Phân tích khẩu hiệu quảng cáo bảo hiểm nhân thọ theo quan điểm ngôn ngữ học chức năng hệ thống

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES o0o VŨ THỊ HIỀN A SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS OF ADVERTISING SLOGANS FOR LIFE INSURANCE Phân tích hiệu quảng cáo bảo hiểm nhân thọ theo quan điểm Ngôn ngữ học chức hệ thống M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 60220204 HANOI – 2017 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES o0o VŨ THỊ HIỀN A SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS OF ADVERTISING SLOGANS FOR LIFE INSURANCE Phân tích hiệu quảng cáo bảo hiểm nhân thọ theo quan điểm Ngôn ngữ học chức hệ thống M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 60220204 Supervisor: Assoc.Prof.Dr Lâm Quang Đông HANOI – 2017 DECLARATION I hereby declare that this thesis and the work presented in it are my own and have been generated by me as the result of my own original research I confirm that: This work was done wholly while I am in candidature for a Master degree at this University; This thesis has never been submitted partially or wholly for a degree or any other qualification at this University or any other institution; Where I have consulted the published work of others, this is always clearly attributed; Where I have quoted from the work of others, the source is always given With the exception of such quotations, this thesis is entirely my own work; I have acknowledged all main sources of help; Where the thesis is based on work done by myself jointly with others, I have made clear exactly what was done by others and what I have contributed myself I am fully aware that should this declaration be found to be false, disciplinary action could be taken and penalties imposed in accordance with University policy and rules Hanoi, 2017 V Th Hi n i ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I would have never been able to finish my thesis without the guidance of my supervisor, help from friends and support from my family Foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor Assoc.Prof.Dr Lam Quang Dong for his continuous support enthusiasm, invaluable constructive criticism and friendly advice during the project work His enthusiastic and meaningful assistance greatly contributes to the fulfillment of my thesis My appreciation also goes to all lecturers of the Faculty of Post-Graduate Studies for their ideas and useful lessons from which I benefited a lot for the accomplishment of this thesis Furthermore, I am greatly indebted to different linguists whose books and pieces of research have been very useful materials for my writing of this paper Their notable ideas inspired me much during the process of study and writing I especially thank all of my friends and my parents for their love, support and encouragement which help me complete this thesis ii ABSTRACT The language of advertising is a very special one, with its own characteristics that make it different from other languages As a result, an investigation into linguistic features of advertising slogans can be of great value This qualitative research is conducted on a total of 78 life insurance slogans chosen from each company‟s official website The study aims at giving readers a brief description and analysis of advertising slogans and their accompanying images The analysis was based on a combined framework of Halliday‟s SFL and Kress and Leeuwen‟s Multimodality theory The study firstly tries to investigate transitivity to clarify six main types of processes: material, mental, relational, behavioral, verbal and existential processes Secondly, image-text relations were expounded based on Systemic Functional theory across semiotic modes The findings indicated that advertisement designers employed various linguistic devices to attract customers In these slogans, material, relational and mental processes are the most frequently applied The paper also figures out that images help extend or add new meaning to the verbal texft Thus, the language use and images in advertising slogans consist of different distinctive features to enable advertisers to communicate with customers The paper hopefully will entail useful implications for the use of language and other modes of communication iii TABLE CONTENT DECLARATION i ACKNOWLEDGEMENT iii ABSTRACT iiii LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES vi PART A: INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale Research questions Scope of the study Significance of the study Organization of the thesis PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Systemic Functional Linguistics 1.1.1 The background to SFL 1.1.2 Traditional grammar vs systemic functional grammar 1.1.3 The keys elements of SFL 1.2 Multimodality theory 1.3 An overview of advertisement and slogans 1.3.1 Advertisement 1.3.2 Slogans 1.4 Review of previous research 11 CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY AND PROCEDURES 13 2.1 The Data 13 2.2 Analytical frameworks 13 iv 2.2.1 Halliday’s Systemic Functional Linguistics 13 2.2.2 Kress and