ISSN 1648-2824 KALBŲ STUDIJOS. 2006. 9 NR. * STUDIES ABOUT LANGUAGES. 2006. NO. 9
The Language of Advertising: Analysis of English and Lithuanian Advertising Texts
Jurgita Vaičenonienė
Annotation. The spread of globalization and marketing during the last century triggered the proliferation of advertising genres. The goal of advertisements is to persuade consumers to act or think in a textually determined way in order to boost sales of particular commodities and services. In order to capture attention, convey the message and persuade the consumer, advertising texts use a range of manipulative language devices. Moreover, different cultures may have different expectations with regard to stylistic choices, language use and other preferences in the same genre. Hence the aim of the article is to analyze the language of advertising in English and Lithuanian in order to estimate the specificities of the advertising genre in the two different cultural and linguistic systems. The approach employed in the study draws on the ideas of the functionalist interpretation of text typology and source text analysis as proposed by Nord (1997) and
Reiss (2000). The functionalist approach provides an in-depth understanding of the source and target text conventions and functions which are prerequisites for successful intercultural communication and translation.
The means to accomplish the task of the present article is the analysis of a comparable corpus of data consisting of 100
English and 100 Lithuanian advertising texts. For the analysis, only the textual part of advertisements is considered; it is viewed as one of the most important elements of the overall advertising message. The corpus is analyzed through the parameters of linguistic devices, syntactic features and language-use in English and Lithuanian advertising texts.
Key words: English advertisements, Lithuanian advertisements, appellative text type, genre conventions, language devices. wide spectrum of English and Lithuanian journals and magazines released in 2002 to 2006 inclusive. For the analysis, only the textual part of advertisements is considered; it is viewed as one of the most important elements of the overall advertising message. The corpus is analyzed through the parameters of linguistic devices, syntactic features and language-use in English and Lithuanian advertising texts. In order to make the insights on the similarities and differences between the
English and Lithuanian advertising language more objective and reliable, statistical data derived from the corpus is given.
Introduction
The immense growth of technology and the quick spread of worldwide communication and marketing during the last century triggered the proliferation in promotional genres, advertising among them. The self-evident goal of advertisements is to persuade consumers to act or think in a textually determined way in order to boost sales of particular commodities and services. In order to capture attention, convey the message and persuade the consumer, advertising texts use a range of manipulative language devices. Moreover, different cultures may have different expectations with regard to stylistic choices, language use and other preferences in the same genre. Hence it is quite interesting to explore the language of English and
Lithuanian advertisements. The aim of this study is to compare and identify the characteristic features of language in English and original (i.e. not translated) Lithuanian advertising texts.
This will help to assess the typical patterns of the advertising genre within the two cultures.
Relevant Aspects of Theoretical Framework
Determinative Factors of the Language of Advertising
There exists a variety of factors which determine the choice of linguistic devices, stylistic means, presentation and organization of the advertisement. Among the major factors influencing the advertising language are (1) the type of advertisement and (2) the distribution of advertisement components.
The approach employed in the study draws on the ideas of the functionalist interpretation of text typology and source text analysis as proposed by Nord (1997) and Reiss (2000). The functionalist approach provides an in-depth understanding of the source and target text conventions and functions which are prerequisites for successful intercultural communication and translation.
Although different sources distinguish various (1) types of advertisements, most often attention is paid to the advertised object, the means of communication and the target audience
(cf. Bakanauskas 2004; Smetonienė 2001). As regards the advertised object, the typology proposed in the present study is based on the collected corpus of advertisements. The most popular objects of advertising in the collected material appear to be drinkable, electronic equipment and technology, goods of personal hygiene and cosmetics, medicine, cars and miscellaneous. Next, although the means of communication in advertising involves newspapers, magazines, television,
The means to accomplish the task of the present article is the analysis of a comparable corpus of data consisting of 100
English and 100 Lithuanian advertising texts published in a
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textual part of advertisement can include only slogan, while the body text can never stand alone.
cinema, radio, internet, post office and outdoor facilities (see
Palmer 2000; Фapбu 2003; Bakanauskas 2004), the collected corpus material includes only magazine advertisements. One of the reasons of choosing magazines was the fact that newspaper and magazine advertising outnumbers other sources of advertising communication. For example, television advertising occupies only the second place in the scale (Фapбu
2003, p. 61).
Advertising Discourse: Advertisements as Texts
Following Hervey et al. (1995, p. 126), awareness of genre and text type is vital in that translators have to be familiar with styles of presentation and language use in terms of particular genre requirements in particular cultures. The present section concentrates on the most prominent aspects of the advertising register and the genre of advertising as a text type characterized by specific features.
The importance of defining target addressees is stressed in a variety of sources as it guarantees the overall success of the advertising campaign (see Palmer 2000; Фapбu 2003; Bakanauskas 2004). Before creating an advertising text, certain groups of potential buyers are distinguished. The target audience is differentiated into: specific addressees and supposed addressees. Smetonienė (2001, p. 28-39) names seven types of specific addressees which are: women addressees, men addressees, children addressees, teenager addressees, family addressees, addressees according to their income, and addressees according to their profession.
Another type of the audience is supposed addressees.
Advertisements and advertised products (such as medicine, chewing gum, pet food, etc.) aimed at this specific group are suitable for a wide and heterogeneous audience. The collected corpus of advertisements may be said to be multidimensional, ranging from particular groups of audience to supposed addressees. This feature of the corpus allows us to achieve objective and accurate generalizations about the language of advertising.
Identifying the variation of language use, or register, within the specific situation is considered to be a prerequisite for successful translation and rendering of the foreign message
(Hatim 2001, p. 263). Register can be defined as a set of lexical and grammatical features that accompany and help to identify discourse that occurs in a particular recurrent situation
(Johnstone 2002, p. 147). Schäffner (2001, p. 213) and Goddard
(2003, p. 30-31) distinguish a number of linguistic features typical of the English advertising register: imitation of spoken language; short, elliptical sentences; positive evaluative expressions and abundance of stylistic means affecting the audience (proverbs, puns, alliterations, rhyme, etc.). The listed features of language are culture-specific in their use and intensity within the same register (Steiner 2004, p. 21).
To exemplify, the language of advertising of the source culture may exhibit certain features which would not sound natural or would not achieve the intended effect if translated into the target culture literally.
Finally, (2) the distribution of advertisement components is also a decisive factor of the advertising language. The textual part of advertisement is not the only constituent of the message and works in combination with the visual and acoustical parts in order to affect our consciousness. All components of advertisement are related and affect each other, thus, a change in one element creates a change in the whole.
