THE LANGUAGE OF ADVERTISING WITH THE CONCENTRATION ON

THE LINGUISTIC MEANS AND THE ANALYSIS OF ADVERTISING SLOGANS

DIPLOMOVÁ PRÁCA

JANA LAP ANSKÁ

UNIVERZITA KOMENSKÉHO V BRATISLAVE

PEDAGOGICKÁ FAKULTA

KATEDRA ANGLICKÉHO JAZYKA A LITERATÚRY

tudijn odbor: U ite stvo v eobecno-vzdelávacích predmetov

pecializácia: Anglick jazyk a literatúra – panielsky jazyk a literatúra

Vedúci diplomovej práce: PhDr. Radoslav Pavlík

Dátum obhajoby: október 2006

BRATISLAVA 2006

Many thanks to my diploma supervisor PhDr. Radoslav Pavlík for his valuable advice

and professional help during elaboration the work. I also want to thank my friend

Marek Mrázik for his comments and his interest in the fascinating world of

advertising which influenced me to choose this theme.

Jana Lap anská

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ABSTRAKT

Lap anská, Jana: The Language of Advertising with the Concentration on the

Linguistic Means and the Analysis of Advertising Slogans. Diplomová práca,

Univerzita Komenského. Pedagogická fakulta, Katedra anglického jazyka a literatúry.

Vedúci diplomovej práce: PhDr. Radoslav Pavlík. Bratislava: Pedagogická fakulta

UK, 2006. 82 s.

Práca poskytuje anal zu jazyka reklamy z lingvistického h adiska a pecifikuje

jazykové prostriedky pou ité v reklamn ch textoch. Práca priná a poznatky o pou ití

jazykov ch prostriedkov v reklame v tla i. Analytickou metódou autor zistil mieru

pou itia jednotliv ch jazykov ch prostriedkov v reklamn ch sloganoch, aj vo vz ahu

k produktovému zameraniu.

k ú ové slová: reklama, reklamn slogan, jazyk reklamy, komunikácia, jazykové

prostriedky.

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ABSTRACT

Lap anská, Jana: The Language of Advertising with the Concentration on the

Linguistic Means and the Analysis of Advertising Slogans. Diploma thesis. Comenius

University. Faculty of Education, Department of English Language and Literature.

Diploma thesis supervisor: PhDr. Radoslav Pavlík. Bratislava: Pedagogická fakulta

UK, 2006. 82 p.

The work provides the analysis of language of advertising from linguistic point of

view and specifies linguistic means used in advertising texts. The work brings

knowledge about the use of linguistic devices in print advertising. By analytical

method, author found out the use rate of individual linguistic means used in

advertising slogans, even in relation to product specialization.

Key words: advertising, advertising slogan, language of advertising, communication,

linguistic means.

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PREFACE

In this diploma thesis, I will be concerned with the language of advertising. I

will scope my attention to the linguistic means used in advertising. The main reason to

choose this topic was my interest in English language and advertising, for the most

part from linguistic point of view. I find advertising language fascinating; therefore, I

want to discover its principles, strategies and anatomy of creative writing and

grammatical structures.

The objective of the work is to provide the analysis of language of advertising

from linguistic point of view and specify linguistic means used in advertising texts.

The practical research analyses the advertising slogans and determines the most

widely used linguistic means, even in relation to product specialization. The results of

the study and analysis are useful for familiarizing and understanding the main issues

connected with technique of writing advertising texts; the concrete statements and

data can provide information for those, who write advertising texts in English.

The diploma thesis is addressed to the students of English language for

Specific Purposes, teachers of English language for Specific Purposes, people

working in advertising sphere, copywriters and all people interested in language of

advertising.

I acquired the literature resources and magazines from the library of University

of Granada, the University Library in Bratislava and from British Council in

Bratislava.

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CONTENTS

ABSTRAKT ............................................................................................................. 3

ABSTRACT.............................................................................................................. 4

PREFACE................................................................................................................. 5

CONTENTS.............................................................................................................. 6

LIST OF PICTURES AND GRAPHS ....................................................................... 8

LIST OF SYMBOLS AND ABBREVIATIONS ....................................................... 9

0 INTRODUCTION............................................................................................11

1 DEFINING THE CONCEPT OF ADVERTISING ...........................................13

1.1 Definitions of advertising and advertising slogan ......................................13

1.2 History of advertising................................................................................14

1.3 Types of advertising..................................................................................15

2 ADVERTISING AS KIND OF COMMUNICATION ......................................17

2.1 The process of communication..................................................................17

2.2 Verbal and non-verbal communication in advertising................................19

2.3 Public versus word-of-mouth communication of advertising .....................20

3 TEXT OF ADVERTISING AND ITS STRUCTURE .......................................21

3.1 Cohesion of advertising text......................................................................21

3.2 Informational structure within the text – theme and rheme ........................23

4 LINGUISTIC MEANS USED IN ADVERTISING LANGUAGE....................26

4.1 Phonological aspect...................................................................................27

4.1.1 Rhyme...............................................................................................27

4.1.2 Rhythm .............................................................................................27

4.1.3 Alliteration........................................................................................28

4.1.4 Assonance .........................................................................................28

4.1.5 Graphic aspect of the text ..................................................................28

4.1.6 Transliteration ...................................................................................29

4.1.7 Homophones .....................................................................................29

4.2 Lexical and morphological aspect .............................................................30

4.2.1 Verb phrase .......................................................................................30

4.2.2 Noun phrase ......................................................................................30

4.2.3 Adjectives .........................................................................................31

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4.2.4 Numerals...........................................................................................32

4.2.5 Foreign words ...................................................................................32

4.2.6 Intertextuality....................................................................................32

4.2.7 Formation of new words and phrases.................................................34

4.2.8 Idiomatic constructions .....................................................................36

4.2.9 Collocations ......................................................................................37

4.3 Syntactic aspect.........................................................................................37

4.3.1 Sentence types...................................................................................37

4.3.2 Sentence structure .............................................................................40

4.3.2.1 Schematic pattering .......................................................................40

4.3.2.2 Ellipsis ..........................................................................................41

4.3.2.3 Incomplete sentences.....................................................................43

4.4 Semantic aspect.........................................................................................43

4.4.1 Personification ..................................................................................44

4.4.2 Simile................................................................................................45

4.4.3 Hyperbole .........................................................................................45

4.4.4 Metaphor...........................................................................................45

4.4.5 Metonymy.........................................................................................47

4.4.6 Antithesis ..........................................................................................47

4.4.7 Polysemy and homonymy..................................................................48

5 RESEARCH PART ..........................................................................................49

5.1 The aims of research .................................................................................49

5.2 Hypotheses and questions of the research..................................................49

5.3 Research sample .......................................................................................50

5.4 Research methods and process of research ................................................50

5.5 Results of the research ..............................................................................72

6 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................77

BIBLIOGRAPHY ....................................................................................................79

SUPPLEMENT A Review of print advertisements

SUPPLEMENT B Table of attributes

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL - CD

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LIST OF PICTURES AND GRAPHS

Picture 1: the representation of communication process

Graph 1: sentence type

Graph 2: auxiliary verbs

Graph 3: finiteness of verbs

Graph 4: tense/aspect of verbs

Graph 5: narrator

Graph 6: gradability of adjectives

Graph 7: form of adjectives

Graph 8: comparative adjectives – distribution

Graph 9: superlative adjectives – distribution

Graph 10: occurrence of linguistic means in individual branches

Graph 11: popularity and use of linguistic means by individual branches

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LIST OF SYMBOLS AND ABBREVIATIONS

1 - See the supplement A of the diploma thesis.

N – noun

V – verb

Adj – adjective

Adv – adverb

Nph – noun phrase

Num – numeral

PhrV – phrasal verb

AuxV – auxiliary verb

finV – finite verb

non-finV – non-finite verb

grad Adj – gradable adjective

non-grad Adj – non-gradable adjective

Dec. – declarative

Imp. – imperative

Int. - interrogative

1st Sg narr. – 1st singular narrator

1st Pl narr. – 1st plural narrator

sth – something

sb – somebody

polys/homon – polysemy/homonymy

sent. type – sentence type

T –technique product specialization

Cl - clothes product specialization

S - services product specialization

F – food and drink product specialization

H – household equipment product specialization

A - automobile product specialization

P - press product specialization

O – online shops specialization

Ph - pharamceutical product specialization

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C - cosmetic product specialization

J – jewelry and watch product specialization

To - tobacco product specialization

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0 INTRODUCTION

Advertising has become the part and parcel of present-day life. From

everywhere around us, advertisements of diverse types attack our privacy. In spite of

it, there is an attractive power, which is able to manipulate the consumer; an invisible

voice of advertisement advocates, encourages, asks, announces and deeply embeds

into peoples’ minds.

In last decades, the market glut of advertising caused the increased intention

and interest in linguistic aspect of advertising. Advertising has become a science.

People began to describe, analyze the linguistic means and evaluate the language

trying to find out the principles, create new kinds of relationship between elements of

language and improve the techniques, with the aim to be unique and maximize the

effect at full blast.

Who might be interested in advertising language? Advertising texts are of

great value for the analyses from linguistic, sociologist, sociolinguistic, psychological,

ethnologic and last but not least marketing point of view. Linguists are interested in

language of advertising because they want to know how particular language works in

this type of discourse, which linguistic means are used here and how advertising

language is changing in the course time. Sociologists may be interested in the fact,

how advertising influences the values, attitudes and behaviour of the society. On the

other hand, sociolinguists may study the effects of any aspect of society on the way

language is used in advertising in the course of time. Psychologists may try to

examine the effect of the advertising on human mind and motivation to fulfill material

and social needs. Ethnology may find in this field a good evidence of how the culture

of the nation has been developing. And marketing experts and advertising agencies

are interested in the language of advertising to find the tricks how to make advertising

more effective.

English advertising exploits from the high adaptability of the English

language. English enables the creators of advertisements to use word puns, figurative

language, and to mix individual styles and types of texts. Advertising unifies

language, pictures, music; it contains information, invokes emotions and

imaginations, it can capture all five senses and, besides it, it has social and practical

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aim. As a genre, it seems very diversified. There is often an interference of styles and

registers; therefore, it is often very difficult to classify advertising stylistically. In the

diploma thesis, we will show various aspects and forms of advertising discourse.

The diploma thesis is divided into two parts: theoretical part and practical

research. The objective of the first part of the work is to provide the basic definitions

connected with the issue, the analysis of language of advertising from linguistic

aspect, especially phonological, lexical and morphological, syntactic and semantic

aspect, and to provide examples and describe the most commonly used linguistic

devices and figures of speech in advertising printed text. The second part of the work

is dedicated to the research and practical analysis of the advertising slogans. In fact,

the phenomena theoretically described in the first part served as a foundation for the

practical observation in the second part.

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1 DEFINING THE CONCEPT OF ADVERTISING

In this part of the work we would like to give the reader an idea what

advertising is, how it was developed and which types of advertising exist. This part

brings basic definitions necessary for the reader to understand the whole issue.

Advertising is an inevitable part of our modern capitalist consumer society

whose outstanding feature is its competitive fight. “…advertising is not some external

curiosity which we examine, from which we are separate and superior, but something

of which we are part, and which is part of us…” (Cook 1996: 182). It is everywhere

around us: in newspapers, in magazines, on billboards along the streets, on television,

in radio, in means of public transport and any place the sponsor pays to distribute their

message. The effects of the advertising influence us whether we like it or not.

1.1 Definitions of advertising and advertising slogan

“Advertising, generally speaking, is the promotion of goods, services,

companies and ideas, usually performed by an identified sponsor. Marketers see

advertising as part of an overall promotional strategy.” (http://www.wikipedia.org/)

This definition is according to the free encyclopedia Wikipedia, but there are

also other definitions of advertising, for example, The American Heritage Dictionary

says that the advertising is:

1. “The activity of attracting public attention to a product or business, as by paid

announcements in the print, broadcast, or electronic media. 2. The business of designing and writing advertisements.

3. Advertisements considered as a group: This paper takes no advertising.”

Advertisement is a concrete manifestation of advertising; “a paid public

announcement appearing in the media.” (http://www.motto.com/glossary.html)

Another definition of advertising is according to the Investorwords glossary:

“Description or presentation of a product, idea, or organization, in order to induce

individuals to buy, support, or approve of it.”

(http://www.investorwords.com/129/advertising.html)

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All these definitions have in common the fact, that advertising is a means of

promotion the product, idea, or organization on the market with the aim to give

information and to persuade people of the advantage of the product and induce them

to take and action (e.g. buy it).

To consolidate the terminology, we must define the concept of slogan. Advertising slogan has many definitions. Among the most apt belong:

Slogan is “a word or phrase that is easy to remember, used for example by a

political party or in advertising to attract people’s attention or to suggest an idea

quickly.” (Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary 2001).

It is “short, memorable advertising phrase: Examples include "Coke Is It," "Just

Do It," and "Don’t Leave Home Without It." When a product or company uses a

slogan consistently, the slogan can become an important element of identification in

the public’s perception of the product.” (http://www.motto.com/glossary.html)

The concept of slogan is used among authors of books about advertising in

various ways. Advertising layout is divided into several parts: headline, body copy

(the main part of the advertising message, often divided into subheads), signature line

(a mention of a brand-name, often accompanied by a price-tag, slogan or trade-mark)

and standing details (e.g. the address of the firm). (See Leech 1972: 59). In this

understanding, slogan is not identified with headline and vice versa and the term is

used in narrow sense. However, Greg Myers (Myers 1997) uses the term ‘slogan’ in

larger sense - for any catchy phrase, what a headline definitely is. In many cases, the

boundaries between slogan and headline disappear. For that reason, we will accept the

second idea and will use the term ‘slogan’ in broader sense.

1.2 History of advertising

Advertising traces its history back to ancient times. Wikipedia says that the

first forms of advertising messages were transferred by word of mouth, however, in

the ruins of Pompeii commercial messages and election campaign displays have been

found. Egyptians used Papyrus to create sales messages and wall posters, while in

Greece and Rome lost-and-found advertising on papyrus was common. Wall or rock

painting for commercial advertising is another manifestation of an ancient media

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advertising form, which is present to this day in many parts of Asia, Africa and South

America.

With the form of advertising, we could meet in the marketplaces, where the

sellers used to shout and extol their products. In the course of time, people more and

more tried to differentiate their products and began to find out new ways of

presenting. They started to accentuate the visual aspect of the advertisement. With the

expansion of colour printing and colourful posters the streets began to revel in

colours. These posters were ancestors to our modern billboards.

As the economy and the trade were expanding during the 19th century, the

need for advertising grew. Gradually, advertising transformed into a modern, more

scientific and sophisticated conception. New visual techniques have been launched.

Not only the content of the message is important, but also the form. The creativity of

copywriters, who are finding new ways, leads to the richness of various forms of

advertising.

1.3 Types of advertising

According to Geoffrey Leech (Leech 1972), most frequent and important type

of the advertising is “‘commercial consumer advertising’: advertising directed

towards a mass audience with the aim of promoting sales of a commercial product or

service. It is the kind which uses most money, professional skill, and advertising

space in this country.” (‘this country’, here: Great Britain). Example:

“Plump it up. New volume boost liquid lip colour. Paints lips with a high shine

lacquer finish. Feel the tingling sensation as formula begins to work.”

Another type of commercial advertising is ‘prestige advertising’. Here the

name and the positive image of the company are advertised rather than a product or a

service. Example:

“The America’s Cup: the oldest and most coveted trophy in the world of

sailing. Its organizers have entrusted once again the vital timing of the races to

Omega, a company whose experience in watchmaking and sports timekeeping

dates back over 150 years…to the very origins of the America’s Cup itself.”

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We may mention ‘industrial or trade advertising’, where a company

advertises its products or services to other firms, so the communication is between

equals. They both (copywriter and the reader) have as an interest as a particular

knowledge about the product advertised. Therefore, “industrial advertising typically

lays greater emphasis on factual information than prestige and consumer advertising

and less emphasis on the persuasive elements.” (Vestergaard and Schroder 1985: 2)

Example:

“You can trust Trenkwalder. We can search for and find the right professional

challenge for your career. We offer you: • Advice about the employment market

• An analysis of your personal career opportunities, taking into account your

knowledge, your experience and your preferences”

As an example of non-commercial advertising, we may mention appeals

from associations and societies whether their purposes are charity or political

propaganda:

“Thanks to the World Food Programme, this little girl in Mozambique knows

she won’t go hungry today.”

We can classify the types of advertising also according to the type of medium:

TV, radio, brochures, leaflets, magazines, newspapers and other printed material

advertising, the Internet and Direct Mail advertising, outdoor advertising, etc.

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2 ADVERTISING AS KIND OF COMMUNICATION

According to Widdowson, human language “serves as a means of cognition

and communication: it enables us to think for ourselves and to cooperate with other

people in our community.” (Widdowson 2000: 3). It follows that advertising is a kind

of communication between the creator of advertisement (in fact, the copywriter who

substitutes the producer/seller and transfers his ideas into advertisements), and the

consumer.

2.1 The process of communication

Now we will describe the communication process in general.

Communication is the process between at least two sides – the addresser (transmitter –

speaker or writer) and the addressee (receiver – listener or reader). Between these two

participants, the coded meaning (information) is transmitted through the

communication channel. Each communication is proceeding in given context or

situation. The communication process is represented in the following picture:

Picture 1: the representation of communication process (Vestergaard and Schroder 1985: 16)

From this graphic representation we can clearly see that, in case of advertising,

“the addresser is the copywriter, and the addressee is the reader, the meaning

transmitted is about the product (more specifically, an attempt to make the reader buy

the product), the code (in the case of press advertising) is language and some sort of

visual code, the channel consists of printed publications, and the context will include

such features as the reader’s total situation (does he have the product already? can he

afford it? etc.), the publication in which the advertisement appears, and last but not

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least the knowledge that the text is and advert.” (Leech 1974: 49, in: Vestergaard and

Schroder 1985: 15). From this we conclude that advertising is a kind of

communication with its own principles. The addresser is a producer – a company that

tries to persuade the addressee – a consumer - to buy a product. The code of the

language has to be known by all participants of the communication.

