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VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES BÙI THỊ KIM NGÂN A DESCRIPTIVE ANALYSIS OF LINGUISTIC FEATURES OF

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

BÙI THỊ KIM NGÂN

A DESCRIPTIVE ANALYSIS OF LINGUISTIC FEATURES OF ADVERTISING LANGUAGE USED

IN ENGLISH SLOGANS FOR FOOD AND DRINK

PRODUCTS

(PHÂN TÍCH MIÊU TẢ ĐẶC ĐIỂM NGÔN NGỮ KHẨU HIỆU QUẢNG CÁO MỘT SỐ SẢN PHẨM THỨC ĂN VÀ ĐỒ UỐNG)

M.A COMBINED PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Linguistics

Code: 60 22 15

HANOI - 2012

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

BÙI THỊ KIM NGÂN

A DESCRIPTIVE ANALYSIS OF LINGUISTIC FEATURES OF ADVERTISING LANGUAGE USED

IN ENGLISH SLOGANS FOR FOOD AND DRINK

PRODUCTS

(PHÂN TÍCH MIÊU TẢ ĐẶC ĐIỂM NGÔN NGỮ KHẨU HIỆU QUẢNG CÁO MỘT SỐ SẢN PHẨM THỨC ĂN VÀ ĐỒ UỐNG)

M.A COMBINED PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Linguistics Code: 60 22 15

Supervisor: Kiều Thị Thu Hương, PhD

HANOI- 2012

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION I ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS IV ABSTRACT V TABLE OF CONTENTS VI LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS X LIST OF FIGURES XI LIST OF TABLES XII