Cook (1992, p. 3) sees advertisement not as a stable entity, but as a “dynamic synthesis of many components which comes into being through them”. Although printed magazine advertisements encompass both the textual and the visual messages, the approach taken in this study is devoted specifically to the textual part of the advertising message leaving the analysis of the visual aspects for semiotic research. Bakanauskas (2004, p. 77) emphasizes that the most important element of advertisement is its textual part. Text is seen as a linguistic sign describing some state, actions and feelings, thus affecting the addressee to respond in one way or another. Moreover, text dominates in nearly all types of advertisements – TV, radio, magazine, etc.
With respect to advertising as a genre, Trosborg (1997, p. 9) claims that the defining criterion of any genre is the communicative purpose that it is intended to fulfill. In determining the communicative purpose of the text, language functions play an important role. Each text serves some specific language function which helps to fulfill the communicative purpose of the text and allows us to classify texts into types. Nord (1997b, p. 50-51), following Bühler’s
(1934) and Jakobson’s (1960) classification, describes the following language functions: referential function (i.e. reference to objects and phenomena of the world); expressive function (i.e. expression of the sender’s attitude or feelings); phatic function (i.e. establishing, maintaining or finishing contact); appellative function (i.e. appealing to the receiver’s experience, feelings, knowledge and sensibility in order to make him/ her react in a specific way).
Practically, texts often exhibit the presence of several language functions, which overlap and give a variety of combinations: representing-expressing, representing-persuading, etc. This is referred to as the multifunctionality of texts (Trosborg 1997, p.
14). However, there is always one dominant function while other functions are used as subsidiary, employed to achieve an overall intention of the text. For example, information included in advertisement should not be considered as a primary goal. Instead, it should be perceived as a complimentary function helping the advertisement be more persuasive
(loc.cit.). Therefore, texts can be classified into categories or
The textual part of advertisement is not integral and can be divided into smaller elements which are slogan and body text. Goddard (2003, p. 127) defines slogan as “a phrase designed to be memorable, attaching to a product or service during particular advertising campaign”. Usually, slogans are followed by the body text which carries more detailed information about the product advertised. Sometimes, the
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types on the basis of their dominant contextual focus.
Advertising as a genre is classified under the category of appeal-oriented texts, having the predominant function of persuasion. As Reiss (2000a, p. 38) points out, in appealoriented texts the information is always presented from a particular perspective and with a particular purpose. In commercial advertising, form and content are “at one in their overall goal of arousing consumer response” (loc.cit.) – that is, a commercial advertisement strives at persuading the reader to buy the advertised product.
In the Lithuanian language, the neutral position of an adjective is before the noun (Ambrazas 1997, p. 701), whereas an adjective distanced from the head noun receives a special emphasis and does not sound quite natural. Therefore,
Lithuanian advertising texts use heavy noun pre modification as a dominant practice, whereas no instances of post modification in the collected corpus have been noticed:
In sum, it appeared that register description and analysis of style conventions of both source and target culture texts lead to successful translation decisions and correspondence to culture-specific genre requirements. It was also shown that the dominant communicative purpose of advertising genre is persuasion. This allowed us to classify advertisements as appeal-focused texts.
Another noticeable linguistic device expressing persuasion is manipulation of verbs through tense shifting. Tense is the category of verb related to time (Gramley and Pätzold 2002,
p. 112). The continuum of time can be generally divided up into three levels: past, present and future. The corpus of
English advertising texts exhibits the dominant usage of the present tense (88%). Sometimes one advertising text can combine several time perspectives, especially with the aim of contrasting past, present or future situations. In English, the present tense is the so-called “unmarked” tense used for characterization of habitual actions, narration of historical present, reporting mental or emotional state, commenting on immediately accompanying actions and demonstration or explanation of the individual acts involved (Gramley and
Pätzold 2002, p. 113). The present tense verbs help English advertisements to characterize and portray the desirable situation, express positive thoughts and comments, and show the benefits of the advertised object. Also, the present tense infers that the action is happening now and that everything being said is a “general truth”. For example:
[3.3] Seni raštai byloja, kad Lietuvos didikai šį puikiai subalansuoto aromato, saldaus vos juntamo deginančio skonio gėrimą vartojo jau XVI amžiuje. (pre-modification)
Analysis of English And Lithuanian Advertising Texts
The present chapter sets out to explore the characteristic features of English (EAL) and Lithuanian (LAL) advertising languages through the analysis of linguistic, syntactic and register dominances of advertising texts.
Linguistic Devices Expressing Perusasion
Lexico-Grammatical Devices
This section concentrates on how advertisements manipulate various parts of speech in order to make the message more persuasive. The attention is paid to some of the aspects of adjectival, adverbial, verbal and noun usage.
[3.4] Like many leading sportsmen, Britain’s Mark Foster uses
Wellman’s…
A majority of persuasion techniques strives to create a positive impression through evaluation and emotional appeal.
Emotionality and evaluation are best expressed through an extensive use of adjectives or adverbs which attribute certain qualities and properties to the object advertised (Gramley and Pätzold 2002, p. 103). The collected data shows that both
English and Lithuanian advertising texts exhibit a heavy usage of modifying adjectives and adverbs: it appeared that
100% of English and 95% of Lithuanian texts involved the latter parts of speech. However, certain positional differences in the use of adjectival modification in the two languages have been noticed. In English advertising texts, both pre and post modifications can be met. Also, modification tends to be heavy, that is, more than one adjective or adverb precedes or follows the noun. Such emphasis and enumeration of, usually, the best qualities of the advertised product (novelty, superiority, prestige, etc.), appeal to the feelings of the audience and makes the message more persuasive. For example: As a contrast to the present tense, past tense verbs are sometimes used in the collected advertisements (10%).
Usually, past tense helps to describe the situation which was true when the advertised product was not used and which is mostly negative. According to Gramley and Pätzold (2002, p.
114), past tense forms create the feeling of remoteness and distance. The distance refers to temporal continuum and the reporting person. In this way, the addressee does not identify himself/ herself with what is being said. For example:
[3.5] I was left with a conspicuous, ugly scar on my leg after I cut myself in a car accident about two years ago.
Future tense usage appears to be quite limited (6%). The possible reason might be that in the case of advertising future tense functions relate with the present tense functions. To be more precise, future tense is used to characterize and portray a positive picture or to express promises and certainty for a future event. On the other hand, present tense helps to create a more intimate relationship with the addressee. Example illustrating the occurrence of future verb form is:
[3.1] A delicious, creamy get up and go coffeehouse style coffee. (pre-modification)
[3.2] Head & Shoulders hydrating smooth and silky washes the moisture... (post-modification)
[3.6] We think you’ll notice the extra effort.
