Chapter 1
The language of Advertising
Presently people are living in an era of information explosion in which advertising seems to be an essential building block of the media, are heavily and continuously barraged by it. As an example of mass communication closely linked with the world of commerce and marketing, advertising is a powerful implement for the flow of information from the seller to the buyer. Language has a huge impact over people and their behavior. This is widely seen in the fields of marketing and advertising. The choice of language to deliver specific message with the intention of influencing people is crucially important. DYS CZAPTER AIMS… DOPISAĆ!!!!!
1. The functions of language
Language is used for an almost inexhaustible number of purposes, from writing letter, making speeches and creating advertisements. Some functions of language are ordinary, while others are more lofty and almost abstract. But the important thing is that, linguistically speaking, they are all of equal value; language does not discriminate any social significance might be given to various functions.
1.1. The expressive functions
The expressive function (called also as emotive or affective) has a physiological purpose. The function serve no communicative target, is best represented by interjections, taboo and other sound changes which add information about the speaker internal state. The function is used to alleviate the physical and nervous energy generated by emotional despair. In fact, language is often not adequate enough to relieve feelings fully.
1.2. The phatic function
The phatic function indicated general disposition to be sociable. The function generally sets for contact establishes, prolongs or discontinues the communication. Literally this is speech for the sake of interaction associated with the contact factor. Includes e. g. phrases of politeness which fulfils a purpose to which the meaning of its words is almost completely irrelevant. According to Malinowski, the anthropologist:
“Inquiries about health, comments on weather, affirmation of some supremely obvious state of things – all such are exchanged, not in order to inform, not in this case to connect people in action, certainly not in order to express any thought. It would be even incorrect, I think, to say that such words serve the purpose of establishing a common sentiment, for this is usually absent from such current phrases of intercourse, and where it purports to exist, as in expression of sympathy, it is avowedly spurious on one side.” (Quirk 1962:58, cited in Finch 1998:24).
The phatic phrases are insincere, imprecise and rather vague. Nevertheless, semantically empty language can be socially useful. The form of phatic use is mainly spoken but there are some written equivalents. Phatic function, therefore accomplishes significant contact uses and helps to negotiate the start and end of exchanges whether in spoken or written form.
1.3. The referential function
The referential function is oriented toward the factor of context and characterizes an object, situation or mental state. The descriptive statements of the referential function can consist both of deictic words and definite description, e.g. ‘The autumn leaves have all fallen now.’ The context is what is known as the ‘referent’ in another, somewhat nomenclature, ambiguous. The term ‘referential’ is used for the function whose target factor is the context. Nevertheless, the term ‘context’ is no less ambiguous, both in general in this particular case, either verbal or capable of being verbalized. Jacobson describes the referential function also as ‘denotative’ or ‘cognitive’, but unlike all the other functions, this one is not presented in details, and seems to be taken for granted. The referential function is associated with an element whose truth value is being affirmed or questioned, especially when this truth value is equal in the real universe and in the assumptive or reference universe that is taking it on.
1.4. The pleasure function
The pleasure function is mostly exploited by poetry. Figures of speech such as alliteration, onomatopoeia, and assonance, all draw on the pleasure found in euphony, as do rhythm and rhyme. At the syntactic level there is the pleasure gained from the rearrangement by ellipsis of inversion of normal clause of phrase order and from one class to another. At the level of meaning, most creative uses of language provide considerable pleasure though the generation of puns, metaphors, paradoxes and ambiguities. With these the oddity is not necessarily syntactic but lies in the capacity of the language to form a plurality of possible meanings. Advertisers exploit this capacity just as much as novelists and poets. A large part of the pleasure people receive from language results from the successful exploitation of linguistic novelty at different levels of the language. The most memorable instances are those where the manipulation of syntax, sound and semantics works to provide a pleasing density of novelty.
1.5. The poetic function
The poetic function correspond to the factor of message and concentrates on the message for its own sake. This is the operative function used in poetry as well as advertising slogans. The poetic function relate very broadly to the competences outlined in the grammatical, communicative and creative functions.
1.6. The conative function
The conative function focuses on the addressee that is directly engaged. The function is best illustrated in imperative and vocative sentences, and its aim is to make people do something. The function includes orders and prayers, e.g. “Go away!”.
