Stylistic features of English in advertising

1、stylistic features of english in advertisingacknowledgements in writing this paper, i have benefited from the presence of my classmates. they generously helped me collect materials i needed and gave me many invaluable suggestions. i hereby extend my grateful thanks to them for their kind help, witho

2、ut which the paper would not have been what it is. particularly, i am deeply indebted to my supervisor shen qi, for his constant encouragement and guidance. he has walked me through all the stages of the writing of this thesis. without his consistent and illuminating instruction, this thesis could n

3、ot have reached its present form. i also wish to sincerely thank my friends miss shen chunlan and miss liu lingling, whose brilliant ideas and perceptive observations have proved immensely constructive. thirdly, my thanks would go to my beloved family for their loving considerations and great confid

4、ence in me through out these years. they always share my weal and woe. i feel much grateful and want to share my achievement with them. lastly, none of this would have been possible without the help of those individuals and organizations hereafter mentioned with gratitude: our school library and its

5、 staff, the library of henan university of technology.abstractnowadays advertising has penetrated into every corner of our life as its transmitting media in many forms: newspaper, magazine, tv, radio as well as network. the goal of advertising decides its language to be simple and direct, distinct f

6、rom the characteristics of other discourses. thus an analysis on the linguistic features of advertising english in the linguistic field is worthwhile. under such circumstances, a study on the linguistic features of advertising english will have practical effects on the composing and translating work

7、 of the copywriters.this paper presents an analytical study of the language features of english advertisements at lexical, syntactic and discourse levels. it is hoped that through the detailed survey of three types of advertisements: namely, daily consumer goods advertising, technical equipment adve

8、rtising, service advertising, similarities and differences in advertising language features can be summarized and possible reasons will be given in the light of the meaning, and function of language.this paper will be presented in four parts. the first part is the introduction and the last conclusio

9、n. the second part introduce the element of an advertising. the focus of the paper is laid on the three middle parts which respectively analyze language features at lexical, syntactic and discourse levels. the conclusion of this paper is drawn from the data analysis. in the analysis, examples from t

10、he corpus will be given; figures, tables and graphs will also be offered to make the paper understandable and persuasive.it is hoped that the study can shed light on the language features of advertisements and also provide help to copy writers and advertising english learners.key words: english adve

11、rtisements; feature; similarities; differences 內(nèi)容摘要廣告在我們今天的社會(huì)幾乎是無孔不入,它的傳播介質(zhì)多種多樣,包括報(bào)紙、雜志、電視、廣播、網(wǎng)絡(luò)等。作為一門語言藝術(shù)，廣告英語的語言特色及社會(huì)功能，都受到越來越廣泛的重視。本文選定英語這一全球普遍使用的語言,就其應(yīng)用于廣告領(lǐng)域而產(chǎn)生的一些語言學(xué)特點(diǎn)和廣告本身的社會(huì)性特點(diǎn)進(jìn)行深入分析,以探求其文體特點(diǎn)。本文旨在通過對(duì)書面英語廣告的語言分析總結(jié)出廣告英語在詞匯句法篇章上的語言特點(diǎn)。廣告英語作為一種應(yīng)用語言，因其所具有的特殊效用已逐漸從普通英語中獨(dú)立出來而發(fā)展成非規(guī)范的專用語言。本文通過分析日用品廣告科技

12、設(shè)備廣告服務(wù)業(yè)廣告總結(jié)出廣告英語在此三類廣告中的相同點(diǎn)與不同點(diǎn)，并且根據(jù)語言的意義，風(fēng)格及功能解釋廣告英語的共性以及廣告英語在不同類型廣告中的特殊性。 本文分為四章，首先簡單概括廣告英語的基礎(chǔ)知識(shí)，包括廣告的定義、作用以及分類，說明英語廣告研究的重要性；第二章介紹英語廣告的構(gòu)成特點(diǎn)，這些結(jié)構(gòu)的不同決定了不同的部分的語言特性；第三章論述英語廣告的主要語法特點(diǎn)，從詞匯、句法及篇章特點(diǎn)切入，通過分析不同類型產(chǎn)品的廣告進(jìn)行分析其語言的構(gòu)成及特點(diǎn)；第四章總結(jié)廣告英語的語言特點(diǎn)以及在不同領(lǐng)域的廣告中形成不同的表達(dá)方式。本文作者衷心希望此論文的分析結(jié)果能給英語廣告的寫作者以及廣告英語的學(xué)習(xí)者提供幫助。 關(guān)鍵

13、詞: 廣告英語；特征；相同點(diǎn)；不同點(diǎn) contentsacknowledgements. iabstract (english).iiabstract (chinese)iii1.introduction.12.elements of an advertisement.23.stylistic feature of english in advertising.33.1lexical features.33.1.1 coinage and anagrammatic spelling.33.1.2 few verbs.33.1.3 weasel words.43.1.4 pun and alli