The distinction of present/ past tenses is the same in the
Lithuanian advertisements. That is, past tenses (21%)
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indicate a usually negative state of affairs or an event which existed or took place prior to the moment of speech. In contrast, a shift to the present (75%) and future (15%) tenses helps to create an intimate relationship with the audience, to express promise or necessity that something should happen.
Differently from English advertisements, Lithuanian advertisements use a greater variation of time perspectives.
Ambrazas (1997, p. 239) states that past tense forms are considered to be marked in the Lithuanian language while the present and future tenses are the unmarked members of the temporal opposition. Therefore, the present tense is most often used to denote the existing state of affairs or background situation (usually positive) whereas the future tense expresses a certainty of an action and a promise to perform it. Examples of the occurring tense patterns in
Lithuanian advertisements are as follows:
Finally, reading advertising texts attention falls on the use of
(4) foreign and fictitious words. One of persuasion techniques used in advertisements is involvement of exotic, foreign or literary words which create an impression of superiority, prestige and affect the imagination of the consumer. In
English advertisements, foreign words do not outnumber the use of neologisms (11%) and are mostly met in foreign production advertisements (see example [3.14]). On the other hand, Lithuanian advertisements exhibit an abundance of references to foreign and fictitious words or exotic place names (31%) which counterbalance the lack of neologisms
(see example [3.15]).
[3.14] All the way from South Africa’s Western Cape come the Kumala reds.
[3.15] Su kuo valgoma fusion cuisine. Ispaniškos salotos su omarais, prancūziška žuvienė “Aigosaou”, itališki lakštiniai su vištienos krūtinėle, maskarponės sūriu bei peletrūnų padažu ir tradicinis britų vanilinis …
[3.7] Prieš keletą metų išsityriau kaulų tankį. Rezultatai buvo prasti... (past tense)
[3.8] Jie teikia būtiniausių maisto medžiagų, gerina žarnyno darbą, stiprina nervų... (present tense)
Ending the discussion on the lexico-grammatical patterns of the
English and Lithuanian advertising language, the observed dominances in English and Lithuanian advertising texts are presented in Table 3.1. (Appendix 1)
[3.9] Jie suteiks energijos ir papildys tavo organizmą vitaminų... (future tense)
Lexical devices referring to the noun usage also exhibit certain dominances in the advertising language: terminology use, creation of neologisms and reference to foreign words are the major ones.
Rhetorical Devices
The corpus showed that 85% of English and 76% of Lithuanian advertising texts involved one or another form of rhetorical devices. Generally, rhetorical figures can be divided into schemes and tropes.
Terms make the language of advertising sound more sophisticated and trustworthy. With respect to English advertisements, terms are very common (63% of advertisements involve term usage).
On the other hand, although Lithuanian advertisements also involve a certain amount of terms (37% of advertisements), the general rule is to use more simple and understandable vocabulary. Most often terms refer to foreign products or technologies when there is no Lithuanian equivalent for an
English term (often, an English term is followed by a
Lithuanian explanation). Overuse of English terms might make an advertisement sound obscure rather than reliable or scientific. Consider:
A scheme can be defined as an artful deviation from the ordinary arrangement of words (Baldick 1996, p. 199). Koženiauskienė (2001, p. 9) uses a three way distinction of schemes grouping them into (1) the figures of repetition (plėtojimo figūros), (2) the figures of omission (trumpinimo figūros) and (3) the figures of composition (komponavimo figūros). The Figures of repetition carry a high emotional and expressive value which contributes to the persuasion and agitation of the audience. The corpus analysis reveals that the most common figures of repetition used in English and
Lithuanian advertising texts are repetition of sounds, syllables and keywords, enumeration, and synonymy. Table 3.2 presents
(Appendix 2) the listed figures and their functions in advertising texts. [3.10] Nutrilift 1st anti-dryness firming moisturizer with xepalipids and par-elastyl.
[3.11] Keletą mėnesių Janina vartojo liekninamąjį preparatą
Bio-Slim, ir jos manymu...
In sum, both English and Lithuanian advertisements employ large numbers of repetitive devices which help to impress the audience through the constant emphasis of key words and ideas. Neologisms are newly coined lexical units or existing lexical units that acquire a new sense (Newmark 1988, p. 140).
Formation of neologisms is very prominent in English, a very flexible language in terms of word formation (Gramley and Pätzold 2002, p. 35). Neologisms are common in English advertisements (20%) as they help to create the feeling of novelty and surprise:
The second group of schemes is the figures of omission
(trumpinimo figūros). It can be said that figures of omission stand in contrast with figures of repetition as they avoid verbosity and aim at an intentional omission of words and phrases. This attracts the addressee’s attention to the missing elements; arouses interest and emotions. Especially widely used rhetorical figure belonging to this group in both EAL and LAL is ellipsis which refers to the omission of a word or words readily implied by the context (Goddard 2003, p. 125).
[3.12] Whenopause? Estroven before. During. After.
The Lithuanian corpus exhibits lower occurrence of neologisms (10%):
[3.13] Naujiena! Ginkluokis gaivumu. Utenos Gin.
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variety of tropes. The most noticeable and common tropes in the corpus are the following:
Advertising language is often described as imitating spoken discourse. Goddard (2003, p. 125) notes that spoken language is highly elliptical: ellipsis is used for language economy; also, it can create the sense of informality:
1. Metaphor contributing to the aesthetics of the advertising message and emphasis of the key idea:
[3.16] Are you getting enough? It is important to have enough calcium… (omission of object)
[3.25] Who’s at the end of your rainbow?
[3.17] Išorinis grožis – vidinė jėga. (omission of copula verb)
[3.26] Atrodo, kad Jūsų akys dega?
2. Personification when the advertised object is attributed human qualities, which makes it seem more attractive and familiar: In addition to ellipsis, the corpus material provides instances of another figure of omission – preterition, which involves incomplete sentences with endings marked by dots. The motivation for using preterition is to create an intrigue and arouse imagination. The addressee is involved in text creation in that he/ she has to fill in the missing parts of the sentence:
[3.26] The Corsa Exclusiv. Looks good and knows it. The incredibly vain Corsa Exclusiv.
[3.27] Horn – alus su nuotaika.
[3.18] Darwin may have the theory…But we’ve got the keys.