1.7. The metalingual function
The last function is the metalingual, alternatively called as metalinguistic or reflexive. According to Jacobson the function relates to the code and is used to describe or discuss the language itself. The metalingual function appears whenever the addresser and the addressee need to check whether they use the same code when the language is used to speak about language.
1.8. Use of functions in advertisements
In the advertisements, the phatic function is used to attract attention of the receiver by the sender e.g. by the oddness of the slogan, emphasizing on possible consequences or providing many oppositions. The conative function aims is to buy the given product, including orders, when words which give some associations fulfills the referential function. The referential function also occurs when the context in an advertisement slogan has a reason and when the utterance explains an objective truth. Moreover, the poetic function is fulfilled by giving connotations of the product with different qualities. The emotive function refers to the hidden meaning given by the addresser. The major representation of linguistic functions are based on the sign model which functions through its associations with the sender (addresser), the receiver (addressee), and the referent (context). The context can be differently interpreted, that is to say it is ambiguous.
2. Overview of advertising
The part of the first chapter aim is to give several explanations of the term advertisement, slogan, headline and other advertising elements.
2.1. Definition of the advertisement
Advertisement is the action of drawing the attentions of others, notyfing or informing, precept, warning, heed, observation, admonition, notification. In another word, it is a written statement which call attention to anything, a notice. The advertisement can be also defined as a public notice or announcement, usually, in print or writing or in journal or an announcement on the internet, in a newspaper or other print. This is something used for advertising objects, things or commodities such as a notice on a wall or a short film shown on television. According to another source, advertisement is a public promotion such as picture, film or song, that is intended to persuade people to acquire product or service, or a piece of text that tells people about a job vacancy or an event. At the root of the word ‘advertisement’ is the Latin verb ‘advertere’ which means ‘to turn towards’. Advertisements, as with literary texts, often have complex set of adressers and addressees. Advertisements are forms of discourse which make a powerful contribution to how people construct their identities, affect them and mean something to them. The word is usually abbreviated as an advert, ad., adv., or advt.
2.2. Definition of the advertising
Advertising is a bringing into notice, e.g. by prominent display of placards or by paid announcement in a printed newspaper, adverting, attending or issuing advertisements. It is also defined as giving public notice, advertisements in general or the business of encouraging people to purchase commodities by means of advertisements. Furthermore, advertising is the activity or profession of producing advertisements for commercial services of products. Two key words describing advertising are ‘promotion’ and ‘presentation’. The fist one involves communication and persuasion, the second rerers to an offering, therefore, advertising is designed to offer people goods, ideas, or services and persuade them of the utility, benefits, and desirability. From the linguistic perspective, much of the language appearing in commercial advertising is characteristic of what might be called the ‘advertising register’.
2.3. Definition of the slogan
Slogan is a short, striking, easily remembered phrase conveying usually political motto or advertising information; the distinctive note, cry or phrase intended to bring an idea or a good to public notice. Can be explained also as a motto associated with a political party or movement.
3. The advertisement text
Texts are usually ‘informative’ or ‘persuasive’. Advertising comprises the idea of texts whose intention is to ameliorate the image of an individual, group or organization. The texts are seen as potentially involving complex notions of audience, where readers have to work hard to decrypt messages and grasp different address relationships. The main aim of advertising texts is to capture the clients attention and to get them to register their communication either for targets or immediate action or to make them more favorably disposed in general terms to the advertised service or product. Written advertisements, increasingly, have to contest with each other and with all sorts of other texts in present-day richly literate culture. They are, like literary texts, not directed to single, private reader.
3.1. The advertising strategies and devices
3.1.1. Image
A strategy created in recent years to increasing level of sophistication is the starling image. Advertisers sometimes want to shock the reader for very good cause, however they have used some of the traditional methods of commercial product advertising to get their company noticed, and one of these ways has been the disturbing image. The means an image is presented can imply certain ideas. This is the form of attention-seeking device. Moreover, when a certain product is advertised in a black and white format, some of the effect of the image is lost.
3.1.2. Verbal text
This part of the thesis presents the further insight into the role of typographical features and their effects. Writing is a form of image-making, in other words, verbal language can suggest specific qualities as a result of how it appears. It could be said to have it own paralanguage, as a result of the type of interpreting the advertiser has chosen for it. One of distinctions is how writing is shown – whether it is handwriting or typed print. Different style of handwriting are likely to prompt different types of author. In the case of typeface, people are likely to have subtly distinct readings of distinct fonts and also whether the typeface is bold type.