The information communicated by the advertisement is not discussing

everything about the product. It is incomplete because there is no space enough to

describe the product into details. The information only contains what the producer

thinks the consumer needs to know. It always contains the name of the product and

usually the information how it can benefit the customer.

Angela Goddard emphasizes the idea of narrator and narratees. She says

that the writer is the person who constructs the text in reality (in advertising texts, the

real writers are the copywriters and artists who work in an advertising agency’s

creative department), while the narrator is the storyteller within the text. Copywriters

can construct all sorts of different narrators to convey to us the message, for example,

a female writer can construct a male narrator, or an adult writer can construct a child

narrator:

“ “She’s got more than me, mum.” ”

Narratees are, on the other hand, people who appear to being addressed. In fact, in

advertising communication a narratee is not a certain person, but at least a target

group, or a whole public.

“The widest address forms to be given to a narratee in an advertisement are: a)

no address form at all (0) or b) ‘you’ (or the possessive form, ‘your’). In both these

cases, any person reading the advert can feel addressed by it and not excluded from

the communication.” (Goddard 1998: 31). The widely used pronoun ‘your’

symbolizes the closeness of the product to the consumer.

A narrator might be:

o The first person singular narrator ‘I’ – a character in the story

itself; this kind of text sounds more personally; the narrator talks to

us:

“I’m a big looser.”

“ “I am unique. Moissanite is me.” ”

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o The first person plural narrator ‘We’ – This may evoke the

effect the whole company or association talks to the narratee. It

makes a corporate impression:

“We bring Olympic energy to your home.”

o The third person omniscient narrator ‘He’, ‘She’, ‘It’, ‘They’

or ‘0’– it is ‘an observer’ of events, telling us about actions or

product:

“In their eyes, they can tug forever.”

“Stop seeing broken hair everywhere.”

“One just right for you.”

2.2 Verbal and non-verbal communication in advertising

In this branch, various media embody the communication channel, for

example billboards, radio, cinema and television, web banners and web popups,

skywriting, press (magazines, newspapers, printed leaflets), advertisements in public

transport, floating advertising on blips and balloons, illuminated signs, and many

other possibilities to promote the product in public.

In most cases of advertising, we use verbal language for express ideas often

accompanied by a picture or symbol, music, some kind of computer animation or

video related to the verbal text. Verbal language is concerned with words; it is not a

synonym for oral or spoken language. Non-verbal (wordless) message can be sent or

received “through any sensory channel - visual perception, sound, smell, touch, taste;

through gesture, body language or posture, facial expressions and eye gaze; object

communication such as clothing, hairstyles or even architecture; symbols and

infographics; prosodic features of speech such as intonation and stress and other

paralinguistic features of speech such as voice quality, emotion and speaking style”

(http://www.wikipedia.org/).

The use of non-verbal communication, also called paralanguage, is inevitable

part of advertising language. There are many examples of use of non-verbal language

in advertising: web banners of bright colours moving quickly in front of our eyes, a

romantic music in an advertisement for a new women’s perfume and a fragrant stripe

of the same inside the Cosmopolitan magazine, surprised face of a woman who has

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just found a fantastic washing powder and a mild voice of a young man in radio

advertising for an insurance company. A nice example of facial gestures expressing

the smell and taste in printed advertising is included in the supplement A ( 1).

It depends on media used whether verbal, non-verbal or both communications

are used in particular advertisement.

2.3 Public versus word-of-mouth communication of advertising

Another question is whether advertising is public (non-personal) or private

(personal) communication.

“Private communication is a process which involves a known number of

persons who are well-known to each other” (Vestergaard and Schroder 1985: 13) and,

on the other hand, public communication is defined as communication between the

addresser and anonymous public - like in literature, film, press and advertising. (See

Vestergaard and Schroder). It follows that advertising is one-way public

communication, because anonymous public cannot answer the copywriter back and

cannot express their opinion. The feedback is missing. However, each seller would

confirm that the best for his or her business is word-of-mouth advertising. The

customers, employees, and friends – they all can be propagators, whether in positive

or negative sense. Many copywriters are completely sure that this is the most

important kind of advertising.

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3 TEXT OF ADVERTISING AND ITS STRUCTURE

Text is a structured unit consisting of smaller units. It is “a stretch of language

which makes coherent sense in the context of its units. It may be spoken or written; it

may be as long as a book or as short as a cry for help.” (Quirk et al. 1990: 434).

Advertising, if we mean the verbal one, is a type of text. We can find advertising texts

in printed materials or, in spoken form, broadcasted by radio or TV. In printed

advertising, the text may serve only for catching the reader’s attention, provide

information about the product or serve as an anchorage (the link between the image

and its context; some guidance to the reader) for the image.

3.1 Cohesion of advertising text

To achieve the unity, continuity and fluency of the text, “English sentences

can be linked in various ways, among which repetition of an element and back

reference by means of pronouns are among the more important.” (Halliday and Hasan

1976, in: Vestergaard and Schroder 1985: 18). Other techniques are also used to join

sentences together, for example, we use synonymy, place and time relaters,

determiners, pro-forms (pronouns, pro-verbs, other pro-forms), ellipsis, enumeration,

parallelism (repetition of sentence structure), conjunctions and various transitions. All

these ‘sentence signals’ refer back or forward to neighboring sentences. This principle

is called cohesion. Widdowson defines cohesion as “the ties that connect up units of

language to form text. (…) The repeated pattern provides a kind of texture to the text,

sets up a kind of connection or cohesion across the sentences.” (Widdowson 2000:

125, 38). Here we give an example of cohesion in advertising text:

“The starting point of a great soup, casserole, or risotto is simple, well-made

stock. Knorr Simply Stock is just that. Made from natural ingredients, with no

artificial colours, flavours or preservatives, it’s a great way of enhancing the

flavour of your dishes.”

We see here that the main subject that everything derives from is Knorr Simply Stock.

In the first sentence, it is expressed by the identification attribute ‘simple, well-made

stock’, in the second sentence by the pronoun ‘that’ and in the last sentence by the

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pronoun ‘it’. All are cohesion devices used for prevent unnecessary repetition in the

text. We can see in this advertisement also another feature typical for advertising, and

that is cataphora: first the description of the product, later on the name of the product

is mentioned. It is because the sellers want to induce the favourable impression that

the product is the solution for given situation.

We can observe cohesion not only at the level beyond sentences but also

within sentences. This is achieved by use of coordination and subordination of

clauses:

“Peter is tired. He wants to sleep a lot.”

We can connect these two clauses into one sentence:

“Peter is tired, so he wants to sleep a lot.”

Coordination is especially important cohesional factor in advertising language. There

are three types of coordination – linking (use of coordinating conjunctions and, or,

so, but), parataxis (“short, simple clauses, often without the use of conjunctions and

often sharing the same subject” (http://www.wikipedia.org/); “it is applying to the

omission of both coordinate and subordinate conjunctions, and to clauses and phrases

both.”(https://lists.usm.maine.edu/) and apposition (“two elements are placed side by

side, with the second element serving to define or modify the first.”

(http://www.wikipedia.org/)). Leech says, that in some cases, copywriters show

tendencies to use

1. Coordination in places, where subordination would have made the relationship

between clauses more explicit, and

2. Non-linking coordination (parataxis and apposition) in preference to linking

coordination. (Leech 1972: 143)

He demonstrates the first case on the following example:

“Just water it on, and weeds shoot up, then curl and wither away.”

This is an imperative linked to an affirmative clause. It might be paraphrased by a

sentence with a conditional clause:

“If you just water it on, weeds shoot up, then curl and wither away.”

There is also a type of sentence in advertising, which consists of a pair of imperative

clauses in apposition:

“Be sure of yourself. Use Body Mist, the perfumed deodorant.”

This, too, might have been expressed by a subordinate clause:

“To be sure of yourself, use Body Mist, the perfumed deodorant.”

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In press advertising, we can observe noun group parataxis for example in the listing of

the addresses of the advertising firm:

“New York – Paris – London”.

Parataxis of adjective groups is also common and serves the same kind of purpose as

the listing of pre-modifying adjectives in a noun group. (See Leech 1972: 147) (here:

noun/adjective group = noun/adjective phrase). Following example is a parataxis of

separate adjectives:

“New. Better. Happier.”

According to these examples we can suppose, that the headline

“Thinking larger. Moving faster.”

is the example of verb phrase parataxis.

The apposition of two noun groups is a construction highly represented in

advertisement language. Usually the product name precedes the noun group, which

describes it, but the reverse order also occurs:

“Neotec. The only tripod with built-in zoom.”

We can observe the tendency to cut up the sentences in places where linking

conjunctions, commas or dashes usually appear:

“After 173 years, we know quite a bit about diamonds. But love is still a

complete mystery.”

“It’s just another Renault. Reliable. Technically superior. Best in its class. Just

like every other Renault we make.”

We could remake these two advertisements:

“After 173 years, we know quite a bit about diamonds, but love is still a

complete mystery.”

“It’s just another Renault – reliable, technically superior and best in its class –

just like every other Renault we make.”

3.2 Informational structure within the text – theme and rheme

The textual structure can be studied not only from the point of view of the

connection of the sentences to make up a text, but we can also consider it from the

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informational point of view. It means, how we can structure units of information

within the sentences.

Units of information can be placed in various ways, according to the degree of

their prominence. In case of sentence where unmarked end-focus principle is

applied, the RHEME (also called new, focal element; comment) is the informationally

most prominent element of a tone group containing the new information, while the

THEME (also called given, non-focal element; topic) is the least prominent element

containing given information, which is assumed to be known from the former text or

from the context. The most important information goes at the end of the statement and

the least important one, by contrast, at the beginning, functioning only for

“announcing that the starting point of the message is established” (Quirk et al. 1972:

397). In following example, (and in most cases), the theme is the subject of the

sentence, while the rest of the sentence is rheme. The hearer or reader usually expects

this unmarked form:

“I wrote Ann a letter.”

We put the characteristic accent (intonational nucleus) on the last stressed

syllable of the tone group. “It is natural to place the new information after providing a

context of given information, so we can regard focus (identified prosodically) as most

naturally and normally occurring at the end of informational unit.” (Quirk et al. 1972:

398). In this case, the subject ‘I’ is the theme; the rheme is the rest of the sentence

increasing the communicative dynamism from ‘ wrote Ann a’ towards the last word

‘letter’.

This occurs very frequently also in advertising language, where copywriters

are in the habit of making short but condensed sentences. This evokes the impression

of much new and important information within a short text. This technique saw its

‘boom’ in the 1960s.

Copywriters try to remove verbs at all, or to remove finite verbs and replace

them by their non-finite forms, eliminate pronouns and create as short sentences as

possible in order to “cut up the sentences into more information units”, so that the

same sequence of words will contain more focal elements rather than one. (See

Vestergaard and Schroder 1985: 23). Following advertisements offer examples:

“Solgar ingredients are selected on quality. Not price.”

“Take the World. Touched by THAI.”

“DVD triple boxsets. From £15.97. Typical. 3 for the price of 1.”

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“Jeans that fit. Beautifully.”

Now we will consider the fourth example as a single utterance:

“Jeans that fit beautifully.”

This does not mean the same as the original text. “The original asserts that these are

jeans that fit (implying they fit well), presenting the verb "fit" as new information,

then following up with the further new information that the jeans fit beautifully. In the

revised version, only "beautifully" is new information. Additionally, by segmenting

the first utterance in the original as "Jeans that fit", the advertisement authors create

the implication that there may be jeans that do not fit (well).”

(http://www.stanford.edu/class/linguist34/Unit_02/given-new.htm)

These advertisements reflect the quest to make the text more dynamic; the

utterances are organized into smaller units to underline the content of each. In each

group, there is new information, a new rheme, each containing its own nuclear accent.

Nowadays, copywriters still remain creating text with short sentences full of

important information about the product. However, many advertising texts are more

compact; the text is an integrated unit, ordinary connected whole rather then some

unnatural sequence of phrases. In the supplement A, we offer the reader an example

of an advertisement showing, how copywriters today compose the texts even into

short narrations ( 2).

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4 LINGUISTIC MEANS USED IN ADVERTISING LANGUAGE

Leech in his book (Leech 1972: 25) writes, that the language of advertising

belongs to so called ‘loaded language’. Wikipedia defines it as “the writing or

speech, which implies an accusation of demagoguery or of pandering to the

audience.” Leech says that loaded language has the aim to change the will, opinions,

or attitudes of its audience. He claims that advertising differs from other types of

loaded language (such as political journalism and religious oratory) in having a very

precise material goal – changing the mental disposition to reach the desired kind of

behaviour – buying a particular kind of product.

To persuade people to buy the product is the main purpose of the advertising.

Among such great competition, the producer wants to demonstrate the uniqueness of

his product. He wants to differentiate it from the rest. He is trying to find new

techniques of advertisement. Also, the advertisement texts must be more attractive

and more unexpected. They must catch the attention of the audience and then identify

the product. Copywriters create uncommon, surprising, interesting texts with catchy

slogans or phrases. The reader or listener must give it some thought and the result is

manipulation with him in order to buy the product. Leech sets following principles of

advertising texts: Attention value, Readability (by means of simple, personal, and

colloquial style), Memorability (most important in the process of advertising is to

remember the name of the product) and Selling power (Leech 1972: 27). The last

principle is crucial. David Ogilvy (Ogilvy 1985: 7) in his book says:

“I do not regard advertising as entertainment or an art form, but as a medium of

information. When I write an advertisement, I don’t want you to tell me that you find

it ‘creative’. I want you to find it so interesting that you buy the product.”

We may identify the advertising as a type of discourse, because “it can tell us a

good deal about our own society and our own psychology (…) Discourse is text and

context together.” (Cook 1996: 2-5). We could analyze the whole discourse of

advertising, it means “the interaction of all elements that participate in advertising

discourse: participants, function, substance, pictures, music, a society, paralanguage,

language, a situation, other advertising and other discourse.” Although such analysis

would be complete, it would be very difficult to elaborate it in such limited space. For

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that reason, in this work we will analyze the language of advertising from the

linguistic, especially phonological, lexical and morphological, syntactic and semantic

point of view. We will provide examples and describe the most commonly used

linguistic devices and figures of speech in advertising printed text.

4.1 Phonological aspect

Advertising language often uses the techniques similar to those in poetic texts.

The advantage of so-called mnemonic devices (rhyme, rhythm, alliteration and

assonance) is the mnemotechnical effect. It guarantees that the receiver of the

advertisement better remembers the text and recalls it at the right moment.

4.1.1 Rhyme

Rhyme is a pattern of “identity of sound between words or verse-lines

extending from the end to the last fully accented vowel and not further.” (Concise

Oxford English Dictionary 2004). Rhyme refers to sounds, not spelling. It is

commonly found in jingles, slogans and headlines, like in this one:

“Eukanuba gives their teeth the strength they need.”

4.1.2 Rhythm

The aim of advertising is to be catchy and easy to remember. One of the

devices how copywriters can reach it is to use prosodic features – intonation, rhythm

and lexical stress - because they have a great emotional and mnemonic effect. Even

the scientists cannot explain why has rhythm and repetition so powerful attraction on

human mind. Some suggest that it recalls the regular sound of the mother’s heartbeat

in the womb (Langer 1967: 324; Stetson 1951, in: Cook 1996: 120) or other compare

it to the dances of ritual magic (Olson, 1950, in: Cook 1996: 120), that they have an

enhancing effect on neuronal circuits in the brain (Newman 1986, in: Cook 1996:

120).

Copywriters often use language with rhythmical arrangement. The listener or

reader need not notice it and he perceives it only subconsciously. The result is, that

the text is memorable and linguistically neat. If the rhythm has some regularity, it is

called metre. “Metre is a pattern composed of rhythm groups (feet) consisting of

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similar or identical patterns of stressed and unstressed syllables. (…) Metrical scheme

may easily pass unnoticed.)” (Leech 1972: 186). English poetry has various types of

metrical feet. Among the most important belong an iamb (an unstressed syllable

followed by a stressed syllable: x / ), a trochee (a stressed syllable followed by an

unstressed one: / x ), a dactyl (a stressed syllable followed by two unstressed

syllables: / x x ), a spondee (consisting of two stressed syllables: / / ), a pyrrhic

(two unstressed syllables: x x ), and an anapest (two unstressed syllables followed

by a stressed one: x x / ). Advertisement slogans often benefit from the metrical

regularity:

“Flatter your figure with Dietrim.” This slogan is composed of three dactyls.

/ x x / x x / x x

'flæ/t (r) j (r) 'fI/g (r) wI 'daI/ /trIm

4.1.3 Alliteration

Alliteration can be defined as “literary technique, in which successive words

(more strictly, stressed syllables) begin with the same consonant sound or letter.”

(http://www.wikipedia.org/). It is widely used in advertising slogans. There are 20

consonant sounds in English, but those that are made by stopping the air-stream

completely (p, b, m, n, t, d, k and g) are according to Greg Myers (Myers 1997) most

used, because stand out more than others.

“Performance. Prestige. Passion for Innovation.”

4.1.4 Assonance

Assonance is a linguistic device, in which the same vowel in successive

stressed syllables creates a vowel harmony. It is not so obvious type of scheme as

alliteration.

“How much reality can you handle?”

4.1.5 Graphic aspect of the text

We will not devote ourselves to the graphic aspect of the advertising text into

details, but we will draw attention to the most important ways in which the letters can

be presented. It does not have anything with sounds. It deals only with graphic

elaboration of the text. Almost all printed advertisements exploit from the fact of

being printed. Copywriters have to decide how to make the layout. The selection of

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script, its colour, type and size is the inevitable part of making a good advertisement.

However, not only this may contribute to the final effect. The other possibilities are:

o Unpredictable spelling of words (“Beanz Meanz Heinz”, “4ever”,

“Bar B Q”, “süper”, etc.)

o Higher frequency of low-frequent letters that produce

outstanding sounds (‘X’ is very popular: “Xerox”, “Botox” and use

of palato-alveolar consonants /t /, / /, /d�/).

o Unexpected print of letters - whether the size or their shape is

similar to some object and this object replaces the letter.

o Acronyms and initialisms with graphic exploitation – the letters

of abbreviation create the first letters of words. The effect is

highlighted by means of colour, size or layout:

“XTROVERT. XPLOSIVE. LOVE THE COLOUR. COLOR XXL”

Examples of in an interesting way printed texts are provided in the supplement A

( 3, 4, 5, 6, 7).

