Advertising is part of our life. Language in English Advertising is the cream of the English language.

广告，商战中的新潮！广告语，打开消费者钱包的金钥匙！记住，推销商品的同时也在推销自己！学会做广告，也就学到了做生意的精髓！学会推销自己，这是出人头地的捷径——这也是广告！

把柔媚浇在身上。（香浴乳）魅力之吻！（梦丹娜唇膏）温柔多情的夜，甜蜜温馨的梦。（兰薇儿睡衣）含羞带怯试新衣，活泼俏丽展新姿。（服装）把“新鲜”直接拉出来。（台湾电冰箱）

There are too things that last longer than time.Love is one of them.It is a win, win situation.New fragrance. New classic.Live. Laugh. Love.

广告英语课件广告英语课件Power Point TextsPower Point Texts

in Advertising Englisin Advertising Englishh

谭卫国谭卫国

Session One IntroductionIn modern society, with the help of mass media, advertising has entered into every aspect of hu-man life. Every day, people are exposed to a largenumber of advertisements no matter whether theylike them or not. But what is advertising? What arethe objectives of advertising? What elements doesan advertisement consist of? How are advertise-ments classified? And what significance does a study of advertising possess? These are the questions of which we must have a good idea before we proceed to explore the language features or characteristics of English advertising.

1.1 Definition of Advertising In English, the word “advertise” has its origin in “advertere” in Latin, meaning “to inform some-body of something”, “to bring into notice” or “to draw attention to something”, etc. Abert Lasker, father of modern advertising, said that advertising was“salesmanship in print”( 赵静， 1992 ： 302).This definition was given a long time before the advent of radio and television. In the past, the na-ture and scope of advertising were considerably different from those today. The definition indicatesthat the ultimate objective of advertising is to sell.Obviously ， it is not an all-round definition, for it can not cover all advertisements.

Definitions of advertising are many and varied. An advertisement may be defined as a public notice ‘designed to spread infor-mation with a view to promoting the sales of marketable goods and services’ (Harris and Heldon, 1962:40), or defined as a vitalmarketing tool as well as a powerful com-munication force. It is the action of calling something to people’s attention especially by a paid announcement. Advertising con-tains messages designed to make known what we have to sell or what we have to buy (J.S. Chandan, 1990).

Also, advertising can be defined as a kind of paid, non-personal communication throughvarious mass media by business firms, non-profit organizations, and individuals who are in some way identified in the message and who hope to inform or persuade members of a particular audience (Bolen, 1984:9). Ameri-can Marketing Association (AMA)( 赵静， 1992： 1) defines advertising as the non-personal communication of information usually paid for and persuasive in nature about products, services, or ideas by identified sponsors through the various media.

Although advertising can be defined in many different ways, the essential points concerning its definition may be summarized as follows: Advertising is a kind of extensive communication of information usually highlypaid for and strongly persuasive by nature. Advertising contains messages or pieces of information about marketable products and services, or ideas, norms and values. Adver-tising messages are designed particularly, ingeniously and meticulously, which are madeknown through various media to the general

public or to particular groups of people, with a view to promoting the sales of the goods and services concerned, or to spreading ideas, norms and values. Contemporary ad-vertising is so commonly ubiquitous and so widely influential that it is considered to be part of modern life. If the definitions of adver-tising are too vague and abstract to compre-hend, a few words about its functions will pro-bably help to clarify this crucial term. Broadly speaking, advertisements have at least one of two functions: informing or persuading, though overlap may often take place in one single piece.

Informative advertisements inform “ custo-mers about goods, services, or ideas and then tell how to get them by means of an identified sponsor” (Bolen, 1984:6). An ad-vertisement of this type supplies basic, fac-tual information and sometimes shows a photo or an illustration of the product/service to give the target audience a better view about the advertised product. Persuasive advertisements are the instruments used by advertisers “who have defined their tar-get audiences and determined the effect they hope to achieve through persuasive advertisements in the media” (Bolen, 1984: 9). A persuasive advertisement should try to

persuade the potential customers to buy the new product (Bolen, 1984 :6). The persuasive function is not only limited to attracting the po-tential customers into buying a certain commo-dity, but also including the selling of services,ideas, norms and values.1.2 Elements of Advertising An advertisement is composed of different components, which are either verbal or non-verbal. The verbal components consist of the headline, sub-headline, the body copy, trade-mark (including brand name, corporate or storename and visual symbol) and slogan. The non-verbal elements are made up of illustrations, advertising music, advertising sounds, color and layout. Each element plays a role in suc-cessful advertising.

