The Analysis of Linguistic Features of English Advertisements

【Abstract】Language is the specific carrier of advertising and one of the specific forms of advertisement. In the process of the formation of English advertisements， its unique language characteristics have been gradually formed. Supported by examples， this paper analyzes the linguistic features of English advertisements from phonology， morphology， syntax.

【key words】English advertisements; Linguistic; Features

【作者簡介】石偉（1996.11-），男，漢族，安徽合肥人，南京師范大學外國語學院，在讀研究生，研究方向：外國語言學及應用語言學。

1. Introduction

Advertisements， borrowing from a Latin word “advertere” which means making someone pay attention to something. English advertisements have been studied from various disciplines such as psychology， sociology and linguistics. In terms of linguistics， Geoffrey N Leech initiated the study mainly from the point of semantics in 1966 based on different advertisements in television. Besides， some Chinese scholars paid attention to the linguistic study of English advertisements such as Hou Weirui who studied linguistic features of English advertisements in Varieties of English. Wang Zuoliang，Huang Guowen and Ding Wangdao are also representatives.

2. Phonological Features of English Advertisements

2.1 Stress

Stress refers to relative force or prominence given to a syllable in a word， or to a word in a phrase or sentence. Words which is stressed in ads is functioned as emphasizing advertisers intentions. The more obvious the meaning of sales， the higher the stress intensity in ads. Specific words， like auxiliary verbs， adjectives， numerals， are usually stressed to show intention such as marketing products.

Aggressive new style.

The word “aggressive” is stressed to show corporate image of adventure and bravery.

2.2 The selection of vowels and consonants

Sometimes phonological charm of English ads is determined by the acoustic features of phonemes. Most of English advertisements are made of loud vowels， especially long vowels and diphthongs with large openness， and consonant cluster with partial obstruction which is easy for spelling. And those names often employ alliteration and assonance to keep a strong rhythm.

Go with the flow. Soft， swaying shapes， so right for summer.

In this garment advertisement， the friction， including /s/， /?/， /f/， /?/， appear successively as if the skirt is moving with human body and producing pleasant and subtle sound. Diphthongs involving /ei/， /ou/， /ai/ have the characteristics of loud， long and round， which creates the elegant image.

3. Lexical Features of English Advertisements

3.1 Spelling deviation

Some English words may be incorrect in spelling but sometimes they have excellent performances in expression. Such phenomenon is known as spelling deviation.

We know eggsactly how to sell eggs.

In this advertisement， eggsactly is a blend by combining egg and exactly， which echoes the word eggs in the end of sentence. It impressed the consumers and strengthened the effect of publicity.

3.2 Lexical deviation

Lexical deviation refers to the affixational process to create new words. In English ads， fresh， unique and rich-meaning words that serve attractive function to disseminate products information are created. For example， the prefix “super-” is used to express meaning that something is best such as SuperZoom （a kind of camera）. The prefix “`Uni-” is used in trademarks， which means “universal”， “united”， “uniform” like Uniball （ball-point pen）.

3.3 Economy and repetition of words

Professional or isolated words that are prone to ambiguity must be avoided. Beyond that， advertisements words are repeated to stimulate the consumers cerebral cortex so as to strengthen and consolidate the impression of information， thus enhancing the effect.

3.4 Ask for more （Pepsi-Cola）

Hi- fi， Hi- fun， Hi- fashion only for Sony（SONY）

4. Syntactic Features of English Advertisements

4.1 Reduced structure

Given advertising fee， grammatically incomplete sentences or even the wrong forms sometimes are applied in ads to express as much information as possible in limited time and space. For example.

4.2 Think Different.（Canon）

Think different was an advertising slogan for Apple which consists of two words. In this advertisement， there is no nouns functioned as subjects or objects but only one verb and one adjective.

4.3 Parallel structures

Parallel structures refer to sentences that are formed by combining similar phrases or clauses of same grammatical structure. Such structures are usually employed by English ads， which can facilitate reading ability and text processing.

4.4 Melts in Your Mouth， Not in Your Hands（M&M）

The application of parallel structure in this ad not only revealed this characteristic as the hard chocolate surface and colorful package but also made M&Ms chocolate impressive in the market.

4.5 Simple present tense

In English advertisements， the application of the simple present time makes the features of products or service general and permanent， thus subconsciously building consumers trust.

4.6 A Diamond is Forever （De Beers）

Diamonds are labelled as love， romance， loyalty and eternity by jewelers on account of the fact uttered by the simple present tense that a diamond can last forever.

5. Conclusion

This paper makes an inquiry into linguistic features from four aspects in English advertisements， including phonological features， lexical features， syntactic features. Phonologically， English advertisements selection of vowels or consonants are governed by specific rules. As for lexical features， several phenomena such as spelling deviation， lexical deviation， economy and repetition of words are singled out for special study. Syntactically， much reduced structure and simple present tense are usually applied.

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