广告歧义英语论文.docx

1、广告歧义英语论文摘要 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

2、的分析与概括。本文作者衷心希望此论文的分析结果能给英语广告的写作者以及广告英语的学习者提供帮助。 关键词: 广告英语，词汇，句法，篇章，相同点，不同点 AN ANALYSIS OF LANGUAGE FEATURES IN ENGLISH ADVERTISEMENTSAbstract This paper presents an analytical study of the language features of English advertisements at lexical, syntactic and discourse levels. In order to conduct a

3、data-driven study, the author builds a corpus of 60 English advertisements. It is hoped 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 summ

4、arized and possible reasons 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 and the last conclusion. The focus of the paper is laid on the three middle parts which respectively analyze language feature

5、s at lexical, syntactic and discourse levels. The conclusion of this paper is drawn from the data analysis. In the analysis, examples from the corpus will be given; figures, tables and graphs will also be offered to make the paper understandable and persuasive.It is hoped that the study can shed lig

6、ht on the language features of advertisements and also provide help to copy writers and advertising English learners.KEYWORDS: English Advertisements, Lexical, Syntactic, Discourse, Similarities, Differences Contents 1.Introduction 11.1Rationale of the study .11.2Definition of advertising .11.3Focus

7、 of the present study 11.4Sources of data .22.Lexical features 22.1Classification of advertising and its audience . 22.2Similarities at the lexical level .32.2.1Few verbs are used .32.2.2Use of emotive words .42.2.3Make pun and alliteration .42.2.4Use of weasel words .52.3Differences at the lexical

8、level .62.3.1Gender identity in advertisements.62.3.2Selection of Adjectives 72.3.3Compound words .82.3.4Use of pronouns 83.Syntactical features 93.1Similarities 93.2Differences 103.2.1Headlines .103.2.2Comparison of headlines of different types of ads .114.Discourse features.124.1Body copy of adver

9、tisements .124.2Differences in body copy .125.Conclusion 14Acknowledgement Sincere thanks go to Dr. Wei Naixing for his insightful guidance and earnest help all through the searching, analysis and paper-writing stages.The author also wants to extend her thanks to Ms. Linda Frost who has given much h

10、elp in data collecting. References1 Bolinger, Dwight & Sears, Donald A. Aspects of Language third editionNew York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich 19812 Bovee, Courtland L. & Arens, William F. Contemporary Advertising forth editionHomewood, IL: Irwin 19923 Gove, Philip Babcock Websters Third New Internati

11、onal DictionarySpringfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam Co. 19764 Gregory, Michael Language Varieties and Their Social ContextsLondon: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd. 19815 Jefkins, Frank William Advertising Philadelphia, PA: Macdonald and Evans 19856 ODonnell, W. R. & Todd, Loreto Variety in Contemporary En

12、glishLondon: George Allen & Unwin (Publishers) Ltd. 19857 Roberts, William H. & Turgeon, Gregoire About Language second editonBoston: Houghton Mifflin Co. 19898 Vestergaard, Torben & Schr der, Kim The language of AdvertisingOxfordOxfordshire; New York, NY, USA: B. Blackwell 19859 方薇 现代英语广告教程 南京大学出版社

13、 199710崔刚，韩宝成，李营，广告英语北京理工大学出版社19931. Introduction 1.1 Rationale of the study We live in a world of advertising. As potential consumers, we are endlessly bombarded with all kinds of product or service information from various media including newspapers, magazines, television, radio, posters and Inter

14、net, etc. Advertising provides a valuable service to society and its members, because it defines for consumers the meaning and the role of products, services, and institutions. It indicates the difference that exists between brands of products and alternative s ervices, as well as the distinguishing

15、 characteristics of companies and institutions. Advertising also tells the consumer what a specific product, brand or 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 peo

16、ple aware of products, service and ideas, advertising promotes sales and profits. Finally, advertising is one of the major forces that are helping improve the standard of living around the world. Combined with all these communicational, marketing and social functions. Advertising becomes indispensab

17、le in the modern world. Naturally, advertisements in English have become an important means of communicating ideas, demonstrating a variety of linguistic features of its own. The present study attempts to examine these features at the lexical, syntactic and discourse levels, in the hope of bringing

18、them to light and, thereby, offering help to advertisement writers and language learners.1.2 Definition of advertising According to the Definition Committee of American Marketing Association(方薇, 1997:2), advertising is defined as follows:Advertising is the nonpersonal communication of information us

19、ually 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 i

20、s 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. In magazines and newspapers, advertisements are a combination of pictures and language of written information. Although mu

21、sic and pictures can provide some hints, or create a kind of atmosphere, the information about 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

22、a supplementary means in advertising. 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 adver

23、tisements on three types of products (daily consumer goods, technical equipment and service), similarities and differences of the three types of advertisements will be summarized and possible reasons will be given in the light of the meaning, and function of language.1.4 Sources of data All the adve

24、rtisements 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 audience. Almost all kinds of advertisements can be found in these magazines. In ord

25、er to get valuable information for the study, a corpus of 60 advertisements was built, which consists of 20 daily consumer goods ads, 20 technical equipment ads, and 20 service ads. Conclusions will be drawn through quantitative and qualitative studies of the data.2 Lexical Features 2.1 Classificati

26、on of advertising and its audience Generally 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 leads to t

27、he act of purchasing the products or using the 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 ca

28、ses, competitors, like Coca-cola and Perpsi, 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 two groups: consumer advertising and business advertising. Most of the ads in the mass med

29、ia are consumer advertisements. They are typically directed at consumers. By contrast, business advertising tends to be concentrated in specialized business publications, professional journals, trade shows targeting at a certain group of people involved in some business. Since consumer advertising i

30、s most accessible to common people, the present study on will focus on consumer advertising. The classification of advertising is clearly shown in the following graph:Graph 1 Classification of advertisements Public ads Daily consumer goods ads Advertising Consumer ads Technical equipment ads Commercial ads Business ads Service ads The bold parts show the scope of advertisements we study. Daily consumer goods are necessities of daily