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A Study Of Language Of Advertisement
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Advertising is any of the various methods used by a company to increase the sales of its products or to promote a brand name. Advertising is also used by organizations and individuals to publicize an idea or image to recruit staff, to publicize an event or to locate an item or commodity. From the perspective of an economist, advertising is either beneficial or is a hindrance to perfect competition. This seems to be so because it attempts to make illusory distinction between essentially similar products. (Emblen & Dresner 1999:10).
According to Dale (1994:72) advertising is a message designed to promote a product, a service or an idea. In everyday life, people come into contact with many kinds of advertising. Printed advertisement makes up a large part of the newspapers and magazines. Poster advertisements appear in many buses, subway and trains. Neon signs along Downtown Street flash advertisements. Bill boards dot the roadsides. Commercials interrupt television and radio programmes. The goal of all advertising is not only to make sales but also to awaken or produce predispositions to buy the advertised products or services. This may be illustrated by the following three categories of advertising.
(a) Immediate Action:- The primary purpose of some advertising is to induce immediate action. Most newspaper advertising, especially for bargain priced products, special ideal, coupon offers, food and departmental - store items as well as mail order advertising.
(b) Awareness: - this kind of advertisement primarily creates awareness on the part of the listener, viewer or reader. This category, according to Jacob (2003:114), includes announcements of a new product or model, improvements in price or change in package design.
(c) Image:-some image advertisement seeks principally to create, reinforce or change the image of a product or service (or organization) in the minds of those to whom the advertising is directed. Usually, it is expected that the desired change of attitude will take place gradually, over a period of time (Dale 1994:73).
In conclusion advertising has an important role in informing and influencing consumer. Virtually every individual is exposed to advertising. It has become one of the most important economic and social forces in society, partly because of the influence of advertising people have learned to seek for better products and services, to improve their way of living. Advertising cannot turn a poor product or service into a good one. What advertising can do and does is to create awareness about both old and new products and service. It stimulates wants, indicates the differences among various products (and services) and shows how various needs and wants can be satisfied. Increasingly, advertising performs one of the main functions of a salesman by providing some advance information about products and services to consumer before they reach the place of purchase.
In order to achieve the objectives of advertising, the advertiser makes use of a variety of linguistic devices such as hyperbole, personification, onomatopoeia, simile, alliteration, repetition, idiomatic, expressions, rhetorical question, style, appeal, economy of words, nonce, parallelism, among others to enliven the language of advertising. Hyperbole is a greatly exaggerated statement; not intended to be taken literally but used for stylistic effect. This figure of speech deliberately exaggerates to create special emphasis or humour (Ndimele 1992:108). It is used a lot in advertising to project a product, service or idea, sometimes beyond proportion. It has the special effect of giving emphasis to the quality of a product.
Advertisers at times personify their products. Oliphant (1962:162) says that personification is the attribute of life to inanimate objects. This simply means that human attributes are bestowed on non- living entities thereby giving them an animate characteristic. Advertisers make use of this device to give obvious human attributes to products. Advertisers make use of onomatopoeia, which is the use of words that sound like what they describe. In other words, such words suggest their meaning by their sounds.
The figure of speech, simile, is equally used by the advertisers. It involves a comparison of one thing with another. Simile makes use of such words like “as†and “like†(Ndimele 1992:106). In Igbo, the lexeme “ka†or “di ka†may be commonly used. Alliteration involves the selection and arrangement of different words that have the same initial consonant in close succession in a phrase or a sentence. Wales (1989:30) comments that such arrangement is connected with any of the following literary language, idioms, tongue twisters and advertising. This repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of a word or syllable gives some rhythmic effect.
Most often, advertisers repeat their expressions. Repetition is a device used in advertising and other forms of art like prose and poetry. It makes use of repetition of words for emphasis or emotional effect. The main feature of this device is that words or expressions are repeated over and over again; perhaps for the purpose of achieving communicative prominence. This way the name of the product or its features gets registered in the mind of the audience. Information about a product might be repeated again and again.
This makes the key words in the advertisement to get registered in the mind of the audience and therefore create an additional reaction. It is also the easiest way of producing rhythm. Advertisers, equally make use of idiomatic expressions. They are elements that give flavour to an advertisement. The devices such as idioms, proverbs, adage etc are among the indices with which an advertisement can be evaluated to be adequate. Rhetorical questions are questions asked just for effect and not because an answer is expected. Most times the answer to a rhetorical question is common knowledge.
Advertisers use this device to elicit some kind of emotional effect on the audience. Such an effect would invariably produce a reaction. Rhetorical questions are used as a form of persuasion. The mode of persuasion is very subtle, often it has a satirical tone but more often it is comical. The use of style is also a feature of advertising. According to Wales (1989:31) the varieties of language usage as it is used in different occasions are known as style. He enumerated different kinds of varieties and different situations where there could be a variety change. But one point is clear, no matter the style, only two situations are noteworthy: formal and informal.