van Leeuwen’s Multimodal theory 16 2.3 Method of Analysis 18 CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION 19 3.1 Summary of linguistic aspects 19 3.2 Analysis based on Systemic Functional Linguistics 20 3.2.1 Material process 21 3.2.2 Mental process 24 3.2.3 Relational process 25 3.2.4 Other processes 27 3.2.5 Circumstantial Elements 28 3.3 Analysis based on Multimodality theory 31 3.3.1 Representational meaning 31 3.3.2 Interactive meaning 34 3.3.3 Compositional meaning 38 PART C: CONCLUSION 31 Main findings 42 Limitation and suggestions for future research 43 REFERENCES 42 APPENDICES I APPENDIX 1: 78 life insurance slogans collected from countries I APPENDIX 2: 12 printed advertisements V v LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES Figure 1: Introduction to Functional Grammar, Halliday (2004: 219) _ 14 Figure 2: The percentages of different processes 21 Table 1: Types of relational process _ Table 2: The frequency of occurrence of all the techniques _ Table 3: Illustration of Material Process Table 4: Illustration of Mental Process _ Table 5: Illustration of Relational – attribute Processes Table 6: Illustration of Relational- identifying Processes _ Table 7: Illustration of Verbal processes Table 8: Illustration of Existential processes _ Table 9: Illustration of Behavioral processes Table 11: Illustration of 12 pictures based on Representational meaning _ Table 12: Illustration of 12 pictures based on Interactive meaning Table 13: Illustration of 12 pictures based on Interactive meaning vi 15 20 21 24 25 26 27 27 28 31 34 38 PART A: INTRODUCTION Rationale In accordance with dramatic shifts in society, language has performed more and more important roles and assumed more significant functions in life What are those functions? How can people perceive the organization of language, and how this organization gives an account of such functions? – These have been questions of concern to linguists According to Halliday, language is “a resource for making meaning” or a "meaning potential" Furthermore, he defines linguistics as the study of "how people exchange meanings by „languaging‟ – (Halliday, 1985) For Halliday, language, “in relation to our ecological and social environment”, consists of two main functions: making sense of our experience, and acting out our social relationships” Language is made up of more-or-less closed “systems” of words and grammatical structures From these systems speakers make selections in order to simultaneously construct “wordings” and “meanings” The systems of wordings and meanings then help speakers reflect the social and cultural context of the language Halliday also argued for three metafunctions of language: interpersonal metafunction – the interaction between speaker and addressee; ideational metafunction – concerning „ideation” – grammatical resources for construing our experience of the world around us and inside us; and textual metafunction – the creation of text Considering this topic, a great number of studies were conducted in the light of SFL theory SFL – Systemic Functional Linguistics was developed by Michael Halliday in the 1990s as a new approach to language and languagerelated issues It enables us to better present language features under a specific type of cultural and situational context, to show how language functions in certain circumstances and to demonstrate what role language may assume in different aspects of social life (Halliday, 2008) Among these aspects, language in the field of advertising has drawn considerable attention since “A man who stops advertising to save money, is like a man who stops a clock to save time” (Henry Ford, 2008) and “Advertising takes many forms, but in most of them language is of crucial importance” (Vestergaard & Schroder, 1985) Advertising is the best way to communicate the products‟ values to all customers, including the young and the old Advertising helps inform customers about quality brands in the market and promote sales for companies, so advertising should be fascinating, exciting, and creative Slogans are considered the heart of an advertisement Hence, it is undeniable that language of advertising slogans is pervasive, influential, and ubiquitous It can be catchy phrases or short sentences which help corporations or businesses tell the world what makes their products or services different Indeed, creating a successful slogan is real art of language use As a result, an investigation into linguistic features of advertising slogans can be of great value Significant amount of research has been conducted on advertising slogans, but advertising slogans on life insurance remain almost untouched Life insurance slogans reflect people‟s beliefs in the value of life Clients are at different ages, have different backgrounds and religions, so careful choices of language are crucial These reasons provide a source of inspiration to the author to conduct a research into advertising slogans for life insurance Research questions This study is carried out with the aim to describe and analyze characteristics