INTRODUCTION 1

1 Statement of the problem and rationale for the study 1

2 Aims of the study 3

3 Research question 3

4 Scope of the study 3

5 Methodology 4

6 Organization of the study 4

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 6

1.1 ADVERTISING AS A DISCOURSE 6

1.1.1 Discourse and discourse analysis 6

1.1.1.1 Definition of discourse and discourse analysis 6

1.1.1.2 Context and its role in discourse analysis 6

1.1.2 Advertising as a discourse: Advertisements as Texts 7

1.2 CONCEPT OF ADVERTISING AND ADVERTISING SLOGANS 8

1.2.1 Definitions of advertising 8

1.2.2 Types of advertising 8

1.2.3 Advertising as kind of communication 10

1.2.4 Advertising slogan as an essential part of advertisement 11

1.2.4.1 Definitions of slogans and adverting slogans 11

1.2.4.2 Purposes of advertising slogans 11

1.3 FEATURES OF ADVERTISING LANGUAGE 12

1.3.1 Syntactic Features of Advertising Language 12

1.3.1.1 Groups 13

1.3.1.2 Verbless and non-finite clauses 13

1.3.1.3 Simple sentences 14

1.3.1.4 Multiple sentences 16

1.3.2 Lexical Features of Advertising Language 16

1.3.2.1 Verbal groups 16

1.3.2.2 Adjectives 18

1.3.2.3 Brand names 19

1.3.2.4 Personal Pronouns and Possessive Determiners 19

1.3.2.5 New words and phrases 21

1.3.3 Semantic Features of Advertising Language 23

1.3.3.1 Metaphor 24

1.3.3.2 Hyperbole 24

1.3.3.3 Personification 25

1.3.3.4 Metonymy 25

1.3.4 Phonological Features of Advertising Language 26

1.3.4.1 Rhyme 26

1.3.4.2 Alliteration 26

1.3.4.3 Assonance 26

1.3.4.4 Onomatopoeia 27

1.4 REVIEW OF RELATED STUDIES ON ADVERTISING LANGUAGE AND ADVERTISING SLOGANS 27

1.5 CONCLUDING REMARKS 29

CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 31

2.1 RESEARCH APPROACH 31

2.2 RESEARCH SAMPLES 31

2.2.1 Data source 31

2.2.2 Description of research samples 32

2.3 DATA COLLECTION PROCEDURES 33

2.4 DATA ANALYSIS PROCEDURES 34

CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 36

3.1 SYNTACTIC FEATURES OF FOOD AND DRINK SLOGANS 36

3.1.1 Complexity of sentence structure 36

3.1.2 Types of sentence 38

3.2 LEXICAL FEATURES OF FOOD AND DRINK SLOGANS 40

3.2.1 Verbal groups 40

3.2.1.1 Use of lexical verbs 40

3.2.1.2 Use of finite and non-finite verbs 41

3.2.1.3 Use of modal verbs 42

3.2.1.4 Use of tense 42

3.2.1.5 Use of negation 43

3.2.1.6 Use of voice 44

3.2.2 Adjectives 45

3.2.3 Brand names 46

3.2.4 Personal pronouns and possessive determiners 46

3.2.5 New words and phrases 48

3.3 SEMANTIC FEATURES OF FOOD AND DRINK SLOGANS 49

3.3.1 Use of metaphor 50

3.3.2 Use of metonymy 52

3.3.3 Use of personification 53

3.3.4 Use of hyperbole 54

3.4 PHONOLOGICAL FEATURES OF FOOD AND DRINK SLOGANS 55

3.4.1 Use of rhyme 56

3.4.2 Use of assonance 56

3.4.3 Use of alliteration 57

3.4.4 Use of onomatopoeia 57

CONCLUSION 59

1 SUMMARY OF THE FINDINGS 59

2 IMPLICATIONS 60

2.1 Implications for creating effective slogans 60

2.2 Implications for teaching Business English and linguistics 61

3 LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY 61

4 SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDIES 62 BIBLIOGRAPHY 63 APPENDIX – LIST OF ENGLISH FOOD AND DRINK SLOGANS I

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

TEFL Teaching English as a foreign language TESL Teaching English as a second language

LIST OF FIGURES Page

Figure 2: Distribution of four sentence types 39

Figure 3: Distribution of finite and non-finite verbs 41

Figure 4: Popularity of four figures of speech in the corpus 49

Figure 5: Occurrence of four figures of speech in the corpus 50

Figure 6: Popularity of four sound devices in the corpus 55

Figure 7: Occurrence of four sound devices in the corpus 56

LIST OF TABLES Page

Table 1: Twenty most popular verbs in Leech‟s (1966) sample 17

Table 2: Twenty most popular adjectives in Leech‟s (1966) sample 18

Table 3: Information on advertising slogans used for research analysis 33

Table 4: Four aspects of advertising language examined 34

Table 5: Most frequently used verbs in the corpus 40

Table 6: Most frequently used adjectives in the corpus 45

Table 7: Occurrence of pronouns and possessive determiners in the corpus 47

INTRODUCTION

1 Statement of the problem and rationale for the study

Nowadays, in a developed world, thousands of new products and services are introduced each day, which makes advertising become a real art - the art of informing,

persuading customers and deeply embedding into their minds 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 The use of just a few words in a slogan proves to

be harder than it is supposed to be It requires a sophisticated linguistic insight into phonology, lexicology, syntax as well as semantics and pragmatics 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

Moreover, 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, the country or geographical regions it is used in and maybe the population of its target customers A slogan plays an important role to attract consumers because it sums up the specialty, the benefit, and the marketing position as well as the commitment of a product or service advertised Moreover, a slogan should reflect the mood and the message conveyed by the advertisement

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

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

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 level

 lexical level

 syntactic level

 semantic level

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

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

6 Organization of the study

The study consists of an introduction and four chapters The section entitled

“INTRODUCTION” outlines the background of the study In this part, a brief account of relevant information including the rationale, aims, research question, scopes, methodology, and organization of the study is provided

Chapter 1, with the title “LITERATURE REVIEW”, can be considered a brief overview of some previous papers on the same subject in English At the same time, it provides the theoretical framework concerning discourse analysis, advertising, advertising slogans as well as some linguistic means used in advertising language

Chapter 2 – RESEARCH METHODOLOGY – refers to the research approach used in the study and the methods of collecting and analyzing the data to help the author achieve the best results in the study