3. Rhetorical question raising a problem, so the addressee has to read the body text in order to find the solution:
[3.19] Karvedys. Palieka gerą įspūdį…
The last group of rhetorical figures is the figures of composition
(komponavimo figūros). Koženiauskienė (2001, p. 308) describes them as dealing with specific composition of words, phrases or sentences, their regrouping, interchangeability or similar distribution in subsequent phrases. The dominant function of figures of composition is an appeal to emotions and creation of an aesthetic feeling which contributes to memorability of the advertising message. The corpus of English advertisements provides a considerable number of the two types of rhetorical figures of composition, namely, puns and wordplay. Goddard
(2003, p. 127) defines pun as a comic play on words as a result of a word having more than one meaning (polysemy) or two words with different meaning having the same sound
(homophony), for example:
[3.28] Have you a doctor in the house? Accurate. Fast .
Simple. Reliable…
[3.29] Sodrios spalvos? Pažeisti plaukai?
4. Simile helping to emphasize positive values of the advertised object or to strengthen emotional representation of a certain aspect in an imaginative way:
[3.30] Your body is a temple. Treat it with reverence.
[3.31] Pago – skysta vaisių išraiška.
5. Overstatement mostly expressed by adjectival and adverbial modifications: [3.32] Watch out! My D-cup lashes are going to make waves.
[3.33] Moteris bandė mažinti suvalgomo maisto kiekį bet tam reikėjo milžiniškų pastangų.
[3.20] Absolut Vodka. Absolut Attraction. (polysemy)
[3.21] It’s better to shower with this mousse… (i.e. moose and mousse are homophonous words)
On the whole, although the given list of tropes can not be viewed as full, it can be said that EAL and LAL are similar in an extensive trope and scheme application as rhetorical figures make the message more attractive, memorable and persuasive. Moreover, a single advertisement tends to employ a combination of several rhetorical figures.
Wordplay, which is often based on rhyming words, also appears to be of common usage in EAL:
[3.22] I’d murder a burger. Refreshingly honest – Diet 7up.
The corpus of Lithuanian advertisements does not display any examples of puns. On the other hand, there are a number of instances of wordplay. In other words, although the Lithuanian language is not as flexible in pun creation as English, the play on words helps to make the LAL be more playful and memorable. Most often, advertisements use an intentional rhyming of words having the same case or person, for example:
Syntactic Features of Text Components
The present section aims to analyze the syntactic peculiarities of slogans and body texts in both EAL and LAL. The attention will be paid to the composition and function of the occurring sentences. Syntactic Features of Slogans
[3.23] Gefilus apsaugos Jus!
According to their composition, all sentences can be divided into simple, consisting of a single clause, and multiple, consisting of several clauses (Quirk et al. 1985, p. 40). The corpus of data shows that the most frequently occurring sentence type in English and Lithuanian slogans is a simple sentence (87% of English and 86% of Lithuanian texts), which tends to be rather short and highly elliptical. The unmarked structure of a simple sentence involves subject, verb and object, which can be accompanied by an explanatory supplement.
[3.24] Brendis su kava – ar ne puiki pažinčiai proga?
A trope is an artful deviation from the ordinary or principal signification of a word (Baldick 1996, p. 230). Smetonienė
(2001, p. 101) notes that advertising language employs a variety of tropes as they help to express ideas in an imaginative and more economical way which contributes to enhancing the effect of persuasion. The analysis of the corpus material shows that both EAL and LAL are characterized by an extensive use of a
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statements, which are considered to be the most neutral sentences, is to present certain information or inform about a state (Labutis 1998, p. 112). As is seen from the collected corpus material, statements are among the most typical sentence types in both English (55%) and Lithuanian slogans
(74%) (see examples [3.43] and [3.44]). They usually introduce positive qualities and characteristics of the advertised object. It can be said that statements tend to have a form of simple declarative and positive sentences. Negative sentences appear to be uncommon in the corpus (3% in English and 0% in
Lithuanian texts) because they arouse negative associations and can interfere with the function of persuasion. Furthermore, statements, especially in the Lithuanian advertising texts, can have an exclamation mark at the end meant to attract the addressee’s attention to the new information (2% in English and 21% in Lithuanian texts); therefore, such sentences should not be classified as an exclamatory type (see examples
[3.45] and [3.46]).
Quite often, slogans, especially in English advertisements, consist of several short, simple sentences. Short, eye-catching sentences make slogans easy to remember, for example:
[3.34] We help to heal. We make fashion as painless as possible.
[3.35] Rusija įvertino auksu.
Multiple sentences appear to be not very frequent in the collected corpus of English and Lithuanian slogans; most probably this is because such structures tend to be longer and less memorable:
[3.36] Wake up and smell the Carte Noire.
[3.37] Džiaugiuosi, jog numečiau svorio ir esu žymiai energingesnė.
Moreover, sometimes English advertisements exhibit an unconventional punctuation of multiple sentences (7%). Rannu
(1998) identifies such cases as “compound-simple” sentences. By this he means that a multiple compound sentence is presented as separate clauses; this makes it look similar to simple sentences, for example:
[3.43] Tough on pain easy on you – Panadol.
[3.44] Esu visada rami dėl ateities.
[3.38] Darwin may have the theory…But we’ve got the keys.
[3.45] Vitamins with passion!
The corpus of Lithuanian advertisements does not include the “compound-simple” sentences, which suggests that emphatic punctuation of multiple sentences is not typical of the Lithuanian slogans.
[3.46] Geriau šviežesnis!
The second type of sentences occurring in EAL and LAL, as provided by the corpus material, is directives (31% in
English and 20% in Lithuanian texts). In their typical form, directives contain no subject or operator; instead, they involve a predication with an imperative verb. Normally, an imperative refers to some future action which the reader is urged to perform (Quirk et al. 1985, p. 87). It should be stressed that imperatives in advertisements do not express orders, prohibitions or demands. On the contrary, imperatives are used to stimulate and advise readers on taking action in a respectful or user-friendly way. Consider the following examples: The dominant feature of both simple and multiple sentences occurring in English and Lithuanian slogans is their highly elliptical nature (61% of English and 69% of Lithuanian texts).
In English and Lithuanian slogans, the most commonly omitted elements tend to be copula, auxiliary verbs and subject pronouns. Consider:
[3.39] Robert Lang. Just compiled his first music mix.
[3.40] Išorinis grožis – vidinė jėga.
[3.41] Any excuse to part…Can’t say no.
[3.47] Let your true colours glow.
[3.42] Ultra. Dėl nieko nesigailiu.
[3.48] Įsikurkite naujoje darbo aplinkoje.