4.1.6 Transliteration

Using of transliteration in advertisement is not so frequent, but when occurred,

it makes a positive result. It definitely attracts reader’s attention. Transliteration

means the transformation of foreign words into English. Usually the spelling of the

foreign word is different but the pronunciation in these special cases is the same as

English:

“BE COINTREAUVERSIAL.” (here: COINTREAU is the name of French

alcoholic drink)

4.1.7 Homophones

In English, there are many words that sound the same but are spelled

differently. Linguists call them homophones. Copywriters use homophony to create

puns in advertising language. This kind of play works best in print. As the fantastic

example we show following example:

“Sainsbury’s have discovered that the finest whisky is kept under loch and

quay.” (Myers : 43).

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Myers says: “The spelling and pictures make us think of the relevant Scottish

meanings first, but we must also recall the idiomatic phrase that fits in the sentence,

lock and key. (…) Each of two interpretations – as spelling or as sound – has some

support.”

4.2 Lexical and morphological aspect

This part of the work will be concerned with typical characteristics of the

vocabulary of advertising and most commonly used figures of speech.

4.2.1 Verb phrase

There exist two types of structure of verb phrase: finite verb phrase and non-

finite verb phrase. The first one is “a verb phrase in which the first or only word is a

finite verb (it has the tense contrast, person and number concord with the subject), the

rest of the phrase (if any) consisting of nonfinite verbs. (…) The infinitive, the –ing

participle and the –ed participle are the non-finite forms of the verb.” (Quirk et al.

1990: 41). In advertising, “verbal groups are mostly of maximum simplicity,

consisting of only one word.” (Leech 1972: 121). It is obvious by a quick look

through our advertising material in research part that the majority of finite verb

phrases are either simple present forms (to satisfy the customer’s desire for the present

state of the product and its implication of universality and timelessness) or else simple

imperatives. Phrasal verbs are also used. According to Leech, passive voice occurs

very sporadically and so does the application of auxiliary verbs. Two auxiliary verbs

often used in advertising are the future auxiliary ‘will’, because it evokes the

impression of ‘promise’ and the modal auxiliary ‘can’. If an animate subject precedes

the verb ‘can’, (in most cases ‘you’ = ‘customer’ ‘you can…’), the consumer is told

that the product gives him or her the ‘ability’ to do this or that. If an inanimate subject

(in most cases the brand-name e.g. ‘Nivea peeling can…’) precedes ‘can’, the

consumer is told what ‘possibilities’ the product offers. (See Leech 1972: 125).

4.2.2 Noun phrase

In general, noun phrases in advertisements are far more complex than verb

phrases. In advertising language, the interesting part of the noun phrase is the pre-

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modifying part, which is usually very complex and is characterized by certain unusual

structural features. The complexity of pre-modification is based on the effort to catch,

describe and specify the properties of the product in attractive way:

“First automatic chronograph with a 72-hour power-reserve and patented

compression push-buttons. Mechanical automatic movement 751, made in-

house.”

Here the only verb is the verb ‘make’ in passive voice.

In many cases, whole advertising text does not contain any verb; it consists

only of noun phrases. Inside the noun phrase, clusters of two, three or more adjectives

are possible:

“Gingery Fudgy Nutty Creamy Mischievous Mouthfuls.”

A word ‘fudgy’ is a neologism created by copywriters. Normally it is a noun and it

does not exist in form of an adjective.

High number of genitives occurs in names of manufacturer, names of time and

names of towns.

“Bigham’s gourmet canapés”

“Britain’s No.1”

4.2.3 Adjectives

While reading the advertisement, the reader may notice the hyperbolic

character of the language. This exaggeration causes increased number of

comparative and superlative adjectives. The product is better, nicer, newer, and

tighter and the customer is happier and more satisfied. The product offers more

information, more entertainment, more comfort, more than any other product. We

may observe in our list of advertisements that gradable adjectives (they describe

qualities that can be measured in degrees; they can be used in comparative or

superlative forms) outnumber non-gradable adjectives (“they describe qualities that

are completely present or completely absent; they do not occur in comparative and

superlative forms, and cannot be used with adverbs such as very or extremely,

because we don’t usually imagine degrees of more or less of the quality being

described.”

(http://www.onestopenglish.com/teacher_support/ask/Grammar/grammar15.htm), e.g.

biological, school, telephonic.)

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Epithet is a descriptive word or phrase, which “emphasizes particular characteristic

of described object or event and concretizes its idea, eventually expresses author’s

evaluative and emotional attitude.” (Slovník literární teorie 1997, in: mejrková

2000: 91). There are two types of epithets: epithet constans (commonly used

stereotyped collocation, e.g. heavy rain, bright day) and epithet ornans (decorative). In

advertising, most widely used are epithets like fresh, new, gentle, creamy, silky,

delicious, beautiful, ideal, excellent, unforgettable, eternal, etc., and, accordingly, the

gradational forms of them.

4.2.4 Numerals

In many advertisements, we can see the use of numerals. It is necessary if the

copywriters want to define the characteristics of the product exactly. Numerals are

used to define quantity of various aspects, for example percentage of some substance

in a product, number of years in connection to the length of the tradition of the

product, the number of satisfied customers, etc.

4.2.5 Foreign words

Foreign words are used in advertisements to emphasize the origin of the

product or exclusiveness of the product in relation to particular country:

“La crème de la crème of lipcolour.”

French word ‘crème’ evokes the impression of good-class French cosmetics. Even

more, the phrase ‘crème de la crème’ is taken from French and it means ‘the best

people or things of their kind’ (Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary 2001).

4.2.6 Intertextuality

Intertextuality is “the way in which one text echoes or refers to another text. It

means that, for example an advertisement:

“To be in Florida in winter, or not to be in Florida in winter”

would contain an intertextual reference to a key speech in Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

Intertextuality can operate at many different levels of language, from phonological

and lexical references in titles and slogans to visual aspects such as layouts and

images. (…) Intertextuality can be an important component of and advert’s meaning,

in that the original text being referred to establish a message, which the second text

can then use and elaborate on. (…) For intertextuality to work completely, readers

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have to be able to remember the original advert and place the reference being

established. But if they don’t, it doesn’t matter too much, for the contemporary advert

will simply be enigmatic…” (Goddard 1998: 124)

In advertising, the intertextuality is used in such conditions, where there is

justifiable supposition that the original text is well-known among people. “Tyto texty

(jsou-li krátké) nebo jejich prvky (v p ípad v t ích celk ) se bu doslova citují, aneb

– ast ji – se modifikují. Pozm ují se ov em tak, aby odkaz k p vodnímu textu

z stal z ejm a aby se text a jeho kontext vnímateli vybavil. Na základ tohoto

kritéria se n kdy rozli uje citát, kter je doslovnou reprodukcí podkladového textu

a b vá, nikoli v ak nutn , vyzna en v novém textu uvozovkami, a aluze (z latinského

alludere = zahrávat si), která je jen nará kou, poukazem k n jakému podkladovému

textu.” ( mejrková 2000: 169-191).

Sv tla mejrková further presents various ways how intertextuality can be

used in advertising. It can be based on:

o Fixed phrases, idioms and collocations (“A SMOOTH MOVE

HAIR REMOVAL FROM HEAD-TO-TOE”),

o Biblical sentences (“Do unto you as you would have others do unto

you. Toyota.” The original statement says: “Do unto others as you

would have them do unto you”),

o Quotation of famous people or employees of the company,

o Statements of historical persons (“iThink, Therefore iMac.” ‘I am’

is replaced by ‘iMac’. The original phrase is a philosophical

statement by René Descartes: “I think, therefore I am.”; a phrase

used by Julius Caesar “Veni, vidi, video.”)

o Proverbs and sayings,

o Names of literary works, films, or television programmes (“Not

trying it would be a Greek tragedy”),

o Quotations from songs and fairy tales,

o Mixing of various styles - e-mail, letter, interview, telephonic

conversation, recipe, etc. (“Pleased to meet you”).

As example of intertextuality in visual aspect, see the advertisement in the

supplement A of the diploma thesis ( 8).

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4.2.7 Formation of new words and phrases

In English, there exist many different ways of adding new words to the

vocabulary. Advertising texts take advantage of using made-up or adapted words and

expressions in order to support the creative aspect of advertisement and its attraction.

In the text, of course, occur words formed by affixation, compounding, conversion,

shortening, blending, and back-formation and by other ways of creating new words.

The readers even needn’t notice such words, because they sound familiar and ordinary

to them. However, if a new word is ‘deviated’ (it is accommodated somehow to the

context of the advertising text), it becomes striking and interesting for the reader. Let

us introduce you a few examples:

We can find new words and phrases formed by compounding. Very striking

feature of advertising language is a variety of “lexical units, where each unit is

consisting of two or more bases (roots)” (Kvetko 2001: 40) They are called compound

words. A compound word may be characterized by its inseparability (it cannot be

interrupted by another word), semantic unity, morphological and syntactic functioning

and certain phonetical and graphic features. (See Kvetko 2001: 40).

Examples of compounds are: breakfast, hard-working, double-click, within,

fine-tune, airship, world-wide, etc. Compounds may be of two types: coordinative

(south-west) and subordinative. Subordinative compounds are divided into 1.

Germanic type = determinant + determinatum (e.g. highway) and 2. French type =

determinatum + determinant (e.g. snow-white). (See Kvetko 2001: 43)

The creativity of copywriters goes beyond the normal frequency of compounds

used in other types of discourse. Because of the intentions to render in best possible

way the product, various compounds are used and created (e.g. good-as-homemade,

Jus-Rol, pain-relieving, state-of-the-art, hand-crafted, head-to-toe, one-of-a-kind,

platinum-inlayed, all-new, front-facing, touch-sensitive, built-in).

Affixation is another “very effective process of building new words by adding

an established prefix or suffix to the existing base. (…) It is a most productive process

of creating new words in English.” (Kvetko 2001: 35). A suffix occurs after and a

prefix occurs before the base. “A suffix usually changes not only the lexical meaning

of a word but also its word class” (Kvetko 2001: 36), e.g.: to read (V) a reader (N);

a friend (N) friendly (Adv); a clock (N) clockwise (Adv, Adj); to differ (V)

different (Adj) differential (Adj). “A prefix usually changes or concretizes the

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lexical meaning of a word and only rarely word class.” (Kvetko 2001: 38), e.g.

nonsmokers, dislike, rebuild, postwar, autobiography, antinuclear, hypersensitive.

The following examples show the creativity of advertising language: “provodkative,

cookability” (Cook 1996: 140), anti-aging, jewel-like, Casiology.

Shortening in general is “a process in which part of the original word is taken

away. It expresses the trend of Modern English towards monosyllabism.” (Kvetko

2001: 47). Shortening contains clipping, acronyms and initialisms. Clipping is “a

reduction of a word to a shorter form. It is a cutting off one or more syllables of a

word.” (Kvetko 2001: 47), e.g. fan (fanatic), gym (gymnastics), bus (omnibus), exam

(examination), taxi (taxicab), phone (telephone), mobile (mobile phone), fridge

(refrigerator), lab (laboratory), photo (photography). Acronyms are words formed

from the initials of expressions consisting one or more word and read as ordinary

words, e.g. NATO, UNESCO, AIDS. Initialisms are abbreviations with alphabetical

reading, e.g. VIP, XXL, TV, PC. We have already mentioned the possibility of taking

advantage of acronyms and initialisms in connection with the graphic layout (See p.

30 of the diploma thesis).

Blending is similar process to shortening, combined with fusing the elements

of two different words, e.g. smog (smoke + fog), vegeburger (vegetarian +

hamburger), motel (motorway + hotel), brunch (breakfast + lunch), tellyphone

(television + telephone).

“The process of coining new words in a different part of speech without

adding any derivative elements is called conversion.” (Kvetko 2001: 44) The two

words differ in meaning and syntactic function within the sentence. The major types

of conversion are: the formation of verbs from nouns: a call to call; nouns from

verbs: to walk a walk; adjectives from nouns: an orange orange and nouns from

phrasal verbs: to make up a make-up. (See Kvetko 2001). Conversion is more

productive in some languages than in others; in English, it is a fairly productive

process. In advertising, application of puns created by conversion is often very

resourceful. The most frequent strategy is to replace a word (of any word class) with a

brand name (N), so the brand name acquires syntactic features of original fictive

word. This tendency is still used after a hundred years:

“Get that Pepsi feeling.” ‘Pepsi’ is the adjective

“TDK it.” ‘TDK’ is the verb

“Let’s go Kroegering.” ‘Kroegering’ is the verb (to ‘kroeger’)

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Conversion may be used not only with the association with brand names. Here is an

example of advertisement for Penguin books situated on railway platforms. (Myers

1997: 65):

“Book at any station.”

Book is both the verb (‘reserve a ticket’) and the noun (‘a a written work published

and dedicated to reading.’). The picture of the trademark Penguin at a station links the

two.

4.2.8 Idiomatic constructions

“An idiom is an expression (i.e. term or phrase) whose meaning cannot be

deduced from the literal definitions and the arrangement of its parts, but refers instead

to a figurative meaning that is known only through conventional use. In linguistics,

idioms are figures of speech that contradict the principle of compositionality (the

principle, which tells that the meaning of a complex expression is determined by the

meanings of its constituent expressions and the rules used to combine them.).”

(http://www.wikipedia.org/). Idioms have multiword character, they are fixed and

they have common figurative meaning. The phrase ‘to be in the same boat’ has the

literal meaning ‘to be in the same boat’, and also the idiomatic figurative meaning ‘to

be in the same difficult situation’. We write more about figurative meaning in a part

Semantic aspect.

A proverb is a type of idiomatic construction. It is “a well-known phrase or

sentence that gives advice or says something that is generally true.” (Oxford

Advanced Learner’s Dictionary 2001), e.g.: ‘Too many cooks spoil the broth.’ means

that if too many people are involved in something, it will not be well done.

Copywriters use idioms and proverbs in advertisements, because these

constructions are familiar to most potential customers in a society. The idiom or a

proverb in a text may be used without formal changes, or in a creative way, where an

element of a proverb or idiom is slightly changed or replaced by another word to

create a pun and, consequently, a connection with a product. If the picture

accompanies the text, the picture usually does not represent the figurative - and, of

course - correct and common meaning of the idiom, but it represents the image and

representation of the literal meanings of its constituents ( 9):

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“Challenge us – and get yourself a bigger slice of the cake.” (Siemens

Financial Services)

An idiom ‘a bigger slice of the cake’ means a share of the available money or benefits

that you believe you have a right to. A picture represents two happy young women

eating a cake.

4.2.9 Collocations

A collocation is “a combination of words in a language, that happens very

often and more frequently than would happen by chance.” (Oxford Advanced

Learner’s Dictionary 2001). Collocations are used in advertisements, however often

without any deviation or play on words and for the reader it is often imperceptible.

We offer here an example of and advertisement with the use of deviated collocation:

“Do you believe in love at first touch?”

The original collocation sounds ‘love at first sight’, but this advertisement emphasizes

a “sleek stainless steel body” of a mobile phone.

4.3 Syntactic aspect

4.3.1 Sentence types

We may distinguish four sentence types: declaratives, interrogatives,

imperatives and exclamatives. Following definitions of each of them are quoted from

Quirk et al. 1990: 231. “Declaratives are sentences in which it is normal for the

subject to be present and to precede the verb. Interrogatives are sentences, which are

formally marked in one of two ways: yes-no interrogatives (an operator is placed in

front of the subject), and wh-interrogatives (an interrogative wh-element is positioned

initially and there is generally subject-operator inversion). Imperatives are sentences,

which normally have no overt grammatical subject, and whose verb has the base form.

Exclamatives are sentences which have an initial phrase introduced by what or how,

usually with subject-verb order.”

To these types of sentences are normally associated four discourse functions:

statements, questions, directives and exclamations. However, the association

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between syntactic type and discourse function does not always match, as the

following case shows:

“Give me a glass of water.” is an imperative, a directive.

“Could you give me a glass of water?” is an interrogative, but semantically it

is a directive, more precisely an indirect command.

A statement can also function as an indirect command: “I’m thirsty.”

So can exclamations: “What a fresh cold water!”

Because most advertisements approximate to every-day conversation, there is

relatively free selection of sentence types. Leech offers us the results of the research

dealt with the frequency of sentence types in English advertising: “…in the television

sample, over one in thirty major independent clauses were interrogative, and over one

in four major independent clauses were imperative.”

Therefore, according to the results of the research, we can say, that the second most

widely used sentence type after declarative type are the imperative clauses.

However, this research does not say anything about the frequency of direct and

indirect commands. We cannot identify the imperative sentence type with discourse

function. Imperative is not the same as directive. We may say that the imperative is

always a directive but a directive need not necessarily be an imperative.

Copywriters use imperatives, because it creates a sense of “one person is

talking to another (…) because all ads are urging us to some action.” Leech

establishes certain groups of verbal items, which are especially frequent in imperative

clauses:

Items, which have to do with the acquisition of the product: get, buy, ask

for, choose, etc.

Items, which have to do with the consumption or use of the product: have,

try, use, enjoy, etc.

Items, which act as appeals for notice: look, see, watch, remember, make

sure, etc.

“Prohibitive warnings are very infrequent. (…) Only about one imperative in fifty is

accompanied by a negative form.” (Leech 1972: 111)

Myers accentuates the absence of ‘please’ in imperative sentences and lack of

politeness. “One explanation may be that in our culture we cut out the politeness

devices if we are asking somebody to do something that benefits the hearer, not the

speaker, like in phrase “Take a seat.” ” (Myers 1997: 48)

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Why do advertisements use questions? It is for the same reason as why they

use commands: it evokes the sense of personal communication in the reader. It causes

that the reader cooperates with the text having his own individual situation in mind.

