Pragmalinguistic Peculiarities of English Slogan in Fashion Domain/Chapter 5. Linguostylistic peculiarities of advertising text

Is there such a thing as advertising language? Certainly, the language of advertising is neither variety nor a register in its own right. Rather, the language of advertising is able to take on any form that required for communicating its message, thus covering and utilising the entire linguistic continuum. After a speaking the language of the recipient is one of the major prerequisites of successful sales talk. It has to be noted that the description of the linguistic features of advertising language does not represent comprehensive overview, but rather an operational selection of linguistic features and details that can be used for serving the marketing goals.

Lexical features of advertisement edit

Coinage edit

Coinage, according to Longman Dictionary, means "a word or a phrase that has been recently invented"[1]. Advertisements are full of coined words to be lively and eye-catching.
For example:

Give a Timex to all, to all a good time. (Timex, a brand name of watch)
Timex, being a coined noun, is formed originally from the two words "time" and "excellent". The new word is short and easy to remember.
TODAY ONLY! An egg-cellent sale. Find the pink eggs hidden throughout our website for extra savings on select individual brushes! (Sigma brushes)

Comparative and superlative adjectives edit

In order to convince the readers that the product advertised is second to none, comparative and superlative adjectives are frequently and commonly used in the advertisements.

More connections to Europe. DHL has the world's biggest logistics network.

In this example, DHL, the logistics company, highlight its advantage of being more accessible and more easily to reach with the word "more" and "biggest". Those who read this advertisement will have the impression that DHL is right choice for them because it has more locations to reach than other companies.

Compound word edit

Compound words are colloquial in form, which will gives the readers a sense of closeness. Compound words also allow more possibilities to create humorous effect.

better-than-leather-miracle-covering look at the oh-so-comfortable size give that oh-so-good-to-be alive feeling

This advertisement is quite interesting by combining many words together, which sounds like someone who is exclaiming his extol. Without doubt, it is impressive because of its creativity of compound word and humorous effect.

Syntactic features of advertisement edit

Simple sentence edit

Generally speaking, simple sentences are quick and direct in conveying information, while complex sentences will create some suspense dragging the readers' understanding behind.

Buy one and get one free. - If you buy one, you will get one free.
Time to listen. Capacity to act (Mess Pierson, Consulting Company) - It's time to listen and our capacity to act.

Obviously, the first sentences in these examples are both vivid in rhythm and easy for the readers to get the information. The second sentences however, are comparatively redundant in conveying the meaning, though they are grammatically correct. Readers tend to remember the structure of the first ones, because of their simplicities. One everlasting example is Nike shoes' slogan: "Just Do It!" rather than "Let's just do it now!"

Imperative sentence edit

Imperative sentences are often persuasive in that it arises the reads' impulse to buy the product. Imperative sentences, beginning with the verbs, are forceful and tempting, which coincide with the purpose of the advertisements.

Get fast downloads with no wires attached. (SmarTone, Hong Kong Telecom Company)
Stop in at any Ford or Lincoln-Mercury dealer. (Ford, Car Company)

Readers are advocated and persuaded to do the action, waiting no time. By telling or requesting readers to perform in a certain way, imperative sentences are effective in exerting a subtle impression to do as they are told.

Disjunctive clause edit

Disjunctive Clause is the exclusive syntactic features of advertisements in English newspaper and magazines. Disjunctive Clause usually chops the sentences into several parts with the cohesive device of full stop, dash, hyphen, semi-colon etc. By doing so, the advertisement is more condensed, which will save the money for taking up too much space of the newspapers or magazines.

References edit