Chapter 3 is called MAIN FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS, in which the author summarizes her findings in the form of answering four research questions mentioned in the first chapter to arrive at the most significant characteristics of the English language used in food and drink advertising slogans

The last section is CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS, which provides the implications of the study to the creating process of advertising slogans in general and food and drinks slogans in particular, and some suggestions for further studies

The study ends with “BIBLIOGRAPHY”

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

1.1 ADVERTISING AS A DISCOURSE

1.1.1 Discourse and discourse analysis

1.1.1.1 Definition of 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

Widdowson (2000:100) also emphasizes the distinction between Discourse and Text

by stating that “discourse is a communicative process” and its situational effect is a change

in a state of affairs: information is conveyed whereas intentions are made clear and the product of this process is Text

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

1.1.1.2 Context and its role in discourse analysis

Guy Cook (1989:39) considered context as “knowledge of the world outside language” which helps us to understand and use it to interpret the messages both in spoken and written form According to Nunan (1993:10), “context refers to the situation giving rise to the discourse and within which discourse is embedded” From the two ways of

defining context, it can be concluded that context is something that is vital to understand

the discourse and there is no discourse without context

Discourse analysis studies language in use: both written texts of all kinds and spoken data from informal to formal speech and it also studies the language phenomena above the sentence level that are influenced by contexts, social phenomena, social relationships as well as cultural factors

Hymes (1962) sees contexts as a limit of the range of possible interpretations, and

on the other hand, a supporter of the intended interpretation He states as follows:

The use of linguistic form identifies a range of meanings A context can support a range

of meanings When a form is used in a context, it eliminates the meanings possible to that context other than those the form can signal; the context eliminates from consideration the meanings possible in the form other than those the context can support

(Hymes, 1962 quoted in Brown and Yule, 1983:38)

1.1.2 Advertising as a discourse: Advertisements as Texts

Following Hervey et al (1995:126), awareness of genre and text type is necessary

in that translators must be familiar with styles of presentation and language use based on particular genre requirements in particular cultures The present part concentrates on the most major aspects of the advertising register and the genre of advertising as a text type characterized by specific features

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 Information included in advertisements should not be considered as a primary goal Instead, it should be perceived as a complimentary function which helps the advertisement become more persuasive 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) In other words, a commercial advertisement strives at

convincing consumers to buy the advertised products

To sum up, it is also shown that the ultimate communicative purpose of advertising genre is persuasion This allows us to regard advertisements as appeal-focused texts

1.2 CONCEPT OF ADVERTISING AND ADVERTISING SLOGANS

This part of the study will bring the general and basic ideas of advertising and slogans which are necessary for understanding the issue as a whole

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)

1.2.2 Types of advertising

Different criteria can be used to classify advertisements Geographically, there are

local, national and international advertisements In terms of advertising medium, there are print and electronic ones 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 This is also the type the analysis will concentrate on Vestergaard and

Schroder (1986, 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 belong to

consumer advertising 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 the 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 Due to the fact that public interest advertising is nonprofit, the words it uses

are much more different from the other 3 kinds of commercial advertising Its purpose is

not to urge readers to spend their money, but to disseminate a kind of concept or advocate

a social ethic

Moreover, advertising can also be classified based according to the type of medium : TV, radio, brochures, leaflets, magazines, newspapers and other printed materials, the Internet and Direct Mail advertising or outdoor advertising, etc

1.2.3 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” (p.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

1.2.4 Advertising slogan as an essential part of advertisement

1.2.4.1 Definitions of slogans and adverting slogans

According to Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (1995: 1349), “a slogan is a short easily-remembered phrase used by an advertiser, a politician, etc.”