14、teration.53.2syntactical features.63.2.1similarities. differences. 63.2.283.3discourse features .93.3.1 body copy of an advertisement.93.3.2 differences in body copy.94.conclusion.10works cited. 121. introductionwe live in a world of advertising. as a kind of mass media, advertising plays a very imp

15、ortant role in modern society and permeates very espect of social life. as its trans mitting media in many forms: newspaper magazine, tv, radio as well as network. advertising tells the consumer what a specific product, brand or service should do when it is used and thus helps him or her to understa

16、nd and evaluate experience with the products and services that he or she uses. on the other hand, by making people aware of products, service and ideas, advertising promotes sales and profits. the goal of advertising decides its language to be simple and direct, distinct from the characteristics of

17、other discourses. thus an analysis on the linguistic features of advertising english in the linguistic field is worthwhile.naturally, advertisements in english have become an important means of communicating ideas, demonstrating a variety of linguistic features of its own. the present study attempts

18、 to examine these features at the lexical, syntactic and discourse levels, in the hope of bringing them to light and, thereby, offering help to advertisement writers and language learners.according to the definition committee of american marketing association(fang wei 12), advertising is defined as

19、follows:advertising is the nonpersonal communication of information usually paid for and usually persuasive in nature about products, services or ideas by identified sponsors through the various media.advertising may be classified by medium (newspaper, magazine, radio, television). by target audienc

20、e (consumer, industrial, business), by geography (international, national, regional, local), or by its function or purpose (product or non-product, commercial or noncommercial, primary demand or selective demand, direct action or indirect action). because it is difficult to gain access to enough dat

21、e for english commercials and ads on radio or tv, thus, the subject of this research paper will mainly concentrate on the print advertising. an advertisers main purpose is to present and exhibit product or service, and to spread the influence and coverage of which to the extent that the potential pu

22、rchasing population becomes real and actual. simply put, advertisers try by the various means at their disposal to get people to buy the product or service advertised. moreover, advertisers want potential purchasers to consider what is advertised to the exclusion of all other similar products or ser

23、vices. they therefore attempt to construct an advertisement that will fully involve the attention of the potential purchaser and which will have a persuasive effect. advertisers thus create a semiotic world in order to persuade their audience of essential rightness of purchasing the product or servi

24、ce advertised.2. elements of an advertisementas one will see, any advertisement is made up of several elements. most advertisements used all of them. they include the headline or display line; the illustration; the body copy or text; the theme line or slogan, trade character, seal, and other marks;

25、and the logotype or signature. each will be considered in some detail below. (1)headlinesthe headline or display line appears in most advertisements for several reasons. first, it is an attention-getting device; secondly, it also selects an audience by appealing to a specific group, as this line dos

26、e: arthritics reduce painful inflammation and get stomach upset protection. (an ad for medicine) finally, it is the key factor in getting people to read the body copy.(2)illustrationin addition to headlines, most advertisements contain illustrations. the illustration like the headline, attracts atte

27、ntion, selects the audience, and stimulates interest in body copy. what is more, the illustration can be invaluable in showing the product or product use and explaining graphically certain ideas or situations that are cumbersome to put into words. the old saying that one picture is worth a thousand

28、words has much merit in it.(3) body copyto begin with, some explanation of the word copy is necessary. the job of body copy is to stimulate interest in the product or service or idea being advertised, creates desire for it, and urge action. this is a big task and calls for right words. although head

29、lines and illustrations clear the way, it is body copy that must carry the burden of the selling job.(4)theme lines, slogan, trade characters, seal and other marksa number of different marks and devices may appear in an advertisement, including theme lines, trade characters, and seals; for example,

30、general foods uses the corporate identity symbol in all its advertisements. the automatic use of these elements in the advertisement, however, does not diminish their importance.3. language charateristics of english advertisingwith the rapid development of our social economy, advertisement has alrea

31、dy become an indispensable part of our daily life. its glamour and extensiveness lie not only in its functions but also in its language. though artistic value of advertising language is not so high as that of novel and poetry, it has own special feature. 3.1 lexical featuresin order to make the info

32、rmation accessible to audience effectively, the choice of words in advertising is very cautious and skillful. the aim of the advertiser is quite specific. he wishes to capture the attention of the members of a mass audience and by means of impressive words to persuade them to buy a product or behave

33、 in a particular way, such as going to hawaii for all their holiday needs. both linguistic and psychological aspects are taken into consideration in the choice of words. sharing the same purpose of advertisingto familiarize or remind consumers of the benefits of particular products in the hope of in

34、creasing sales, the techniques used at the lexical level by advertisers do not vary markedly.3.1.1 coinage and anagrammatic spellingcoinage is a word or phrase that has been invented recently. that is so many new coinage in english advertising, this word is very lively and interesting that make the

35、people pay attention and spread the news of goods effectively. for example:when you have been voted best airport in the world two years in a row, what do you do for an encore? create an airtropolis. (singapore chan gi airport) “airtropolis” is a new coinage, it is equal air + (me) tropolis. the form

36、er meaning of metropolis is “some of the commercial activity city ”. air + troplis that means: the airport have many flight number, fully course, installation complete is a suitable transfer airport.3.1.2 few verbs are used g. n. leech, english linguist, lists 20 most used verbs in his english in ad

