化妆品英语广告的语言特点
化妆品广告英语的语言特点
摘 要: 作为一种宣传和传播信息模式，广告在社会和经济发展中扮演着重要角色。广告的作用不容忽视。广告英语是一种独具特色的应用性语言。它同文学语言、科技语言等相比有许多不同之处。它具有独特的特点和魅力并已成为人们日常生活中一个不可缺少的组成部分。本论文首先简单地介绍广告的历史、定义、分类和作用。然后重点归纳和分析化妆品广告英语在词汇和句法两大方面的主要语言特点。最后得出结论：如果我们学习并掌握广告英语的语言特点，就能更好理解和欣赏广告英语。本文旨在为更好理解广告英语，提高英语水平带来一些启迪。
关键词：广告；化妆品；广告英语; 语言特点
Linguistic Characteristics of Cosmetic Advertising English
Abstract: 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 cosmetic advertising English, including two aspects on morphology and syntax. 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, Cosmetic, Advertising English, Linguistic Characteristics
Introduction
Advertising, 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 countries depends on the nation’s level of development and national attitude toward promotion. Typically, advertising expenditures are higher in countries with higher personal incomes. (Xu 2004) 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.
Similarly, in China, advertising is becoming more and more active and sophisticated. And with the entry of China into WTO, China’s advertising expenditure has grown and will undoubtedly continue rising up. It really plays and will always play an irreplaceable role in economic development. During the development, English plays a vital role. Up to now, lots of researches and studies have been done on advertising English.
The 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.
As a way of propagating and transmitting information, advertising’s role can not be underestimated because it is not only an artful technique in persuading people to buy, but also gradually has become a must for social communication which in turn influences the development of society and economy. Nowadays advertising has penetrated into every corner of our life as its transmitting media in many forms: newspaper, magazine, TV, radio as well as network. The goal of advertising decides its language to be simple and direct, distinct from the characteristics of other discourses. Thus an analysis on the linguistic features of advertising English in the linguistic field is worthwhile. Under such circumstances, a study on the linguistic features of advertising English will have practical effects on the composing and translating work of the copywriters. And it is certain that both in China and many other countries like America, England, and Australian, people have done many researches around advertising. Lots of papers and articles have been written on this subject.
No other statement could have summed up the charm of advertisement than what Aldous Huxley has commented. As he has said advertisement as a literary form is the most exciting, the most arduous literary form of all, and the most pregnant in curious possibilities. In his comment he asserted advertisement is a literary form and the copywriting process is the delightful and salubrious exercise for the mind.
Therefore, it is worthwhile studying the linguistic characteristics of advertising English so as to get a better understanding of it and have a better demand of English. In this paper, all instances are of cosmetic advertising.
1. An Introduction to Advertising
1.1 History of Advertising
Advertisement 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” (Vestergaard and Schroder 1985).
The embryonic form of advertising in the world is street cries, which exists even today. Advertising was not unknown in ancient Greece 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.
According to Richard Pollay’s content analysis of two thousand print ads from ten leading magazines in the USA, ads have progressively turned towards the emotional rather than the informative approach and there is a shift seeing human nature as rational to seeming it as emotional.
Today in China, while our economic structure is shifting from the entirely planned economy to the socialist market economy system, advertising is becoming more and more active and sophisticated. In 1992, China’s advertising expenditure reached $ 862 million, among the fastest growing countries in Asia. This year with the entry of China into WTO, this expenditure figure will undoubtedly rise up, which will support the view that advertising is an indispensable means for providing the information that all market-oriented industrialized societies need for their economies to function efficiently.
1.2. Definition of Advertising
American Marketing Association (AMA) defines advertising as “the non-personal communication of information usually paid for and usually persuasive in nature about products, services or ideas by identified sponsors through the various media” (Wang 2004: 6). Today, with the development of the technology and the diversity of the mass media, advertising has influenced us pervasively in our daily life. However, whatever the promotive strategies advertising takes, language is the main carrier of message all along, as The Language of Advertising (1985), by Vestergaard & Schroder, says, “Advertising takes many forms, but in most of them language is of crucial importance.” Advertising language is a style of immediate impact and rapid persuasion. The point of an advertisement is to persuade you of the merits of a particular product or service, in order that you will take out some of your money.
“Advertising is the non-personal communication of information, usually paid for and usually persuasive in nature, about products (goods or services) or ideas by identified sponsors through various media”(Cook 1992).
