A STUDY ON LINGUISTIC FEATURES OF LAPTOP BRANDS ADVERTISING SLOGANS = NGHIÊN cứu về đặc điểm NGÔN NGỮ TRONG KHẨU HIỆU QUẢNG cáo CHO các HÃNG LAPTOP

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF LINGUISTICS & CULTURES OF ENGLISH-SPEAKING COUNTRIES GRADUATION PAPER A STUDY ON LINGUISTIC FEATURES OF LAPTOP BRANDS ADVERTISING SLOGANS Supervisor: Vũ Thị Thu Thủy, MA Student: Đinh Thu Hương Year of enrolment: QH2017.F1.E22 HÀ NỘI – 2021 ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ KHOA NGƠN NGỮ VÀ VĂN HỐ CÁC NƯỚC NĨI TIẾNG ANH KHỐ LUẬN TỐT NGHIỆP NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ ĐẶC ĐIỂM NGƠN NGỮ TRONG KHẨU HIỆU QUẢNG CÁO CHO CÁC HÃNG LAPTOP Giáo viên hướng dẫn: Th.S Vũ Thị Thu Thuỷ Sinh viên: Đinh Thu Hương Khoá: QH2017.F1.E22 HÀ NỘI – 2021 ACCEPTANCE I hereby state that I: Đinh Thu Hương, class QH2017.F.1.E22, being a candidate for the degree of Bachelor (English Language) accept the requirements of the University relating to the retention and use of Bachelor’s Graduation Paper deposited in the library In terms of these conditions, I agree that the origin of my paper deposited in the library should be accessible for the purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the librarian for the care, loan or reproduction of the paper Signature Date: May 4th 2021 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I would like to express the deepest gratitude to our supervisor, Ms Vũ Thị Thu Thủy, M.A., lecturer of Division of English Linguistics for her great guidance and assistance All of her advice and suggestions are of invaluable contribution during our research process This consultation which is an indispensable factor results in a fruitful accomplishment of the research Moreover, I would love to give thanks to my teachers and friends for their motivational support and encouragement on the research Without their stimulation and belief, I cannot be optimistic enough to complete this thesis and achieve my final goals Last but not least I am thankful to my family who give me unconditional sacrifices and caring environment so that I could be confident enough on the path I choose i ABSTRACT In the context of technology burst and globalization, the launch of advertising campaign to promote products becomes more and more ubiquitous; therefore, it is effortless to find an advertisements on newspapers, billboards or commercial on social media In advertising, depicting the characteristics of the product is not enough Brands expect the messages behind the product to be conveyed in a concise, memorable and catchy way so as to appeal the attraction of consumers Thus, this study was conducted with the aim to discussing the adoption of syntactic features and metaphors from semantic approach in the advertising slogans of six most popular laptop brands in Vietnam, namely: Asus, Acer, Apple, Dell, Lenovo and HP (Hewlett-Packard) The researcher analysed the use of syntactic patterns in slogans then utilised the framework of Lakoff and Johnson (1980) - the derivation of conceptual metaphors to classify types of metaphors in 16 slogans from Internet sources to gain the understanding in both meaning and structure aspects To complete this procedure, the researcher mainly used descriptive approach, qualitative and quantitative method According, the results show that verb phrases appeared frequently to describe the effectiveness of the products, the in the second question, ontological metaphors was used more frequently than other types in slogans ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS………………………………………………………………i ABSTRACT……………………………………………………………………………….ii TABLE OF CONTENTS……………………………………………………………… iii PART 1: INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………………… 1.1 Statement of research problem & Rationale for the study…………………………1 1.2 Research objectives and Research questions……………………………………….2 1.3 Scope of research………………………………………………………………… 1.4 Significance of the study……………………………………………………………3 1.5 Method of the study……………………………………………………………… 1.6 Organization……………………………………………………………………… PART 2: DEVELOPMENT………………………………………………………………6 CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW……………………………………………… 1.1 Definition of key terms…………………………………………………………… 1.1.1 Advertising slogans…………………………………………………………….…6 1.1.1.1 Definition of advertising……………………………………………… 1.1.1.2 Definition of slogans…………………………………………………,,.7 1.1.2 Syntactic features of slogans…………………………………………………….8 1.1.2.1, Phrasal structures…………………………………………………… 1.1.2.2 Simple sentences………………………………………………………11 1.1.3 Metaphors……………………………………………………………………….13 1.1.3.1 Definition of metaphors………………………………………………… 13 iii 1.1.3.2 Conceptual metaphors……………………………………………………15 1.1.3.3 Classification of conceptual metaphors………………………………….15 1.1.3.3.1 Structural metaphors……………………………………………15 1.1.3.3.2 Ontological metaphors………………………………………….16 1.1.3.3.3 Orientational metaphors……………………………………… 16 1.2 Previous studies of metaphors in advertising…………………………………… 17 CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY…………………………………… 19 2.1 Research design…………………………………………………………………….19 2.2 Subjects of the study………………………………………………………………20 2.3 Research samples………………………………………………………………….20 2.3.1 Data source…………………………………………………………… 20 2.3.2 Features of research samples……………………………………………20 2.4 Data collection procedures……………………………………………………… 21 2.5 Data analysis procedures………………………………………………………… 21 CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND FINDINGS……………………………………………23 3.1 The syntactic patterns applied in each type of metaphors ………………… 23 3.2 The frequency of advertising slogans in each metaphor type ………………31 CHAPTER 4: CONCLUSION AND DISCUSSION………………………………… 37 4.1 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………… 37 4.2 Limitations and suggestions for further research…………………………………38 REFERENCES………………………………………………………………………… 40 APPENDICES……………………………………………………………………………43 APPENDIX 1: List of selected slogans……………………………………………… 43 iv APPENDIX 2: Table A1: Target domain, source domain and metaphor concepts of conceptual metaphors in laptop slogans.………………………………………………………….44 APPENDIX 3: Table A2: Types of syntactic patterns in laptop slogans………………………………47 v LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page Figure 1.1: The translation of metaphor by Newmark (1988) 14 Figure 3.1: Types of phrasal structure in advertising slogans 24 Figure 3.1: Distribution of two simple sentence types in advertising 29 slogans Figure 3.3: Proportion of three sub-types of conceptual metaphors 31 used in each laptop brand LIST OF TABLES Figure Page Table A1: Target domain, source domain and metaphor concepts of 44 conceptual metaphors in laptop slogans Table A2: Types of syntactic patterns in laptop slogans vi 47 PART 1: INTRODUCTION This chapter presents brief information about the paper Six main points are provided namely (1) statement of problem and rational for the study, (2) objectives and research questions, (3) method of the study, (4) scope of the study, (5) significance of the study and (6) study organization 1.1 Statement of research problem and rationale for the study It is undeniable that in the world of information exploration, there are thousands of products introduced to consumers everyday Therefore, it is mandatory for brands to launch an effective marketing campaign in order to intrigue the attention of the public through mass media so that they could reach the products, including beverages, food, medicines, technological items and so on From that vision, manufacturers have always considered advertising as one of the most vital tools to spread their goods and messages by having creative ideas One major way to express the inspiration of a product or a company is through slogans - a powerful element to persuade consumers to purchase goods There are a number of linguistic devices exploited in a slogan which contains several features: short, understandable, competitive, memorable, consistent; thus, those slogans could increase the preference of consumers and make them outstanding compared to their competitors in the market To have an impressive slogan, copywriters should include various linguistic patterns and there are two approaches that the researcher chooses to study thoroughly, namely syntactic approach with the use of clauses and sentences and semantic approach with the most used aspects here metaphors which could generate beliefs, improve the images of products and services (Nguyen, 2010) be found out or unlocked With these two slogans, the brand hopes that when customers use their products, they can find the solutions for what is thought to be impossible and beyond their imagination This meaning is also found in the slogan (2) of Acer “Acer Explore beyond limits.” Glancing at the pie chart 3.3, ontological metaphors are followed by structural metaphors with quite a moderate proportion - 11.1%, which means there are only two slogans from Dell The typical concept of two structural metaphors is DELL IS THE RIGHT DIRECTION IN LIFE, which is a metaphorical entailment of LIFE IS A JOURNEY (11) I choose to take my own path I choose Dell (12) Don’t go there Go Dell The mapping conceptualization in those slogans includes two fields: target domain: Dell (Laptop/Company) and source domain: The right direction