of language used in advertising slogans for life insurance from Systemic Functional Linguistics perspective Then, images accompanying these slogans are also investigated to figure out their meanings and functions based on multimodal analysis In order to achieve these aims, the following questions are addressed: What are the characteristics of language used in advertising slogans for life insurance from Systemic Functional Linguistics perspective? What are the meanings and functions of the images included in such slogans based on multimodal analysis? To sum up, the data analysis indicates that the most frequent process – narrative process demonstrates life events or happenings which are initially referred in advertising slogans Offer pictures are preferred, which accords with objective knowledge and free of emotive involvement and subjectivity has been valued highly Considering Social Distance, the size of frame varies from close shot to long shot, which creates various relations between represented participant and the viewer Most images are created to seek the viewer‟s Involvement but decrease the Power relations, which help cleverly attract the potential customers‟ attention The structure of each image reflects the main parts which advertising creators tend to focus They may be the image itself or verbal text, which convey the advertising messages Though these images focus sharply on some elements, in general there exists absolute harmony between image and verbal text In short, there is a complementary relation of modalities where image and slogan complement each other to extend the meaning represented 41 PART C: CONCLUSION Main findings The findings indicate that advertising creators employ various linguistic devices to attract the customer: initial capitalization, use of rhymes, repetition, common uses of “you”, unqualified comparison, weasel words, using brand names, use of phrases, imperative, syntactic parallelism, use of puns, use of metaphors and rhetorical questions These devices will affect the way customers observe and fell about the products Considering the Transitivity system, it is clear that Material, Relational and Mental processes are the most frequently applied Material processes are applied most with the aim of showing the fact, which can be essential to help the company gain the customers‟ belief Then, the products are also expected to contain positive characteristics through Relational processes However, these characteristics appear to be attributive, not identifying This helps present products objectively to derive customers‟ support Based on data analysis of advertising slogans, participants involve different characters: the insurance company, the customers and other liferelated issues While the company play role as a participant may help to focus on the products, the customer as a participant helps to attract attention from the viewer Other participants here mainly are some „things in Life‟ which are useful to evoke customers‟ thought and feeling Circumstantial elements are also employed with the most frequent one is Location These elements make each slogan become detailed and specific Based on Kress and Leeuwen‟s Multimodality theory, the thesis analyzes 12 printed advertisements from the perspective of representational meaning, interactive meaning and compositional meaning This research finds out that different modes within an advertisement depend on each other and have an interdependent relationship Image and text complement each other to extend the meaning represented; it involves an image extending or adding new meanings to the text 42 Limitation and suggestions for future research Advertising language is such a broad field which requires extensive knowledge, thus, we could not avoid limitations when conducting the research First, although the data was selected from different countries, some contextual features are not fully discussed Second, the number of analyses based on Systemic Functional Grammar, to some extent, is still limited; the author finds it difficult to clarify the framework or some theoretical assumptions Besides, within the limited scope of a minor M.A thesis, the author cannot cover all aspects As a result, other linguistic aspects are worth investigating further, e.g., Mood system, Theme – Rheme structure, cognitive metaphors, figures of substitutions and rhetorical devices Apart from that, the potential of bias and exaggeration may also be unavoidable in some cases The data is collected from one source – Internet, which may more or less affect the result‟s objectivity Objectively, the all-sided picture of the use of advertising language has not been fully painted Therefore, all comments and suggestions would be highly appreciated We may suggest the following for further studies Other researchers may collect data from various sources such as newspapers, magazines, leaflets or television Researchers also should focus more on the context in which the discourse occurs In so doing, they will be able to gain a deeper insight and valid conclusions 43 REFERENCES