In the above examples, the auxiliary has and the copula yra are elided in [3.39] and [3.40]. In [3.41], the subject pronoun you and in [3.42] the subject pronoun aš are left out. The elision of structural elements in English marks informal or spoken discourse; however, this is not the case in the Lithuanian language. In Lithuanian, certain structural elements can commonly be elided without affecting the neutrality of the style. For example, the present tense of būti (be) as well as the first and the second person pronouns in subject position are often omitted because Lithuanian marks person by verb morphology (Ambrazas 1997, p. 469-470). In other words, the subject of a personal sentence is inferred by the verb ending; therefore, it is not necessary to repeat the same feature by other elements.
As well as statements, directives can have an exclamation mark at the end which signals the importance of the new message (3% in English and 6% in Lithuanian texts):
[3.49] Dare to dazzle!
[3.50] Pasiruošk perduoti visus įspūdžius MMS telefonu!
With respect to questions, they are not as popular as the two former sentence types in LAL slogans (6%), whereas EAL slogans employ questions more freely (14%). Mostly, questions are used in order to intrigue and interest the addressee. The majority of questions are rhetorical. The answer to such questions is either self-referential or it is given in the body text, for example:
According to their communicative function, English and
Lithuanian sentences can be grouped under the headings of statements, directives, questions, and exclamations (on this see Quirk et al. 1985; Labutis 1998). The function of
[3.51] Stomach feeling dismal?
[3.52] Ar gali atsispirti legendai?
Finally, the corpus material of both English and Lithuanian
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[3.56] Bruiseze helps soothe the pain, reduce swelling and minimize bruises. Contains heparinoid. Always read the label.
slogans does not involve any examples of exclamatory sentences, which are usually used for emphatic rather than informational effect. Therefore, it can be said that exclamatory sentences are not typical of the advertising language in English and Lithuanian.
[3.57] Nominacijoje už išskirtinį grynumą Originali lietuviška auksinė degtinė apdovanota XII tarptautinės parodos World
Food Moscow 2004 aukso medaliu. Ši degtinė filtruojama ne tik keturių pakopų filtravimo sistema, bet ir ypatingu sulėtintu būdu. The present discussion of the English and Lithuanian slogans allows us to observe that although the syntactic structure of slogans is similar in both languages, it is not identical. The following section will concentrate on the syntactic analysis of the body text in English and Lithuanian advertisements.
With respect to the last group consisting of simple sentences only, the corpus material also provides a considerable amount of examples. Namely, English texts involved 26.3% and Lithuanian – 37% of advertising texts of the latter type:
Syntactic Features of Body Texts
[3.58] Motorola v600 video playback. Integrated camera.
Metal shell. Wear nothing else.
Body texts differ from slogans in a way that they do not have to be short, memorable and striking. Usually, they repeat the ideas expressed in the slogan, give additional information about the advertised product and try to convince the consumer in its positive qualities. Generally, the syntactic structure of body text clauses is less concentrated as in the case with slogans; freer and natural (also see Rannu 1998).
[3.59] Paskutinė išpardavimo savaitė! Prekių kiekis ribotas!
As well as in slogans, all types of sentences in body texts avoid negations so that negative associations would not be evoked. Only 6.5% of English body texts and 7.8% of
Lithuanian body texts used one or another form of negation.
Moreover, body texts can involve ellipsis, especially when built up of simple sentences. However, this strategy is not as widespread as in slogans (35.1% in English and 24.7% in
Lithuanian body texts).
The corpus analysis allows us to distinguish three types of body texts according to the composition of their sentences.
First, body texts can involve only multiple sentences, second, a combination of both simple and multiple sentences can be present, and third, a text can consist of several simple sentences. It should be said that 91 English and 89
Lithuanian advertisements had body texts, whereas other advertisements involved only slogans.
[3.60] Loves horror movies. Drinks Tequilla. Owns a kilt.
Supports Dundee United. 80s music. 70s décor
[3.61] Stabdo riebalų kaupimąsį organizme. Mažina riebalavimąsį. Lėtina senėjimo procesus.
The first type of body texts involving only multiple sentences appeared to be not as common in English (18.6%) and
Lithuanian (12.3%) advertisements. As body texts try to explain or prove certain things, multiple sentences include a larger amount of information and are more explicit than slogans. Consider the following examples:
The examples above involve simple sentences with omitted pronominal subjects.
With respect to the distribution of sentences according to their communicative functions, the corpus material provides that the most common types of sentences used in body texts are statements (74.7% in English and 80.8% in Lithuanian body texts) and directives (25.2% in English and 19.1% in
Lithuanian body texts). Body texts in EAL and LAL can involve (1) only statements, (2) only directives, or (3) a mixture of both sentence types (see examples [3.62] and [3.63]).
[3.53] Panadol provides powerful pain relief for all, but because it’s unlikely to affect your stomach, it’s easy on you.
No other painkiller works better with your body than Panadol, when taken as directed.
[3.54] Konjakas Alita – tai 250 metų gamybos tradicijų išpuoselėtas gėrimas, kurį prancūzų firma Gemaco. Jis pagamintas
Konjako apylinkėse ir brandintas daugiau kaip trejus metus šimtametėse ąžuolo statinėse ypatingomis sąlygomis.
[3.62] Attack life with New Café Latte from Flgers. Adeliciuos creamy get up and go coffeehouse-style coffee.
[3.63] “Kai aš užaugsiu, apkeliausiu visą pasaulį” (Justė, 4 metai). Jau dabar pradėkite kaupti, kad jūsu mažylio svajonės taptų realybe.
In addition, “compound-simple” sentences (i.e. when a multiple compound sentence is presented as separate clauses; this makes it resemble simple sentences) specific only to English advertisements can be distinguished (8.7%):
Questions are also met in English (15.3%) and, although not as often, in Lithuanian (8.9%) body texts. Most often, the body text either starts with a question which is then followed by an answer, or a question can stand at the end of the advertising message functioning as a rhetorical question. For example: [3.55] Of course fashionable shoes win over sensible shoes every time. And sadly there’s often a price to pay – “blisters”. But now there’s New Eloplast Blister Plasters…
Turning to the texts consisting of a mixture of simple and multiple sentences it has to be stated that they make up the biggest number in English (54.9%) and Lithuanian (50.5%) advertising texts. Such texts include both information and evaluation of the product. Examples of texts with simple and complex or compound sentences are as follows:
[3.64] Dandruff? Sensitive skin? Let the new Head&Shoulders sensitive take care of your scalp.
[3.65] Originali, pipirinė, citrininė, juodųjų serbentų, spanguolinė. Kokią labiausiai mėgstate?