Although the copywriters cannot expect the direct answer and feedback (as we have

mentioned in section about public communication above), they expect the readers to

answer themselves silently. Another reason is the presupposition. Presuppositions

are present in any communication and many questions presuppose something. Here

comes an example of it:

“Why do leading beauty experts and models use and recommend Perfectil?”

In this case, we can deduce and belief from the content of this advertisement that

beauty experts and models use and recommend Perfectil.

In advertising language, presupposition is very frequent way of expressing the

content. Advertisers rather use presupposition than assertion because it is much easier

to deny an assertion than a presupposition:

The statement “Leading beauty experts and models use and recommend

Perfectil.” one may oppose: “I don’t believe. No way.” But in question mentioned

above, the receiver is unconsciously led to believe that the content is truthful and that

there are no doubts about the fact that they use and recommend it. Another example of

presupposition is following:

“Just the touch of the button gives you voice control of your music, climate

control and your Bluetooth hands-free phone.”

It presupposes that the car will certainly have got a button, radio player, air-condition

and hands-free set and that everything will be able to be controlled by voice.

Angela Goddard writes that presupposition is “all about reading between lines;

since this is, as it suggests, a hidden process, it is very interesting to advertisers, as we

can be taking in all sorts of assumptions without consciously paying attention to

them.” (Goddard 1998: 125)

In advertisements, there are often cases where the question is stated as kind of a

‘problem’ and then the text offers an answer – ‘a solution’ for the problem:

“Got wedding on the brain? Time to visit our new website.”

Another typical type of question used in advertising is rhetorical question. It

assumes only one possible answer:

“What more could anyone ask from a Clarins gift?”

The implied answer to this is “Of course, nothing.”

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There is one other sentence type plentifully presented in advertisements –

exclamatives. The use of exclamation marks is very liberal and widespread. (We may

notice that exclamation marks are more frequently used in exclamations than in

imperatives in English; that is why it is called ‘exclamation mark’ and not ‘imperative

mark’; while in Slovak the exclamation mark is more often used in imperatives than

in English.)

“And, it’s already wrapped!”

Exclamations may have the sentence structure as simple statements, but the

exclamation mark tells us to read them emphatically.

4.3.2 Sentence structure

In this part of the work, we shall focus our attention on the structure of sentences

in advertising language. We will mention the most important structural tendencies

used by copywriters.

4.3.2.1 Schematic pattering

The formal schemes can be represented in various ways. Parallelism is one of

the forms of schematic pattering. It can be defined as “repetition of formal patterns”

(Leech 1972: 186). Parallelism means the parallel presentation of two or more than

two similar or relevant ideas in similar structural forms. It is a rhetorical device

heightening the emotional tone of the message and its importance. We offer here an

example of parallelism of clause with the same structural pattern:

“Tips for a good night’s sleep: - Drink less caffeine.

- Take warm baths.

- Arrange your insurance with NFU

Mutual.”

Each clause has the same idea and structure beginning with verb in imperative

following by direct object. The typography and layout often contributes to the text; in

this case, each clause is printed in separate line. The last clause makes up a semantic

and formal parallel to first two clauses. Parallelism is often accompanied by

- anaphora – “the repetition of the same word or group of words at the

beginning of several consecutive sentences or verses to emphasize an

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image or a concept” (http://www.wikipedia.org/):

“Explore the hills. Explore the rivers. Explore the mountains. Explore the

sea.”

- epiphora - “the repetition of the same word or words at the end of

successive phrases, clauses or sentences.” (http://www.wikipedia.org/)

“See new. Hear new. Feel new.”

We suppose that an antimetabole is another form of schematic pattering. It is

defined as “the repetition of words in successive clauses, but in reverse grammatical

order, e.g. ‘I know what I like, and I like what I know’.” (http://www.wikipedia.org/):

“Instead of moving the furniture around, why not move around the furniture?”

Schematic pattering occurs in all levels of language. Anaphora, epiphora,

alliteration, assonance and antithesis also belong to techniques of schematic pattering.

4.3.2.2 Ellipsis

Ellipsis belongs to cohesive devices and it is defined as “the omission of part

of a structure.” (Goddard 1998: 123). Ellipsis in advertising is used for many

purposes:

For economical reasons; to save space and money because words cost

money.

Guy Cook (Cook 1996: 170) gives following example of anaphoric textual ellipsis:

“When Lisa made a surprise visit, you didn’t have time to worry about spotted

glasses. Fortunately, you didn’t have to. Cascade. Because you don’t have

time for spots.”

The second orthographic sentence contains ellipsis:

Fortunately, you didn’t have to Ø Ø Ø Ø

= Fortunately, you didn’t have to worry about spotted glasses.

The ellipted elements correspond to the preceding sentence. Repetition of these

elements would be needless. There is ellipsis also in the last two orthographic

sentences ‘Cascade’ (a single word) and ‘Because of you don’t have time for spots’ (a

subordinate clause). Cook suggests: “In the latter case, a main clause seems to have

been ellipted in entirety. But the missing elements are by no means clear.” The main

clause we can only deduce.

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It may be started with

“You ought to use Cascade…

“You ought to buy Cascade… …because you don’t have time for spots.”

“We recommend Cascade…

“To avoid drawing attention to features of the message which do not serve

the advertiser’s interest” (Cook 1996: 169)

To create a sense of informality. Ellipsis is normally used in spoken

language, in face-to-face casual communication. Ellipsis in advertising

creates an effect of closeness with the reader and conversational tone;

sometimes suggests immediacy.

In advertising, we can find many examples of situational ellipsis of

interrogative clauses:

“Expecting guests?”

In this case, we can observe the omission of subject and operator:

= “(Are you) expecting guests?”

It creates proximity and intimacy. “…it is indicative of shared knowledge

and interests, (…) it suggests a trusting relationship, in which people

assume a desire to understand on the part of their interlocutor.” (Cook

1996: 171). “…people who know each other well don’t need to be all that

explicit about their meanings, because they know the other person will fill

in the gap as a result of shared knowledge and shared history.” (Goddard

1998: 42):

“Nespresso. What else?”

This is the advertisement headline for a coffee. Everybody may recognize that the

person, who asks the question, is a waitress in a café. The whole utterance may be

“You’ll take Nespresso. What else would you like to drink?” It is clear to everybody

that ‘What else’ means that they can order something more.

The intention to make short dynamic slogans leads to the tendency to use the

symbol of colon between two noun phrases:

“Summer 2005: True Bronze.”

We can complete the expression with deduced words:

“In summer 2005, with Clinique cosmetics you may take pleasure in true

bronze skin.”

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4.3.2.3 Incomplete sentences

In advertising text, one can read whole advertisement without coming across a

main verb. There is a widely spread tendency to punctuate phrases. One reason is, that

the reader of the advertisement turns to the visual layout, which provides him many

clues to correct interpretation, so the explicit structure of the sentence is not so

important. A L’OREAL advertisement text ( 10) says:

“Revolutionary lift. Revolutionary results. REVITALIFT DOUBLE LIFTING.

Intense Re-Tightening Gel + Anti-Wrinkle Treatment.”

It is accompanied not only by the picture, but also by the body copy explaining the

phrases above. We can supply more possibilities in the beginning of the phrases, for

example:

“If you /For those who want/need a revolutionary lift of your skin and to see

revolutionary results, try/buy Revitalift Double Lifting Intense Re-Tightening

Gel and Anti-Wrinkle Treatment.”

“The effect is to suggest that we already have these desires, that they are completing

our own thoughts.” (Myers 1997: 56)

Following advertisement shows the lack of linking verb:

“The curls of your dreams. Now available when you’re awake.”

We may connect these two incomplete sentences with the linking verb ‘are’. In this

case, the verb can be clearly deduced from the context and integrated, but there are

cases where the tense and aspect are not so definite. Another reason for omitting verbs

is that there is no importance to define neither the tense nor the aspect of the verb or it

would be cumbersome.

4.4 Semantic aspect

Each linguistic expression has its literal meaning. Literal meaning denotes

what it means according to common or dictionary usage (or more exactly, what “the

reader is most likely to assign to a word or phrase if he or she knows nothing about

the context in which it is to be used.” (http://www.wikipedia.org/)). The same

linguistic expression, however, may have also its figurative meaning. It connotes

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additional layers of meaning and evokes associations; for example, the word

‘professional’ has connotations of skill and excellence. It is not possible to give an

exhaustive account of the connotations of the expression, because connotative

meanings, which have been evoked in an individual, depend on people’s entire

previous experiences and on conventions of community. Therefore, the connotations

of the same expression will differ slightly from person to person. Furthermore, the

same denotations can have different connotations in different context. Vestergaard

and Schroder (Vestergaard and Schroder 1985) believe that in advertising language,

the most frequent word for ‘acquisition of product’ is ‘get’, and not ‘buy’, because

‘buy’ has some unpleasant connotations, like ‘money’ and the parting with it.

For people, associations are very powerful, so the advertisers pay attention to

this aspect of language. They play with colours, because colours may have various

positive or negative connotations: innocence / snow / ice / race, and others for white;

passion / blood / stop signal /fire for red; etc. They must be careful about the target

group, because each culture may have different connotations to the same expressions:

in Chinese and Indian tradition, white is the color of mourning, death, and ghosts. In

India, white also stands for peace and purity. Red colour in Eastern European

countries may have slightly negative connotation in relation to the identification of

communism with "socialist" red.

A trope is “a word or phrase that is used in a way that is different from its

usual meaning in order to create a particular mental image or effect.” (Oxford

Advanced Learner’s Dictionary 2001). It is a figurative expression. In this part, we

give a list of most important tropes used in advertising language: personification,

simile, hyperbole, metaphor and metonymy. In relation to semantic aspect of

language, we define also antithesis, polysemy, and homonymy.

4.4.1 Personification

Personification is a term used mainly in literature to name the figure of speech,

which “involves directly speaking of an inanimate object, or an abstract concept, as if

it were a living entity, often one with specifically human attributes. These attributes

may include sensations, emotions, desires, physical gestures and expressions, and

powers of speech, among others.” (http://www.wikipedia.org/). The readers of

advertisements usually do not register or realize that there is used personification in

the text. It is used very widely – in all the expressions like “…(name of a facial

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crème) gives you silky skin”, “…(name of a product) fulfills your wishes” or “Dirty

kitchen? Nothing cleans it up like … (name of a cleaner)” are on the base of

personification of a brand name: a cleaner ‘cleans’, but even thought, cleaning is an

activity proper to human beings.

4.4.2 Simile

Simile is defined as “a direct, expressed comparison between two things

essentially unlike each other, but resembling each other in at least one way.”

(http://home.cfl.rr.com/eghsap/apterms.html).

Usually, similes are marked by use of the words ‘like’, ‘than’, ‘as’ or ‘as if’.

We may also find comparative constructions used when comparing two things or two

situations: “as…as”, “so…as”.

“Ibuleve gel as fast & effective as pills? Now there’s clinical evidence.”

“Breakfast without orange juice is like a day without sunshine.” (Myers

1997: 125)

4.4.3 Hyperbole

A hyperbole is “the deliberate use of overstatement or exaggeration to achieve

emphasis. Businessmen and manufacturers use the figure of speech to advertise their

goods in as attractive a way as possible.”mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

(http://www.languageinindia.com/march2005/advertisingenglishhongkong1.html):

“No other pain-relieving gel works like Deep Relief.”

“The best just got bigger!”

“The number one to Eastern Europe.”

4.4.4 Metaphor

A metaphor is very difficult issue to define and there are many ways how to

define it. We shall introduce here a definition of metaphor from Oxford Advanced

Learner’s Dictionary: it is “a word or phrase used in an imaginative way to describe

sb/sth else, in order to show that the two things have the same qualities and to make

the description more powerful.” Lakoff and Johnson in their book (Lakoff and

Johnson 1980) define metaphor as “statements and/or pictures which cause a receiver

to experience one thing in terms of another.”, for example:

“Clearly, Mother Nature is a romantic.”

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A single metaphor may be worth of a hundred words of advertising text. It has

an interesting value and stimulates the curiosity of the reader about the product. In

advertising, a metaphor usually creates a comparison between the product or service

and some other quality the advertiser wishes to be associated with the product or

service advertised:

“One touch. One light, effortless touch and she realized freedom was

something you feel.”

This advertisement is for Revlon face powder. The sentence indicates that the freedom

is actually the powder, because when you put the powder on your face, you will feel

free.

There are two types of metaphor: verbal and visual. Visual metaphors do not

relate only to words, but they depict relationships between a product or service and

some object or visual element with qualities that the advertiser wishes to attribute to

the product or service. In print advertising, visual metaphor is widely used, because it

takes advantage from the possibility to accompany the text by the image (or vice

versa). The following advertisement for deodorant clear stick would be

incomprehensible without the picture explanation ( 11):

“AVOID UNWANTED CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS.”

Another advertisement for Austrian Airlines ( 12) says:

“The number one to Eastern Europe.”

A picture of caviar on a plate designed in a way that each small ball of caviar

represents one of the European destinations makes the parallel between the caviar (it

connotes luxury) and luxurious airlines.

The picture of woman with a scarf ‘knitted’ from pills makes the relation

between the pills Redoxon – all day defence ( 13):

“Keep yourself covered all day.”

Advertisements for perfumes often without the body text but with the picture

of a young beautiful model in light transparent dress use a metaphorical implication: a

perfume will ‘cover’ you in the same way like the dress gently covers the woman in

the picture.

There are cases, in which a famous person stands for and represents the whole

brand. The qualities of him or her are attributed or aligned with the qualities of the

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product, as in the following advertisement for charm bracelet. Sasha Cohen, a famous

figure skater, represents the unstoppable quality and charm of the product:

“UNSTOPPABLE Charm SASHA COHEN HAS IT. So does her Citizen

Eco-Drive.”

The simplest advertising phrase pattern is the pattern of a brand name (one element)

and the additional phrase in apposition (second element). It creates a metaphorical

parallelism between a product and a feature or quality to which is compared:

“Infusium 23. A remedy for your hair.”

4.4.5 Metonymy

A metonymy is “the use of a single characteristic to identify a more complex

entity. (…) It is extremely common for people to take one well-understood or easy-to-

perceive aspect of something and use that aspect to stand either for the thing as a

whole or for some other aspect or part of it.” (http://www.wikipedia.org/)

Wikipedia offers some clear, commonly used examples of metonymy: ‘The

press’ for the news media, ‘Wall Street’ for the American financial industry, ‘The

Crown’ for the British monarchy. Among other examples belong following sentences:

‘He reads Shakespeare.’ (= his books), ‘I drink Champagne’ (= a drink), etc.

In advertisements, an associated word often expresses the whole group: ‘I like

Volvo’ (= Volvo cars), ‘woman is an uncharted territory’ (= all the women), ‘a

fragrance of Sabatiny’ (= perfumes made by Sabatiny).

4.4.6 Antithesis

“Antithesis is a figure of speech, which uses the same or similar structure to

express two opposite ideas so as to achieve the effects of emphasizing the meaning

and the contrast. The figure has the characteristics of harmonious combination of

sound and rhyme, balanced syllables, sharp rhythm and compendiousness. The

combination of pleasant senses of vision and hearing often stimulates the good

feelings of readers and arouses consumers' buying desire.”mmmmmmmmmmmm

(http://www.languageinindia.com/march2005/advertisingenglishhongkong1.html)

Antithesis relates to words, clauses or sentences. It is based on antonyms

(words of opposite meaning) or opposite ideas:

“Talks inside. Shouts outside. New 2006 Fiesta.”

“Imagine a mini phone with maximum style and design.”

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“Feel the surge of calm.”

4.4.7 Polysemy and homonymy

According to Ladislav Trup, there is a difference between polysemy and

homonymy from the point of view of etymology. A homonym is a lexeme, which has

the same pronunciation and spelling as another lexeme, but a different meaning, so

there is no semantic connection between the two lexemes, only phonological one

(Trup 1999: 90). For example, ‘seal’ = 1. Sea animal (N), 2. A piece of wax on letters

and boxes (N); ‘fair’ = 1. Treating people equally (Adj), 2. A market at which animals

were sold. (N).

A polyseme is a lexeme with two or more multiple, related meanings, so the

connection is not only phonological, but also semantic. The additional meaning/-s are

derived from the original meaning of the lexeme: ‘seal’ = 1. A piece of wax on letters

and boxes (N), 2. To close an envelope (V); ‘fair’ = 1. Animal market (N), 2. An

event at which people, business, etc. show and sell their goods (N).

It is usually very difficult to define, which of the meanings is original and

which are derived. Often it is difficult even to define whether the meanings are related

or not. The following advertising shows an example of a polyseme ( 14):

“To tackle weeds permanently you have to get to the Root of the problem.”

A picture shows the root of a plant in detail. The first meaning of ‘root’ is ‘the part of

a plant that grows under the ground, and the second meaning, which is related to the

first one by the value of ‘something substantial’ means ‘the main cause of a problem

or difficult situation.’ In addition, the collocation ‘to get to the root of the problem’

has here both literal meaning (‘to get under the ground and get rid of the root of the

problem = weed’) and figurative meaning (‘to find out the cause of the problem’).

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5 RESEARCH PART

5.1 The aims of research

The aim of practical research analysis is to determine the use rate of linguistic

means used in advertising slogans, even in relation to product specialization.

5.2 Hypotheses and questions of the research

1. What is the percentage of slogans containing ellipsis?

2. What is the percentage of slogans containing phrasal verb?

3. What is the percentage of slogans containing parallelism?

4. On the basis of observation of the research sample, we suppose, that the most

widely used sentence type is the imperative sentence type and the second most widely

used is the declarative sentence type.

5. On the basis of Leech’s ideas (p. 30 of this work) we suppose, that the most

widely used auxiliary verbs are ‘can’ and ‘will’.

6. On the basis of observation of the research sample, we suppose, that the

majority of verbs is finite.

7. On the basis of Leech’s ideas (p. 30 of this work) we suppose, that the

majority of finite verbs is in present simple form (due of timelessness of present

tense) and the second are future forms of verbs (due to promise something).