Therefore, in general, a slogan is a memorable motto used in political, commercial, religious, and other contexts as a repetitive expression of an idea or purpose In the particular case of an advertising slogan, it is a verbal logo normally appearing just beneath

or beside the brand name or the logo of the product In other words, a slogan is kind of a condensed message of the whole advertisement which advertisers want their customers to remember most It is the usual case that slogans come to customers‟ mind first when they think about the products

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" 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" (Rein, 1982: 54) 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)

In different countries, slogans can be replaced by different terms such as endlines (in the UK), taglines or theme lines (in the USA) or signatures (in France)

1.2.4.2 Purposes of advertising slogans

According to Rey (1996, as cited in Abreu et al 2006:42), slogans can be used for

the following general purposes:

 To express especially the main advantage of the product

 To identify clearly the advertised product

 To attract the addressee‟s attention

The reason why a slogan commonly appears together

with the logo of the product is to ensure that if customers get

nothing from the advertisement, they can get nothing from the

advertisement; they can get from the slogan instead Moreover, in

a printed advert, a slogan often comes next to the logo as an

example of KFC‟s

In case readers just have a glance at the most noticeable position in the paper, the logo, they must have a look at the slogan at the same time so in this way, advertisers may reach their purpose of transmitting the key message of the advertisement

1.3 FEARURES OF ADVERTISING LANGUAGE

Language has made a powerful influence on people and their behavior and this is especially exact in the field of marketing and advertising Hence, the choice of language to convey specific messages with the intention of influencing people is very important

Advertising language is called a “loaded language” (Leech, 1966:76) Sternkopf (2005:210) shows his opinion about advertising language by stating that “Advertising language can take on any form that is required for communicating its message, thus covering and utilizing the entire linguistic continuum”

In this chapter, a description of the language of advertising on the syntactic, lexical, semantic and phonetic levels will be presented

1.3.1 Syntactic Features of Advertising Language

In this part, the major features of English used in advertising on the syntactic level will be presented from the aspect of sentence types and sentence structure It must be noted that one of the difficulties analysts face when studying advertising language in general and slogans in particular is its disjunctive nature, that is, in their belonging to what is called

“block” language, i.e language restricted by space or temporal reasons Because of the special communicative purposes of advertising language and the obvious limitation of the space, the grammar of advertising language shows certain features compared to the

standard grammar that are not found in other registers According to Leech (1966:93), the root of the differences between discursive grammar and disjunctive grammar is:

In fully discursive grammar, minor and non-finite clauses are dependent, in fully disjunctive grammar, they are independent…It means, in effect, that in disjunctive language a sentence need not contain a finite predicator, and this in turn means that a single nominal group or a single adverbial group may be grammatically independent Either of these groups may in turn consist of a single word In other words, there is no limit to the simplicity of a grammatical unit

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 As a special kind of multiple sentences, compound-complex sentence

is not mentioned here due to its rare occurrence in advertising language in general and advertising slogans in particular

1.3.1.1 Groups

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

Example 1:

NG: “New classics” (Chic and Cher)

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 In advertising language, the interesting part of a noun phrase is the pre-modifying part, which

is very complex and is characterized by some uncommon structural features In many cases, the whole adverting text contains only noun phrases Inside each noun phrase, clusters of two, three or more adjectives are possible

1.3.1.2 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) Within a verbless clause, we can usually infer ellipsis of the verb “be”, the

subject, when omitted, can be treated as recoverable from the context (Quirk and Greenbaum, 1973: 312)

Example 2:

Drei Wetter Taft (is) Always perfect

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

phrase” (Quirk and Greenbaum, 1973: 310) The four classes of non-finite verb phrase serve to distinguish four classes of non-finite clause “The infinitive, the -ing participle and

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

Example 3:

Flirting with an idea of an eye lift? (OLAY eye lifting serum)

In disjunctive grammar which is considered a common characteristic of advertisements, non-finite and verbless clauses occur independently and can therefore form

a sentence by themselves (Leech, 1966: 93, 113-114)

1.3.1.3 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 This can be explained by the inherent aim of

advertisements to urge consumers to act in a desired manner, commonly by purchasing the

products According to Biber et al (1999:219), imperatives usually lack a subject, modals

and tense as well as aspect markers The omission of the subject is understandable since the context contributes to making it apparent that the omitted subject refers to the listener

or the reader Leech (1966: 79-80) also agrees that the frequency of imperative clauses is considerably high in advertisements

Besides, another typical feature of interrogatives in advertising is that they are often rhetorical In other words, they require an answer that can either be apparent or provided

by the advertiser (Myers, 1994: 49) The answer usually justifies the purchase of the product or affirms its dominance

What a beautiful day it was!

