广告英语的语言特点--商务英语本科学位论文

中国某某某某学校学生毕业设计(论文)题目：广告英语的语言特点姓名：00000000班级、学号：0000000000系(部) ：经济管理系专业：商务英语指导教师：0000000开题时间：2009-04-10完成时间：2009-11-082009 年11月08 日目录课题广告英语的语言特点一、课题(论文)提纲二、内容摘要三、参考文献Linguistic Characteristics of Advertising English00000Abstract: As a way of propagating and transmitting information,advertising plays a vital role in the development of society and economy. Its function can not be underestimated. Advertising English is a special applying language when it compares with others like literary and technological languages. It has become indispensable of daily life because of its particular characteristics and charm. The paper starts with briefly introducing the history, definition, classifications and functions of advertising. Then, it mainly summarizes and analyzes major linguistic characteristics of advertising English, including three aspects on morphology, syntax and rhetoric. Finally, it shows the conclusion that people can understand well if they try to learn and master the features of advertising English. The paper aims to bring some enlightenment to the understanding of advertising language and get a better demand of English.Key Words:Advertising, Advertising English, Linguistic CharacteristicsIntroductionAdvertising, just as its name implies, means publicize and transmit information in order to make everyone know. It has been gone through a rapid development.Nowadays, advertising is everywhere. It is indispensable to the economy of any country in the world. The importance of advertising in individual countriesdepends on the nation’s level of development and national attitude toward promotion. Typically, advertising expenditures are higher in countries with higher personal incomes. And in the process of globalization, there were a lot of trades done among countries and there will be even more in the future. During the introducing and trading processes, people gradually realized the importance of understanding of each other’s advertising language. Since then people began trying to know about its functions, nature, characteristics and so on. They did lots of study on it. As time goes by, advertising English became popular since it owns most speakers. Until now, advertising English is still the research target.1. An Introduction to Advertising1.1 History of AdvertisementAdvertisement emerged from the womb of commodity production and exchange. The condition for the existence of advertising is "at least a segment of the population must live above the subsistence level". When this situation occurs it also becomes necessary for "the producers of materially 'unnecessary' goods to do something to make people want to acquire their commodities."The embryonic form of advertising in the world is street cries, which exist even today. Advertising was not unknown in ancientGreece and Rome, but advertising as we recognize it did not start until the seventeenth century in the West. It was at about this time that newspaper began to circulate. Before that, it is printing which was first invented in China and then introduced to the West that played a vital role in the production of print advertising. "Classified" (small ads) types of advertising were dominant before the nineteenth century and style and language used in ads at that time tended to be direct and informative. The industrial Revolution, which began in England in the mid-1700s and reached the United States by the early 1800s, facilitated mass-production of goods. Meanwhile advertising became more and more important in the industrial market. The great breakthrough for advertising came only in the late nineteenth century. Technology and mass-production techniques were then sufficiently developed for more firms to be able to turn out products of roughly the same quality and at roughly the same price. This brought on a crisis of over-production and under consumption which meant that the market needed to be stimulated by advertising. At this time advertising changed its function from proclamation to persuasion. In the twentieth century, advertising developed rapidly alongside the advent of new media-radio and television in succession.1.2 Definitions of AdvertisingAfter a brief introduction of the classifications and roles of advertising, we now come to the definitions of advertising. From different perspectives or purposes, the definitions might also vary. In English, the word "advertise" has its origin in "advertere" in Latin, meaning "to inform somebody of something", "to bring into notice" or "to draw attention to something", etc. In Chinese, the equivalent term "guanggao" means "widely announce".1.3 Classifications of AdvertisingAdvertising may be classified by medium (newspaper, magazine, radio, television). By target audience (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 date for English commercials and ads on radio or TV, thus, the subject of this research paper will mainly concentrate on the print advertising.1.4 Roles of AdvertisingAn advertiser's 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 purchasing population becomes real and actual. Simply put, advertisers try by the various means at theirdisposal 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 services. 