of life (path, there) From these metaphorical expressions, we can perceived that the constituent element of a journey - the final destination that travelers have to reach is mapped to the product selection of customers The advertisers in here applied the differentiation strategy to make their product different or outstanding from others in the same sector The goal of Dell is to to persuade the customers that they are the final and the most charismatic point to arrival and experience the products Conversely, it is witnessed that there is no favor from brands towards orientational metaphors when the employment of this sub-type is 0% Thus, this conceptual metaphor would not be discussed specifically To sum up, from the above analysis and results, the researcher can conclude that the most prominent conceptual metaphors used in advertising slogans is ontological metaphors Moreover, the main concepts in ontological metaphor could be 35 divided into three main groups: “PRODUCT/COMPANY IS A PERSON WITH HUMAN CAPACITIES” and “AN OBJECT IS A PERSON” and “ABSTRACT IS CONCRETE” with metaphorical entailments as mentioned above The second place belongs to structural metaphors with the concept “DELL IS THE RIGHT DIRECTION IN LIFE” The products are related to particular characteristics of humans and attached to specific advantages that each brand expects from them By doing this, advertisers could involve the customers in the initial experience and evaluation of products, as a result, the opportunity to promote the selling capacity is larger 36 CHAPTER 4: CONCLUSION AND DISCUSSION In this chapter, the researcher provided a summary of full-paper findings On the other hand, limitations of this study and suggestions for future research are also included 4.1 Conclusion The study was implemented to investigate the use of metaphors in laptop brands’ slogans in disparate respects, namely the classification of sub-types in conceptual metaphor and the frequency of syntactic patterns in slogans After the process of collecting the data, analyzing and discussing the results, the researcher took a thorough discernment into the use of metaphors in advertising slogans Concerning syntactic features of advertising language in laptop slogans, the research has drawn a conclusion that the most frequent type is verb phrases with a view to focusing on the invitations, promises or orders from brands to the customers so they can some acts related to the products The second most used syntactic features is noun phrases which aim to emphasize the advantages or the quality of them As it can be seen from the definition and an analysed example above, the noun phrases are accompanied by the adjective (phrases) or prepositional phrases which could enhance the effectiveness of the products by telling customers the particular or improved characteristics of the products compared to the others or just their previous generation products However, the position of those modifier can be changed depending on the purposes of copywriters On the other hand, through a thorough analysis, the phrases in selected slogans were quite short, simple and memorable so that their targeted customers probably comprehend the full meaning and keep it in their mind longer, which meets the criteria of a slogan as stated in the literature view In terms of simple sentences, imperative clauses are used the most, corresponding to the claim of Myers 37 (1994, p.47, cited in Bui, 2012) about imperatives “the generic sentence type” for advertisements With respect to respond the second question related to the categorization of conceptual metaphors, the findings have shown that both ontological and structural metaphors play a crucial role in advertising slogans However, ontological metaphors are dominant among conceptual metaphors found in the samples, while structural ones follow accordingly with a modest percentage By contrast, orientational may not be widely used in laptop advertising slogans Through the analysis process, the evidence reveals the typical concept which is “PRODUCT/COMPANY IS A PERSON WITH HUMAN CAPACITIES” The domain “products” is understood by the target domain “person” when advertisers add various benefits of products to the slogans The number of times this concept appears in the data shows the interest of customers when they could easily imagine the advantages of the products through the attributes and capabilities of a human when they come to the slogans and products 4.3 Limitations and suggestions for further research Due to time constraints and the scope of a BA thesis, the present study, nonetheless, has several drawbacks and limitations