Recently, all businesses have been emerging involving marketing and advertising to access to their potential customers, and build up their own image as well. Thus, marketing and advertising have been evolving and become important roles in determining the performance of firms these days. After examining the data, I realized that all companies need self-enhacement in order to show off their abilities and excellence. When it comes to advertising, self-enhancement becomes an effective way to express what they can do and to win the hearts of mor customers, which offers them more oppotnities to beat other business opponents.
As a means of communication with customers, print advertisements employ many appling attributes to draw customers‟ attention, using “show off” words is one of the most effective ways. For instance,
D’.PALAIS LOUIS. Một cuộc sống tiện nghi ưu việt sẽ càng hoàn hảo gấp bội khi song hành cùng vẻ đẹp quyền lực của Nghệ Thuật đỉnh cao…D'.
Palais Louis trở thành một tuyệt phẩm kiến trúc, một kiệt tác bất động sản tầm vóc … đậm chất Hoàng gia sang trọng đến choáng ngợp với nội thất lừng danh, vật liệu tinh xảo bậc nhất thế giới… (Exhibit 1.24)
As can be seen from this advertising, many “show off” words are used to enhance their procduct and company‟s image : tiện nghi ưu việt, hoàn hảo gấp bội, vẻ đẹp quyền lực, đỉnh cao, tuyệt phẩm, kiệt tác, đậm chất Hoàng gia sang trọng, choáng ngợp, lừng danh, tinh xảo bậc nhất. These image-building expressions are not only
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appear frequently in VPAs, they are also common in APAs. There is an example from advertisements No.2.21
Cancer, you’re no match for our experts. As the nation’s leading cancer hospital, we offer our patients unrivaled expertise, compassion and the best hope to beat cancer. Our team of experts sees more types of cancer in a day than many physicians treat in their careers, ensuring our patients receive a precise diagnosis and the right treatment plan, from the beginning.
Choose MD Anderson first… (Exhibit 2.21)
Conventionally, the most attractive appeal of a product or service is its quality, customers are usually gravitated towards companies with the highest quality products and the most- skilled employees. Seizing this important point, advertisers employ various image-enhancing expressions to make advertisements most effective. Here is the table of “show off” words found in the analyzed documents.
Table 6: The frequency of “show off” words in VPAs and APAs
Advertisements “Show off” words Frequency
VPAs Độc đáo, kinh điển, tuyệt tác, mẫu, mạnh mẽ, hoàn hảo,kiệt tác, tiên phong, chuẩn mực, cải tiến, sáng tạo, chiến lược, đẳng cấp, tinh tế, đẳng cấp, nhất, tốt, tinh túy,thú vị, hấp dẫn, bứt phá, khác biệt/ chuyên biệt , mới nhất,tuyệt vời, đặc biệt, ưu Việt, mới, cao cấp, chuyên, đẹp nhất, tuyệt phẩm, đỉnh cao, sang trọng, lừng danh, tinh xảo, tiêu chuẩn, vượt trội/ nổi trội, độc quyền, vàng, kỉ lục , hàng đầu, hiện đại, đầu tiên, thượng hạng, thượng lưu, đặc sắc, toàn diện, chuyên sâu, thông Minh , thời Trang
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APAs
Modern, best/most, good/better, professional, leader/
leading, talent, first, number one, skilled, expert/ expertise, high , largest/ biggest, exclusive, specialized, excellence, innovation/ innovative, breakthrough, eternal beauty, standard, great/ greatest/ greatness, competitive, super, advanced/ advance, creative/ creatively, wonderful, incredible, exceptional
101
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As displayed in the table, both Vietnames print advertisements ad American avertisements use “show off” words commonly. However, the frequency of them in VPAs is allitle more than that in APAs. Furthermore, Vietnamese advertisers use more various “ show off words” (53 different words) than American ones ( 37 different words). These broasting expressions occurr in almost advertisements . For example
… chương trình giáo dục toàn diện và chuyên sâu của Hoa Kỳ, tạo cảm hứng và thử thách học sinh từ 11 đến 18 tuổi để đạt được sự ưu tú vượt trội của bản thân… ( Exhibit 1.39)
Dedicated to trust. Committed to quality. Audit quality in a complex world.KPMG is committed to delivering a high quality audit. We continue to advance audit quality with innovative capabilities and tools that provide our experienced audit professionals… ( Exhibit 2.32)
In addition, metaphors and metonymies employed in the collected advertisements are considered to be useful tools of enhancing image. For example
Không chỉ chứng thực thời gian. Mà còn là chứng nhân cho khoảnh khắc lịch sử (Exhibit 1.1)
Bến Cảng Phồn Hoa. Mùa Xuân Vĩnh Cửu (Exhibit 1.34) Nơi dừng chân lý tưởng cho các doanh nhân … (Exhibit 1.38)
From engineers to construction workers, one state has a talent pool deep enough to meet the needs of any business. (Exhibit 2.4)
Be the wolf of essay street. (Exhibit 2.42)
Beyond your private pool, another one awaits. (Exhibit 2.14)
In summary, enhancing image or band name in today compatative business market is of paramount importance to any company. Thus the studied print advertisements manifest a great number of “show off” expressions in order to make a good impression on the readers. Both VPAs and American Advertisements tend to enhance their abilities, product/ service qualities. It means that they may be expressing their individualistic value with regard to self enhancement.
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Conclusion : The fidings indicate that, VPAs and American advertisement have the same tendency of communication styles. When it comes to high-low context communication and self-construal , they all tend to express individualistic features. Interms of direct and indirect styles both of them favor indirectness in speech acts which show collectivistic feature. Based on the results of these three attributes of communication styles, it is probably conculded that, with regard to communication style, both APAs and Vietnamese advertisements lean towards IDV.