37、vertising: linguistic study of advertising in great britain (fang wei 20). they are: make, get, give, have, see, buy, come, go, know, keep, look, need, love, use, feel, like, choose, take, start, taste.all these verbs listed above are also popular in the corpus we built.you will often read such sent

38、ences in an advertisement:buy x. use it. we make x will give you what you need. youll love x. get x. fox example:well make this quick. (hertz car return) get great coverage thats so weightless and water-fresh. (almay) all you need is a taste for adventure. (millstone coffee) youll love it even more

39、with the 2.1 megapixel c-2000 zoom. (olympus camera) dont have much of a personality? buy one. (honda motor) all these frequently used verbs are monosyllabic and most of them have anglo-saxon origin that is the common core of english vocabulary. linguistic study shows english native speakers tend to

40、 use words of anglo-saxon origin, because native words have comparably stable meaning. in advertising, these simple words can win the consumers by their exact, effective expression and a kind of closeness. etymological studies show that the 20 verbs listed before, except use and taste which are from

41、 ancient french, all are anglo-saxon origin. even the two words, use and taste have long become indispensable lexical items in the stock of common core vocabulary of the english people, developing their stable meaning and usage.3.1.3 use of weasel words a weasel word is defined as “a word used in or

42、der to evade or retreat from a direct or forthright statement or position” according to webster dictionary (philip 176). the use of weasel words has become a device in advertising. weasel words make people hear things that arent being said, accept as truth that have only been implied, and believe th

43、ings that have only been implied and suggested. lets take a look under a strong light at several frequently used words. help ocean spray cranberry juice cocktail helps maintain urinary tract health. it helps control the bacteria in this system. a breakthrough way to help stop wear-out help finance t

44、he video equipment. all the examples shown are from our corpus. 23% advertisements of all samples use the word help. these helps can be omitted because they have lost their original meaning: aid, assist. yet, help in advertising english is never redundant. it has magic power in advertisers eyes. hel

45、p is the great qualifier; once the advertiser says it, he can say anything after it. help qualifies everything. the audience has never heard anyone say, “this product will keep you young,” or “this toothpaste will positively prevent cavities for all time.” obviously, advertisers cant say anything li

46、ke that, because there are not any products like that made. but by adding that one little word help, in front, they can use the strongest language possible afterwards. and the most fascinating part of it is that the readers are immune to the word. the readers literally dont hear the word help. they

47、only knew what comes after it. that is strong language, and likely to be much more important to the readers than the little word at the front.like its like getting on bar free. cleans like a white tornado. its like taking a trip to portugal. like is also a qualifier, and is used in much the same way

48、 as help. but like is also a comparative element, with a very specific purpose; advertisers use like to get the audience to stop thinking about something that is bigger than or better or different from the product which are being sold. in other words, they can make the audience believe that the prod

49、uct is more than it is by likening it to something else. like help, like doesnt catch much attention. however by using it, almost anything can be said and promised afterwards.3.1.4 make pun and alliteration pun is an amusing use of a word or phrase that has two meanings which is called polysemy or o

50、f words with the same sound but different meanings which is called homonymy. pun, the game of words, will leave a deep impression on readers by its readability, wit, and humor. however, to make a successful and impressive pun is not easy. except for its own meaning, the word used as a pun is usually

51、 closely related to the characteristics of a certain product or the brand name of the product. such coincidence doesnt occur often. here we present several classic pun- used advertisements. for example:give your hair a touch of spring. ask for more. (more is a famous brand of cigarette) give your bu

52、siness the sharp edge. (sharp corporation)by using pun, advertisements will be easily remembered by the readers. in addition, filled with wit and humor, puns help the advertised product win favor from readers.alliteration is the use of words that begin with the same sound in order to make a special

53、communicative effect. usually they are pleasing to ears because of the clever choice of the word by the advertiser. in addition, the repetition of the beginning sound emphasizes the meaning the advertisement wants to express. the following are examples picked from the corpus., everything you need fo

54、r that big bargain basement special. treat your weary ghosts and goblins to a warm bowl of chill and 3.2 syntactical features the purpose of all advertising is to familiarize consumers with or remind them of the benefits of particular products in the hope of increasing sales, and the techniques used

55、 by advertisers do not vary markedly. an advertisement is often merely glimpsed in passing and so, to be effective, its message must be colorful, legible, understandable and memorable. the rules governing the language of advertising are similar. we have summarized the lexical features of english adv

56、ertisements. if words are leaves of a tree, and sentences branches; the branches must also possess their similarities.3.2.1 similarities first, length of a sentence in advertising is usually short. a sentence in daily consumer goods ads has 10.3 words on average; in technical equipment ads, 11.8 words; in service ads, 12.3 words.second, as to sentence structure, simple sentences and elliptical sentences are often used in advertisements. compared with complex sentences, simple sentences are more understandable and forceful. elliptical sentences are actually incomplete in struc