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 service advertised.2. Linguistic Characteristics of Advertising EnglishThe wide use of advertising has created a special style of English—advertising English. Its unique features, simple language and immense attraction separate it from other kind of language. In the development of advertising English, this kind of language has formed its own features in several aspects. And there is no doubt that cosmetic advertising English has its own linguistic characteristics as well. In this paper, three main aspects will be illustrated, namely, lexical features, features of its syntax and rhetorical features.As a means to disseminate information and make people see and remember it, advertising English must be compact, vivid, visual, emotional and attractive. To realize this aim, the choice of words is playing a vital role. Therefore, morphology in advertising is quiteimportant and is different from other styles of English. It owns apparent features. The major four of them will be described in the following.2.1 More Verbs in AdvertisingVerb is widely used in advertising English, especially monosyllable ones. Advertising are no exception. Words such as get, make, give, like, love, buy, need, use are frequently used. Advertising English language needs to be simple, easy to understand, easy to remember and easy to read. Monosyllable verb boasts all these features. In daily life, monosyllable verb is the one that people most often used and also the one usually has most definite meaning. However, advertisers should pay attention to the grammatical changes of these basic verbs and know the differences between them. Most of the words can show the relation between the consumers the product. Following I will show some examples for a better understanding.Moisturewear Make-up. It gives life to the look and feel of your skin.Moisturewear Blush. It brings radiance to the look of your skin.These two lines come from Cover Girl, American cosmetic brand. It is the leading color make-ups in America. It was created by Dr. George A. Bunting, a creative enterpriser, in 1961. It is nowvery popular all over the world. Here, the verb “give”and “bring”are used.In the first line, “give life to the look and feel of your skin”is pretty attractive to females. Good look and young skin are always the things that female pursue. “Give”them that of course will make this product end up with big sale.Similarly, the word “bring”is also very appropriate. Radiance of skin is the thing that almost every woman wants and needs. If a kind of product can bring them this precious thing, they will be strongly attractive to. It will become popular.There is a great deal of other instances that wonderfully used verbs in advertising English. It is a functional way to use more proper verbs.2.2 More Adjectives in AdvertisingThe purpose of advertising is to publicize products. So it is indispensible to describe many aspects of the product such as size, color, nature, and quality. During this process, adjective plays a vital role. We can see lots of adjectives. Besides, if advertisers want to provoke the purchasing desire of the consumers’, they must make the advertisement lines imaginable, vivid and hold special appeals. And in order to do so, plenty of modifiers must be put in. All in all, a grate deal of modifiers should be used and can be seenin advertisements.Jewelry advertisements: Shanghai’s first pearl dealer；Highest quality pearls with a widest selection of classic &creative designs；Excellent after-sales service；Fair price to every customer. This example uses first，Highest，widest in the advertisement, etc Bao Yi adjectives extremely attractive. Sometimes also used by deliberately fabricates word or words, some confusion to spell words collocation of strange language, in order to meet consumers' pursuit of trendy, flaunt personality, psychological unexpected rhetorical effect.Fishing advertising: What can be delisher than fisher? delisher Refers to the voice of delicious invented, the purpose of which is caused by the fisher behind with rhyming effect, Outstanding fishing .To sum up, more and appropriate adjectives are indispensible and helpful in advertising English.2.3 More Abbreviations and Compounds in AdvertisingThere are also many abbreviations chosen in advertising English. Nowadays, the cost of advertising is particularly high. Space is money and that is to say every word is money. What is more, abbreviations make advertisement less boring but more interesting. Therefore, it is necessary to use them in advertising.For example, advertisers use ‘em to replace “them”; ‘tis to replace “this”; ‘n in stead of “and”and so on and so forth.What is more, in advertising English, copywriters use a lot of compounds. People almost can see them everywhere. Because the components of a compound can be any kind of word. It is not limited by the order of English syntax. Comparatively, it is more flexible and creative. Therefore, advertisers can make full use of advantages of compounds. As time goes by, it makes the usage of compounds one of characteristics of advertising English.The example is given as following:“Light-Diffusing makeup SPF8”this is one good example. Light-Diffusing means this product can disperse sunlight so as to protect skin from sun burnt. This is the purpose of sunlight proof products. Therefore, the advertising not only can soon attracts people, but also directly hit the need of consumers.Last but not least, there are many other kinds of compounds like compound adjectives and compound verbs. If they are appropriately used, amazing effects will come along.2.4 More Simple and Colloquial Words in AdvertisingIn advertising English, we can see most of words used are very simple. They are easy to understand and remember. For the aim