However, Myers argues that exclamatory sentence in advertisements could actually

be seen as simple statements containing an exclamation mark

Example 8:

It is Miller time! (Miller beer)

1.3.1.4 Multiple sentences

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

single clause (see 1.3.1.3) and multiple, consisting of several clauses (Quirk et al., 1985:40) Multiple sentences include complex sentence and compound sentence (Quirk et

A compound sentence comprises two or more simple sentences linked by

co-ordinating conjunctions (and, or, but) and each clause is a main clause

Example 10:

There‟s only one naughty thing in Dolmio and that‟s a Papa (DOLMIO Bolognese)

In advertising, the use of multiple sentences is limited because they can make an opposite intention for its creators Since long sentence structures would not be read for their extent, it is also possible that readers may lose the interest in the slogan and in the advertised product in the end

1.3.2 Lexical Features of Advertising Language

This part of the work will be concerned with typical characteristics of the vocabulary in advertising language including the usage of verbs, adjectives, brand names, pronouns and possessive determiners as well as new words and phrases

1.3.2.1 Verbal groups

In terms of voice and polarity of verbal groups, O’Donnell and Todd (1980) in chapter VI – “English in advertising” of their book titled Variety in Contemporary

English claim that the use of passive voice is avoided because of its formalism and

negatives are not frequently used unless they “emphasize the special merits of a product”

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 which help

satisfy the customer‟s desire for the present state of the product and refer to universality and timelessness 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” which evokes the impression of “promise” and “can” which helps give the customer the ability to

do something If the subject (in most cases the product name) precedes “can”, the

consumer is informed what the product may offer (Leech, 1972:125) The infrequent

occurrence of certain other modal verbs such as “may”, “might”, “could” or “should” may

also be explained by their tendency to weaken the advertising claim (Delin 2000:131)

In a research on advertising language, Leech (1966:20) presents a list of the most

common lexical verbs, among which the twenty most popular are listed in Table 1 below:

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

1.3.2.2 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) Leech (1966), who declares

that in advertising the adjective vocabulary is much richer and more common than the verb vocabulary, provides a list of the twenty most common adjectives presented in the table below:

Table 2: Twenty most popular adjectives in Leech’s (1966) sample

Among those words, “new” is the most common one, which shows people‟s desire for original ideas and fresh concepts

Example 11:

A new era in the world of cruising (Marco Polo)

While reading advertisements, the hyperbolic character of the language may be noticed This exaggeration leads to the increased number of comparative and superlative

adjectives In general, adjectives can appear in basic, comparative and superlative forms in

advertising language

1.3.2.3 Brand names

Leech (1966:28-29) maintains that an advertisement needs to create a lasting impression so as to influence the behavior of the consumer 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

Example 12:

Give it the Cookeen lift (Cookeen baking margarine)

Example 13:

Don‟t just book it Thomas Cook it (Thomas Cook)

In both of the slogans above, the brand names are mentioned and change its part of speech (example 12) or create a rhyme together with other sounds in the same slogan (example 13)

1.3.2.4 Personal Pronouns and Possessive Determiners

The use of pronouns is a field where advertising differs significantly from other registers (Cook, 1992:155) The problem of advertising is that whereas it is a non-personal way of communication, it still needs to personalize messages for consumers, because they

do not like the impression of just being addressed as part of a mass audience (Delin, 2000:136)

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 Consumers are expected to recognize themselves in

the pronoun “you” as well as to acknowledge other assumptions that make the

advertisement purposeful and logical (Myers, 1994:88)

hand, when “we”/ “us” is used exclusively, it refers to the company, which awards it a

more personal image

Example 16, 17:

We put America on the road (Pepboys)

We live to deliver (Fed ex)

The pronoun “I” most frequently refers to the potential customer, the expert of the product, or the sceptic (Myers, 1994:83; Cook, 1992:155) As with “you” and “we”, consumers are expected to recognize themselves in the pronoun “I” when it is used to refer

to them 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 Although the third

person pronouns (he, she, it and they) do not involve the reader/listener or the advertiser,

they can also be used to establish positions and create the impression of personalized message (Myers, 1994:85) By using these three pronouns especially the second person

addressee “you”, it seems that the advertiser or the producer is speaking to you face to face,

making true promises and reliable recommendations In this way, advertising slogans stand

a better chance to move the receiver or customers to action, because the receiver has a

feeling that he/she is being thought of and taken good care of and he/she is the centre point

of producers

Together with personal pronouns, their corresponding possessive determiners

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

Example 18:

Happiness is having chocolate back in your life (Hershey‟s Chocolate)

He, she and they can refer to someone known to the reader/listener either through

the advertisement or as part of their life (Myers, 1994:85, 87) or they are also commonly used by advertisers to indicate those that fail to use the product, so as to distance them from the reader/listener (Cook, 1992:155-156)

1.3.2.5 New words and phrases

In English, there exist a wide variety of ways to add new words to vocabulary Advertising texts take advantage of using made- up words or adapted words and expressions so as to enhance the creativeness and attraction of advertising language 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 presented below:

these new ways of creating new words by saying: “Perhaps the most conspicuous characteristic of advertising language to a casual reader or listener is an abundance and variety of adjectival compounds”

Example 19:

Hands-free brushing (Daygum)

 Blending:

Blending is a kind of shortening words combined with fusing the elements of two

different words According to Huddleston et al (2002:1636), blending is a word –

formation process that produces new formation by combination of two bases of which at least one is reduced The most common method of creating blends is used, as Yule (2006:55) mentions, by taking only the beginning of one word and joining it to the end of

the other word

Example 20, 21:

smog = smoke + fog brunch = breakfast + lunch

In advertising, sometimes the brand name is incorporated with other words, as in Leech (1966)‟s examples below:

Example 23:

Aphreaudisiac (Perrier water)

 Conversion:

"Conversion is the derivational process whereby an item changes its word-class

without the addition of an affix" (Quirk and Greenbaum, 1973: 441) The terminology used

for this process has not been completely established yet The most common terms are

'conversion', because a word is converted (shifted) to a different part of speech; and derivation', because the process is like deriving (transferring) a word into another

'zero-morphological category with a zero-affix creating a semantic dependence of one word upon another (Quirk, 1997: 1558) Conversion is extremely useful to increase the English lexicon because it provides an easy way to create new words from existing ones Thus, the meaning is perfectly understandable and the speaker can quickly fill a meaningful gap in his language or use fewer words (Aitchison, 1989: 161) There are some common forms of conversion including noun to verb, verb to noun, adjective to verb, noun to adjective, adjective to noun, preposition to noun, etc Advertising language makes clever use of

conversion quite frequently like in the example of B & Q slogan below:

Example 24:

You can do it when you B & Q it (B & Q)

In example 24, the company name is used as a verb and in this way consumers do not have troubles connecting the headline with the brand name

1.3.3 Semantic Features of Advertising Language

Each linguistic expression has its literal meaning which denotes what it means based on common or dictionary usage In figurative language, on the other hand, the same language expressions connote additional layers of meaning Since advertisers regard persuasion as their first target and have developed a wide variety of devices for their purposes, adverting becomes the most obvious place where we expect the practice of rhetoric or figurative language is found By using rhetorical figures (also called figures of speech), copywriters make their texts more outstanding and effective As a consequence, such messages create connotative meanings and help the content become more memorable Rhetoric language can be found everywhere but to a different extent It is widely present in

literature, poetry as well as advertising Leech (1966:183) states that it has “a striking and

memorable quality which suits for slogans” The most common figures of speech used in

advertising language will be discussed in turn in sections to follow

1.3.3.1 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)

