Lexical reiteration in the language of ICT product advertisements a comparative study in english and vietnamese

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES _ DƢƠNG BÍCH THUẬN LEXICAL REITERATION IN THE LANGUAGE OF ICT PRODUCT ADVERTISEMENTS: A COMPARATIVE STUDY IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE (LẶP TỪ VỰNG TRONG NGÔN NGỮ QUẢNG CÁO SẢN PHẨM CÔNG NGHỆ THÔNG TIN VÀ TRUYỀN THÔNG: NGHIÊN CỨU SO SÁNH ANH-VIỆT) M.A Minor 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 _ DƢƠNG BÍCH THUẬN LEXICAL REITERATION IN THE LANGUAGE OF ICT PRODUCT ADVERTISEMENTS: A COMPARATIVE STUDY IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE (LẶP TỪ VỰNG TRONG NGÔN NGỮ QẢNG CÁO SẢN PHẨM CÔNG NGHỆ THÔNG TIN VÀ TRUYỀN THÔNG: NGHIÊN CỨU SO SÁNH ANH-VIỆT) M.A Minor thesis Field: English Linguistics Code: 60 22 15 Supervisor: Dr Kiều Thi Thụ Hƣơng Hanoi-2012 TABLE OF CONTENT CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALTY i ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii LIST OF FIGURES iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND CONVENTIONS v TABLE OF CONTENT vi PART I: INTRODUCTION 1 RATIONALE AIMS OF THE STUDY RESEARCH QUESTIONS METHODS OF THE STUDY SCOPE OF THE STUDY DESIGN OF THE STUDY PART II: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 1 REVIEW OF RELATED STUDIES 1.2 OVERVIEW OF ADVERTISEMENTS AND ADVERTISING LANGUAGE…6 1.2.1 Advertisement 1.2.1.1 Definition 1.2.1.2 Functions 1.2.1.3 Categories of advertisements 1.2.2 Features of advertising language 10 1.2.2.1 Lexical features 10 vi 1.2.2.2 Syntactical features 12 1.2.2.3 Rhetorical figures 12 1.3 OVERVIEW OF ICT AND ICT PRODUCT ADVERTISEMENTS 14 1.4 LEXICAL REITERATION 15 1.4.1 Definition 15 1.4.2 Classification 17 1.4.2.1 Repetition 17 1.4.2.2 Synonym or near synonym 17 1.4.2.3 Superordinate 18 1.4.2.4 General word 18 CHAPTER 2: LEXICAL REITERATION IN ICT PRODUCT ADVERTISEMENTS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE 20 2.1 LEXICAL REITERATION IN ICT PRODUCT ADVERTISEMENTS IN ENGLISH 20 2.1.1 Repetition 20 2.1.2 Synonym or near synonym 21 2.1.3 Superordinate 22 2.1.4 General word 23 2.2 LEXICAL REITERATION IN ICT PRODUCT ADVERTISEMENT IN VIETNAMESE 23 2.2.1 Repetition 23 2.2.2 Synonym or near synonym 27 2.2.3 Superordinate 27 2.2.4 General word 28 CHAPTER 3: SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES BETWEEN LEXICAL REITERATION IN ICT PRODUCT ADVERTISEMENTS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE 29 vii 3.1 SIMILARITIES 3.1.1 Popularity ………………… 3.1.2 Flexibility 3.1.3 Kind of reiterated items 3.1.4 Combination with other rhe 3.2 DIFFERENCES 3.2.1 Coinage in ICT product adv 3.2.2 Loanwords in ICT product a PART III: CONCLUSION RECAPITULATIONS 1.1 Popularity 1.2 Flexible use 1.3 High reiterating frequency of brand na products 1.4 Diverse combination with other rhetorica 1.5 Different choices in making creative adve IMPLICATIONS LIMITATIONS SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY REFERENCES APPENDIXES APPENDIX APPENDIX viii PART I: INTRODUCTION This session carries the goal of providing the readers an overview of the study, consisting of the reason why the author chose this thesis, the aims of the study, the research questions, the method, the scope and the design of the study RATIONALE The term “global village” first appeared in “Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man”, a work by McLuhan (1964:106) to describe closer contact between different parts of the world, with increasing possibilities of personal exchange, mutual understanding and friendship between “world citizens,” as well as creation of a global civilization Indeed, information and communication technology (ICT) is breaking through geographical barriers and distance, integrating the entire world into a village We now have access to information about global events and news as and when they occur In the 14th minute of the EURO 2012 Final, Andrés Iniesta got the ball and passed it to Cesc Fàbregas Cecs beat Giorgio Chiellini to the end line and then passed the ball to Silva This player headed it into the upper left corner, giving Spain a 1-0 lead We definitely saw all of these simultaneously with all spectators at the Olympic stadium thanks to a TV, an Internet-connected personal computer or a smart phone of any kind Distance has obviously become a thing of the past Everything not only comes closer but also rolls faster Something modern today may get out of date right the next day Generations of personal computers, from desktop and then laptop to tablet PCs or versions of iPhone developed one by one are examples of this fast-changing world No one wants to be lag behind We, therefore, should keep pace with the development of the ICT world Luckily, information about these products is nowhere but right around us, in advertisements of all kinds Right from morning till night we come across a number of advertisements in newspapers, in magazines, on the roads, in shops, on the radio, TV and the Internet In fact, no mater where we are, at home, at work or away on holiday, we can not refuse to encounter them However, because of their