Another linguist Bolen defines advertising as a “Paid, non-personal communication through various mass media by business firms, nonprofit organizations, and individuals who are in some way identified in the message and who hope to inform or persuade members of a particular audience” (Ronald and Angela 1997).
1.3. Classifications of Advertising
Advertising 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) (Chen 2003).
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. Functions of Advertising
There are many functions of advertising, including the aspects of information, demand creation, persuasive, get action and goodwill establishment.
For every organization and every product or service, advertising tends to fulfill a specific goal or objective. Nevertheless on the general front, advertising is a mechanism that fulfils all, some or one of the three major functions:
Firstly advertising has an informing nature – about organizations, about products and services, about the environment, the society, the trends in society and many more aspects of life. This deals with the cognitive context of the target audience in which they grasp the information and channelize it according to their own comprehension and predilection.
Secondly advertising provides the incentives to viewers for them to engage in action. This deals with the emotional dimension of the target audience, which concentrates on touching and persuading the consumers rather than informing and apprising them.
The third function of advertising is to provide constant reminders and reinforcements to generate the desired behavior the advertiser wants from them. This is a particularly effective function in the long run as reminders and reinforcements register in the consumers’ minds, becoming the base on which they shape their future decisions.
Meanwhile, we can conclude the functions of advertising as another three general aspects. First of all, it is made to emphasize the merits of target product. Secondly, it is a way to get people to know the product. And finally, it is made to make a good brand image (Song and Liu 2006).
2. Linguistic Characteristics of Cosmetic Advertising English
The 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, two main aspects will be illustrated, namely, lexical features and features of its syntax.
2.1. English Morphology in Cosmetic Advertising
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 quite important and is different from other styles of English. It owns apparent features. The major four of them will be described in the following.
2.1.1 More Verbs in Advertising
Verb is widely used in advertising English, especially monosyllable ones. Cosmetic products 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.
Moisture Wear Make-up. It gives life to the look and feel of your skin.
Moisturewear Blush. It brings radiance to the look of your skin (Cui 1993).
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 now very 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, including cosmetic. It is a functional way to use more proper verbs.
2.1.2 More Adjectives in Advertising
The 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 seen in advertisements.
In cosmetic advertising, some adjectives are frequently chosen like new, good/better/best, smooth, young, special, clear, fresh and so on. Let us see some instances as following.
What is more, the comparative and superlative degrees of adjective are often used as well. It always brings amazing result.
Now let us see an instance as following:
Beautiful skin. No waiting.
Age-Proofing Your Skin-where you’ll discover what your skin needs to look younger longer. Best of all, you’ll receive a deluxe sample of Advanced Night Repair, our unique protective recovery complex. See better skin day after day, year after year with these two remarkable formulas (Qi 2003: 101).
This is an advertisement of skin-care product with female as its readers. The language is brief and persuasive. It is very impressive. One of its vital features is the usage of adjectives and its comparative and superlative degree. Using the word beautiful is effective because everyone wants to be that way, especially women. And it is useful to use the comparative degree of young, long, good and superlative degree of good. For every woman, even girl tries her best keep long-lasting young and better than others. So it will call their buying desire out if any product can satisfy this need. Last but not least, the words of advanced and unique are wonderful choices. It represents elegance, nobility and uniqueness, which is again a big highlight of selling.
To sum up, more and appropriate adjectives are indispensible and helpful in cosmetic advertising English.
2.1.3More Abbreviations and Compounds in Advertising www.youerw.com
There 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. Cosmetic advertising is also in the case.
Next, two examples are given as following:
a) Gels, technologically masterminded to be antisticky,
anti-dull, anti-fake.
From Invisi-Gel to Mego Gel.
Every need. Every way. Every day.
To tell or not to tell,
Sudio’s got your gel (Qi 2003: 94).
b) Light-Diffusing makeup SPF8
Apparently, they are very impressive by using compounds. Their structure is special. The first one is about gel. It used a lot of compounds. In advertising English, compounds are widely used to describe the nature and quality of products. And among all kinds of them, hyphenated compounds are often picked. This is one instance. The words "anti-dull” “anti-fake” and “invisi-gel” are functional. They can easily catch people’s attention.
Besides, compound nouns are the most frequently used. Instance b) 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.
2.1.4More Simple and Colloquial Words in Advertising
In advertising English, we can see most of words used are very simple. They are easy to understand and remember. For the aim of advertising 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. There is no exception that advertisements appeared in cosmetic products also show this characteristic. It has become a strong trend of being simple and colloquial.
Let us see some instances as following: