man you are.-Buick 35.I love what you for me-Toyota 36.If only everything in life was as reliable as a Volkswagen-Volkswagen 37.Infiniti Accelerating the Future.-Infiniti 38.If gas pains persist, try Volkswagen.-Volkswagen 39.If it‘s not trail rated, it‘s not a jeep -Jeep 40.If it‘s important to you, it‘s important to Plymouth-Plymouth 41.Jeep There‘s Only One-Jeep 42.Just imagine what Citroen can for you – Citroen 43.Land Rover Go beyond.-Land Rover 44.Life, Liberty, and The Pursuit-Cadillac 45.Like Always Like Never Before-Saturn 46.Like nothing else on Earth-Hummer 47.Like a Rock-Chevy Trucks 48.Mercedes-Benz The Future of the Automobile-Mercedes Benz 49.Major motion, from Nissan-Nissan 50.New doors opened-Mercury 51.Never Follow-Audi 52.Now that‘s imagination, that‘s Plymouth!-Plymouth 53.Oh what a feeling, Toyota-Toyota 54.Porsche, There is No Substitute-Porsche 55.Plymouth- isn‘t that the kind of car America wants?- Plymouth 56.Pontiac: Designed for Action-Pontiac 57.Rover A Class Of Its Own 58.Relieves gas pains-Volkswagen 59.Start Something-Oldsmobile 60.See the USA in your Chevrolet!-Chevrolet 61.Standard of the World-Cadillac 62.Small Wonder-Volkswagen 63.The more you know, the better it looks…Cavalier 64.The car in front is a Toyota-Toyota 65.The sun never sets on the mighty Jeep-Jeep 66.The ultimate driving machine-BMW 67.The Penalty of Leadership-Cadillac 68.The art of performance-Jaguar 69.The Strength of Experience-GMC Truck 70.The power of Dreams-Honda 71.The relentless pursuit of perfection.-Lexus 72.The Beauty of All-Wheel Drive-Subaru 73.The Best Built Cars In The World-Toyota 74.The Heartbeat of America-Chevrolet 75.The best never rest-Ford Trucks 76.The car that cares 77.The Passionate Pursuit of Perfection – Toyota 78.Technology you can enjoy-Honda 79.This is not your father‘s oldsmobile-Oldsmobile 80.There‘s a Ford in your Future.-Ford 81.Think Feel Drive-Subaru 82.Think Small-Volkswagen 83.Travel Well-Lincoln 84.Unlike any other-Mercedes Benz 85.Unleash a Jaguar-Jaguar 86.Wake up and Drive-Mitsubishi 87.What will you with all the money you save?-Toyota 88.What Kind of Car Is That? It‘s A Saturn!-Saturn 89.We are professional grade-GMC Truck 90.We are driving excitement-Pontiac 91.We‘ll be there.-Chevrolet 92.When better automobiles are built, Buick will build them-Buick 93.When You Get It, You Get It-Subaru 94.Who could ask for anything more? 95.Wouldn‘t you really rather have a Buick?-Buick 96.You can with a Nissan-Nissan 97.You have my word on it-Isuzu 98.Your Next Car-Chrysler 99.You, asked for it You got it, Toyota-Toyota 100 Zoom, Zoom, Zoom-Mazda BIBLIOGRAPHY English Bc Adela Pilátová, 2015 The language of advertising: analysis of advertising slogans in fast food industry Diploma thesis, Masaryk University Brown, G and G Yule 1983 Discourse Analysis Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Char Forceville 1998 Pictorial Metaphor in Advertising Routledge, London Charles L Whittier 1955 Creative Advertising Holt Cook, Guy 1992 The Discourse of Advertising Routledge, London Delin, Judy 2000 The Language of Everyday Life SAGE Publications, London Fairclough, Norman 1995 Critical Discourse Analysis: The Critical Study of Language Longman, London Gillian Dyer 1982 Advertising as communication Routledge, London, Reprint edition Goddard, Angela 1998 The Language of Advertising: Written Texts Routledge, London 10 Guy Cook 1989 Discourse Oxford University Press, Oxford 11 Guy Cook 2001 The discourse of advertising Oxford University Press Oxford 12 Halliday, M.A.K., & Hasan, R 1985 Language, context, and text: aspects of language in a social-semiotic perspective Oxford University Press, Oxford 13 Holmes, H.K 2005 Advertising as Multilingual Communication Palgrave Macmillan, New York 14 Keiko Tanaka 1994 Advertising language: A pragmatic approach to advertisements in Britain and Japan Routledge, London, first edition 15 Lars Hermeren (1999) ―English for sale: A study of the language of advertising” Lund University Press, Lund 16 Leech, Geoffrey N 1966 English in Advertising: A Linguistic Study of Advertising in Great Britain Longman, London 17 Mehwish Noor et al 2015 The language of TV Commercials‟ Slogan: A Semantic Analysis” Published online April 28, 2015 Available at http://www.sciencepublishinggroup.com/j/cls 18 Nunan, D 1993 Introducing Discourse Analysis Penguin Group, London 19 Janalapsanska 2006 The language of advertising with the concentration on the linguistic means and the analysis of advertising slogans Bratislava University 20 Vestergaard, Torben Blackwell, Oxford and Kim Schrøder 1985 The Language of Advertising 21 Wisker, G (2001) The Postgraduate Research Handbook Palgrave, New York Vietnamese 22 Mai Xuân Huy 2001 Các đặc điểm ngôn ngữ quảng cáo ánh sáng lý thuyết giao tiếp PhD thesis, Linguistic Institute 23 Nguyen Kien Truong 2004 Quảng cáo ngôn ngữ quảng cáo: (Advertising and the language of advertising) Social Sciences Publishing House, Hanoi 24 Nguyen Thi Thu Thao 2015 A contrastive analysis of English and Vietnamese real estate advertising slogans in printed advertisement (master‘s thesis) Vietnam National University, University of Languages and International Studies 25 Tôn Nữ Nhật Lệ 2005 A discourse analysis of travel advertisements in English and Vietnamese (master‘s thesis) Vietnam National University, University of Languages and International Studies 26 Tran Thien Tu 2007 Presupposition and Implicature in English and Vietnamese Advertising Slogans Hanoi Sources from Internet 27 http://www.textart.ru/database/slogan/list-advertising-slogans.html 28 http://www.thinkslogans.com 29 www.marketingpower.com 30 www.adslogans.co.uk/ans/adslogans_artscience 31 https://www.thebalance.com/get-to-know-and-use-aida-39273 ... Keiko Tanaka (1994) In 2006, Janalapsanska, a Slovakian author conducted a study: “The language of advertising with the concentration on the linguistic means and the analysis of advertising slogans ... is advisable for references when studying language of advertising In 2015, a study on language of advertising was conducted: “The language of advertising: analysis of advertising slogans in fast... reasons, the writer have motivation to carry out A Study on English Advertising Slogans of Cars with a view to investigate the linguistic features of good car advertising slogans as well as