To what extent is advertising language a ‘Sondersprache’? E-Book

Jil Hoeser

• Herausgeber: GRIN Verlag
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

Essay from the year 2016 in the subject German Studies - Linguistics, grade: 2,7, University College London, language: English, abstract: Advertising happens in a lot of areas of life, such as politics or charity, and it almost every time happens by means of a specific use of language. Exactly this specific use of the language in advertising will be the main focus of the following essay and we are going to ask if advertising language can be seen as a ‘Sondersprache’. After providing a general definition of advertising and analysing its different techniques to influence peoples’ behaviour, we will deal with the linguistic characteristics. Finally, after exposing the linguistic features of advertising, we shall analyse, whether advertising language could be seen as a ‘Sondersprache’. Nowadays, we encounter advertising like “Saturn: Geiz ist geil!” in the most different forms in our everyday life. Whether it is on flyers, on the radio or on the television, everywhere we look, advertising is flooding us. We hear a specific melody coming from the radio and we know what product is meant; we see a little green crocodile in the left corner of a t-shirt and we directly know what brand it is from. At this stage, these two examples show us to what extent advertising is surrounding us. What is more, we can already observe a first tendency: advertising is not only using language, but it is also playing our minds with pictures and music. Most people link this term only to commercial and product advertising, but that definition is far too tight.

Leseprobe

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Inhalt

1. Defining Advertising

2. Linguistic characterisations of advertising

2.1. Lexis

a) Word classes and word formation

b) Foreign-language elements

c) High-quality words and keywords

2.2. Phraseology

2.3. Syntax

2.4. Grammar

2.5. Rhetoric

2.6. Varieties

3. Advertising as a ‘Sondersprache’

4. Conclusion

5. Bibliography

“Saturn: Geiz ist geil!”

Nowadays, we encounter advertising like this in the most different forms in our everyday life. Whether it is on flyers, on the radio or on the television, everywhere we look, advertising is flooding us. We hear a specific melody coming from the radio and we know what product is meant; we see a little green crocodile in the left corner of a t-shirt and we directly know what brand it is from. At this stage, these two examples show us to what extent advertising is surrounding us. What is more, we can already observe a first tendency: advertising is not only using language, but it is also playing our minds with pictures and music. Most people link this term only to commercial and product advertising, but that definition is far too tight. Advertising happens in a lot of areas of life, such as politics or charity, and it almost every time happens by means of a specific use of language. Exactly this specific use of the language in advertising will be the main focus of the following essay and we are going to ask if advertising language can be seen as a ‘Sondersprache’. After providing a general definition of advertising and analysing its different techniques to influence peoples’ behaviour, we will deal with the linguistic characteristics. Finally, after exposing the linguistic features of advertising, we shall analyse, whether advertising language could be seen as a ‘Sondersprache’.

1. Defining Advertising

As pointed out in the previous paragraph, advertising is with us at all times. A general definition could be the following by Harris and Seldon: advertising is a public notice ‘designed to spread information with a view to promoting the sales of marketable goods and services’ (Harris&Seldon 1962, p. 40). Most of them are of the commercial type, but there are also non-commercial ones like political or charity campaigns. Concerning commercial advertising, there exist three different types. One of them is the so-called prestige advertising, which aims at creating a long-term good image, rather than increasing its sales, for example all the societies publishing their reports in the Sunday newspapers. Their shareholders will receive these reports anyway so the only purpose of this will be to leave a good impression to the public. The second type of commercial advertising would be the industrial advertising, which is known for advertising products or services to other societies. Their ads can be found in specialized trade journals or business newspapers. It differs from the other types of advertising as it can be seen as advertising between equals. This leads to the fact that industrial advertising, in contrast to consumer advertising, our third type of advertising, mostly puts more effort in publishing factual information and less effort in persuading someone.  This leads us to the main function of consumer advertising: Increasing the sales. The seller only wants to buy a product when it seems to be of use for him. To arrive at this point, the admen need to design their ads in a way that it at least seems as their product would be of use for the potential seller. The more attractive a product appears, the more it will be sold. This has become necessary, as a lot of firms are now able to produce similar products due to advanced technology. That’s why the firms need to promote themselves in the best possible way. Another distinction can be made between public and private communication. In private communication, all present persons know each other, as in a conversation between friends. Here, it is a two-way communication, as the people are taking turns at being speaker and listener. In a public communication, a product is advertised to a large anonymous public and it is an one-way communication as there is only the admen addressing themselves to the anonymous public (Vestergaard&Schroder 1985, p. 1- 14).

It is also often compared to political propaganda. Both advertising and political propaganda are trying to manipulate people in order to do so as they want.

In Germany, advertising is above all an economic factor in television production. In recent years, advertisings in the television have been increasing very fast. As it is very expensive, TV-ads usually are only about 30 seconds long and therefore need to deliver the message in a short time. This also has impacts on the language used in them. On the other hand, commercials need to get and keep the attention of the recipients as he risks to drown in all those advertisings. Therefore, admen need to be more creative and innovative than ever. They should present pleasure and entertainment, but at the same time not too much for that it does not seem unnatural (Holly 1997, p. 364). To achieve this, advertisers not only use special linguistic features, as we will see in the following paragraphs, but also use visual and acoustic means to intensify their messages (Glück&Sauer 1990, p. 142).

2. Linguistic characterisations of advertising

By providing a general definition of advertising and seeing how it works and how it plays our minds, I find it now useful to elaborate the most important linguistic characteristics and strategies of advertising.

2.1. Lexis