In product advertising, style can also include the way in which the advertisement is presented. The elements of style we shall consider here are dialogue, code-mixing, vocative and humour or incongruity. Dialogue is a special affective device employed by advertisers. It makes use of two or more people talking about the same advertised product. Usually one of the people involved feigns ignorance of the existence of the product which ironically is what he needs at that point in time. The other member(s) of the group will then recommend the product and convince him to try it. Towards the end of the advertisement the ignorant partner would testify to the efficacy of the product. Dialogue as a stylistic device is not used only in informal situations as in the home, but also in formal situations as in offices between employers and employees, in hospitals: between doctors and patients, and so on. There is other style like code-mixing which simply means using two languages at the same time, in other words, mixing the two languages together. Vocative is a form of direct address when addressing a person. Another style used by the advertisers is humour or incongruity. It refers to any situation where there is a mismatch between what someone says and what they mean Simpson (2004:45).
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ABSRACT - [ Total Page(s): 1 ]Advertising is one of the means through which marketers or manufacturers convince buyers to patronize their products. It involves the dissemination of information about products, services, ideas e.g from advertisers to the public in a short time and space. There are different kinds of advertising but this research work will focus on retail advertising. This work examines the meaning and features of advertising and by using the descriptive approach. Audio tapes were collected from selected media ... Continue reading---
APPENDIX A - [ Total Page(s): 4 ]APPENDIX 5 Political Advert Jingle: 1. Ọ gà –ème hÄ viam n’anya Ọ gà -ème hÄ viam n’anya Peter Ã’bi gà -à chikwa ÅzŠỌ gà –ème hÄ viam n’anya. APPENDIX 6 Andrews Liver Salt 1. 1st man: Nnà à anwụá»la mụ o ! Afá» á»rụrụ ekwèghị m hụ ụzá» taÄ bụ èzùmike m 2nd man: Afá» ... Continue reading---
TABLE OF CONTENTS - [ Total Page(s): 1 ]AbstractTable of ContentsChapter One Introduction 1.0 Background of Study1.0.1 Brief History of Advertising1.0.2 Kinds of Advertising1.0.3 Advertising Media1.1 Purpose of Study1.2 Significance of Study1.3 Scope of Study 1.4 Area of Study 1.5 Limitations of Study1.6 Convention Used1.7 Data Collection1.8 Data Analysis Chapter Two 2.0 Review of Related Literature2.1 Language of Advertising Chapter Three 3.0 The Analysis of Radio Advertisements and Jingles3.0.1 Hyperbole3.0.2 Personification3.0. ... Continue reading---
CHAPTER ONE - [ Total Page(s): 2 ]INTRODUCTION 1.0 Background of Study Advertising is one of the tools of public communication. Advertising is essentially a persuasive means of communication task to reach a defined audience in a given form of non-personal presentation and promotion of ideas, goods and services. Advertising has become a part and parcel of man’s life in society. Every linguistic setting has peculiar language items that are acceptable and appropriate to it. This is also applicable to advertising. It would be ... Continue reading---
CHAPTER THREE - [ Total Page(s): 4 ]3.0 THE ANALYSIS OF RADIO ADVERTISEMENTS AND JINGLES The data will be analysed based on the linguistic devices used in the language of advertising. Its connotative meanings will be discussed equally. The devices to be dealt with include figurative language like hyperbole, personification, onomatopoeia, simile, alliteration, repetition. There are other devices like idiomatic expressions, rhetorical question, style, appeal, economy of words and nonce form etc. These devices will be illustrated usi ... Continue reading---
CHAPTER FOUR - [ Total Page(s): 1 ]OBSERVATIONS, RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONCLUSION 4.1 Observations Man uses different styles of language to perform various functions in the different spheres of life. The style that is acceptable in one area tends not to fit in another. So, every profession has its own unique language. Advertising is not an exception. In advertising specialized terminologies enable advertisers to sell the products, services or ideas being advertised to the public. Advertising is carried out via the print a ... Continue reading---
REFRENCES - [ Total Page(s): 1 ]References APCON (2002). Principles and Practice of Advertising. Lagos: NELAG & Co Ltd. Bovee, C.L. & Arens W.F. (1994). Contemporary Advertising. New York: Richard D. Irwin Inc,. Crystal, D. (1995). The Cambridge Enyclopedia of the English Language. U.S.A: Cambridge University Press. Dale .W. (1994). The World Book Encyclopedia. London: A Scott Fetzer Company. Dominick M. (1990). The Dynamics of Mass Communication. New York: McGraw –Hill Companies Inc. Emblen, K. and Dresner D, ( ... Continue reading---