massive popularity, we often take them for granted and rarely thoughts of advertising origin or language pop into our mind though they deserve some recognition Thus, this paper seeks to make some investigation into the language of advertisements of ICT products or lexical reiteration in the language of ICT product advertisements in English and Vietnamese, specifically As such, the use of lexical reiteration in the language of ICT product advertisements in the two languages will be compared to facilitate our catching up the message of an advertisement in this field AIMS OF THE STUDY This study is targeted at: 2.1 Investigating how many subtypes of lexical reiteration are used in the language of ICT product advertisements in English and Vietnamese 2.2 Pointing out some similarities and differences between lexical reiteration in the language of ICT product advertisements in English and Vietnamese RESEARCH QUESTIONS When conducting this paper, I would like to address two following research questions: 3.1 How many subtypes of lexical reiteration are employed in the language of ICT product advertisements in English and Vietnamese? 3.2 What are the similarities and differences in lexical reiteration in the language of ICT product advertisements in English and Vietnamese? METHODS OF THE STUDY The study is a descriptive investigation because it “involves a collection of techniques used to specify, delineate, or describe naturally occurring phenomena without experimental manipulation” (Seliger & Shohamy, 1989:124) This research type aims to “find out more about a phenomenon”, here lexical reiteration in the language of advertisements of ICT products in English and Vietnamese and “capture it with detailed information” (Wisker, 2001: 118) First, the study explores which subtypes of lexical reiteration appear in advertisements of ICT products in English in Vietnamese and sees what is often reiterated in such ads Second, it examines measures of frequency, here, of the occurrence of the subtypes of lexical reiteration in English and Vietnamese advertisements of ICT products Thus, this study uses a combination of both qualitative and quantitative methods to answer its two research questions Moreover, comparative and contrastive methods are utilized to point out the similarities and differences in the use of lexical reiteration in the language of ICT product advertisements in English and Vietnamese As for data collection, 30 English advertisements of ICT products and 30 others in Vietnamese are picked at random from magazines like “Maximum PC”, “PC World Việt Nam - Thế Giới Vi Tính”, “Thế Giới Số” and “Tin Học Đời Sống” issued from 2008 up to now and on the Internet, mostly homepages of ICT products, accessed at the same period of time, are taken into consideration Next, advertisements which make use of lexical reiteration in each language are gathered into different groups, namely repetition, synonym or near synonym, superordinate and general word (i.e four subtypes of lexical reiteration as classified by Halliday and Hasan, 1976: 278) and taken into consideration in separate sessions To find out the popularity and frequency of lexical reiteration subtypes used in English and Vietnamese advertisements of ICT products, advertisements with this means of lexical cohesion will be enumerated and classified into its groups Necessary measurement will be conducted to find out the proportion of each group in each language The steps of the study are in the order as follows:  Collect 30 ICT product advertisements in English and Vietnamese respectively from magazines or the Internet  Pick out ICT product advertisements with lexical reiteration in each language  Classify them into different groups on the basis of lexical reiteration subtypes they fall into  Work out the similarities of reiterated items in these advertisements  Point out their differences SCOPE OF THE STUDY Within the scope of this study, just lexical reiteration classified by M.A.K Halliday and Hasan (1976:278) is taken into consideration The study makes no efforts to cover advertisements of all kinds in English and Vietnamese but ICT product advertisements in the magazines and on the Internet in these two languages only DESIGN OF THE STUDY Part I: Introduction represents the rationales, the aims, the research questions, the methods, the scope, and the design of the study Part II: Development Chapter presents the theoretical background of the study Chapter explores lexical reiteration in Vietnamese and English advertisements of ICT products Chapter points out several similarities and differences between lexical reiteration used in Vietnamese and English advertisements of ICT products Part III: Conclusion sums up the study outcomes, points out the implications and limitations of the study as well as suggests ideas for further research PART II: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER THEORETICAL BACKGROUND This first chapter presents an overview of advertisements, advertising language, ICT and lexical reiteration Understanding this background knowledge will prepare us in the investigation presented in the latter chapter