8. On the basis of observation of the research sample, we suppose, that the

majority of slogans are of third person omniscient narrator.

9. Because of the fact, that advertisements usually describe qualities that can be

measured in degrees, we suppose that the majority of adjectives are gradable.

10. On the basis of observation of the research sample, we suppose, that after

basic form of adjectives (majority) the second most widely used form is comparative

form.

11. Slogans of which product specialization mostly use comparative adjectives?

12. Slogans of which product specialization mostly use superlative adjectives?

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13. On the basis of the fact that jewelry slogans put their attention to long-lasted

tradition of their products (expressed in number of years), we suppose that the

majority of numerals are used specially in jewelry slogans.

14. Which of three tropes (metaphor, personification, polysemy/homonymy) is

most widely used in advertising slogans and in which product specialization?

5.3 Research sample

We observed the slogans from 270 random advertisements from the sample of

48 different copies (25 titles) of English-writing magazines from UK, USA and

Slovakia. The sample did not contain newspapers. The magazines were of various

types: political, technical, business-oriented, nature-oriented, cooking-oriented,

women magazines, tabloids and scientific.

5.4 Research methods and process of research

First we wrote out the advertising slogans and collected the research material.

Once completed the list of slogans, we made a linguistic analysis of them and

determined the linguistic means used in each of them (p. 51 – 71). We made an

overall observation and stated questions and hypotheses. Then we produced a table of

attributes for exact enumeration of linguistic means (supplement B). This table was

the basis for the measurable evidence. From the table we could make the general

statistics and consequently generate graphs and interpret data. The interpretations and

explanations of graphs are on pages 72 – 76.

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Photography

1. CATCH EVERY MOMENT. Olympus camera Imp. 2. Winning results, time after time. Pentax camera idiom ‘time after time’ = on many or all occasions; Nph; comma is

used unnecessarily; non-grad Adj

3. Cameras at the ready, the 2004 Photo Award is here! Panasonic ellipsis ‘Have the cameras at the ready’; idiom ‘at the ready’ = ready

for immediate use; exclamation; clipping

4. THE TOUGHER THE BETTER.. Lowepro bags idiom ‘the…the…’; 2x grad Adj in comparative form 5. meet the king of prints Photobox online

laboratory Imp.; graphics; metaphor: ‘king’ = the best + visual metaphor:

picture of Elvis Presley (king of music); assonance of /i/; hyperbole

6. Perfect Pictures Posted Pronto Photobox online laboratory

ellipses of verb ‘Pictures are Posted’; non-fin. V; alliteration of /p/; rhythm; ‘pronto’ (informal); non-grad Adj

7. Photospeed. Inspiring perfection. Photospeed apposition; parataxis; metaphor: ‘Photospeed is perfection’; 2x Nph;

grad Adj in basic form

8. Expanding your creativity with Interfit. Interfit Dec.; non-finite V 9. The route to better photography Sekonic Nph; metaphor; grad Adj. in comparative form; ‘photography’ =

metonymy for all photographs

10. Sharing Your Passion For Photography elinchrom Dec.; ellipses of subject and verb ‘We are/Elinchrom is sharing…’;

non-finite V; sound / /

11. You can CANON Canon Dec.; AuxV; conversion with brand name 12. JESSOPS. NO. 1 IN PHOTOGRAPHY JESSOPS apposition; parataxis; metaphor; 2x Nph; Num 13. make the paper work better Imajet paper Imp.; assonance of /ei/; personification ‘paper to work’; grad Adj in

comparative form

14. NEOTEC. THE ONLY TRIPOD WITH BUILT-IN ZOOM. NEOTEC apposition; parataxis; metaphor; 2x Nph; non-grad Adj + compound

Adj.; hyperbole

15. 15 When you only get one chance, take it with Fujifilm. Fujifilm Imp.; ‘get one chance’ = collocation; ellipsis ‘chance to take a

photo’; cohesion it a) take it – chance (idiom) b) take it – photo; finV; present; active

16. “It’s the abstract in nature that fascinates me – the ability to make you see things completely anew.” Daren Seymour

Fujifilm

quotation; intertextuality

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Good Food

17. GET HEALTHIER WITH 5 MINUTES OF CRUNCHES EVERY DAY.

Ryvita

Imp.; grad Adj in comparative form; Num; metonymy – ‘crunches = eating crunches’

18. Solgar ingredients are selected on quality. Not price. Solgar Dec.; parataxis; fin. V; passive; present; new rheme

19. Waitrose. The best of everything this Christmas. Waitrose champagne

apposition; parataxis; metaphor; 2x Nph; grad Adj in superlative form; hyperbole

20. expecting guests? Bigham’s gourmet canapés … just pop them in the oven for 10 minutes, relax & wait for the doorbell to ring!

Bigham

Int.; ellipsis ‘Are you expecting…’; non-finV; ellipsis – ‘Take

Bigham’s gourmet canapés and then just pop them…’; genitive; grad Adj in basic form; 3x Imp.; cohesion ‘them’; Num; metaphor – ringing doorbell = guests; hyperbole

21. Real stock. Real simple. Knorr Simply Stock is just that. Knorr Nph; AdjPh; metaphor; parataxis; anaphora; parallelism; Dec.;

present; finV; active; hyperbole

22. If your kitchen costs less you can work less. IKEA Dec.; 2x present; 2x finV; 2x active; 2x grad Adj in comparative

form.; AuxV; logical implication

23. Live your life, love your home. IKEA parallelism; 2x Imp.; alliteration of /l/; rhythm; metaphor: If you love

your home and live your life, IKEA is for you.

24. Life shouldn’t be this easy. 2 – tronic fingertip gears. Convenient gear changing that’s always within reach. Also with electric sliding doors. From only £10.850.

Peugeot

Dec.; AuxV; parataxis; 2x Nph; Num; 2x compound Adj; 4x non-grad Adj; grad Adj in basic form; finV; present; active; ‘within reach’ = collocation; hyperbole

25. Burgundy. The home of Pinot Noir. Burgundy wine apposition; parataxis; metaphor; 2x Nph; metonymy – ‘Pinot Noir’

stands for all Burgundy wines

26. Jus-RolTM Jus delicious. Cook this simple but stunning recipe in jus 20 minutes.

Jus-Rol ready pastry sheets

ellipsis – ‘Jus Rol are Jus delicious.’; unpredictable spelling of ‘just’; pun of a brand name; Imp.; 2x epithet; sound of /s/; Num; hyperbole; 3x grad Adj in basic form

27. The ideal Christmas present. (And, it’s already wrapped!) Treat yourself to something special, try Wyke Farms Farmhouse Cheddar.

WYKE FARMS

Nph; 2x grad Adj in basic form; parataxis; Dec.; exclamation; present; passive; finV; 2x Imp.; hyperbole; rhyme; rhythm

28. It’s never just another day. Arniston Bay wine

Dec.; finV; present; active; hyperbole; metaphor

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Computer act!ve

29. 1000 years of heritage Arniston Bay wine

Num; Nph 30. SPANISH CLEMENTINES ARE NATURE’S SWEETS.

ALL THE GOODNESS OF THE SPANISH SUN IN ITS OWN PHONE LITTLE WRAPPER.

Dec.; finV; present; active; non-grad Adj; 2x metaphor; genitive; epithet; grad Adj in basic form; ellipsis of verb ‘of the Spanish sun is in…’; clipping

31. 1 AROMA GENEROSO Bertolli sauce Nph; foreign word; epithet

32. Talks inside. Shouts outside. New 2006 Fiesta. Ford 2x Dec.; parataxis; parallelism; antithesis; ellipsis ‘It talks…’; 2x

finV; 2x active; 2x present; grad Adj. in basic form; Num

33. Oh! that’s smart! Oh! that’s delicious! Oh! that’s quick! Samsung oven 6x exclamation.; 3x finV; 3x present; 3x active; 3x grad Adj in basic

form; parallelism, anaphora

34. Get juicing with the Magimix Le duo Magimix juicer Imp.; conversion: ‘juice’ (N) new word ‘to juice’ (V)

35. Potty about food? a Gastronaut book

Int.; ellipsis ‘Are you potty…’; grad Adj in basic form 36. It is a pleasure to eat good meat. Campbell’s

Dec.; finV; active; present; non-finV; rhyme ‘eat – meat’; grad Adj in basic form

37. Simply süper for süpper parties! Available in Sainsburys, Tesco and Waitrose and other Gü-d supermarkets.

GÜ chocolate puds

Dec.; exclamation; 2x ellipsis ‘It is simply/ It is available …’; unpredictable spelling ‘süper’for ‘super’ + ‘Gü-d’ for ‘good’ – adapted acc. to brand name GÜ

38. BioFresh & NoFrost – a cool combination Liebherr fridge ‘cool’ – homonymy/polysemy 1. very cold, 2. non-problematic, great;

2x Nph; metaphor

39. EAT TO YOUR HEART’S CONTENT… Mornflake idiom = as much as you want; Imp.

40. Enjoy more of your favourite entertainment. MESH computers Imp.; grad Adj in comparative form; grad Adj in basic form

41. .euphoria. STRATO is giving away 100.000 .eu Domains Europe wide!

STRATO webmaster

Nph; unpredictable spelling; personification ‘Strato is giving away’; PhrV ‘give away’ = as a gift; Num; non-grad Adj; compound; Dec.; exclamation; finV; present, active

42. Clear Picture, Clean Sound – PureAV AV home cinema 3x Nph; parallelism; alliteration in /kl/; metaphor; 3x grad Adj in

basic form

54

Gardeners’ World

43. Sony recommends Windows XP for Business. More than you’d expect Less than you thought

Sony

2x Dec.; 2x finV; 2x present; 2x active; antithesis; parallelism; comparison; 2x grad Adj in comparative form; ellipsis ‘It is more than…and less…’; AuxV

44. the biggest brands at low low prices dabs.com Nph; grad Adj in superlative form; hyperbole; grad Adj in basic

form; pleonasm

45. 16 Tiny dots. Astonishing detail. Canon 2x NPh; alliteration in /t/ and /d/; 2x grad Adj in basic form

46. 14 To tackle weeds permanently you have to get to the Root of the problem.

Bayer Garden

non-finV; Dec.; AuxV; poysemy –root; collocation ‘get to the root of the problem’; metaphor – ‘problem’ = ‘weeds’

47. The Iron Rose Bayer Garden connotation ‘iron’ = ‘very strong and resistant’ like if it were from

iron; Nph

48. Gladiators of the garden, advance and choose your weapons. Efco brushcutter addressing; metaphor – ‘gladiators’ are ‘brushcutters’; 2x Imp.;

metaphor – ‘weapons’ = good knives, for example

49. Professional results start with STIHL. STIHL Dec.; finV; present; active; grad Adj in basic form

50. The complete range of versatile master gardeners tractors Nph; 3x grad Adj in basic form; metaphor – ‘gardener’ = tractor

51. 17 Looks different works better. Viking 6 series. Easy start, quick finish.

Viking mower

Dec.; ellipsis ‘It looks… and works…’; parataxis; 2x finV; present; active; 2x parallelism; antithesis; 3x Nph; 3x grad Adj in basic form; grad Adj in comparative form; visual metaphor: a goat with a missile on its back

52. Not trying it would be a Greek tragedy. CARTE D’OR icecream

non-finV; AuxV; Dec.; intertextuality 53. aD’ORABLE CARTE D’OR

a word pun 54. No other pain-relieving gel works like Deep Relief. Deep Relief

Dec.; finV; present; active; hyperbole; compound Adj 55. Let’s get composting.

Imp.; collocation ‘get + V-ing’ = to do it now 56. Food for Thought! Blueberries and strawberries to grow at home!

2x exclamation; idiom ‘food for thought’ = ‘an idea that makes you think seriously and carefully’, non-finV; idiom ‘at home’

57. John Deer. Nothing Runs Like A Deer. John Deere mower

apposition; Nph; hyperbole; Dec.; finV; active; present; personification ‘Deer runs’; metonymy – ‘a Deer’ for John Deer mowers; figurative mean. ‘Nothing runs like a deer’ (animal + mower)

55

eve

Reveal

58. 18 Pressed on Boxford Farm, Suffolk. Copella Apple juice

Dec.; non-finV; visual simile ‘pressed’ like flowers are pressed 59. Wyevale blooms in summertime Wyevale

graphics: i in ‘summertime’ in form of a flower; Dec.; finV; present; active; personification ‘Wyevale blooms’

60. The 4head Garden of Dreams natural headache treatment

unpredictable spelling; 4head = forehead + for head; epithet; Nph 61. Ibuleve gel as fast & effective as pills? Now there’s clinical

evidence. Ibuleve

Ellipsis ‘Is Ibuleve…’; Int.; simile; 2x grad Adj in basic form; Dec.; finV; present; active; non-grad Adj

62. Is there an easier way to get my prescriptions? Boots Int. rhetorical; grad Adj in comparative form; 1st narr.; finV; present;

active

63. Superior from every angle greenhouses ellipsis ‘It is/ They are superior…’; polysemy – ‘angle’ a) a position

from which you look at sth b) a particular way of presenting or thinking about situation; non-grad Adj; hyperbole

64. Flatter your figure with Dietrim Vitabiotics Imp.; rhythm; alliteration in /f/. Vitabiotics – blending of ‘vitamins’ +

‘antibiotics’

65. We know it’s the best. But don’t just take our word for it. Nivea visage Dec.; 1st Pl narr.; 2x finV; present; active; grad Adj in superlative

form; a dot where comma would be more appropriate; collocation ‘take our word for it’ = believe us; negat. Imp.; 2x present;2x active

66. “She’s got more than me, mum.” Aunt Bessie’s Crispy Roast Potatoes.

Aunt Bessie

intertextuality – dialogue of mother and child; 1st Sg narr.; genitive; 2x grad Adj in basic form; Nph; ‘crispy’ – (approving)

67. Not sure how to help build your baby’s natural defenses if you’re not breast feeding?

Cow&Gate milk for babies

Int.; ellipsis ‘Are you…’; genitive; compound Adj; non-finV; finV; present; active

68. Gingery Fudgy nutty creamy mischievous mouthfuls. chocolate Nph; parataxis; ‘fudgy’ – neologism; 5x epithet; 5x grad Adj in basic

form

69. Obeys when spoken to (unlike most blokes). New 2006 Fiesta. Ford Dec.; ellipsis ‘It obeys…’; finV; present; active; ‘bloke’ – a man

(informal); Nph; personification ‘a car obeys’; Num; epithet

70. In their eyes, they can tug forever. Eukanuba gives their teeth the strength they need.

Eukanuba

2x Dec.; AuxV; 2x finV; 2x present; 2x active; rhyme ‘teeth – need’; rhythm; collocation ‘in their eyes’ = to see the situation from their point of view; personification ‘Eukanuba gives’; ‘they need’ – a) they = dogs b) they = teeth

56

THE WEEK

VOGUE

71. Anchor: Incredible Spreadable Anchor Spreadable

a word pun: affixation ‘to spread’ ‘spreadable’, original phrase: ‘Incredible edible’; ellipsis ‘Anchor is…’Nph; AdjPh

72. TAKES YOU MILES AWAY IN SECONDS. LEXUS Dec.; ellipsis ‘It/Lexus takes…’; personification ‘Lexus takes’; idiom

‘to be miles away’ = figurative: to be thinking deeply about sth and not aware about of what is happening around you. + literal: miles away = very far; finV; present; active

73. 19 We have hidden 400 CDs in this picture. Guess where? BANG & OLUFSEN

Dec.; 1st Pl narr.; finV; pres. perf.; active; Num; inicialism; Imp.; visual metaphor – mp3 system is able to compile 400 CDs of music

74. First to bring broadband internet to your seat. First to give you access to your network in flight. First to let you follow your team at 35.000 feet. All for this one moment.

Lufthansa

parallelism; anaphora; ellipsis ‘Lufthansa is/ We are the first…’; 3x non-finV; non-grad Adj; collocation ‘in flight’ = when it is flying; ‘follow your team’ = figurative: watch the match of your favourite team; Num; hyperbole; ellipsis ‘Lufthansa does all for…’; graphics

75. the bigger they are, the longer they take bmi small British airline

idiom ‘the…the…’; 2x grad Adj in comparative form; Dec.; 2x finV; present; active; parallelism

76. PETER’S SCANNER. MICHAEL’S COPIER. MARY’S FAX MACHINE. EVERYBODY’S HP COLOR LASERJET.

hp

parallelism; 4x genitive; 5x Nph; graphics

77. Fight wrinkles! Renew collagen in just 48 hours. Lancôme 2x Imp.; exclamation; hyperbole; Num

78. Yes. Great skin can be created. Clinique

exclamation; grad Adj in basic form; epithet; AuxV; Dec. 79. What extraordinary love looks like. Cartier

Int.; (the question mark is missing); grad Adj in basic form; epithet; simile ‘extraordinary love looks like Cartier’; finV; present; active; figurative: ‘love looks’

80. This year, old man winter will be conquered by a little squirt. Olay body lotion Dec.; grad Adj in basic form; metaphor: ‘winter’ = old man; AuxV;

metaphor: ‘a little squirt’ = body lotion

81. love this skin you are in Olay Imp. or ellipsis ‘You should/may/etc. love…’; rhyme ‘skin – in’;

rhythm

82. The new Chevy HHR is proof that cool can be useful & useful can be cool.

Chevrolet

Dec.; epithet; 3x grad Adj in basic form; antimetabole; 2x AuxV

57

83. THE WORLD’S BEST COSMOPOLITAN STARTS WITH GREY GOOSE L’ORANGE.

GREY GOOSE vodka

Dec.; finV; present; active; grad Adj in superlative form; genitive; metonymy: ‘cosmopolitan’ stands for all cosmopolitans (name of alcoholic long-drink); ellipsis ‘starts with adding grey…’

84. Proof…not promises. EA anti-aging treatment

ellipsis ‘It’s/ Give me a proof, not …”; logical antithesis 85. reveal your glimmering blond highlights Pantene

Imp.; 2x grad Adj in basic form; epithet 86. discover your jewel-like brunette Pantene

Imp.; affixation 87. needle or not? How do you plump your lips? Lose the needle. (No

needles. No waiting. No kidding.) LIPFUSION XL

non-finV; 2x Int.; finV; present; active; Imp.; the needle = metonymy for ‘plastic operations’; parallelism; anaphora

88. Give a new woman to your husband. You. Guitay body optimizer

Imp.; epithet; grad Adj in basic form; a dot used where a dash would be appropriate

89. The curls of your dreams. Now available when you’re awake. OUIDAD Nph; ellipsis of verb ‘…dreams are now…’; grad Adj in basic form;

finV; present; active; unconventional collocation ‘the curls are available’

90. IN CASE OF FIRE STOP, DROP & ROLL AROUND. fire spicy cinnamon chewing gum

Dentyne

3x Imp.; PhrV ‘roll around’ = to be laughing so much that you can hardly control yourself.; Nph; 2x grad Adj in basic form; non-grad Adj; Picture shows two people rolling on the floor.