However, an advertisement has no need to include all the normal elements. Sometimes,some elements are sufficient. The following elements are discussed, not because they are more important, but because language features in such elements are more conspi-cuous and much easier to be noticed by thegeneral public. David Ogilvy, a famous Aus-tralian advertiser, pointed out, “ On the ave-rage five times as many people read the head-line as read the body copy. The headline is with eighty cents of an advertising dollar. Therefore, if you haven’t done some selling

in the headline, you’ve wasted 80 percent of your money” ( 赵静， 1992 ： 13). So, the head-line should attract the readers’ attention, make them read the body copy, show the benefit of the product and arouse readers’ desire to takebuying action. The purpose of the sub-headlineis to make the transition from headline to bodycopy. Some headlines need no sub-headlines.The body copy tells the complete sales story.The purpose of the body copy is to provide clarification of the headline and proof of

claims, to point out other competitive advan-tages, in short, to give the prospective reasons,implicit as well as explicit, for action desired. A trademark is a sign used by an enterprise or an industry to distinguish quality, specifica-tions and nature of the product they produce, process and sell. The name of a trademark often appears in the headline. The slogan hassome similarities with the headline. In fact, many slogans are developed from some suc-cessful headlines. Slogans are standard state-ments for sales people and company employees.For example, Ford’s slogan “Quality is Job

1” explicitly states that the company makes high-quality products. The main purposes ofslogans are to provide continuity for a cam-paign and to express a key theme or idea with concise and memorable words. Some slogans seem to be old friends of readers and become sparks of recognition on con-sumers’ minds, which create favorable im-pressions of the products or enterprises onthe readers’ minds, so they are regarded asimmense treasures for enterprises. Slogans are very common in English advertisements.Many famous brands accompany slogans.

Please observe the following slogans:

(1) Fresh up with seven-up. (Seven-Up1)(2) Quality never goes out of style. (Levi’s2)(3) Cleans your breath while it cleans your teeth. (Colgate3)(4) Things go better with Coca-Cola. (Coca-Cola4)(5) You’ll feel good about it. (Water pik Lipstic5)(6) In touch with the world. (Toshiba6)

The above advertising slogans accompaniedby the respective famous brands either direct-ly or indirectly tell us about the advantages orbenefits or peculiar functions of the advertised products. They are informative, persuasive andlikely to result in positive responses and to create good images of both the products andthe manufacturers. 1.3 Classification of Advertising Advertising can be classified into different types in view of target audience, geographicarea (international, national, regional, local),covered media (newspaper, magazine, radio, television), function or purpose (product or

non-product, commercial or non-commer-cial, primary demand or selective demand,direct action or indirect action), but all in all, advertising can be divided into two types: commercial and noncommercial advertising. Commercial advertising, which promotes goods, services or ideas for a busi-ness with the expectation of making a profit, falls into three types. The first type is commer-cial consumer advertising, advertising directedtowards a massive audience to promote sales of a product or service. This is indeed the most frequent type, including almost all

the television commercials. The second typeis known as prestige or goodwill advertising, where firms advertise not a commodity or a service, but rather a name or an image. Thistype of advertising aims at creating long-termgoodwill with the public rather than at an imme-diate increase in sales (Torben V. & Kim S. 19-85 ： 1) The third type is industrial or trade adver-tising, where a firm advertises its products or services to other firms. Industrial or trade ad-vertising is most likely to be found in speciali-zed trade journals or in the business pages ofnewspapers.

Noncommercial advertising is sponsored bycharitable institutions, civic groups, or religiousand political organizations. The general pur-pose of noncommercial advertising is to informpeople and persuade them to accept a parti-cular idea, cause, or philosophy being adver-tised. ‘As examples of noncommercial adver-tising one may mention communication from government agencies to citizens like the Bri-tish metrication campaign, or appeals from various associations and societies, whethertheir purposes are charity or political propa-ganda’( Torben, V. & Kim S. 1985:1).

Advertising, in its narrow sense, only refers to commercial advertising. When we talk about advertising, we generally mean com-mercial advertising. According to the variousmedia adopted, advertising can be classified as follows: press advertising, including adver-tisements on newspapers and magazines, ra-dio advertising, television advertising, direct mail advertising, including sales letters, post-cards, catalogues, leaflets and folders and others employing the newest communication

techniques such as advertisements conveyedthrough telex, fax and computer( 潘向光， 1996 ： 119-141). Here, press advertising is mainlydescribed, while other kinds of advertising aregiven due consideration in the discussion.