Bloomfield, L (1914) An Introduction to the Study of Language New York: Henry Holt and Company Bolen, W.H (1984) Advertising New York: John Wiley and Sons Brown, Gillian & Yule, George (1983) Discourse analysis United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press Bui Thi Bich Thuy (2008) An investigation into the style of the English language used in advertising slogans is used by some world-famous airlines Luận văn thạc sĩ, Hà Nội: Tr ng Đại học Ngoại ngữ – Đại học Quốc gia Hà Nội Cook, G (1989) Discourse Oxford: Oxford University Press Cook, G (1992) The discourse of advertising London: Routledge Crystal, D & Davy, D (1969) Investigation English Style Bloomington: Indian University Press Dyer, G (1982) Advertising as communication London: Routledge Fairclough, N (1992) Discourse and Social Change Cambridge: Polity Press 10 Ferbert, R and Lee, C.L (1980) Acquisition and Accumulation of Life Insurance in Early Married Life The Journal of Risk and Insurance, 47, 4, 713-734 American Risk and Insurance Association 11 Firth, J.R (1957) Papers in Linguistics 1934-1951 London: Oxford University Press 12 Fries, P.H (1993) Information flow in written advertising in James Alatis (ed.) Language, communication and social meaning Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press 13 Geis, M (1982) The Language of Television Advertising New York: Academic Press 14 Goddard, A (1998) The language of advertising London: Routledge 15 Halliday M.A.K (1985) An introduction to functional grammar, London: Arnold 16 Halliday and Hasan (1985) Language, context and text: Aspects of language in a social semiotic perspective Deakin University Press/OUP: Geelong/Oxford 17 Halliday, M.A.K (1985) "Systemic Background" In Systemic Perspectives on Discourse, Vol 1: Selected Theoretical Papers from the Ninth International Systemic Workshop, James D Benson and William S Greaves (eds) Ablex Vol in The Collected Works, p 192 18 Halliday, (1985) "Systemic Background" In Systemic Perspectives on Discourse, Vol 1: Selected Theoretical Papers from the Ninth International Systemic Workshop, Benson and Greaves (eds) Vol in The Collected Works, p 193 19 Halliday, M., & Hasan, R (1989) Language, Context, and Text: Aspects of Language in a Social Semiotic Perspective Oxford: Oxford University Press 20 Halliday, M.A.K (2002) On Grammar, Vol 1, in The Collected Works of M.A.K Halliday London: Continuum 21 Halliday, M., & Matthiessen, C (2004) An Introduction to Functional Grammar (3rd ed.) London: Arnold 22 Halliday, M A K (2008) Complementarities in Language Beijing: The Commercial Press 44 23 Harris, R., & Seldon, A (1962: 40) Advertising and the Public London: Institute of Economic Affairs 24 Headen, R S and J F Lee (1974) Life Insurance Demand and Household Portfolio Behavior Journal of Risk and Insurance, 41,4, 685–698 American Risk and Insurance Association 25 Hall, R., & Koerner, E (1987) Leonard Bloomfield, essays on his life and work (1st ed.) Amsterdam: J Benjamins Pub Co 26 Kress, G R., & Van Leeuwen, T (1996) Reading images: The grammar of visual design London: Routledge 27 Kress, G R., & Van Leeuwen, T (2006) Reading images London: Routledge 28 Leech, G (1966), English in Advertising London: Longman 29 Mai Xuân Huy (2005) Ngơn ngữ quảng cáo ánh sáng lí thuyết giao tiếp, Hà Nội: Nxb Khoa học Xã hội 30 Matthiessen, C., & Halliday, M (1997) Systemic functional grammar London: Penguin 31 Matthiessen, C (2010) Systemic functional linguistics developing Annual Review of Functional Linguistics, 2, 8-63 32 Martin, J.R and White, P., (2005) The language of evaluation: appraisal in English London: Palgrave Macmillan Press 33 Machin, D (2007) Introduction to Multimodal Analysis London: Hodder Education 34 O'Donnell, W & Todd, L (1991) Variety in Contemporary English London: Harper/Collins Academic 35 O'Donnell, A M., Reeve, J., & Smith, J K (2009) Educational psychology: Reflection for action Hoboken, N.J: John Wiley 36 Rudelius, W., Glenn, L W., (1970) Life Insurance Product Innovations The Journal of Risk and Insurance, 37, 2, 169-184 American Risk and Insurance 37 Thompson, G (1996), Introducing functional grammar London: Routledge Publisher 38 Toolan, M (1988), The language of press advertising in Ghadessy (ed.) Registers of written English: situational factors and linguistic features London: Pinter (Open Linguistic Series) 39 Turner, E.S (1965) The shocking history of advertising UK: Penguin in association with Joseph 40 Trần Thị Thu Hiền (2012) Tìm hiểu đặc trưng phong cách ngơn ngữ quảng cáo tiếng Việt (trong so sánh với tiếng Anh) Luận án tiến sĩ, Hà Nội: Viện Ngôn ngữ học 41 Vestergaard, T., & Schroder, K (1985) The language of advertising Oxford: Blackwell Internet sources http://www.figliuloandpartners.com/, retrieved at p.m., February 10th, 2017 https://www.anglingtrade.com/2008/10/24/the-warren-buffet-perspective/, retrieved at p.m., June 11th, 2017 https://www.academia.edu/1114934/1996._The_description_of_the_native_languages_of_N orth_America_Boas_and_after, retrieved at a.m., June 14th, 2017 45 APPENDICES APPENDIX 