91. Discover the secret for truly radiant skin. Aveeno Imp.; metaphor: ‘secret’ = Aveeno; grad Adj in basic form; epithet

92. Cure for the wintertime blues. essie nail polish metaphor; Nph; non-grad Adj

93. Mountains have crumbled. Glaciers have melted. Continents have drifted. Diamonds remain the same. Clearly, Mother Nature is a romantic.

jewelry

5x Dec.; parallelism; 3x pres. perf.; active; 2x finV; 2x present; 2x active; parataxis; metaphor

94. Celebrate your past, present & future with one thing on Earth as timeless as love.

A DIAMOND IS FOREVER

Imp.; simile; metaphor: ‘one thing’ is ‘a diamond jewel’; Num 95. 6 Navigating the LAND OF CREDIT with Citi Simplicity. IT’S

SIMPLY THE CARD THAT TREATS YOU RIGHT. credit card

non-finV; rhyme ‘city – simplicity’; 2x Dec.; 2x finV; 2x present; 2x active; rhyme ‘card – right’; rhythm; personification ‘a card treats’; picture of ‘the land of credit’

96. The Address. Armani Hotel Dubai

Nph 97. New level of radiance, revealed. Clinique

Dec.; ellipsis ‘radiance of the skin is/has been revealed’; non-finV; epithet

58

98. winter rescue Pantene Nph; metaphor; non-grad Adj

99. Gorgeous makes EFFORT look effortless. Jaguar Dec.; finV; present; active; non-finV; epithet; 2x grad Adj in basic

form

100. The new rush. Land Rover Nph; metaphor; epithet; grad Adj in basic form; polysemy: ‘rush’ =

a) fast movement b) sudden demand for goods

101. 20 THE FEMINE MYSTIINT. STILL UNCHARTED TERRITORY. ROLEX 2x Nph; ellipsis ‘…mystique is still…’; non-grad Adj; metaphor:

‘femine mystique = uncharted territory’

102. Redken reinvents hairspray. Redken Dec.; finV; present; active; affixation; assonance of /e/;

personification ‘Redken reinvents’

103. Ever think you’d see “beautiful” and ”heels” in the same sentence? Moisturizer actually heals dry skin so even your roughest parts get noticed.

Jergens

Int.; ellipsis ‘Do you ever…’; grammar deviation; AuxV; personification ‘moisturizer heals’; Dec.; 2x finV; 2x present; 2x active; homonymy: ‘heel’ + ‘heal’; metaphor: ‘roughest parts’ = ‘heels’; 2x grad Adj in basic form; grad Adj in superlative form

104. Euphoria. Live the dream. Calvin Klein fragrance

apposition; Nph; metaphor: ‘Calvin Keil fragrance provokes euphoria and with this fragrance you will live your dream’; parataxis; Imp.

105. it’s a mousse revolution! matte-perfect foundation with an amazing air-soft feel

Maybelline make-up

Dec.; exclamation; finV; present; active; non-grad Adj; conversion: ‘a mousse’ (N) a new word ‘mousse’ (Adj); 2x compound Adj; epithet; metaphor: ‘make-up’ = ‘revolution’

106. Dear Ketel One Drinker Not everyone likes Ketel One Then again, not everyone’s tried it.

Ketel One vodka

intertextuality – a letter 107. Britain’s No.1 beauty brand arrives in America Boots online

cosmetics personification: ‘brand arrives’; metaphor: ‘Boots’ = ‘No.1.beauty

brand’; genitive; Num; grad Adj in basic form

108. Picture your Perfect LVI Smile The LVI Smile dentist

Imp.; alliteration of /p/; polysemy: ‘picture’ = a) imagine b) to show in photograph; conversion – a brand name is used in a place of Adjective. The adjective may be ‘white’, ‘nice’, ‘beautiful’, etc.; 2x non-grad Adj

109. lift your spirits. BE COINTREAUVERSIAL Cointreau alcoholic drink

2x Imp.; ‘lift’ = synonym of ‘raise’; homonymy: ‘spirits’ – a) a person’s feeling or state of mind b) ‘spirit’ as a strong alcoholic drink; idiom: figurative meaning: ‘raise sb’s spirits’ = to make sb feel more cheerful or brave + literal meaning: ‘raise the glasses with alcohol drink’; transliteration; grad Adj in basic form

59

110. Vogue. TAKES LONDON TO NEW YORK Vogue Nph; ellipses ‘It takes London…’; apposition; personification: ‘Vogue

takes’; metonymy: ‘London’ = England, ‘New York’ = USA; Dec.; finV; present; active

111. REVEAL NEW SKIN. ROC Imp.; epithet; grad Adj in basic form

112. Instant lash extensions! Extend lashes up to 60%. Lancôme Nph; exclamation; 2x non-grad Adj; Imp.; Num

113. More defined. More conditioned. More beautiful lashes. More Than Mascara with more black impact

Estee Lauder

2x Dec.; Nph; parallelism; parataxis; anaphora; 2x non-finV; ellipsis: ‘You will have more…’, ‘It’s more than mascara’; grad Adj in basic form; comparison; non-grad Adj

114. Saks love art for art’s sake. Saks 5th Avenue online store

Dec.; finV; present; active; collocation ‘art for art’ sake’ = because of value art has, not because of the advantages it may brings; similarity of the phonic aspect of the words ‘Saks’ and ‘sake’

115. DESIGN LIP PERFECTION IN ONE COAT. LASTING. LUSCIOUS. SENSATIONAL EFFECTS.

Lancôme lipstick

Imp.; parataxis; non-grad Adj; alliteration of /l/; ellipsis ‘…coat and

make lasting, luscious and sensational …’; 3x grad Adj in basic form

116. New. Perfectly Real Compact Makeup. Believably perfect. Clinique epithet; parataxis; 3x grad Adj in basic form; Nph; hyperbole;

pleonasm – unnecessary words ‘perfectly, perfect’; affixation ‘perfectly’ + ‘believably’; non-grad Adj

117. RÉNERGIE MICROLIFT. 25,000 MICROLIFTS FOR VISIBLE RESULTS. My skin is tighter. Firmer. More defined.

Lancôme

apposition; Num; 2x Nph; affixation ‘micro-‘; metaphor: ‘microlifts’ = microelements, which tighten the skin’; Dec.; 1st Sg narr.; finV; present; active; parataxis; 2x grad Adj in comparative form; non-finV

118. La crème de la crème of lipcolour. L’Oreal Nph; the phrase ‘crème de la crème’ is taken from French and it

means ‘the best people or things of their kind; compound N

119. GET IT FIRST. GET IT FAST. shopvogue.com graphics: I in form of lipstick; 2x Imp.; parallelism; anaphora;

hyperbole

120. DON’T JUST APPLY! STYLE YOUR LASHES! UP TO A 65% LIFT. A BOLDLY THICKENED LOOK.

Maybelline mascara

2x Imp. negat.; ellipsis ‘…apply, but style…’; Nph; Num; ellipsis ‘It is up to… for a boldly thickened/ and have a boldly…’; parataxis; compound Adj ‘boldly thickened’

121. Escape from toxic town Noxzema cleaner Imp.; metaphor: ‘to escape from toxic town’ = to use Noxzema

cleaner and feel clean as escaped from dirty place

122. MORE THAN A FASHION STATEMENT. A CULTURE. THE CULTURE OF COLOR.

O.P.I. nail polish

ellipsis: ‘It’s more than a fashion statement. It’s a culture.’; new rheme: ‘…of color’ – emphasis; parataxis; metaphor: ‘O.P.I. is the culture of color.’; comparison

60

123. Stop seeing broken hair everywhere. Pantene Imp.; rhyme ‘hair – everywhere’; grad Adj in basic form

124. Flirting with an idea of an eye lift? OLAY eye lifting serum

Int.; ellipsis ‘Are you flirting…’; non-finV; PhrV ‘flirt with’ = to think about but not very seriously’

125. A SMOOTH MOVE HAIR REMOVAL FROM HEAD-TO-TOE Surgi Wax Nph; compound Adj ‘smooth move’; non-grad Adj; assonance of /u:/;

idiom ‘from head to toe’ = covering all your body – here used unnecessarily with hyphens

126. Serious Dark Circles? Hylexin ellipsis ‘Have you got/ Are you afraid of serious…’; 2x grad Adj in

basic form; Nph; sound of /s/; rhythm

127. Shine on. hair treatment Imp.; PhrV ‘shine on’ does not exist, but the preposition ‘on’ evokes the

idea that sth starts or continues, similarly like ‘go on’, ‘switch on’ ‘Shine on your hair’

128. Your Life. Your Car. Connected. Acura car 2x Nph; parataxis; parallelism; anaphora; non-finV; ellipsis: ‘Your life

and your car are connected.’

129. Why ask your doctor about BOTOX Cosmetic? Int.; non-finV

130. Finally, a paste that does more than just talk about whitening. Rembrandt tooth paste

Nph; finV; present; active; comparison; hyperbole; non-finV; personification: ‘a paste that talks’

131. Infusium 23. A remedy for your hair. apposition; 2x Nph; metaphor

132. My clothes don’t stink. Nicoderm CQ plaster

Dec.; 1st Sg narr.; presupposition that her clothes stank before 133. “Do unto you as you would have others do unto you.” Toyota

intertextuality - a command based on words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount: “All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.” saying: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”

134. Twice the lashes… for eyes that smile. Max Factor ellipsis of verb ‘Make twice the lashes for …’; metaphor: ‘eyes smile’;

assonance of /ai/

135. 171 years of offering very small objects that express very large emotions.

Tacori jewelry

Nph; Num; antithesis; 2x grad Adj in basic form; parallelism; metaphor: ‘small objects that express emotion’ = jewelry; figurative: ‘objects express emotions’

136. I am timeless, not a trend. The Concord Saratoga watch

Dec.; 1st Sg narr.; logical antithesis; non-grad Adj; metaphor: those, who wear Saratoga watch is timeless, not only a trend, which passes away

137. Men will melt. Elizabeth Arden fragrance for women

Dec.; AuxV; assonance of /e/

61

138. Was there beauty before there were beauty products? Evian Int.; finV; past; active

139. NOT MANY THINGS KNOCK YOU OUT LIKE MIGRAINE BUT YOU CAN KNOCK OUT A MIGRAINE WITH RELPAX.

Relpax

Dec.; PhrV ‘knock sb out’ = 1. (informal) to surprise sb 2. to make sb very tired 3. to defeat sb; figurative: ‘migraine knock you out’; AuxV; antimetabole

140. The first creme that renews your skin during the night. Nivea Nph; hyperbole; personification: ‘crème renews’

141. FRÏS lime Frïs Vodka graphics: I letter has two green dots ‘created’ from limes; the

pronunciation of the name is /freeze/: evokes the effect of refreshing cold alcoholic drink

142. Shake up your night. Bacardi Limón Imp.; phrV ‘shake up’ - it relates to a) drink of Bacardi (literal) b) the

night (figurative) ‘to move’

143. cool just got hot hot. diamonds Dec.; finV; past; active; 2x grad Adj in basic form; antithesis; rhyme

‘got – hot’

144. Dirty mouth? Nothing cleans it up like Orbit. Orbit Nph; ellipsis ‘Have you got dirty…’; hyperbole; Dec.; finV; present;

active; PhrV ‘clean up’= to remove dirt; personification: ‘Orbit cleans sth up’

145. Little. The next big thing. Meet iPod mini. Apple Nph; parataxis; ellipsis ‘The fact that it is little is the next big…’; 2x

grad Adj in basic form; antithesis; Imp.

146. Protect. Bodify. Beautify. Redken 3x non-finV; parataxis; affixation = a neologism ‘bodify’ made as

parallel to ‘beautify’ (to make sb beautiful) – it means ‘to make your body being a nice body (again); a body what it should be like’

147. “I’m a big loser.” Whoopi Goldberg Slim Fast intertextuality – quotation by W.G.; Dec.; 1st Sg narr.; antithesis; ‘big

loser’ here means that she lost weight and she is therefore ‘a big’ – enthusiastic real woman

148. Smooth Move. Veet. Nph; grad Adj in basic form; rhythm; assonance of /u:/

149. After almost two centuries, we’ve found more than a few ways to say “I love you.”

Bailey Banks & Biddle jewelry

Dec.; 1st Pl narr.; finV; pres. perf.; active; Num; comparison; allusion on the tradition; metaphor: ‘ways to say I love you’ = to give a jewel to sb as a present’

150. “I am uniInt.” Moissanite is me. jewelry 2x Dec.; 1st Sg narr.; intertextuality – quotation; 2x finV; present;

active; grad Adj in basic form; metaphor: I am moissanite; logical implication: Moissanite is unique

151. Brings out the glow. OLAY Dec.; finV; present; active; PhrV ‘bring out’ = to produce; polysemy:

‘glow’ = a) the pink colour in your face b) a feeling of pleasure and satisfaction’; personification: Olay brings both

152. Got wedding on the brain? Time to visit our new website. Brides Int.; finV; present; active; ellipsis ‘Have you got…’; idiom ‘Have sth

on the brain’ = to think about sth all the time; Nph; ellipsis ‘It’s

time…’; non-finV; epithet; grad Adj in basic form

62

The Scientist

Science

153. Light. Loose. Layered. John Frieda parataxis; 2x grad Adj in basic form; non-finV; alliteration of /l/

154. Your heart should race from being in love, not from a diet pill. online advice service

Dec.; AuxV; collocation ‘in love’ – sth healthy; metonymy: ‘a diet pill’ for a diet – sth unhealthy – logical antithesis

155. 21 Growing excellence… eBioscience present IL-17, IL-23, IL-27 eBioscience Nph; grad Adj in basic form; metaphor: a new products IL-17, IL-23,

IL-27 are excellence; visual metaphor: a big tree (is matured but still grows); Dec.; finV; present; active

156. BD Photosflow. Phospho-Specific Flow Cytometry Reagents BD cell analysis apposition; 2x Nph; inicialism; 2x compound Adj ‘phospho-

specific’ + ‘flow cytometry’; 2x non-grad Adj

157. Thinking Larger. Moving Faster. exelixis.com work offer

2x Dec.; 2x non-finV; parataxis; parallelism; 2x grad Adj in comparative form

158. Now! Real-Time PCR results in under 40 minutes! Applied Biosystems

2x exclamation; ellipsis ‘…results are/ can be set in under…’; Num; 159. No Contaminating Ig Bands! eBioscience

Nph; exclamation; grad Adj in basic form; inicialism 160. delivery>purification>analysis>detection BIORAD

4x Nph; parataxis 161. FOR EVERY ACTION THERE’S A

SIMULTANEOUS ACTIONREACTION

OLYMPUS

intertextuality – Isaac Newton’s third law of motion says: “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.”; Dec.; finV; present; active; graphics

162. The best just got bigger. Invitrogen gel Dec.; finV; past; active; hyperbole; grad Adj in superlative form;

grad Adj in comparative form

163. We’re all ears! Free Technical Assistance For expert solutions Cole -Parmer Dec.; exclamation; 1st Pl narr.; idiom: ‘be all ears’ = to be waiting

with interest to hear what sb has to say; parataxis; Nph; 2x grad Adj in basic form; non-grad Adj

164. The complete blotting solution is easy to spot. BIORAD protein blotting equipment

Dec.; finV; present; active; grad Adj in basic form; non-grad Adj; ‘to blot’ = to make spots – ‘easy to spot’ = to notice; visual metaphor: a ladybird.

63

Scientific American

Business Journal Slovakia

165. Plastic optical filter networks in tomorrow’s cars will put more pleasure in the road ahead.

HAMAMATSU

Dec.; 3x non-grad Adj; genitive; AuxV; personification + figurative: ‘networks put’; metonymy: ‘road’ = all roads

166. This innovative technology can watch the human brain at work – using only light…

HAMAMATSU

Dec.; AuxV; personification: ‘technology can watch’; grad Adj in basic form; non-grad Adj; metonymy: ‘brain’ = ‘brains’; dash functions as the way to make more focal elements; non-finV

167. Your World of Certainty Allianz Nph; metaphor: Allianz is your certainty; idiom ‘world of certainty’ =

to emphasize how much certainty there is with Allianz

168. Who will pay for Your healthcare? Union Int.; AuxV; rhyme ‘pay – care’; compound N

169. Pleased to meet you AQUACITY congress services

intertextuality – a collocation, phrase said by introducing; personification: Aquacity welcomes you

170. You are on the right way Crown Plaza Dec.; finV; present; active; visual metaphor: picture of compass;

ellipsis ‘…way to Crown Plaza’

171. Blazing speed. Cool price. Copy. Print. Scan. Fax. Get it Done. Xerox 2x Nph; 2x epithet; 2x grad Adj in basic form; parataxis; 5x Imp.