ofadvertising is make everybody know, the words used of course should be easy. And if advertisers want every witness to remember this piece of advertisement, the words should be comparably colloquial and daily-used. After seeing an advertisement, people usually can remember it and tell others, relatives, friends and so on. So just for a little while, a lot of people will know.Let us see a instance as following:“Who does your hair? I do it myself”This is a line of publicize a kind of hair jelly. We can see this is very simple like a daily talk. The words “who”“do”and “your”are very common words. Everybody use them a lot. I am sure this advertisement can be heard and remembered very soon. Thus, the target product is sure to be popular and become a good seller.3. English Syntax in AdvertisingThe structure of advertising sentence should be the same as that of other styles. It is comparably complete and independent language unit. It has certain grammar structure, phonetic structure and meaningful vocabularies. However, first of all, copywriters need to consider consumers’thoughts so as to make every piece of advertisement is eye-catching. Describe the merits of products, causing buying interest. Then can they get people’s action of purchasing. Therefore, for all these reasons, advertising Englishhas its particular characteristics on syntax.3.1 Wide Use of Simple and Colloquial Sentences, with less complex sentences.Widely use of simple and oral sentences is very important in advertising. They are easy to understand and easy to remember as well. Advertisement is facing everyone person. Anybody might be the customer. So it requires that each sentence appeared in advertising must easy, brief and make sure almost everyone can understand and remember without efforts. Then it may catch the eyes and ears of consumers’so as to make them interest in the product. In opposite, long and complicated sentences are usually boring and difficult. Besides colloquial language is natural and make people feel comfortable. It is more acceptable.What is more, there is another reason why advertising adopt this strategy. It is the cost. The fee of making advertisements is quite high. In order to cut down the cost, they need to use as less phrases as possible. Therefore copywriters are demanded to transmit as much information as possible thought the minimum space and sentences. As time goes by, more simple and colloquial sentences become one of vital features of advertising English. (1) Going East. Staying Westin. (到东方，住Westin宾馆)This is a very clever design in hotel advertisements, , two singlepart ,no subject-predicate structure, the word is symmetrical, compact and lively.“Westin”is hotel name, and is reminiscent of East and West of the corresponding.(2)Our finest time. （共度美好时光）A couple of drinks, and this is how the world famous of romantic emotional appeal, make sentences with phrases for advertising, refined wine, fascinating.Advertisements must with least layout, the most refined language, to deliver the most information, most effectively arouse readers' desire to buy. Advertising English, so as the single department, simple sentences, and avoid to use complex compound sentence3.2 More Interrogative and Imperative SentencesAccording to an incomplete statistics, we can see one interrogative sentence in every 30 sentences and one imperative sentence in every four sentences in advertisement. Why does this happen? It mostly relies on the two important features of advertising which are attention-catching value and memorizing value.Interrogative sentence is widely used in advertising English. It aims to make consumers think and stand on the same side of the advertisers. Copywriters purposely put themselves in consumers’shoes and put forward questions that consumers care about. Sometimes one question and one answer followed. And sometimes there is no answer. On this occasion, consumers are usually interested in coming up an answer. That is to it is easy to catch attention by using interrogative sentences. Besides, it also can establish kinder of harmonious relationship between consumers and products. Let us see some instances as followed:Who does your hair?I do it myself.This is an advertisement of hair wax. It is a simple interrogative sentence. But it shows amazing effect. It starts with an interrogative sentence “Who does your hair?”causing consumers’attention. Then, according to common knowledge, people usually want to know the answer when facing a question. They even begin to think and look for it. Thus, first step, advertisers win. Next, giving out the answer “I do it myself”, brief and direct. Once more, eye-catching, people love the answer. Also it is kinder of a way of inspiriting. Because this line makes consumers believe that they can run their hair well by themselves with this target product. Thus, it is sure that everyone will buy it, giving him or herself a chance. And give the product a chance as well. It is really a good idea.4 Rhetoric in Advertising EnglishRhetoric in Advertising English is based on the functions of words, sentences as an expression of the use of rhetorical skills, often determines the advertising originality and effect. rhetorical feature mainly has the following kinds.4.1 figure of speechIt can make advertising language vividly, enhance readers image thinking. Such as:(1) The born leader. （天生的领导者）This sentence hint the product is produced in leadership, Of course it is excellent products.(2)What it’s like to be small but good. （麻雀虽小，肝胆俱全。