As well as in slogans, the corpus material does not present
49
production, usually the first person plural pronouns we, our, us are used. This creates the sense of informality and friendliness: the firm is presented not as impersonal, but as a personified body which helps to fulfill the needs of the reader (example [3.68]). Another reason for using the first person plural pronouns is when the reference to both the sender and the receiver is made. The inclusive we makes the reader a participant of the message. This is especially true when an advertisement presents some unpleasant situation.
The first person plural pronouns allow the reader to see that he/ she is not left alone with the problem and that working together (i.e. the firm and the customer) it will be solved
(example [3.69]):
any examples of exclamations in English and Lithuanian body texts. This suggests that emphatic exclamations are avoided because they can sound artificial. However, it should be mentioned that statements and directives can have an exclamation mark at the end which functions as an attractive device, i.e. marks important ideas and implies that certain statements are to be read. On the other hand, it turned out that English body texts have very few examples of sentences ending with an exclamation mark (4%), whereas in
Lithuanian advertisements exclamation marks appeared to be very common (25.8%). Therefore, it can be stated that in
English texts, exclamation marks are avoided, whereas in
Lithuanian advertisements they help to intensify key ideas and appeal to emotions, for example:
[3.68] At Solgar, we leave nothing to imagination.
[3.66] Looking for proof of healthy hair? It’s Pantene Pro-V!
[3.69] Our bone is living tissue that is constantly being replenished. From our mid thirties,…
[3.67] Mes dovanojame už kiekvieną litą po nemokamą minutę
Omnitel tinkle!
Pronominal reference to the reader does not differ a lot in supposed and specific addressee-oriented advertisements in
English. The reason could be that English does not have the
T/ V (Tous/ Vous) distinction signaling the level of formality.
English advertisements use two major ways of reference to the audience: the second person singular or plural pronouns (as in example [3.70]) or zero reference (signaled by imperatives), when the addressee is implied (as in example [3.71]):
Finishing the syntactic analysis of slogans and body texts,
Table 3.3 summarizes the findings and observations of the present section. (Appendix 3)
Register Analysis
As Hervey et al. (1995, p. 159) observe the social and tonal registers of source and target texts may need to differ in ways reflecting different consumer expectations. The present research concentrates on two major aspects of register which provide characterization of EAL and LAL. On the one hand, the relationship between the purveyor and the consumer rendered by linguistic forms will be analyzed; on the other hand, the features of tonal register and its markers will be dealt with.
[3.70] If you really don’t like it, we’ll give you your money back. [3.71] Been stung? Seek urgent treatment from Anthisan, fast and effective relief from bites…
The corpus material reveals that both pronominal (51%) and zero references (30%) are common in English advertisements.
The major difference between the two forms of address is in the level of formality: zero reference is more informal and sometimes has a shade of colloquialism. Therefore, zero reference is abundant in advertisements oriented at young people and teenagers, for example:
A text usually exhibits a variety of markers to show the relationship and distance between the sender and receiver.
Mostly, advertisements use pronominal variation and direct or indirect forms of address to establish the contact with the readers. It is important to note that language features denoting the relationship between the sender and receiver may differ not only between the two cultures, but also within the same language depending on the target addressee. In other words, such factors as addressee’s age or income may affect the language of the message.
[3.72] Jelly baby. Super sweet colour non-sticky finish. Break the rules – lick it. Love it.
As to the first person singular pronoun I, there are very few instances of its usage in the corpus material (6%). The first person pronoun usually refers to the speaker who tells about his/ her experiences. The use of the first person singular pronoun creates an intimate relationship as the shared experience tends to be quite personal:
The advertiser tries to establish a contact with the receiver in order to gain his/ her trust and attention and persuade in the necessity of the product or service. Therefore, a characteristic feature of the English advertisements demonstrated by the corpus material is talking to the addressees in a direct, userfriendly way as if engaging in a dialogue with the readers. In addition, the senders of the message try to adapt to the social level of the addressee so that they would be on “equal terms”
– social distance may hamper the function of persuasion.
This is reflected in the use of personal pronouns, especially the first person plural (we/ our/ us) (14%) and the second person singular or plural (you/ your) (61%).
[3.73] I didn’t know I was hit by east syndrome! I was hit by chronic fatigue; I lost energy…
Pronominal reference in the Lithuanian advertisements exhibits certain differences from the English advertisements. One of the
reasons is that Lithuanian has a T/ V distinction of the second person singular pronoun (Tu/ Jūs) which signals the level of formality, politeness and social distance between the two communicating parties.
When referring to the firm, Lithuanian advertisements, as well as English, sometimes employ the first person plural
When the purveyor refers to the firm which offers certain
50
ris aplinkiniams parodo, kokia mano sveikata, ar aš laiminga...
pronoun mes (10%), also signaled by the verb endings:
Differently from the English advertisements, Lithuanian texts involve high usage of zero reference (41%) when advertisement does not address the audience; the emphasis falls only on the advertised object:
[3.74] Mes pasistengsim neapvilti nei Jūsų šeimos, nei draugų, nei įmonės ar firmos darbuotojų.
[3.75] Tačiau negalime tvirtinti, kad tai ir yra pagrindinė priežastis kodėl su Ultra visuomet būna taip linksma.
[3.83] Egzotiškas skonis. Naujiena! Pašėlusiai gaivus sidras.
On the other hand, the corpus material exhibits certain mismatches between the English and Lithuanian reference towards the senders or receivers of the message. As it has been previously mentioned, in English reference to both senders and receivers is usually expressed by the first and the second person pronouns which sound more user-friendly and personal, whereas the third person pronouns exclude the speaker and the hearer from the message and create a social distance between the two communicating parties. In the
Lithuanian language, the third person pronouns jis, ji, jie, jos or common nouns are used to refer to both persons and inanimate objects (Ambrazas 1997, p. 189). The third person reference to the firm or the audience (14%) is aimed at demonstrating rather than at creating the distance between the sender and the receiver. For example:
The question of formality relates to another aspect of register analysis, i.e. the features of tonal register and its markers.
Advertising language is often characterized as imitating informal spoken discourse. Table 3.4 (Appendix 4) presents the most common language features used for creating a userfriendly and informal atmosphere imitating the spoken language in English and Lithuanian advertisements.
Although advertising language in English and Lithuanian is neutral rather than formal, some comments on the information presented in Table 3.4 are due. In advertising texts, the level of tonal register tends to have a slight variation depending on the target audience. First, the corpus material shows that English advertisements oriented at younger or average middle-class audience use slang words which make advertisements sound colloquial and often create a humorous effect (10%).
However, in the Lithuanian advertisements, no evidence of colloquialisms or slang was found. Therefore, it can be stated that with respect to vocabulary use, LAL keeps closer to the standard Lithuanian and has a higher tonal register than
EAL.