In contrast, simile is an explicit comparison using two connectives “like” and “as” In other words, metaphor is “a direct comparison between two or more seemingly unrelated subjects” (Leeuwen, 2005:49) that uses “is a” to join the first subjects Copywriters admire metaphors since they “suggest the right kind of emotive associations for the product” and

“we interpret a metaphor to see a connection or symbolic identity between the literal and figurative meaning of an item” (Leech, 1966:181)

Example 26:

Earl: Employee of the month (Burger King)

The metaphor “Earl is the employee of the month” is used in example 26 It is

common knowledge that the employee of the month does the best job so Earl – the grill of Burger King makes the best burgers

exaggeration to achieve emphasis which manufacturers utilize to advertise their products in

a more attractive way

Example 28, 29:

The Citi never sleeps (Citibank) Let your fingers do the walking (Yellow Pages)

1.3.3.4 Metonymy

According to Bredin (1984:29), metonymy is defined as follows:

Metonymy is the application of the name of a thing to something else, whenever the two things are closely associated in common experience, in such a way that the name refers to both simultaneously

And 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” There are

many types of metonymic relations such as thing and attribute, cause and effect, container and contained, an object and its material, sign and signified and maker and product The concept of metonymy is highly exploited in advertising since it offers copywriters a chance

to convey messages in a concise and effective way

Example 30:

Wash the big city right out of your hair (Fa shampoo)

In example 30, the noun phrase “the big city” substitutes for “the dirt of the city”

1.3.4 Phonological Features of Advertising Language

1.3.4.1 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 One of the best techniques for bringing in the brand name

is to make the slogan rhyme with it like in two examples below:

Example 31, 32:

City linking, smart thinking (City Link)

To save and invest, talk to Natwest (Natwest Bank)

1.3.4.2 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) It is not restricted only to poetry but it is also widely used in adverting slogans

According to Jefkin (1994:205), alliteration lends itself very well to slogans, making them

memorable, but it can be used discreetly and pleasantly 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)

Example 33, 34:

Today Tomorrow Toyota (Toyota) Dream Dare Do (Girl Guide) 1.3.4.3 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) Since assonance is a partial or

half-rhyme, it is commonly used in poetry, prose, music, speech and advertising (Zhang, 2005:93)

vitality to the description and helps make description lifelike Like other phonetic figures

of speech, onomatopoeia is also broadly found in literature as well as advertising According to the sound-maker, onomatopoeia can fall into different kinds including sounds made by human beings, by animals, by objects and associated with some action or movement (Zhang, 2005:97)

Example 36:

Plop plop, fizz fizz, oh what a relief it is! (Alka-Seltzer)

1.4 REVIEW OF RELATED STUDIES ON ADVERTISING LANGUAGE AND

ADVERTISING SLOGANS

In terms of linguistics exploration, advertising language was thoroughly

investigated by Leech (1966) in his research “English in advertising: A linguistic study of advertising in Great Britain” In his research, Leech provides primary exploration into

standard advertising language His study is based on Halliday‟s contribution (Halliday, 1961) Based on SFL, Leech‟s study covers two dimensions: STRATIFICATION (i.e., lexico-grammar, semantics, and context) and RANK (i.e., words including compound words, groups/phrases including nominal groups and verbal groups and clauses) According to Leech, disjunctive grammar, the low frequency of function words (e.g modal verbs), complexity of nominal groups and simplicity of verbal groups are some of the most distinctive properties of advertising language Among his other points of interest are the distribution of different verbs and adjectives in advertisements, cohesion or the lack of it as well as the creative use of language by advertisers

Advertising is also explored in terms of its strategic aims Vestergaard and Schroder (1985) base on a prototypical description of strategic goals of advertising copies

proposed by Lund (1947) Five strategic goals that are supposed to be achieved by advertisers attract prospective customers‟ attention, stimulate interests, inspire desires, create conviction and obtain positive actions (as cited in Vestergaard and Schroder, 1985:49)

