AN ANALYSIS OF LANGUAGE__ FEATURESIN ENGLISH ADVERTISEMENTS

AN ANALYSIS OF LANGUAGE FEATURESIN ENGLISH ADVERTISEMENTS Thesis Statement: With the rapid increase on advertisements, the fast changes in language usage are also obvious and influential. In this paper, here is presented and analyzed some of these changes in three levels respectively. Though detailed survey of three types of advertisements, the similarities and differences in advertising language features have been summarized and explained in different dimensions. Abstract： This paper presents an analytical study of the language features of English advertisements at lexical, syntactical and discourse levels. Three types of advertisements have been surveyed: namely, daily consumer goods ads, technical equipment ads, service ads. Similarities and differences be concluded and possible reasons will be given in the light of meaning and function of language. This paper will be presented in five parts. The first part is the introduction and the last conclusion. The focus of the paper is laid on the three middle parts,which respectively analyze language features at lexical, syntactical and discourse levels. Figures, tables and graphs will be also provided to make the paper persuasive and understandable. Key Words: Lexical, Syntactic, Discourse, Differences 摘要： 本文通过对书面英语广告的语言分析总结出广告英语在词汇﹑句法﹑篇章上的语言特点。通过对日用品广告﹑科技设备广告﹑服务业广告的深入细致的定量和定性分析，总结出广告英语在此三类广告中的相同点与不同点，并且根据语言的意义，风格及功能解释广告英语的共性以及广告英语在不同类型广告中的特殊性。 本文共分五个部分，第一部分和第五部分分别为介绍与总结，中间三个部分为本文核心，分别展开广告英语在词汇﹑句法﹑篇章三个层面的分析。数据，表格和图表的提供更具有说服力。 关键词: 词汇，句法，篇章, 不同点 An Analysis of Language Features in English Advertisements 1. Introduction We live in a world of advertising. As potential consumers, we are endlessly bombarded with all kinds of products or service information from various media including newspapers, magazines, televisions, radio, posters and Internet, etc. Advertising provides a valuable service to society and its members, because it defines for consumer the meaning and the role of products, services, and institutions. It indicates the difference that exists between brands of products and alters native services, as well as the distinguishing characteristics of companies and institutions. Advertising also tells the consumer what a specific product, brand or service should do when it is used and thus helps him or her to understand and evaluate experience with the products and services that he or she uses. On the other hand, by making people aware of products, services and ideas, advertising promotes sales and profits. Finally, advertising is one of the major forces that are helping improve the standard of living around the world. Combined with all these communicational, marketing and social functions. Advertising becomes indispensable in the modern world. Usually, advertising communicates information in three types: audio, visual, and language. In radio advertisements, music is always accompanied by language; on TV and motion pictures, music and language illustration are mixed with each other. In magazines and newspapers, advertisements are a combination of pictures and language of written information. Although music and pictures can provide some hints, or create a kind of atmosphere, the information about the products is limited. Even worse, it may lead to misunderstanding. Thus, language in a way provides more exact, detailed and dependable information whereas music and pictures only act as a supplementary means in advertising. Advertising language, playing a role of communication and persuasion, has developed its own features. This paper will focus on the language features of English advertisements at lexical, syntactical and discourse levels. It is hoped, by a contrastive study of advertisements on three types of products (daily consumer goods, technical equipment and service), similarities and differences of the three types of advertisements will be summarized and possible reasons will be given in the light of the meaning, and function of language.

2.Lexical Features of English Language in Ads 2.1 Classification of Advertising and its Audience Generally speaking, advertisements can be divided into two types: public relation ads and commercial ads. The former tries to advocate reputation for a social group, whose purpose is to leave a favorable impression upon the potential audience. The latter leads to the act of purchasing the products or using the recommended service. Commercial ads are much more presented through mass media for the reason that manufacturers and companies are willing to spend a large sum of money make a certain product known or to boost the image of a certain brand. In some cases, competitors, like Coca-cola and Pepsi, even spare no expense to launch advertising campaigns to win over the market share. Commercial advertising can also be divided according to the target audience into two groups: consumer advertising and business advertising. Most of the ads in the mass media are consumer advertisements. They are typically directed at consumers. By contrast, business advertising tends to be concentrated in specialized business publications, professional journals; trade shows targeting at a certain group of people involved in some business. Since consumer advertising is most accessible to common people, the present study will focus on consumers advertising. The classification of advertising is clearly shown in the following graph: Graph 1 Classification of advertisements Public ads Advertising｛ Commercial ads｛ Service ads Business ads ｛ Daily consumer goods Technical equipment ads (Jenkins, Frank William, 1985) Daily consumer goods are necessities of daily life, such as food, detergent, hygiene, etc. Technical equipment is technical toys and electric equipment such as camera, vehicle, hi-fi, etc. Service covers bank, insurance, fund, etc. Actually, advertising works effectively some of the time and does not work other times. The single crucial reason that advertising does not work is that in specific instances the information it