First, the population of data is still a moderate number (16 slogans) and to some extent, it cannot represent the selected brands in particular as well as the technology field in general, therefore, the generalization of all technology brand slogans would be deficient In addition, advertising slogans have different ways to be understood depending on the perception of each reader; and in this study, the descriptive analysis of the researcher is only one side explanation and partly subjective Moreover, inside a slogan, there are maybe different metaphors, however, the author only listed one metaphorical expression in each slogan 38 Furthermore, the researcher finds it not easy to look for the selling capacity of each brand with diverse product lines to scrutinize the effectiveness of marketing strategies, to be specific, advertising slogans as well as different types of syntactic features; if this element could be included in the study, it could reinforce the conclusion of the researcher To better future studies as well as provide the materials for other researchers, I highly recommend some suggested topics Some examples of these studies might be: A comparative study on the cultural aspect of English and Vietnamese advertisements in technology brands An analysis of metaphors used in English advertising slogans from pragmatic approach A study on how to make persuasive translations of metaphor in advertising slogans An investigation into the use of metaphor in the multi-modal forms of computer advertisement (with a larger population of data to generalize the findings and avoid bias in advertising.) REFERENCES Internet source: 39 Acer slogans (n.d.) Retrieved November 05, 2020, from https://www.sloganlist.com/Technology-slogans/Acer-Slogans.html Apple slogans (n.d.) Retrieved November 05, 2020, from https://www.sloganlist.com/Technology-slogans/Apple-Slogans_3.html ASUS slogans (n.d.) Retrieved November 05, 2020, from https://www.sloganlist.com/Technology-slogans/ASUS-Slogans.html Dell slogans (n.d.) Retrieved November 05, 2020, from https://www.sloganlist.com/Technology-slogans/Dell-Slogans.html Lenovo slogans (n.d.) Retrieved November 05, 2020, from https://www.sloganlist.com/company-slogans/Lenovo-Slogans.html Thị trường laptop tăng cao mùa dịch, cung khơng đủ cầu: Dịng chảy (n.d.) Retrieved November 05, 2020, from https://tgs.vn/dong-chay/thi-truong-laptop-tangcao-trong-mua-dich-cung-khong-du-cau/ Books and Thesis: Brinton, J L (2000) The Structure of Modern English John Benjamins Publishing Company Goddard, A (1997) The language of advertising: Written texts London: Routledge Knowles, M., & Moon, R (2007) Introducing metaphor London: Routledge Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M (1980) Metaphors we live by Chicago: University of Chicago Press Newmark, P (1988) A textbook of translation New York: Prentice Hall International 40 Newmark, P (2001) Approaches to translation Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press Quirk, R., & Greenbaum, S (1973) A university grammar of english Longman Semino, E (2008) Metaphor in discourse Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Bùi, T T (2011) An Investigation on metaphor used in English slogans by some banks in the world (Master’s dissertation, University of Languages and International Studies, Hanoi, 2011) Cherono, T A (2019) The use of metaphors in advertising: A case study of food and drinks advertising slogans Retrieved from http://erepository.uonbi.ac.ke/bitstream/handle/11295/108730/Cherono_The%20Use %20Of%20Metaphors%20In%20Advertising.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed =y Đỗ, T T (2009) An investigation into morphological and syntactic features in electronic device advertisements in English (with reference to Vietnamese) (Master’s dissertation, University of Languages and International Studies, Hanoi, 2009) Karsita, V., & Apriana, A (2012) SYNTACTIC PATTERNS IN ADVERTISEMENT SLOGANS Retrieved November 02, 2020, from https://docplayer.net/16603256Syntactic-patterns-in-advertisement-slogans- vindi-karsita-and-aulia-apriana-stateuniversity-of-malang-email- vindikarsita-gmail.html Kholifah, N (2015) An Analysis Of Metaphor Used In Computer Brands Slogan Advertisement (Undergraduate's dissertation, UIN Sunan Ampel Surabaya, 2015) Retrieved from http://repository.vnu.edu.vn/handle/VNU_123/54572 Lê, T K N (2017) Metaphors used in food and drink advertising slogans in English (with reference to Vietnamese): A study from cognitive perspective (Master's 41 dissertation, University of Languages and International Studies, Hanoi, 2009) Retrieved from http://repository.vnu.edu.vn/handle/VNU_123/54572 Nguyễn, M T (2010) A study on metaphorical expressions in English advertising slogans from the semantic approach (Master’s dissertation, University of Languages and International Studies, Hanoi, 2010) Phạm, H T (2012) The use of conceptual metaphors in advertising slogans of Nokia, Samsung, Apple, Blackberry and Sony Ericsson cell phones (Master’s dissertation, University of Languages and International Studies, Hanoi, 2012) Yu, X (2013) What Are the Metaphors We Live by? Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 3(8) https://doi.org/10.4304/tpls.3.8.1467-1472 APPENDIX LIST OF SELECTED SLOGANS Acer Acer We hear you Acer Explore beyond limits Acer Empowering people Ignite Futures 42 Summon your strength Lenovo Innovation Never Stands Still (2015) Apple Meet the family Now complete (2006) You can't be too thin, Or too powerful (2007) Beauty Brains And now more brawn (2008) HP (Hewlett-Packard) Make it matter Dell I choose to take my own path I choose Dell (2008) Don’t go there Go Dell Packed with potential Just like you (2015) Asus Rock Solid Heart Touching (2003-2009) Inspiring Innovation Persistent Perfection (2009-13) In Search of Incredible (2013-present) Incredibility unlocked (2017) 43 APPENDIX Table A1: Target domain, source domain and metaphor concepts of conceptual metaphors in laptop slogans No Brand Acer Slogan Acer We hear you Target Laptop/ Source Person Company Concepts A LAPTOP/A COMPANY IS AN UNDERSTANDING PERSON (Ontological) Acer Explore Laptop/ Person beyond limits Company A LAPTOP/A COMPANY IS A POWERFUL PERSON (Ontological) Acer Empowering Laptop/ Person people Company A LAPTOP/A COMPANY IS A POWERFUL PERSON (Ontological) Ignite Futures Future Fire FUTURE IS FIRE, (Ontological) Summon your Laptop/ Person strength Company A LAPTOP/ COMPANY IS A POWERFUL PERSON Strength 44 Entity STRENGTH IS AN ENTITY (Ontological) Lenovo Innovation Never Innovation Entity Stands Still (2015) INNOVATION IS AN ENTITY (Ontological) Apple Meet the family Laptop/ Person Now complete Company PERSON (2006) You can't be too AN OBJECT IS A (Ontological) Laptop Person AN OBJECT IS A thin, or too PERSON powerful (2007) (you -> product) (Ontological) Beauty Brains And Laptop Person LAPTOP IS A now more brawn BEAUTIFUL, (2008) INTELLIGENT, POWERFUL PERSON (Ontological) 10 HP HP Make it matter Laptop/ Person Company AN OBJECT IS A PERSON (Ontological) 11 Dell I choose to take my Laptop/ Path own path I choose Company Dell (2008) DELL IS THE RIGHT DIRECTION IN LIFE (Structural) 45 12 Don’t go there Go Laptop/ Destina DELL IS THE RIGHT Dell Company tion DIRECTION IN LIFE (Structural) 13 14 Packed with Asus Product Person AN OBJECT IS A potential Just like PERSON you (2015) (Ontological) Rock Solid Heart Laptop/ Person Touching (2003- Company A LAPTOP/A COMPANY IS A 2009) POWERFUL PERSON A LAPTOP/A COMPANY IS AN UNDERSTANDING PERSON (Ontological) 15 16 In Search of Incredibility Object ABSTRACT IS Incredible (2013- CONCRETE present) (Ontological) Incredibility Incredibility unlocked (2017) Object ABSTRACT IS CONCRETE (Ontological) 46 APPENDIX Table A2: Types of syntactic patterns in laptop slogans No Brand Slogan Syntactic patterns simple sentence Acer We hear you Acer Explore beyond limits verb phrase Acer Empowering people verb phrase Ignite Futures verb phrase Summon your strength verb phrase (declarative sentence) Acer Lenovo Meet the family Now complete (2006) You can't be too thin, or too Apple simple sentence powerful (2007) (declarative sentence) Beauty Brains And now more brawn (2008) HP 10 Dell verb phrase HP Make it matter (2012) noun phrase verb phrase I choose to take my own path I choose Dell (2008) simple sentence (declarative sentence) 47 Don’t go there Go Dell 11 Packed with potential Just like you 12 (2015) Rock Solid Heart Touching (2003- 13 2009) Inspiring Innovation Persistent 14 Asus 15 16 verb phrase Perfection (2009-13) In Search of Incredible (2013present) Incredibility unlocked (2017) 48 verb phrase adjective phrase noun phrase prepositional phrase noun phrase 49 ... brand LIST OF TABLES Figure Page Table A1 : Target domain, source domain and metaphor concepts of 44 conceptual metaphors in laptop slogans Table A2 : Types of syntactic patterns in laptop slogans. .. classification without taking linguistic features of metaphors in advertising into consideration Regarding studies of advertising slogans, Karsita and Apriana (2012) focused on the investigation... appropriate types of conceptual metaphors based on the available framework (Lakoff and Johnson’s framework), namely ontological metaphor, structural metaphor and orientational metaphor so as to examine