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1、 Introduction We live in a world of advertising. As potential consumers, we are endlessly filled with all kinds of product or service information from various media including newspapers, magazines, television, radio and Internet, etc. Advertising tells the consumer what a specific product, brand or
2、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, service and ideas, advertising promotes sales and profits. Finally, advertising is one of the m
3、ajor forces that are helping improve the standard of living around the world. Combined with all these marketing and social functions, advertising becomes indispensable in the modern world. An advertisement is something that draws good attention toward a product, service or person. A good advertiseme
4、nt usually is short, simple, impressive, persuasive and fascinating. Seeing the panoramic view of the history of business, the success of high-quality branded products always corresponding with the guide of a good advertisement. In todays fierce market competition, advertising writers become more an
5、d more thoughtful, creative and innovative. They use unique vocabulary, concise and comprehensive statement and attractive rhetorical devices to win the trust and love of consumers for goods and services. Ads have a distinctive purpose, that is, to convince customers to buy their products. This purp
6、ose determines the characteristics of language style and makes it independent of the other styles in the context of linguistic study. As is known to all, English is the universal language of the world. So the author selects English advertisement to study the language features of ads in this paper, h
7、oping to explore the application of advertising and offer a certain reference value in some researches of this field, in the hope of offering help to advertisement writers and language learners. Chapter I English advertisement1.1 Definition of advertisement American Marketing Association (AMA) defin
8、es advertisement 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.” Today, with the development of the technology and the diversity of the mass media, English adverti
9、sement has influenced us pervasively in our daily life. However, whatever the primitive strategies advertisement takes, language is the main carrier of message all along, as The Language of Advertising, by Vestergaard & Schroder, says, “Advertisement takes many forms, but in most of them language is
10、 of crucial importance.” Advertisement 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.1.2 Classification of English advertisement Gener
11、ally 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 persuades people to purchase the products or use t
12、he 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 to make a certain product known or to boost the image of a certain brand. In some cases, competitors, like Coca-cola and Pepsi,
13、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 consumer advertising and business advertising. Most of the ads in the mass media are consumer advertisements. They are typically direct
14、ed at consumers. Since consumer advertising is most accessible to common people, the present study will focus on consumer advertising.1.3 Languages of English advertisementsUsually, advertisement conveys information in three ways: audio, visual, and written language. It is a more common case that an
15、 advertisement is a mixture of the three. In radio advertisements, music is always accompanied by language; on TV and motion pictures, music and language illustration are mixed with each other. Although music and pictures can provide some hints, or create a kind of atmosphere, the information about
16、the product is limited. Even worse, it may lead to misunderstanding. Thus, we may say that language in a way provides more exact, detailed and dependable information whereas music and pictures only act as a supplementary means in advertising.Advertisement language, playing a role of communication an
17、d persuasion, has developed its own features.This paper will focus on the language features of English advertisements, including lexical features, sentences features and rhetorical devices. It is hoped, by a systematic study of English advertisements on this three characteristics, a lot of examples
18、will be summarized and profound meaning will be given in the light of the function of language. Chapter 2: Lexical features of advertisements in English In this chapter, I will discuss the lexical features of English advertising. In linguistics, lexical is the vocabulary of a language. In order to m
19、ake the information accessible to audience effectively, the choice of words in advertising is very cautious and skillful. The aim of the advertiser is quite specific. He wishes to capture the attention of the members of a mass audience and by means of impressive words to persuade them to buy a produ
20、ct or behave in a particular way. Both linguistic and psychological aspects are taken into consideration in the choice of words. The following points are some prominent choices. 2.1Application of personal pronouns To shorten the distance between advertisers and consumers, English advertisements ofte
21、n use many English personal pronouns, which can give consumers an immersed feeling and increase their sense of credibility and participation in advertising. Usually the first person refers to advertisers, the second person means consumers,and the third person refers to readers. Pronouns of the first
22、 and second person: we, outnumber the other pronouns in advertisements. It is because that you, we and I help create a friend-like intimate atmosphere to move and persuade the audience. Advertisements that go like talking with friends closely link the advertisement and the audience. The audience rec
23、ommended them. For example, a watch ad wrote this: We made this watch for you-to be part of your life-simply because this is the way we always made watch. We and you are two personal pronouns in the ad, they respectively refer to advertisers and consumers. This ad has a direct talk with consumers, w
24、hich can shorten the distance between advertisers and consumers.2.2 The frequent use of simple verbs G. N. Leech, English linguist, lists 20 most used verbs in his English In Advertising: Linguistic study of Advertising In Great Britain (方薇, 1997:20). They are: make, come, get, give, have, see, buy,
25、 go, know, keep, look, need, love, use, feel, like, choose, take, start, taste. You will often read such sentences in an advertisement: Buy x. Use it. We make X will give you what you need. Youll love x. Get x. Well make this quick. (Hertz Car Return) All you need is a taste for adventure. (Millston
26、e Coffee) Dont have much of a personality? Buy one. (Honda Motor) Most of these frequently used verbs have Anglo-Saxon origin that is the common core of English vocabulary. Linguistic study shows English native speakers tend to use words of Anglo-Saxon origin, because native words have comparably st