[3.76] Omnitel Extra abonentai pido, o mes dovanojame už kiekvieną litą po nemokamą minutę…
[3.77] Šiandien kepėjai pasirengę tenkinti visus įgeidžius.
Pirkėjų pageidavimu, “Gardėsis” Lietuvoje kepa…
While addressing the audience, LAL uses the second person pronouns (26%). However, in the Lithuanian advertisements, differently from EAL, the second person pronouns can signal the social status of the target addressees and influence the level of formality of the message. The corpus of the Lithuanian advertisements shows that texts oriented at supposed addressees and at addressees with high income prefer to use the second pronoun jūs, which, in order to sound more respectful, is sometimes capitalized (Jūs); when the pronoun is absent, verb endings signal the polite reference. On the other hand, jūs can refer to plurality. For example:
Second, certain differences in tonal register were detected in the use of direct/ indirect requests. In English advertisements, imperative forms referring to the second person express direct requests and contribute to the informality of the message.
Imperatives are very common in advertisements oriented at the middle-class average age and younger audience. Advertisements which try to sell expensive goods or aim at supposed addressees tend to use indirect forms of requesting such as recommendations, suggestions or offers. In this way, the message does not carry colloquial aspect and sounds more polite, for example:
[3.78] Atrodo, kad Jūsų akys dega?
[3.84] Just one capsule a day, one month prior to, and throughout your time in the sun, will help optimize your tan.
[3.79] Karūna. Naująją pakuotę atidarysite taip lengvai.
Specific addressee-oriented advertisements employ both forms of the second person pronoun – this depends on the social status, age and other factors related to the addressees.
For example, advertisements oriented at young people, teenagers or children employ the more informal tu or the second person informal reference signaled by verb endings.
This makes the message sound simple and close to the spoken discourse, for example:
In LAL, direct address through the use of imperatives is also quite common in advertisements aimed at a younger audience. Imperatives contribute to the dynamism of the message and help to imitate the spoken language. When imperatives are used in supposed addressee-oriented advertisements, the verbs adopt the endings -ite, -itės which imply the polite second person pronominal reference (jūs) or plurality. In this way, the message does not sound too informal or rude, for example:
[3.80] Atsigaivink sveikai. Troškina? Jei nori kuo greičiau nuvyti troškulį šalin…
[3.85] Kalnapilis. Mėgaukis akimirka.
[3.81] Tai istorija, kurią patyrei šiandien. Tai tavo laikas ir tavo alus.
[3.86] Mėgaukitės elegancijos ir orumo gėrimu.
As well as in English advertisements oriented at addressees with a high social status and income or at supposed addressees,
Lithuanian advertisements employ indirect forms of requesting:
Although there are certain instances of the first person pronoun usage, it is not frequent (7%):
[3.82] Mano amžiaus moters odos būklė yra tas veidrodis, ku-
51
[3.87] Natūralios fermentacijos dėka sukurtas svaiginantis burbuliukų žaismas papuoš Jūsų šventę!
the level of formality of the massage depending on the target audience through pronominal variation, direct/ indirect requests, lexical choices and other linguistic means. To sum, the present discussion revealed that register varies not only between the source and the target cultures, but also between the advertisements of the same language depending on the audience addressed. It appeared that the sender of the advertising message tries to establish a close and friendly contact with the reader in order to gain trust and to persuade.
The level of formality tends to differ between the advertisements oriented at supposed and specific addressees, the former being more polite and the latter more informal or sometimes even colloquial in both EAL and LAL. It also appeared that Lithuanian advertisements carry a higher level of tonal register than English and are closer to the standard Lithuanian.
Differences:
1) Lexico-grammatically, English texts show several cases of adjectival post-modifications which are absent in the Lithuanian advertisements. LAL has a greater variation and shifting in future, present and past tenses, whereas EAL exhibits preference to the present tense usage. English advertisements employ abundance of terms and neologisms which contribute to the reliability and novelty of the message. On the other hand, Lithuanian advertisements compensate the lack of neologisms with foreign and exotic words which allude to the prestige of the advertised product.
Conclusions
The aim of the article was to analyze the language of advertising in English and Lithuanian in order to estimate the specificities of the advertising genre in the two different cultural and linguistic systems. A close analysis of the collected corpus of English and Lithuanian advertising texts shows that despite the common communicative purpose of persuasion, the two languages exhibit both, similarities and differences in terms of their linguistic, syntactic and register characteristics. The detected features of the English and
Lithuanian advertising languages are as follows:
2) With respect to rhetorical devices, the corpus of
English advertisements provides a considerable number of puns which help to create the aesthetic effect of the message and make it more memorable, whereas there are no examples of puns in the Lithuanian corpus.
3) Syntactically, English slogans and body texts employ unconventional punctuation in the so-called “compoundsimple” sentences for the sake of emphasis which is untypical in the Lithuanian texts. On the other hand, it appeared that Lithuanian advertisements prefer to intensify ideas in statements and directives adding exclamation marks which are not as widespread in the English texts.
Although it has been said that English and Lithuanian advertisements are highly elliptical, the elliptic effect differs: omitted subjects, pronouns, copula verbs and auxiliaries contribute to the spoken and informal discourse formation in English, whereas in Lithuanian, ellipses often do not affect the formality of the style.
Similarities:
1) Lexico-grammatically, EAL and LAL are characterized by an extensive use of modifying adjectives and adverbs which contribute to the persuasive effect of the message.
In order to depict the state of affairs, present tense is used; for the sake of contrast, present/ past dichotomy is applied. 2) The extensive use of rhetorical devices in English and
Lithuanian advertisements helps to appeal, interest and surprise the audience. Repetition, ellipsis, preterition, wordplay, metaphoric language, personification, rhetorical question, overstatement and simile appear to be especially common. 4) As to the register, it turned out that due to the pronominal differences in the two linguistic systems, the choice between the second person pronouns tu and jūs in
Lithuanian can contribute to the formality of the message which is impossible in English. Moreover, Lithuanian texts are richer with the third person pronouns used for demonstration and zero references when the emphasis falls on the advertised product. English advertisements employ informal vocabulary and colloquialisms for creating humorous effect or friendly atmosphere, whereas no evidence of slang is found in the Lithuanian texts. Thus, it can be said that LAL keeps closer to the standard
Lithuanian and has a higher tonal register than EAL.
3) Syntactically, English and Lithuanian slogans tend to be simple, highly elliptical declarative or directive sentences most often including only relevant rhematic information. As to the body texts, the typical composition is a combination of simple and multiple sentences.