1: 78 life insurance slogans collected from countries Country USA Insurance company Slogans State Farm Insurance Company Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there (2a) We live (2b) where you live (3a) Here (3b) to Help life Go Right You're In Good Hands With Allstate Allstate Insurance Company MetLife - Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Have you met life today? (6a)Get Met (6b) It Pays Peace of mind Guaranteed (8a) Let Life begin (8b) when you stop working Take the mystery out of planning “if” 10 Not all if in life are the same 11 Farmers (11a)Gets you back (11b) where you belong Farmers Insurance Group Conseco, Insurance, Annuity, and other financial Solutions 12 Conseco Step up Transamerica Occidental Life Insurance Company 13 Transform tomorrow Rome Insurance Agency 14 Higher Standards! New York Life Insurance Company 15 New York Life The Company You Keep 16 Keep good going New York life 17 (17a) Know (17b) you‟re someone hero 18 (18a) Be there for the ones (18b) who are there for you 19 Simple actions often speak the loudest I 20 (20a) If you love someone, (20b) act on it AFLAC (American Family Life Assurance Company 21 AFLAC Ask about it at work 22 AFLAC Without it, no insurance is complete 23 We„ve got you under our wing Wausau Insurance 24 Bottom line, a better value Amica 25 Amica We keep our promises to you 26 We make our customers' problems our problems 27 (27a) Guardian Enriching the lives of people (27b) We touch Guardian Life Insurance Company of America Gerber Life Insurance American National Insurance Company 28 Give your child an advantage for life 29 The Company To Remember for Life American Family Insurance 30 All your protection under one roof The ACE Group of Insurance and Reinsurance Companies 31 ACE (31a) Take away the risk and (31b)you can anything 32 Your partner for life Pruett & Associates 33 Helping your plan for tomorrow today Zurich insurance group 34 Zurich Because Change HappenZ 35 Zurich For those who truly love 36 For your future Manulife 37 Ready for tomorrow? Make sense of it with Norwich Union 38 (38a) Let us quote you happy (38b) Together we're stronger UK Norwich Union Aegon Life 39 (39a) If you believe (39b) experience counts, (39c) you can count on us! II AIG life 40 (40a) Letting others decide your protection (40b) is a risk (40c) Now #iDecide 41 A new look at life FriendsLife 42 It‟s good to be with friends Lloyd's Life Insurance 43 Taking care of the if in life AXA Insurance 44 AXA Be life confident 45 (45a) Go Ahead (45b) You Can Rely on Us 46 ESMI Essential supplementary medical insurance ESMI Russia Australia BUPA private health insurance 47 BUPA Feel better Prudential 48 (48a) Always listening (48b) Always understanding ALFA 49 ALFA Anyscale learning for all 50 Alfa is #1 in life Sberbank 51 By your side Comminsue 52 True partners build success together 53 The Real Life Company 54 Real life never stops 55 Group life made essay AIA Asteron Life TAL India 56 TAL/ Insuring This Australia Life 57 Your partner for life 58 Fulfill your child‟s with every dream 59 (59a) Education is insurance (59b) Guarantee it with Aviva 60 (60a) Real quick.(60b) Real easy (60c) Really affordable 61 (61a) You can‟t stop ageing, (61b) but you can definitely stop worrying Max Life Aviva Baja Alliaz Life Insurance III Exide Life Insurance 62 Get guaranteed benefits with life cover 63 Enjoy a stress- free life with a guaranteed second income 64 New fulfilling life 65 (65a) Dare to dream… (65b) Act to achieve 66 We cover you At every step in life 67 Lifesurance Whole Life LIC Icici Prudential IDBI Federal Life Insurance Wecare Insurance 68 Your life we care Singapore Genarali 69 (69a) Lead your future.(69b) Shape our change 70 Life is Great Great Eastern Tokio Marine Life Insurance Life Insurance Association Singapore Japan Lifenet Insurance 71 (71a) Yesterday I answered to my boss (71b) Today, I answered to my customers 72 (72a) Life is worth (72b) protecting, (72c) invest in it 73 (73a) Saving lives, (73b) restoring health 74 Life notebook for Midori money insert 75 Advancing with you Midori Insurance Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance SBI Life insurance 76 With us, you are sure 77 (77a) Celebrate life (77b) Live life to the fullest 78 By your side, for life The Dai-ichi Life IV APPENDIX 2: 12 printed advertisements AIA1 AIA2 V AIA3 MetLife1 VI MetLife2 New York Life1 VII New York Life2 New York Life3 VIII SBI1 SBI2 IX Zurich1 Zurich2 X ... INSURANCE Phân tích hiệu quảng cáo bảo hiểm nhân thọ theo quan điểm Ngôn ngữ học chức hệ thống M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 60220204 Supervisor: Assoc.Prof.Dr Lâm Quang... linguists, most notably Mai Xuan Huy (2005) with Ngôn ngữ quảng cáo ánh sáng lý thuyết giao tiếp (Avertising language in light of communicative theory) and Tran Thi Thu Hien (2012) through her... Hien (2012) through her doctoral dissertation on the topic “Tìm hiểu đặc trưng phong cách ngôn ngữ quảng cáo tiếng Việt (trong so sánh với tiếng Anh)” (Style characteristics of the Vietnamese advertising