27、able meaning. In advertising, these simple words can win the consumers by their exact, effective expression and a kind of closeness. So English advertisements often use some simple words or shorter verbs. It aims to make the languages of English ads more simple, concise and vivid. For example: Buy o
28、ne pair, get one free. (Sunglasses ad) Impossible made possible. (Canon printer ad) Just do it. (Nike sports-shoes ad)The popular use of short verbs in English ads is easy for consumers to understand and remember the line of ads. It is beneficial for companies to sell their products and establish th
29、eir brands by the communication on newspapers or TV.2.3 The extensive use of emotive words A close scrutiny of recent advertisements in English suggests that the soft-sell technique is now popular. By soft-sell technique we mean the one that favors a more emotive and less directive approach to promo
30、te a product, mainly focusing on the building of brand image. As a result, emotive words, most of which are pleasant adjectives, are greatly encouraged to use. Data from the corpus shows that the most frequently used adjectives are as follows: new, good/better/best, fresh, free, delicious, sure, ful
31、l, clean, wonderful, special, crisp, real,fine, great, safe, and rich. These adjectives help to build a pleasant picture in readers minds and manage to create a belief in the potential consumer: If I buy this product or if I choose this service, I will lead a better life. In addition, comparatives a
32、nd superlatives occur to highlight the advantage of a certain product or service. Meanwhile, it can meet consumers preferences and make them feel happy and superior. The following are examples: Dale Batteries: The original and still be the best. (Dale Battery ad) Lets make things better. (Philips ad
33、)Above two cases, they used the superlative best and the comparative better in the ads, which can deepen the impression of the products for consumers. In fact, they played a very good promotional effect.2.4 Flexible application of indefinite pronouns Many advertisers sometimes use indefinite pronoun
34、s such as all, everyone, none, nothing to increase the popularity of their commodities because it can reflect the extraordinary characteristics of a product. For example: All is well that ends well. (Tobacco ad) This is an idiom, but here, it is taken from an advertisement of a cigarette. Allreprese
35、nts all the cigarettes.Meanwhile, it indicates the high quality of this kind of cigarette, all cigarettes are good, there is no exception.“End”, as a verb, means “finish”, while, as a noun, means “cigarette butt”. The sentence means that if the cigarette ends are good that the cigarette is good. Tod
36、ays Nobody. Tomorrows Somebody! (Somebody Taishin Bank credit cards ad) The indefinite pronoun Nobody meansnot important at all,Somebodymeans important, which indicates that if you have no money today, you are nothing. But if you depend on and trust Somebody Taishin Bank and borrow money from this b
37、ank, tomorrow you will earn money and you will become a very important person. 2.5 The Repetition of key words In order to highlight a particular product and convey its information, advertisers often deliberately repeating key words in the languages of English advertisements. This method can make th
38、e readers or audiences get a good memory of their ads. Furthermore, it can help the consumers to pay more attention to the contents of advertising so that the advertisers can obtain their goals of promotion. For example: Finish the job in less time, with less fuel and less noise.(Toyota Cars ad) In
39、this car ad, the repetition of the key word less stressed that Toyota car has its superiority with less fuel and less noise, which can save the money of customers and increase their comfortable feelings if they buy this kind of car. Free Hotel! Free Meals! Free Transfers! For a free Stay-on-the-way
40、in Amsterdam, you can rely on Kim. (Kim Tourism ad) In this ad, repeating free can appeal many customers to join in this tour quickly. So the repetition of key words can strengthen the effect of languages and make the ads become more attractive and persuasive.2.6 The Creation of new words Advertiser
41、s are good at playing Word Games by changing the spelling of words or adding a prefix or suffix to a word that people are familiar with. While the new words are different from the original word form, but they can not lose the original meaning. Creating new words not only can get an effective dissemi
42、nation(传播) of information, but also it makes the advertising become more charming. In some of advertisements, the advertising copywriter misspells some words on purpose. Although the new words still keep the original meanings, they are quite different from the original words in spelling, which will
43、make the advertisement more vivid, interesting and attractive. E.g. We know eggsactly how to sell eggs.In this advertisement, “eggsactly” is the variation of “exactly”, a echo the word “eggs” at the end of the sentence. The Orangemostest Drink in the world. In this drink advertisement, the word “ora
44、ngemostest” actually is “orange+most+est”. It uses this word to express the high quality a purity of the drink. Chapter 3: Sentence Features of English AdvertisementsIn this section, the author will talk about sentence features of advertising English. As we all known, the purpose of all advertising
45、is to familiarize consumers or remind them of the benefits of particular products in the hope of increasing sales, in order to attain this aim; its message must be colorful, legible, understandable and memorable. The rules governing the language of advertising are similar. We have summarized the lex
46、ical features of English advertisements. If words are leaves of a tree, and sentences branches; the branches must also possess their features.3.1 Preference for simple sentences and elliptical sentences English advertising requires to attract customers and makes the ads readable so that readers can
47、get a glance of them. Therefore, the languages of English advertising must use as few sections as possible to convey their information effectively and draw the customers desire of purchase. The length of a sentence in advertising is usually short. So, as to sentence structure, simple sentences and e
48、lliptical sentences are often used in advertisements. Compared with complex sentences, simple sentences are more understandable and forceful. Elliptical sentences are actually incomplete in structure but complete in meaning. The adoption of elliptical sentences can spare more print space, and take less time for readers to finish reading. In addition, a group of sentence fragments may gain special advertising effectiveness. Let us compare the following two advertisements. a. Baked. Drenched. Tested to the extreme. A Motorola cellular phone b. The Motorola cellular pho