Session Two 1.4 Objectives of Advertising The objectives of advertising are various. Association of National Advertisement (ANA) interprets its objectives as awareness, com-prehension, conviction and action (ACCA). Firstly, advertisements should draw attentionfrom the audience; secondly, they should show and prove the advantages of the adver-tised products or services; thirdly, they shouldarouse interest of potential customers or clients

and stimulate strong desires in them; finally, they should encourage potential consumers to take action. However, most of us agree that the principal objective of advertising is to sell products. But unlike salesmen who sell goods in face-to-face or even voice-to-voice situations, advertisers communicate certain messages to particular groups of people whomay or may not be known, and who may be close or at a distance. Therefore, advertising is a specialized form of communication. In or-der to satisfy the marketing function, it has to provide the relevant information, to persuade

people and to influence their choices and buying decisions. Therefore, the messagecontained in any advertisement must be ab-solutely clear or easy to comprehend, and the means of conveying the message must be effective so that the receiver may believe and understand the message properly and take specific action to obtain the product or service. Specifically, an advertisement is designed to dispose people to buy a product or service, to support a cause, or even to encourage less consumption (such as social welfare advertisement). It may be used to elect

a candidate, to raise money for charity, or to publicize union or management positions in a strike. Although it has various purposes, advertising, on most occasions, is for the marketing of goods and services. Regardlessof its specific purposes, all advertising has two common threads: a marketing foundationand persuasive communication. With the de-velopment of world economy, a global econo-my, once only the subject of theoretical spe-culation, has now become a reality. Adverti-sing has become a global form of communi-cation.

Foreign economic relations and trade in Chi-na, guided by the policy of reform and ope-ning to the outside world, have been develo-ping rapidly with great achievements. Since China joined the World Trade Organization, more and more foreign products have been coming into China, while more and more Chi-nese products have been going to the globalmarkets. Advertising is primarily concerned with building brand awareness and prefe-rence---both communication functions.

1.5 Research Achievements on English Advertising Language As far as we know, some books and papers concerning English advertising have been pub-lished at home and abroad. Professor Huang Guowen wrote and published an academic book entitled Analyses of Advertising Texts (2000), which is the most influential in China. English In Advertising by Geoffrey N. Leech, which appeared in Britain in 1966, lays the foundation for exploration of the language of English advertising. Advertising As Communi-cation by Gillian Dyer, which was first published in 1982, discusses the history and development

of advertising, the effects of advertising as a major form of communication, etc. The Lan-guage of Television Advertising by an Ameri-can writer named Michael L. Geis explores the linguistic features and non-verbal under-standing of television advertising. The Lan-guage of Advertising by Torben Vestergaardand Kim SchrØder, which was first published in 1985, is mainly concerned with the languagefeatures and communication functions of ad-vertising, etc. One of the most influential booksdealing with advertising in English is Words in Ads (Greg Myers, 1994). The writer begins

with the most basic units---sounds and letters, then goes on to the words, and the associa-tions the words have and ways they are inter-preted. He also analyses different types and structures of sentences in advertising. The above-mentioned works discuss language characteristics of English advertising from different angles, each of them emphasizing some particular aspects or a type of adverti-sing in English.

1.6 Significance of Studying English Advertising Language Nowadays, English has become an interna-tional language, and advertising in English is growing increasingly influential throughout the world. English advertising greatly influences our thoughts, feelings and outlooks and of co-urse our lives. Since advertising in English oc-cupies such an important position in modern society, we need to be aware of how it operates, how it sells goods and services, how it perpe-tuates images and values, and moreover, howto create English advertising texts. To achievethis awareness, what is most important is to have a good grasp of the language featuresof English advertising.

In modern society, English advertising has gradually formed its own unique characteris-tics and has also shaped an independent stylethroughout history of development. The lan-guage of English advertising is simple and direct, distinct from the characteristics of ot-her discourses. Therefore, an analysis of thelinguistic features of English advertising is worthwhile. In addition, with the development of global economy, more and more foreign products are pouring into Chinese markets and

competing with the homemade products, while Chinese products are increasingly flowing abroad. Under such internationaleconomic circumstances, a study of the linguistic features of English advertising is of great significance. If we have a good command of the language characteristics of English advertising, we will be able to appreciate, assess and write English adver-tising, which will promote our cooperation and exchange with foreign countries, faci-litate and promote our imports and exports,

and benefit the development of our econo-my and world economy. The language of English advertising pos-sesses many linguistic features. This study briefly deals with the most common linguis-tic characteristics of English advertising texts,particularly of press advertisements in English.They include three categories: characteristicsof wording, syntactical features and rhetori-cal devices. In other words, characteristics of wording, syntactical features and rhetori-cal devices are discussed respectively.

Now try to answer the following questions based on this part. 1. How do you define advertising? 2. What functions does advertising possess? 3. How is advertising classified? 4. What elements constitute an English ad? 5. What do you know about ad slogans? 6. What do you know about ad trademarks? 7. What do you know about headlines and bodycopies of English advertising? 8. What do you know about nonverbal elements of an English advertisement?