3.1.3. Layout
The effects can be formed by the choice of particular typographical features, writing many also be used to establish larger textual shapes by means of different layouts. Advertisements sometimes come very close to the procedure poetry works – as verbal language making pictures of its own subject matter. When considering layouts and the other features related to the visual aspects of text, space is as valid a consideration as verbal and non-verbal language. Blank spaces are as meaningful as filled ones. Where the language is expected to occur, its non-occurrence is in itself an attention-seeking device. Linguistic puzzles appear in many texts, from the crosswords and word-searchers in newspapers and magazines to the code-breaking exercises in children’s comics. Readers find them interesting and pleasurable, and this is the reason why, despite the seriousness of the subject matter, some prefer to ‘test’ themselves by trying to guess the empty spaces in the adverts rather than looking straight at the answer.
4. Writers, readers and texts
The phrase ‘writers and readers’, from literary studies, implies that the text should be seen primarily as an artistic written entity, composed by a creative individual. The choice between the first and third person address represent slight changes, but they can produce some powerfully different effects. The use of the pronoun ‘we’ might have the effect of making the company like a commercial organization and have associations of territoriality and group definition as a corporate ownership. The pronoun ‘I’ sounds personal and individually. The most frequent address forms to be given to the receiver in an advertisement are no address form at all or ‘you’. In both cases, anybody who read the advert can feel addressed by it and not excluded from the communication. The reader is asked to act when the possessive form ‘your’ or ‘you’ is used. Generally speaking, even though advertisements might not directly name their narrates, they are likely to designate a ‘kind of person’, a profile that is assumed to exist. This kind of person may not match the real readers of the text; but he or she might me somebody that the real readers would like to be and aspire to. In recognizing themselves with this profile, readers ‘become’ the narrates of the text. Advertisements are often put in publications where it is thought readers will be likely to identify themselves with the profile in the given text.
5. Use of language in written and spoken forms
5.1. Paralanguage
The real speech situation is strongly embedded in its closes surroundings. This means that a great deal of meaning can be passed on by the physical aspects of communications, such as body posture, gesture, eye contact, tone of voice or spasmodic effects like breathiness or whispering. In the literary version of these speech aspects, they need to be described to reach the meaningful effect.
5.2. Deictics
The reference terms such as ‘this’, that’, ‘those’, ‘here’, ‘there’, ‘it’, called deictics are used in a real speech to indicate objects in the immediate context. Because of the context dependency, the written version needs to be more specific and uses deictics to make sure the reader already has a clear picture of what is being referred to.
5.3. Prosodic features
The prosodic features are aspects of spoken language such as stress and intonation, and they are a part of the total ‘melody’ of a language. In the real dialogue, these aspects were piece of the general communicative force of the original interaction, while in writing up the transcript, the writer has made some trial to represent these features by specific markings. He uses typographical presentation, such as features of punctuation or distinct typefaces – e.g. italics to signal stress, and question and exclamation marks to assume the respective intonation patterns. These features present the spoken voice in an impressionistic way; the transcriber uses a small range of written conventions, knowing that reader will read the tips and work to ‘form’ features of spoken dialogue inside their heads as he read.
5.4. Lexis
When it comes to vocabulary, both the real dialogue and the literary one use ordinary, everyday language. The features of accent in a literary text can be represented phonetically for example by using a sound alphabet, varying the strength of accent. In both the spoken and written form of the text reference to taboo to express attitude is used – for instance a swear word expresses strength of feeling.
5.5. Repetition
More repetitions, lexical and grammatical occurred in a written text. In spoken language the repetition is used as a support to memories, while in writing it is seen as a part of stylistic elegance. A literary writer’s procedures for constructing dialogue in some ways owe more to writing than to spoken language.
5.6. Non-fluency features
The features, such as hesitations, changing course, fillers, false starts and incompleteness are a normal part of spoken interactions, and they rarely occur in written versions of text, furthermore they would be completely absent in writing which is not trying to represent spoken language. Full sentences, the standard for writing, rarely appear in speech.
5.7. Interaction markers
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