Ellipses are not as frequent as in the slogans for the sake of explicitness. As well as in the slogans, statements are common and negations avoided. Moreover, questions framing the text can be met.
The summary of the similarities and differences allows us to draw a conclusion that although both languages exhibit a lot of correspondences, still there are a number of idiosyncratic and language-specific features which should be taken into consideration while creating or translating the advertising message. 4) The register of the English and Lithuanian advertising texts can be described as imitating spoken discourse through the use of ellipsis, simple or colloquial vocabulary, direct forms of address and positive and evaluative expressions. Pronominal variation is employed for creation of user-friendly attitude. There is also a tendency to adapt
52
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Jurgita Vaičenonienė
Angliškų ir lietuviškų reklamos tekstų kalbos analizė
Santrauka
Norėdami patraukti dėmesį, perteikti idėjas ir įtikinti potencialią auditoriją, reklamos kūrėjai vartoja įvairias kalbines priemones. Tačiau reikėtų atkreipti dėmesį, kad skirtingos kultūros savaip gali suvokti žanrą, stilistines ar lingvistines jo raiškos priemones. Taigi straipsnio tikslas yra palyginti ir nustatyti angliškų ir lietuviškų (neverstų) reklamos tekstų kalbos ypatumus. Straipsnyje remiamasi Nord (1997) ir Reiss (2000) idėjomis apie funkcinį tekstų tipologijos interprietavimą ir tekstų analizę.
Reklamų analizei panaudota duomenų bazė, apimanti 100 angliškų ir 100 lietuviškų reklamos tekstų, spausdintų įvairiuose angliškuose ir lietuviškuose žurnaluose 2001 – 2006 metais. Reiktų paminėti, kad šiame darbe nagrinėjama tik tekstinė reklamos dalis kaip viena svarbiausių reklamos komponentų. Surinktos angliškos ir lietuviškos reklamos analizuojami trys aspektai: lingvistinių priemonių raiška, sintaksės ypatybės ir funkcinio stiliaus vartojimas.
Straipsnis atskleidžia, kad, nepaisant bendro įtikinimo tikslo, angliška ir lietuviška reklamos kalba turi ne tik bendrų bruožų, bet ir svarbių skirtumų, atsirandančių dėl skirtingų lingvistinių sistemų ar kultūrinės reklamos žanro sampratos.
Straipsnis įteiktas 2006 03
Prengtas spaudai 2006 12
The Author
Jurgita Vaičenonienė, MA (philology, applied linguistics), works at Vytautas Magnus University.
Academic interests: discourse analysis, translation theory and praxis, comparative linguistics.
Address: Centre of Foreign Languages, Vytautas Magnus University, Donelaičio g. 58, LT-44248 Kaunas, Lithuania.
E-mail: j.vaicenoniene@ukc.vdu.lt
53
APPENDIXES
APPENDIX 1
Table 3.1. Frequency rate of lexico-grammatical patterns in EAL and LAL
Verbal usage Lithuanian advertisements Extensive evaluative, emotional use of modifiers
100%
95%
Adjectival pre modification 89%
95%
Adjectival post modification 11%
0%
10%
21%
Present tenses
88%
75%
Future tenses
6%
15%
Terms
Noun usage
English advertisements Past tenses
Adjectival/ adverbial usage
Lexico-grammatical devices
63%
37%
Neologisms
20%
10%
Foreign/ exotic/ fictitious words 11%
31%
APPENDIX 2
Table 3.2. Figures of repetition and their functions in EAL and LAL
Figures of repetition Functions
EAL examples
LAL examples
Repetition of syllables and sounds - Aesthetic effect.
Motoshine. Motorola.
Intelligence everywhere.
Stumbro Starka. Suderinto skonio
Starka.
Repetition of keywords and ideas - “Hammering” down the content.
Maximum clean.
Maximum control.
Maximum antidandruff protection.
Sodrus juodasis šokoladas, švelnus pieninis šokoladas, juodasis ir pieninis šokoladai pagardinti riešutais, juodasis ir pieninis šokoladai pagardinti riešutais…
Enumeration
- Summarizing positive/ negative values.
Dinner party. House party. Disco party. The
Disaronno Sour adds a new twist to being out or just being.
Originali, pipirinė, citrininė, juodųjų serbentų, spanguolinė.
Kokią labiausiai mėgstate?
The 1st high-intensity permanent colour with micr-minerals and ultimate-staying power. 100% intense.
100% long-lasting.
Nesielvartauju jei pasielgsiu kvailokai ar neapdairiai.
- Emotional appeal.
- Emphasis.
- Illusion of quality and superiority. - Amplification.
Synonymy
- Positive/ evaluative description. - Illusion of quality, superiority and prestige.
- Amplification.
54
APPENDIX 3
Table 3.3. Variance of syntactic features of English and Lithuanian advertising texts
Syntactic features
Slogans
Body texts
Communicative functions EAL
LAL
87%
86%
26.3%
37%
Multiple sentences Compound
10%
9%
18.6%
12.3%
Complex
3%
5%
“Compound-simple”
7%
0%
8.7%
0%
Simple + Multiple sentences
0%
0%
54.9%
50.5%
Statements
55%
74%
74.7%
80.8%
Directives
31%
20%
25.2%
19.1%
Questions
14%
6%
15.3%
8.9%
Exclamations
0%
0%
0%
0%
Ellipses
Other
LAL
Simple sentences
Composition
EAL
61%
69%
35.1%
24.7%
Negations
3%
0%
6.5%
7.8%
Exclamation marks
5%
27%
4%
25.8%
APPENDIX 4
Table 3.4. Linguistic means imitating spoken and user-friendly discourse in EAL and LAL
Linguistic means
EAL examples
LAL examples
Simple, colloquial vocabulary I look like a tart. Refreshingly honest – Diet 7-up.
Vienas kitas gabalėlis šokolado – ne tragedija.
Short verb forms
That’s exactly what we’ve done with New Megane, to create a car that’s as beautiful as it is to look at.
_____
Short, elliptical sentences Samsung A8000 – small, sexy, stylish.
Tikriau nebūna! Vienintelis tikras kriaušių sidras Lietuvoje!
Use of direct imperatives Buy this and get a Sony specialist free.
Pasiruošk perduoti visus įspūdžius
MMS telefonu!
Familiar use of address
_____
Tai kas, kas tavęs dar nerodė per
TV barai ir holivudai…
Use of positive/ evaluative expressions
No other pain killer works better.
Idealus gaiva trykštančių vaisių ir ypatingai švelnios degtinės derinys.
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