英语广告语言的特征分析(英文)

AN ANALYSIS OF LANGUAGE FEATURES IN ENGLISH ADVERTISEMENTS英语广告语言的特征分析摘要本文旨在通过对书面英语广告的语言分析总结出广告英语在词汇﹑句法﹑篇章上的语言特点。

为了使研究从数据出发得出科学结论，本文作者建立了一个拥有60篇各类广告的小型语料库。

通过对此语料库中日用品广告﹑科技设备广告﹑服务业广告的深入细致的定量和定性分析，总结出广告英语在此三类广告中的相同点与不同点，并且根据语言的意义，风格及功能解释广告英语的共性以及广告英语在不同类型广告中的特殊性。

本文共分五个部分，第一部分和第五部分分别为介绍与总结，中间三个部分为本文核心，分别展开广告英语在词汇﹑句法﹑篇章三个层面的分析。

本文的结论均来自于对语料库的分析。

整个研究从数据出发，由数据驱动，由此进行语言学上的分析与概括。

关键词: 广告英语，词汇，句法，篇章，相同点，不同点AbstractThis paper presents an analytical study of the language features of English adv ertisements at lexical, syntactic and discourse levels. In order to conduct a data -driven study, the author builds a corpus of 60 English advertisements. It is ho ped that through the detailed survey of three types of advertisements: namely, daily consumer goods ads, technical equipment ads, service ads, similarities and differences in advertising language features can be summarized and possible r easons will be given in the light of the meaning, and function of language.This paper will be presented in five parts. The first part is the introduction an d the last conclusion. The focus of the paper is laid on the three middle parts which respectively analyze language features at lexical, syntactic and discourse levels. The conclusion of this paper is drawn from the data analysis. In the a nalysis, examples from the corpus will be given; figures, tables and graphs wil l also be offered to make the paper understandable and persuasive.It is hoped that the study can shed light on the language features of advertise ments and also provide help to copy writers and advertising English learners.KEYWORDS:English Advertisements, Lexical, Syntactic, Discourse, Similarities, DifferencesContents1. Introduction (1)1.1 Rationale of the study (1)1.2 Definition of advertising (1)1.3 Focus of the present study (1)1.4 Sources of data (2)2. Lexical features (2)2.1 Classification of advertising and its audience (2)2.2 Similarities at the lexical level (3)2.2.1 Few verbs are used (3)2.2.2 Use of emotive words (4)2.2.3 Make pun and alliteration (4)2.2.4 Use of weasel words (5)2.3 Differences at the lexical level (6)2.3.1 Gender identity in advertisements (6)2.3.2 Selection of Adjectives (7)2.3.3 Compound words (8)2.3.4 Use of pronouns (8)3. Syntactical features (9)3.1 Similarities (9)3.2 Differences (10)3.2.1 Headlines (10)3.2.2 Comparison of headlines of different types of ads (11)4. Discourse features (12)4.1 Body copy of advertisements (12)4.2 Differences in body copy (12)5. Conclusion (14)1. Introduction1.1 Rationale of the studyWe live in a world of advertising. As potential consumers, we are endlessly b ombarded with all kinds of product or service information from various media including newspapers, magazines, television, radio, posters and Internet, etc. Ad vertising provides a valuable service to society and its members, because it def ines for consumers the meaning and the role of products, services, and instituti ons. It indicates the difference that exists between brands of products and alter native services, as well as the distinguishing characteristics of companies and i nstitutions. Advertising also tells the consumer what a specific product, brand o r service should do when it is used and thus helps him or her to understand a nd 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, adverti sing promotes sales and profits. Finally, advertising is one of the major forces that are helping improve the standard of living around the world. Combined wi th all these communicational, marketing and social functions. Advertising beco mes indispensable in the modern world.Naturally, advertisements in English have become an important means of comm unicating ideas, demonstrating a variety of linguistic features of its own. The p resent study attempts to examine these features at the lexical, syntactic and dis course levels, in the hope of bringing them to light and, thereby, offering help to advertisement writers and language learners.1.2 Definition of advertisingAccording to the Definition Committee of American Marketing Association(方薇, 1997:2), advertising is defined as follows:Advertising is the nonpersonal communication of information usually paid for and usually persuasive in nature about products, services or ideas by identified sponsors through the various media.1.3 Focus of the present studyUsually, advertising communicates information in three types: audio, visual, and language. It is a more common case that an 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 ea ch other. In magazines and newspapers, advertisements are a combination of pi ctures and language of written information. Although music and pictures can pr ovide some hints, or create a kind of atmosphere, the information about the pr oduct is limited. Even worse, it may lead to misunderstanding. Thus, we may say that language in a way provides more exact, detailed and dependable infor mation whereas music and pictures only act as a supplementary means in adve rtising. Advertising language, playing a role of communication and persuasion, has developed its own features.This paper will focus on the language features of English advertisements at lexical, syntactic and discourse levels. It is hoped, by a contrastive study of ad vertisements on three types of products (daily consumer goods, technical equip ment and service), similarities and differences of the three types of advertiseme nts will be summarized and possible reasons will be given in the light of the meaning, and function of language.1.4 Sources of dataAll the advertisements studied in this paper are taken from English magazines. They are chosen from Time, People and Newsweek (issues from 1999-2000), because these three magazines have a huge circulation, covering all kinds of a udience.Almost all kinds of advertisements can be found in these magazines. I n order to get valuable information for the study, a corpus of 60 advertisement s was built, which consists of 20 daily consumer goods ads, 20 technical equi pment ads, and 20 service ads. Conclusions will be drawn through quantitative and qualitative studies of the data.2 Lexical Features2.1 Classification of advertising and its audienceGenerally speaking, advertisements can be divided into two types: public relatio n 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 a udience. The latter leads to the act of purchasing the products or using the rec ommended service. Commercial ads are much more presented through mass me dia for the reason that manufacturers and companies are willing to spend a lar ge 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 Perpsi, even sp are no expense to launch advertising campaigns to win over the market share. Commercial advertising can also be divided according to the target audience in to two groups: consumer advertising and business advertising. Most of the ads in the mass media are consumer advertisements. They are typically directed at consumers. By contrast, business advertising tends to be concentrated in special ized business publications, professional journals, trade shows targeting at a cert ain group of people involved in some business. Since consumer advertising is most accessible to common people, the present study on will focus on consum er advertising. The classification of advertising is clearly shown in the followin g graph:Graph 1 Classification of advertisementsPublic ads Daily consumer goods adsAdvertising Consumer ads Technical equipment adsCommercial adsBusiness ads Service ads。