172. We bring olympic energy to your home Slovakia Olympic Team & Západoslovenská Energetika

Dec.; 1st Pl narr.; finV; present; active; non-grad Adj; ‘olympic energy’ – epithet + metaphor = from Olympic Games; metonymy: ‘home’ = ‘all homes’

173. We want you to be the best in your business. ORANGE Dec.; 1st Pl narr.; finV. present; active; non-finV; grad Adj in

superlative form; alliteration of /b/

174. Always aim for technical perfection. Toshiba ellipsis ‘There’s always…’; non-grad Adj

175. Thanks to T-Mobile you can always have office in your pocket. T-Mobile Dec.; idiom ‘Thanks to sb’ = sth has happened because of sb/sth;

AuxV; hyperbole; metaphor: ‘office’ = mobile phone; idiom ‘to have sth in your pocket’ = figurative: to be certain to win sth + literal: to have mobile in your pocket; idiom ‘be in sb’s pocket’ = to be controlled – we can say that you can control your office if your mobile phone is in your pocket

64

The Economist

DigitAll

Nature

176. A partner to design & integrate your global network end-to-end. verizon business Nph; metaphor: ‘verizon business is a partner’; 2x non-finV; idiom

‘end to end’ = in a line, with the ends touching; unnecessary use of hyphens; grad Adj in basic form;

177. At Cardif, you are not just a number CARDIF insurance company

Dec.; finV; present; active; figurative: ‘to be just a number’ = not to treat with sb like a person, only like a registration number; picture of people with numbers on their clothes

178. On a quest for the right values? We Hear You Huawei Int.; ellipsis ‘Do you go/ Are you on …’; grad Adj in basic form; Dec.;

1st Pl narr.; finV; present; active

179. Game, set, history. Rolex watch intertextuality – ‘Game, set, match’ = parts of tennis match; it is used

here because Rolex watch are worn by tennis players; 3x Nph

180. imagine touching beauty. Samsung phone Imp.; metaphor: ‘to touch beauty’ = to touch Samsung mobile phone

181. imagine wearing your favourite music. Samsung mp3 player

Imp.; grad Adj in basic form; figurative: parallel ‘wear clothes/ perfume, etc. - wear music’

182. imagine an LCD-HDTV that reflects your unique style. Samsung Imp.; inicialism; finV; present; active; figurative: ‘TV reflects’; grad

Adj in basic form

183. Rock On. Samsung phone with music

Imp.; PhrV ‘rock on’ does not exist, but the preposition ‘on’ evokes the idea that sth starts or continues, similarly like ‘go on’, ‘switch on’

‘Rock on’ = homonymy/ polysemy 1. start to dance to rock music 2. shock sb 3. move gently from side to side

184. The right thing says everything. Samsung phone intertextuality – evokes the saying; Dec.; finV; present; active;

personification: ‘Thing says’; epiphora ‘thing – (every)thing’; visual metaphor: ‘right thing’ = Samsung mobile phone

185. The world’s fastest-moving brand is still on the move. Samsung Dec.; finV; present; active; genitive; compound Adj; grad Adj in

superlative form; idiom ‘be on the move’ = 1. be travelling between one place and another (figurative: Samsung products are distributed to whole world); 2. to be going somewhere (figurative: Samsung develops) 3. to become active

186. “All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.” Galileo Galilee

Shimadzu

intertextuality – quotation of famous scientist

65

Newsweek

187. Faster protein purification? It’s not rocket science. GE Int.; ellipsis ‘Do you want/need a faster…’; grad Adj in comparative

form; non-grad Adj.; Dec.; finV; present; active; idiom ‘It’s not rocket science’ = if something is not rocket science, it is not very complicated or difficult to understand. This idiom is normally used in the negative. (http://www.usingenglish.com/reference/idioms/rocket+science.html)

188. Achieve Beadlytenment Beadlyte research products

Imp. or ellipsis ‘To achieve…’; affixation + neologism: ‘beadlyte (brand name) + -ment (suffix; the action or result of)

189. “The ability to perceive or think differently is more important than the knowledge gained.” David Bohm

Shimadzu

intertextuality – quotation of famous scientist 190. Everybody, really everybody is welcome to Sunday Brunch! Radisson SAS

Dec.; exclamation; finV; present; active; hyperbole; blending ‘brunch = breakfast + lunch); non-grad Adj; this advertisement was written also in Slovak and German language to emphasize that everybody is welcome

191. R&D Systems Reagents. Making discoveries happen for over 25 years.

R&D

Nph; apposition; non-finV; Num; ellipsis ‘Regents are making…’

192. How can we produce more energy but lower carbon emissions? Livio Accattatis has an answer.

Shell

Int.; AuxV; 1st Pl narr.; antithesis; grad Adj in comparative form; non-grad Adj.; metonymy: a name of a person from Shell company represents the whole company; finV; present; active

193. Simplicity is making hospitals feel less like hospitals. Philips equipment

Dec.; finV; present; active; figurative: ‘simplicity is making’; personification: ‘hospitals feel themselves like hospitals’; grad Adj in comparative form; simile

194. profession: pilot career: actor Breitling navitimer

4x Nph; parataxis; use of colons; ellipsis ‘His profession is pilot and

his career is actor’; picture of John Travolta wearing Breitling watch – a famous person represents the brand – logical implication: only famous people wear Breitling watch, so if you wear Breitling watch, you will certainly be/you certainly are famous, too

195. Heavy industries Happy industries

Hyundai

2x Nph; parataxis; 2x grad Adj in basic form; parallelism; epiphora 196. Make the right connections Telecom

Imp.; grad Adj in basic form; poysemy: ‘connection’ = 1. literal: a point, especially in an electrical system (here: telegraphing system) where two parts connect 2. figurative: a person or an organization that you know and that can help or advise you in your social or professional life

66

197. YOU CAN LOOK FOR OIL AT GREAT DEPTHS WITHOUT DISTURBING THE NEIGHBOURS

TOTAL

Dec.; AuxV; PhrV ‘look for’ = to try to find sth; grad Adj in basic form; metonymy: ‘depths’ = deep parts; non-finV; visual metaphor: picture of marine animals (= neighbours) in the closeness to the divers in the sea ‘without disturbing the neighbours’ = protecting marine life

198. Smile! You are in Spain Iberia Nph; exclamation; Dec.; finV, present; active

199. Simplicity is a lamp with the power to purify water. Philips Dec.; finV; present; active; metaphor ‘simplicity is a lamp’; non-

finV

200. I am my music. Nokia N series. See new. Hear new. Feel new. Nokia Dec.; 1st Sg narr.; finV; present; active; metaphor: ‘I am music’;

Nph; 3x Imp.; parallelism; epiphora; assonance of /i:/

201. image is everything Toshiba TV Dec.; finV; present; active; metaphor

202. Refresh your Soul in Seoul Hiseoul Imp.; figurative: ‘make new thoughts, feelings and improve your

state of mind’; a word pun

203. Exploring the world for gas to warm your winter TOTAL 2x non-finV; ellipsis ‘We are exploring …’

204. Xerox Colour. It makes business sense. Xerox apposition; graphics; Dec.; finV; present; active; sound of /s/;

personification: ‘Xerox makes sense’; idiom ‘to make sense’ = to give meaning

205. Performance. Prestige. Passion for Innovation. Breitling watch 3x Nph; alliteration of /p/; parataxis; sound of / /; metaphor:

Breitling watch is prestige

206. Nespresso. What else? coffee intertextuality – dialogue in a cafe

207. 22 Take the World. Touched by THAI. Thai airway Imp.; non-finV; ellipsis; parataxis; rhyme ‘by – Thai’; visual

metaphor: ‘Take the world touched by Thai’– take the postcard with the photo of world places, where Thai has the destination’

208. “A dandy on the boulevards (…) strolling at leisure until his Breguet, ever vigilant, reminds him it is midday.” Alexander Pushkin ‘Eugen Onegin’ 1829

Breguet watch

intertextuality – quotation from a novel; it represents tradition of Breguet; Num

209. “He drew out the most delicious thin watch that Breguet had ever made. Fancy, it is eleven o’clock, I was up early.” Honoré de Balzac ‘Eugénie Grandet’ 1833

Breguet watch

intertextuality – quotation from a novel; it represents tradition of Breguet; Num; past perf.

210. Hit a hole-in-one. Hit the right impression. Nokia phone 2x Imp.; metaphor between a hole-in-one (an occasion in golf when

a player hits the ball from the tee into the hole using only one shot – the best alternative) and Nokia mobile phone – also the best alternative, both a hole-in-one and Nokia phone make a right impression; picture shows a hand worn in a golf glove catching a phone

67

Geographical

More

211. It’s just another Renault. Reliable. Technically superior. Best in its class. Just like every other Renault we make.

Renault

Dec.; 2x finV; present; active; parataxis; apposition; grad Adj in basic form; non-grad Adj; grad Adj in superlative form; metonymy: ‘Renault’ for all Renault cars; simile; 1st Pl narr.

212. Hospitality that knows no borders nikko hotels Nph; finV; present; active; personification: ‘Hospitality knows’;

‘borders’ –the line that divide countries nikko hotels are in many countries and in each country the stuff of the hotels is hospitable

213. Feel the surge of calm Lexus Imp.; logical antithesis

214. Explore the hills Explore the rivers Explore the mountains Explore the sea Explore the moors Explore yourself. Explore plas y brenin.

national mountain center plas y brenin

7x Imp.; parallelism; anaphora 215. Fujifilmed. Award grabbed by crab snap. Fujifilm

2x non-finV; neologism: ‘Fujifilmed’ = brand name + conversion from N to V; Dec.; word puns; sounds of /æp/; visual metaphor: a picture of crab, which has won the award; polysemy: ‘to snap’ = 1. if an animal (here: a crab) bites sb/sth rapidly 2. to take a photograph; ‘to grab’ – means the same as snap, but it is related to humans

216. IT TAKES A BRAVE MAN TO VENTURE DEEP INTO THE JUNGLE. IT TAKES A SPECIAL KIND OF IDIOT TO OPEN THE SUNROOF.

Nissan New Patrol

2x Dec.; 2x finV; present; active; parallelism; anaphora; 2x grad Adj in basic form; 2x non-finV

217. SCOTT SPIKER SHOOTS THE WORLD WITH A SIGMA LENS SIGMA Dec.; finV; present; active; name of the famous professional

photographer represents the quality of the brand

218. Would you put dandruff in this picture? head & shoulders Int. rhetorical; AuxV

219. Save up to price on Oral B toothbrushes. Boots Imp.; PhrV; Num

220. A STROKE OF GENIUS TO MULTILIGHT YOUR HAIR GARNIER non-finV; ellipsis ‘It’s/Get/Try a stroke…’; collocation + metaphor:

‘stroke of genius’, here: ‘genius’ = brush for dying hair ‘stroke of brush’; compound V

221. That’s a great Christmas in the bag. Hair cosmetic Dec.; finV; present; active; hyperbole; grad Adj in basic form;

metaphor: ‘Christmas’ = cosmetic

222. XTROVERT. XPLOSIVE. LOVE THE COLOUR. COLOR XXL Schwartzkopf graphics; inicialism; unpredictable spelling; parataxis; Imp.;

alliteration of /x/

68

New!

ES magazine

ELLE

223. 23 Spring water with a splash of fruit. Robinsons Nph; non-grad Adj; layout: splash of water in shape of face with

fruit eyes

224. 24 There’s only one naughty thing in Dolmio and that’sa Papa! DOLMIO Bolognese

Dec.; finV; present; active; Num; grad Adj in basic form; dialect; familiar words; visual metaphor: a man has his finger in a pot with Dolmio sauce, trying it his finger = only naughty thing; Dolmio is without any harmful substances

225. If the world of culture is your choice, your world is Madrid. Turismo Madrid Dec.; 2x finV; 2x present; 2x active; metaphor: ‘world of culture’ is

Madrid

226. MUJI Xmas Muji online shop intertextuality – ‘Merry Christmas’ – a greeting used at Christmas;

unpredictable spelling; conversion: brand name (N) stands for Adj

227. The Legend is Back. ORIS watch Dec.; finV; present; active; intertextuality

228. UNSTOPPABLE Charm SASHA COHEN HAS IT. So does her Citizen Eco-Drive

watch

Nph; non-grad Adj; homonymy: ‘charm’ = 1. the power of attracting people, 2. a small object worn on a chain or bracelet; the characteristic of a famous figure skater (‘unstoppable charm’) represents the quality of the product; 2x finV; 2x present; 2x active

229. How will you keep your Gold safe? KINGSMILL Gold bread

Int.; AuxV; visual metaphor: a picture of Gold bread in a safe; copywriters took advantage from the name of the bread

230. IT’S YOUR WATCH THAT SAYS MOST ABOUT WHO YOU ARE.

SEIKO

Dec.; 3x finV; 3x present; 3x active; personification: ‘watch says’

231. DARE TO GO THERE. 12 TIMES MORE VOLUME! L’OREAL Imp.; non-finV; sound of /e /; Num; exclamation

232. “Who says you can’t look as young as you feel?” Christey Brinkley OLAY intertextuality – quotation of famous person

233. 25 The silky feel of olay bar OLAY Nph; grad Adj in basic form; visual metaphor: a picture of silky

gown you will feel as silky when you wash with Olay bar as you feel when you wear a silky gown

234. PLUMP IT UP RIMMEL lipstick

Imp.; PhrV ‘plump up’ = to make sth larger 235. HOW DO YOU DEFINE eternity?

Int.; finV; present; active

69

you magazine

heat

236. After 173 years, we know quite a bit about diamonds. But love is still a complete mystery.

Bailey Banks & Bidle

2x Dec.; 2x finV; 2x present; 2x active; Num; 1st Pl narr.; metaphor: ‘love is mystery’

237. Your shade. Your finish. Your match. Estee Lauder 3x Nph; parallelism; anaphora; parataxis

238. that’s why I bluefly.com bluefly.com online shop

Dec.; finV; present; active; 1st Sg narr.; rhythm ‘I – (blue)fly’; graphics; neologism: conversion – verb is replaced by brand name

239. New LAY’S Dips (Finally, dips worthy of LAY’S chips) LAY’S Dips Nph; 2x genitive; epithet; 2x grad Adj in basic form; rhythm ‘dips –

chips’; ellipsis ‘dips are worthy of…’

240. Do you believe in love at first touch? Nokia Int.; finV; present; active; collocation ‘love at first sight’ is deviated

to make the relation with the material of the product; metaphor: Nokia phone is love at first sight (touch)

241. Real People. Real Jewelry. Danecraft 2x Nph; anaphora; parallelism; 2x grad Adj in basic form

242. 26 You never actually own a Patek Philippe. You merely look after it for the next generation.

Patek Philippe watch

2x Dec.; 2x finV; 2x present; 2x active; metonymy: ‘Patek Philippe’ = watch Patek Philippe; PhrV ‘look after’ = to take care of sth; ‘next generation’ = your children

243. The digital camera that takes pictures as easily as it takes the plunge. PENTAX Nph; non-grad Adj; 2x finV; 2x present; 2x active; simile; figurative:

‘camera takes pictures’; collocation: ‘to take pictures’ = to photograph; idiom ‘take the plunge’ = to decide to do sth important or difficult, especially after thinking about it for a longer time; personification: ‘camera takes the plunge’

244. YOU MAKE UP YOUR EYES, MAKE UP YOUR LIPS, NOW MAKE UP YOUR AGE

IMEDEEN

2x Dec.; Imp.; parallelism; 3x PhrV ‘make up’ = homonym: 1. to put cosmetics on sb’s face, 2. to form sth

245. Summer 2005: True Bronze. CLINIQUE bronzing gel

2x Nph; Num; grad Adj in basic form; ellipsis ‘In summer 2005 you

may have with Clinique cosmetics true bronze skin

246. Best before: 1908 food grad Adj in superlative form; Num; ellipsis

247. tellyphone Nokia TV in mobile phone

Nph; blending: ‘television’ + ‘telephone’ 248. PRINTS AS REAL AS LIFE hp

Nph; simile; grad Adj in basic form

70

WALLPAPER

TIME

249. CASIOLOGY CASIO Nph; affixation, neologism: ‘Casiology’ = brand name + suffix –logy

(a science or subject of study)

250. Instead if moving the furniture around, why not move around the furniture?

Dyson vacuum cleaner

Int.; 2x non-finV; antimetabole 251. A bank of ideas Investec

Nph; metaphor: Investec is a bank of ideas; a bank provides money, Investec provides services

252. First Class ESPRESSO EXPERIENCE. LAVAZZA Nph; 2x non-grad Adj; sound of /s/; metaphor: Lavazza is first class

experience

253. IO, COMANDANTE DEL TEMPO Panerai watch Nph; apposition; intertextuality – quotation; foreign words; 1st Sg narr.

254. For inside. For outside. For ever. SSS SIEDLE door communication

parataxis; parallelism; anaphora; antithesis; ‘for inside’ = at home, ‘for outside’ = at the gate

255. Merry Kissmas. Alessi intertextuality - – ‘Merry Christmas’ – a greeting used at Christmas;

unpredictable spelling; visual metaphor: a picture shows two Alessi bottle-openers kissing

256. Your boss changed the meeting. Your client changed the deadline. Your wife changed her mind. Now change to an airline with more departures.

Scandinavian Airlines

3x Dec.; Imp.; parallelism; anaphora; 3x finV; past; active; idiom ‘change sb’s mind’ = change the decision or opinion; metaphor: ‘boss, client; wife’ = your everyday life; ‘airline’ = at least one good thing, escape from problems

257. “We cannot hang up on the world” Kathryn Walker hp intertextuality – quotation of employee – she represents the thoughts

of whole company

258. Kediaman Kedua-ku – The Malaysian phrase for My Second Home Tourism Malaysia

Nph; foreign words; apposition; non-grad Adj 259. 9 Challenge us – and get yourself a bigger slice of the cake. Siemens

Imp.; 1st Pl narr.; idiom ‘a bigger slice of the cake’ = a share of the benefits or available money that you believe you have a right to; grad Adj in comparative form

260. Slow down. Pleasure up. Camel 2x Imp.; 2x PhrV

261. “Time is the lens through which dreams are captured.” Francis Ford Coppola.