Advertising language has been also studied by other scholars Toolan (1988) provides a list of standard features of English advertisements Similar to Leech (1966), Toolan is interested in recurrent syntactic, grammatical and lexical patterns and only briefly comments on the ideological and ethical sides of advertising, such as its ability to

“direct us towards acquisition and pleasure of unessential material goods (Toolan,1988:63) Dyer (1982) examines advertising as a kind of communication in modern societies, which involves both cultural and economic context for discussion Cook (1992) investigates advertisements as a discourse type In other words, advertising is viewed as a major discourse type in many societies This author offers a comprehensive introduction to advertising discourse by examining the language of complementary advertisements In his research, fourteen prototypical significant features of advertisements

are also supplied (Cook, 1992: 214) Similarly, Goddard (1998) in her book called “The language of advertising” also studies the discourse of advertising, focusing on the

interaction between textual (e.g., connotations) and contextual elements (e.g the music or the pictures or the narrative voice of the speaker)

Besides, Fries (1993) does a research on advertising language in terms of information prominence In his study, advertisements are examined in terms of Theme – Rheme structure A new term is created “N- Rheme” (for New Rheme) which refer to the last element of clause simplexes and clause complexes In this study, N – Rhematic information and Thematic information are presented and compared to see where information which is directly related to the persuasive goals of the advertisements (e.g., product name, product features, product functions and product estimations) is placed in clause structure The study shows that those persuasive objectives of advertising are placed

at the N – Rheme position All of those studies explore advertising language as it is embedded in the context of situation

The approach chosen by Myers (1994) is rather close to that adopted by Cook (1992) In addition to identifying the significant features of advertisements, his aim is to investigate language in the society in which it is produced and to analyze how context influences the interpretation of advertisements In general, one cannot investigate advertisements without considering the relation between the language and the situation (Leech, 1966:4)

In addition, Schaffner (2001, 213) and Goddard (1998:30-31) distinguish a number

of linguistic features typical of the English advertising language: imitation of spoken language, short, elliptical sentences, positive evaluative expressions and abundance of stylistic means affecting the audience (proverbs, puns, alliteration, rhyme, etc) The listed features of language are culture-specific in their use and intensify within the same register (Steiner, 2004:21)

In Vietnam, there are not many comprehensive works on the same field except for some books concerning advertising techniques as well as some BA papers and MA theses

of students specializing in Marketing Studies or Linguistics However, there have been some noticeable PhD dissertations carried out on advertising language and one of them is

“A discourse analysis of Travel advertisements in English and Vietnamese” which was

done by Ton Nu My Nhat in 2005 This is a contrastive discourse analysis of travel advisements based on the theory of Functional Grammar

Regarding studies of advertising slogans, Tran (2007) focuses on the contrast between English and Vietnamese advertisements with respect to different types of presupposition and implicature in the light of pragmatics in his M.A thesis Maksimainen (2011) carries out a M.A thesis on slogans in refractive surgery advertising using a descriptive analytic approach In the thesis, the author only pays attention to the investigation of syntactic, structural and grammatical features as well as some minor lexical characteristics of those slogans

This chapter deals with the literature review and theoretical framework for the research, which provides a comprehensive understanding of such core issues as discourse,

advertising language as well as its main features from four aspects Summary of previous serves as a good source for the researcher‟s reference The following chapters will display the study‟s methodology and findings in light of the above-mentioned theories

CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This chapter deals with the methods used in this study It consists of some sections involving the research approach, data source, data collection procedure and data analysis interpretation

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) As stated earlier, this kind of research helps the researcher “describe naturally occurring phenomena” and then obtain information concerning the correct status

of the phenomena and describe “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)

One reason for choosing descriptive research suitable for this study is that it can provide measures of frequency of the occurrence of the most typical features of advertising language used in food and drink slogans The purpose of this kind of research as it is introduced by Wisker (2001) is to find out more about a phenomenon and to capture it with detailed information