where lexical reiteration in the language of ICT product advertisements in English and Vietnamese is explored 1 REVIEW OF RELATED STUDIES Together with the pervasion of advertisements, more and more studies have been conducted to explore advertising language in general and that of ICT product advertisements in particular Leech (1966) examines standard advertising language in his research “English in Advertising: A Linguistic Study of Advertising in Great Britain” According to Leech, disjunctive grammar, the low frequency of function words, complexity of nominal groups and simplicity of verbal groups are some of the most distinctive properties of advertising language Dyer (1982) investigates advertising as a kind of communication in modern societies, which involves both cultural and economic context for discussion Cook (1992) investigates the discourse of advertising He offers a comprehensive introduction to advertising discourse by examining the language of complementary advertisements Vietnamese scholars also work on advertising language and its features from different perspectives Mai (2000) carries out his doctoral dissertation in advertising language, laying the foundation for a number of studies worked on later In this dissertation, he studies major features of advertising language in light of communicative theory (semanticsapplied linguistics of advertisements discourses) PART III: CONCLUSION RECAPITULATIONS 1 Popularity So far, we have explored lexical reiteration in ICT product advertisements in English and Vietnamese on the basis of Halliday and Hassan‟s classification (1976: 278) where lexical reiteration is divided into four subtypes, including repetition, synonym or near synonym, superpordinate and general word As pointed out, all of these subclasses are found in ICT product advertisements in English The first subclass, i.e repetition is the most frequently employed in the language of ICT product advertisements in these two languages 1.2 Flexible use Lexical reiteration is used flexibly in the language of ICT product advertisements in both English and Vietnamese Reiterated items belong to different parts of speech and have big mobility That is the reason why we may see them at the beginning, in the middle or at the end of an ad As examined, both English and Vietnamese advertisements of ICT product share this feature 1.3 High reiterating frequency of brand names and striking features of ICT products Admen focus on reiterating brand names of their products to make it easy to remember for the target audience The also restate striking features of products advertised in advertisements like their main function, excellent quality or noticeable characteristics to create the impression for their products 1.4 Diverse combination with other rhetorical figures The goal of an advertisement is informing or persuading its target audience to take a certain action Thus, the advertiser never uses lexical reiteration alone in his work but 36 employs other rhetorical figures to make it the most informative, persuasive and impressive 1.5 Different choices in making creative advertisements of ICT products English and Vietnamese speaking advertisers choose different linguistic means to make their advertisements with great creativity English admen like coinage while their Vietnamese peers prefer loanwords IMPLICATIONS The world of ICT keeps changing at its amazing speed No one wants to lag behind in that world Therefore, there is indeed a need for ICT product users to pay more attention to this situation They also should update information about these products more frequently via such means as ICT product advertisements so that they can make wise choices when shopping Moreover, it is necessary for ICT producers or advertisers to flexibly use varied linguistic means to better their advertisements From the linguistic aspect, the language of ICT products in English and Vietnamese needs thoroughly investigating The study, to some extent, facilitates this process and reminds teachers, students and especially copywriters to go on with it to master this genre of language LIMITATIONS Though the author has conducted this study with considerable effort, it still exposes some inevitable shortcomings The scope of the study is rather narrow, just lexical reiteration in Vietnamese and English advertisements in magazines and on the Internet Accordingly, within this scope, advertisements on the radio, billboards, internet and mobile devices like cellphones, smart phones, and portable computers have not been taken into account Moreover, the study explored lexical reiteration only, let alone other rhetorical figures in advertisements 37 In addition, the number of advertisements considered - 30 in each language - cannot cover completely all the features of lexical reiteration in Vietnamese and English advertisements of ICT products So, the findings, especially the differences, might not be said to be perfectly accurate and sufficient SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY The study investigates lexical reiteration in the language of ICT product advertisements in English and Vietnamese magazines and websites only Therefore, other authors may examine lexical reiteration in other kinds of Vietnamese and English ICT product advertisements so as to point out their similarities and differences more precisely They can also investigate other rhetorical figures or cohesive devices in the language of ICT product advertisements to have comprehensive understanding of this genre of language 38 REFERENCES English Arjun Kumar Bhatia (2000) Tourism Development: Principles and Practice, New Delhi: Sterling Publishers pvt.Ltd Bùi Thị Kim Ngân (2012) A Descriptive Analysis of Linguistic Features of Advertising Language Used in English Slogans for Food and Drink Products Luận văn thạc sĩ, Đại học Ngoại Ngữ, ĐHQG HN Cook, G (1992) The Discourse of Advertising, London: Routledge Dyer G (1982) Advertising as Communication London: Routledge Halliday, M A K., and Hasan, R (1976) Cohesion in English London: Longman Hatim, B & Mason, I (1990) Discourse and the 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2/3/2009, Hội Tin học Việt Nam 18 Thế Giới Số, 2/5/2011, Hội Tin học Việt Nam 19 Tin Học Đời Sống, 12/1/2009, Hội Tin học Việt Nam 20 Tin Học Đời Sống, 13/7/2009, Hội Tin học Việt Nam 21 Tin Học Đời Sống, 14/4/2008, Hội Tin học Việt Nam 22 Tin Học Đời Sống, 9/2/2009, Hội Tin học Việt Nam Websites http://iancavalier.com/spiralnotepad/2008/12/24/windows-xp-optimization-utilities/ http://iwednesday.co.uk/asus-ms-series http://slogans.globala.ru/177-take-toshiba-take-the-world http://smartphone.biz-news.com/news/2008/08/21/0002 III http://symbianworld.org http://themarketeer.org/2012/03/10/the-iphone-hype http://vine.nokia.com/ http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/spot-sonys-inner-child-139199 http://www.aocmonitorap.com/southafrica/company.php 10 http://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/design 11 http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/radio 12 http://www.businessdictionary.com 13 http://www.canon.com 14 http://www.carlsberg.com/default.aspx 15 http://www.dell.com/downloads/us/eep/flash/index.htm 16 http://www.dlink-intl.com/web/vn.nsf/vn?openpage 17 http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=advertise&allowed_in_frame=0 18 http://www.hammuworks.com/print.html 19 http://www.htc.com 20 http://www.intel.com/products/centrino/centrino/demos/chipset.htm 21 http://www.intel.vn/content/www/vn/vi/homepage.html 22 http://www.johnfrieda.com/en-US/ProductFamily/Hair-Care/Brilliant-Brunette 23 http://www.kitkat.com.sg/ 24 http://www.lenovo.com/lenovo/nz/en/ 25 http://www.macworld.co.uk/ipad-iphone/news/?newsid=3343371 26 http://www.marketingpower.com/_layouts/dictionary.aspx 27 http://www.nokia.com/in-en/products/lumia/ 28.http://www.nokia.com/us-en/products/phone/lumia900?cid=ncomprod-fw-scl-bdyproductwk2_0x0-na-youtube-g0-en-1todtmt2a3b18 29 http://www.nokia.com/vn-vi/san-pham/dien-thoai/x2-01 30 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/08/business/media/08adco.html IV 31 http://www.onboom.com 32 http://www.orange.co.uk/ 33.http://www.pcreview.co.uk/forums/microsoft-500-million-vista-google-page-rankingone-point-everyone-thought-earth-flat-get-facts-windows-vista-t3576005.html 34 http://www.pcworld.com.vn 35 http://www.perrier.com/thedrop/en.html 36 http://www.samsung.com/vn/#latest-home 37 http://www.slashphone.com/windows-phone-7-new-ads-reveal-the-att-htc-mondrian- 2711971 38 http://www.sony.com/index.php 39 http://www.sonymobile.com/gb 40 http://www.splendad.com 41.http://www.technobuffalo.com/companies/apple/ipad/its-official-march-7th-is-ipad-3day 42.http://www.technobuffalo.com/companies/nokia/leaked-ads-show-off-nokias-firstwindows-phone-handsets 43 http://www.toshiba.co.uk/ V APPENDIXES APPENDIX ENGLISH ADVERTISEMENTS OF ICT PRODUCTS No VI 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 VII 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 VIII 29 Windows vista 30 Windows vista IX APPENDIX VIETNAMESE ADVERTISEMENTS OF ICT PRODUCTS No Acer Aspire Timeline X Acer Iconia TouchBook Acer P223w Asrock PCI-E 3.0 BKAV Internet Security CNET CRB-970 Cyber shot 2011 DellTM InspirationTM ® Ezmail 10 F700 11 Fone backup 12 Fujifilm digital camera 13 IMB System z 14 Intel® Core™ Duo 15 Intel® Core™ Duo 16 Kaspersky 17 Kingmax 18 LG Optimus 19 Nokia X2-01 XI 20 Ovi chat 21 Qosimo X770 22 Samsung E100 23 Samsung Galaxy SII 24 Samsung Notebook series 350U 25 Samsung Galaxy Y 26 Samsung notebook Series 900X3A 27 Samsung Series 350 28 Toshiba portege R380 29 Vaio S series 30 VTB XII ... advertisements of ICT products or lexical reiteration in the language of ICT product advertisements in English and Vietnamese, specifically As such, the use of lexical reiteration in the language of ICT product. .. of lexical reiteration are employed in the language of ICT product advertisements in English and Vietnamese? 3.2 What are the similarities and differences in lexical reiteration in the language. .. explore advertising language in general and that of ICT product advertisements in particular Leech (1966) examines standard advertising language in his research ? ?English in Advertising: A Linguistic