Blancpain watch

intertextuality – quotation of famous person

71

262. The better the competition. The better the tyre. The better for you. Bridgestone idiom ‘the…the…’ is deviated in a way that three, not two elements

are in relation; parataxis; parallelism; 3x grad Adj in comparative form

263. aim: zero emissions TOYOTA 2x Nph; ellipsis: ‘the aim is zero emissions’; colon; Num

264. When we look into the future, we have hers in mind. Siemens Dec.; 1st Pl narr.; 2x finV; 2x present; 2x active; idiom ‘in mind’ = to

be thinking of

265. This time the marathon will end in the place where it all started. Athens 2004 Dec.; AuxV; finV; past; active; antithesis

266. 3 years of preparation 550 experts 36 nationalities 17 races 17 precious lessons ONE AIM

Toyota

6x Nph; Num; parallelism; grad Adj in basic form; parataxis; 6x metaphor: Toyota = 3 years of prep.; Toyota = 550 experts; etc.

267. networks shaping cities networks shaping events network shaping deals one network connects them all

Orange

3x Dec.; 3x non-finV; finV; present; active; Num; ellipsis of verb ‘networks are shaping…’; anaphora

268. Watch us. Toyota Imp.; idiom ‘Watch it’ = used as a warning to sb to be careful, here:

deviated to ‘watch us’ = Be careful of us; 1st Pl narr.

269. FLAGS-A-WAVING. PEOPLE-A-DANCING. IT’S GOING TO BE SOME BIRTHDAY PARTY.

Tourism Malaysia

unpredictable spelling: ‘Flags are waving’; parataxis; 2x Dec.; 2x finV; 2x present; 2x active; non-grad Adj; intention to imitate informal language

270. Small seeds generate big ideas. CNN Dec.; antithesis; 2x grad Adj in basic form; metaphor: ‘seeds’ =

attempts, ideas

72

5.5 Results of the research

1. 20 % of all slogans (54/270) contains ellipsis, it means that on average a fifth

of slogans uses ellipsis.

2. 7 % of all slogans (18/270) contains phrasal verb, it means that on average a

fifteenth of slogans uses phrasal verb.

3. 11 % of all slogans (29/270) contains parallelism, it means that on average a

ninth of slogans uses parallelism.

4. Our assumption was not correct. The most widely used sentence type is not the

imperative one, as we supposed, but the declarative one (120/227). The second are

imperatives (85/227), then interrogatives (22/227). There were 130 noun phrases in

research sample. Exclamative sentences did not occur in the sample, although

exclamations occurred.

sentence types

53%37%

10%

Declaratives

Imperatives

Interrogatives

Graph 1: sentence types

5. Our assumption was correct. The most widely auxiliary verbs are ‘can’ (11/23)

and ‘will’ (6/23). The following are ‘would’ (4/23), ‘should’ (1/23) and negative form

of ‘should’ (1/23).

auxiliary verbs

11

6

4

1

1

can

w ill

w ould

should

should not

Graph 2: auxiliary verbs

73

6. Our assumption was correct. The majority of verbs is finite (114/163), the rest is non-finite (49/163).

finiteness of verbs

70%

30%

finite verbs

non-finite verbs

Graph 3: finiteness of verbs

7. Our assumption was correct. The majority of finite verbs are in present simple

form; the second most widely used are future forms ‘will’, then past simple, present

perfect and one case of past perfect.

tense/aspect

86%

5%

4%

4%

1%

present simple

future 'w ill'

past simple

present perfect

past perfect

Graph 4: tense/aspect of verbs

8. Our assumption was correct. The majority of slogans are of omniscient 3rd

person narrator (249/270), then 1st person plural narrator (13/270) and 1st person

singular narrator (9/270).

narrator

92%

3%

5%

3rd person narrator

1st Sg narrator

1st Pl narrator

Graph 5: narrator

74

9. Our assumption was correct. 76 % (140/185) adjectives were gradable and

24 % (45/185) adjectives were non-gradable.

gradability of adjectives

76%

24%

gradable adjectives

non-gradable

adjectives

Graph 6: gradability of adjectives

10. Our assumption was correct. The majority of gradable adjectives occur in

basic form (104/140), the second group are adjectives in comparative form (26/140)

and the third group are superlative adjectives (10/140).

form of adjectives

74%

19%

7%

basic form

comparative form

superlative form

Graph 7: form of adjectives

11. Comparative adjectives are mostly used by slogans for technique product

specialization (16/26).

comparative adjectives - distribution

16

10technique

other

Graph 8: comparative adjectives - distribution

75

12. Superlative adjectives are mostly used by slogans for food (3/10) and cosmetic

(2/10) product specialization.

superlative adjectives - distribution

3

21

1

1

1

1food

cosmetics

online shops

pharmacy

services

technique

automobile

Graph 9: superlative adjectives - distribution

13. Our assumption was not correct. The majority of numerals are not used by

slogans for jewelry product specialization, but by slogans for automobiles. Numerals

indicate parameters of the vehicles and years of production.

0,00

0,10

0,20

0,30

0,40

0,50

metaphor idiom personif ication polys/homon Num

occurance of linguistic means in individual branches

technique

cosmetics

food

services

jew elry

automobiles

Graph 10: occurrence of linguistic means in individual branches

76

14. From the graph 10 and 11 we can see that in advertising the most widely used

trope is metaphor (metaphor: 75/270; personification: 24/270; polysemy/homonymy:

9/270). Metaphor is mostly used by slogans for jewelry (9 in 21 jewelry slogans

contain metaphor.). Personification is mostly used by automobile slogans;

polysemy/homonymy is mostly used by jewelry slogans. Idioms are mostly used by

automobile and technique slogans.

0,00

0,10

0,20

0,30

0,40

0,50

technique cosmetics food services jew elry automobiles

popularity and use of linguistic means by individual branches

metaphor

idiom

personif ication

polys/homon

Num

Graph 11: popularity and use of linguistic means by individual branches

77

6 CONCLUSION

In the theoretical part, we approached advertising as a type of communication

between producer and consumer of the product. We analyzed and described basic

principles of advertising printed texts. The theoretical part of the diploma thesis

provided an analysis of language of advertising and served as a basis for the research

part. To be able to make analysis of slogans in such extent, we had to include all the

aspects of language – from phonological to semantic aspect.

The results of the research confirmed the correctness of 6 in 8 hypotheses and

disproved the correctness of 2 in 8. We shall briefly offer the results of the research:

• On average, every fifth slogan contains ellipsis.

• On average, every fifteenth slogan contains phrasal verb.

• On average, every ninth slogan contains parallelism.

• The most widely sentence type is declarative (53 %).

• The most widely used auxiliary verbs are ‘can’ and ‘will’.

• The majority of verbs are finite (70 %).

• The majority of finite verbs are in present simple form (86 %).

• The majority of slogans are of third person narrator (92 %).

• The majority of adjectives are gradable (76 %).

• The second most widely used form of adjectives is comparative form

(19 %).

• Comparative adjectives are mostly used in slogans for technique

product specialization.

• Superlative adjectives are mostly used in slogans for food product

specialization.

• The majority of numerals are used in slogans for automobile product

specialization.

• From the 3 tropes (metaphor; personification; polysemy/homonymy),

metaphor is most popular among slogans and it is most widely used in

slogans for jewelry product specialization.

78

• Personification is mostly used by automobile slogans;

polysemy/homonymy is mostly used by jewelry slogans. Idioms are

mostly used by automobile and technique slogans.

By the research we also discovered that the writers of advertising texts often

use words like ‘new’ (+ words containing ‘new’: anew, renew) (16 times/sample),

‘just’ (12), ‘perfect’ (+ perfection, perfectly) (8), ‘real’ (+ really) (8), ‘better’ (7),

‘best’ (7), ‘first’ (7), ‘right’ (6), ‘only’ (5), ‘complete’ (+ completely) (5).

The values, which express the use of pronoun ‘you’ (27 times) and possessive

form ‘your’ (57 times) in research sample confirm the intention of the copywriters to

come closer to the consumer and evoke the feeling of intimacy.

The correctness of the theory of Vestergaard and Schroder (p. 44) has been in

our research certified. We have found 11 cases of using the verb ‘get’, but any case of

a verb ‘buy’.

We observed that the informal style of advertising language predominates over

the formal style. We found the formal style of writing only in scientific and business

types of magazines. In scientific magazines, there occurred advertisements for a

specific group of people – scientists, doctors, physicists; the vocabulary was technical

and incomprehensible for common people. The linguistic means were the same in all

types of magazines.

We hope that the diploma thesis will contribute to the present knowledge

about advertising language and will introduce new facts, findings and observations on

such creative and extremely interesting discourse. We believe that it will be useful

and contributing for all who are interested in English language and its multiplicity.

79

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PICKETT, J. P. et al. 2000. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English

Language. The 4th edition. Boston: Houghton Mifflin

PRESSON, Leslie, LAPICK, John. 1997. A Dictionary of Homophones. New York:

Barron’s

QUIRK, Randolph, GREENBAUM, Sidney et al. 1990. A Student’s Grammar of the

English Language. Harlow: Pearson Education Ltd.

SOANES, C., STEVENSON, A. 2004. Concise Oxford English Dictionary. The 11th

edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press

TRUP, Ladislav. 1999. panielska lexikológia. Banská Bystrica: Univerzita Mateja

Bela, Filologická fakulta

VESTERGAARD, Torben, SCHRODER, Kim. 1985. The Language of Advertising.

New York: Basil Blackwell Inc.

WIDDOWSON, H.G. 2000 [1996]. Linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press

MAGAZINES:

BBC Gardeners’ World Magazine. June 2006. UK

Business Journal Slovakia. February 2006, June 2006, July – August 2006. Slovak

Republic

Computer Active. May 2006. UK

DigitAll. fall 2003, spring 2005, summer 2005, winter 2005. Samsung brand magazine

81

ELLE. November 2005. UK

ES Magazine. December 2005, UK.

eve. February 2006. UK

Geographical. April 2003, December 2004. UK

Good Food. February 2005, January 2006. UK

Heat. December 2005. UK

More. December 2005. UK

Nature. May 2006, June 2006. Harvard University Press, USA

New. November 2005. UK

Newsweek. February 2006, March 2006, May 2006, June 2006, July 2006. USA

Photography. September 2004. UK

Reveal. December 2005. USA

Science. June 2006. UK

Scientific American. July 2006. USA

The Economist. July 2006. UK

The Scientist. November 2005, December 2005, April 2006. UK

The Week. October 2005, March 2006

82

Time. May 2003, July 2003, September 2003. UK

Vogue. January 2004, January 2005, February 2005, March 2005, May 2006, June

2006. UK

Wallpaper. July – August 2005, December – January 2005 – 2006. UK

You magazine. June 2005. UK

THE INTERNET RESOURCES:

http://home.cfl.rr.com/eghsap/apterms.html

http://mktg-sun.wharton.upenn.edu/advertising/dictionary/h.htm

http://www.investorwords.com/129/advertising.html

http://www.languageinindia.com/march2005/advertisingenglishhongkong1.html

http://www.motto.com/glossary.html

http://www.onestopenglish.com/teacher_support/ask/Grammar/grammar15.htm

http://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOflinguisticTerms/Index.htm

http://www.stanford.edu/class/linguist34/Unit_02/given-new.htm

http://www.thefreedictionary.com

http://www.wikipedia.org/

https://lists.usm.maine.edu/

SUPPLEMENT A Review of print advertisements

1 (see: p. 20)

2 (see: p. 25)

3 (see: p. 29)

4 (see: p. 29)

5 (see: p. 29)

6 (see: p. 29)

7 (see: p. 29)

8 (see: p. 33)

9 (see: p. 36)

10 (see: p. 43)

11 (see: p. 46)

12 (see: p. 46)

13 (see: p. 46)

14 (see: p. 48)

15 (see: supplement A)

16 (see: supplement A)

17 (see: supplement A)

18 (see: supplement A)

19 (see: supplement A)

20 (see: supplement A)

21 (see: supplement A)

22 (see: supplement A)

23 (see: supplement A)

24 (see: supplement A)

25 (see: supplement A)

26 (see: supplement A)

SUPPLEMENT B Table of attributes

No. of

slogan finiteness narrator Adj grad

Adj.

form

No

. o

f slo

ga

n

slo

ga

n t

yp

e

Dec

.

Imp.

Int.

fin

V

no

n-fin

V

1st

Sg

1st

Pl

Np

h

ellip

sis

Ph

rV

Au

xV

gra

d

no

n-g

ra

d

co

mp

ara

t.

su

pe

rla

t.

Nu

m

pa

ra

lle

lism

co

mp

ou

nd

pe

rso

nific

atio

n

me

tap

ho

r

po

lys/h

om

on

idio

m

1 T 1

2 T 1 1

3 T 1 1

4 Cl 2 1

5 S 1 1

6 S 1

7 T 2 1

8 T 1

9 T 1 1 1

10 T 1

11 T 1 1

12 T 2 1 1

13 T 1 1 1 1

14 T 2 1 1 1

15 T 1 1 1 1

16 T

17 F 1 1 1 1

18 F 1

19 F 2 1 1 1

20 F 3 1 1 2 1 1 1

21 F 1 1 1 1 1

22 H 1 2 1 2 2

23 H 2 1 1

24 A 1 1 2 1 1 4 1 2

25 F 2 1

26 F 1 1 3 1

27 F 1 2 1 2 2

28 F 1 1 1

29 F 2 1

30 F 1 1 1 1 1 2

31 F 2

32 A 2 2 1 1 1 1

33 T 3 3 1

34 T 1

35 P 1 1 1

36 F 1 1 1 1

37 F 1 2

38 T 2 1 1

39 F 1 1

40 T 1 2 1

41 S 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

42 T 3 3 1 1

43 T 2 2 1 1 2 1

44 O 1 2 2 1

45 T 2 2

46 Ph 1 1 1 1

47 Ph 1

48 T 2 2

49 T 1 1 1 1

50 T 1 3 1

51 T 1 2 3 1 4 2 1

52 F 1 1 1

53 F

54 Ph 1 1 1

55 T 1

56 F 1 2

57 T 1 1 1 1

58 F 1 1

59 Ph 1 1

60 Ph 1 1

61 Ph 1 1 1 1 2 1

62 O 1 1 1

63 H 1 1 1 1

64 Ph 1

65 C 1 1 2 1 1

66 F 1 1 2

67 F 1 1 1 1 1

68 F 1 5

69 A 1 1 1 1 1 1

70 F 2 2 1 1

71 F 1 1 1

72 A 1 1 1 1 2

73 T 1 1 1 2 1 1

74 S 3 2 1 1 1

75 S 1 2 2 1 1

76 T 5 1

77 C 2 1

78 C 1 1 1

79 C 1 1 1

80 C 1 1 1 2

81 C

82 A 1 2 3

83 F 1 1 1 1

84 C 1

85 C 1 2

86 C 1

87 C 1 2 1 1 1

88 C 1 1

89 C 1 1 1 1

90 F 3 1 1 2 1

91 C 1 1 1

92 C 1 1 1

93 J 5 2 1 1

94 J 1 1 1

95 S 2 2 1 1

96 S 1

97 C 1 1 1

98 C 1 1 1

99 A 1 1 1 2

100 A 1 1 1

101 J 2 1 1 1

102 C 1 1 1

103 C 1 1 2 1 1 3 1 1 1 1

104 C 1 1 1

105 C 1 1 1 2 1

106 F

107 C 1 1 1 1

108 S 1 1 1

109 F 2 1 1 1

110 P 1 1 1 1

111 C 1 1

112 C 1 1 2 1

113 C 2 2 1 1 1 1 1

114 O 1 1

115 C 1 1 3 1 2

116 C 1 3 1

117 C 1 1 1 1 2 2 1 1

118 C 1 1

119 O 2 1

120 C 2 1 2 1 1

121 C 1 1

122 C 1 1

123 C 1 1

124 C 1 1 1 1

125 C 1 1 1 1

126 C 1 1 1

127 C 1 1

128 A 1 2 1 1

129 C 1 1

130 C 1 1 1 1

131 C 2 1

132 Ph 1 1

133 A

134 C 1 1

135 J 1 1 1 1 1

136 J 1 3 1 1 1

137 C 1 1

138 F 1 1

139 Ph 1 1 1

140 C 1 1

141 F

142 F 1 1

143 J 1 1 2

144 F 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

145 T 1 1 2

146 C

147 Ph 1 1

148 C 1 1

149 J 1 1 1 1 1

150 J 2 2 1 1 1

151 C 1 1 1 1 1

152 O 1 1 1 1 2 1 1

153 C 1 2

154 O 1 1

155 T 1 1 1 1 2 2

156 T 2 2 2

157 S 2 2 2 1

158 T 1 1

159 T 1 1

160 T 4 1

161 T 1 1

162 Ph 1 1 2 1

163 S 1 1 1 2 1

164 T 1 1 1 1 1

165 T 1 1 3 1

166 T 1 1 1 1 1 1

167 S 1 1 1

168 S 1 1 1

169 S 1

170 S 1 1 1 1

171 T 5 2 2

172 S 1 1 1 1 1

173 S 1 1 1 1 1 1

174 T 1 1

175 T 1 1 1 3

176 S 2 1 1 1 1

177 S 1 1

178 S 1 1 1 1 1 1

179 J 3

180 T 1 1

181 T 1 1

182 T 1 1 1

183 T 1 1 1

184 T 1 1 1 1

185 T 1 1 1 1 1 1

186 T

187 T 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

188 T 1 1

189 T

190 S 1 1 1

191 T 1 1 1 1

192 T 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

193 T 1 1 1 1 1

194 J 4 1

195 A 2 2 1

196 S 1 1

197 S 1 1 1 1 1 1

198 S 1 1 1

199 T 1 1 1 1

200 T 1 3 1 1 1 1 1

201 T 1 1 1

202 S 1

203 S 2 1

204 T 1 1 1 1

205 J 3 1

206 F

207 S 1 1 1 1

208 J 1

209 J 1

210 T 2 1

211 A 1 2 1 2 1 1

212 S 1 1 1

213 A 1

214 S 7 1

215 T 1 2 1 1

216 A 2 2 2 2 1

217 T 1 1

218 C 1 1

219 O 1 1 1

220 C 1 1 1 1

221 C 1 1 1 1

222 C 1

223 F 1 1

224 F 1 1 1 1 1

225 S 1 2 1

226 O

227 J 1 1

228 J 1 1 1 1

229 F 1 1 1

230 J 1 3 1

231 C 1 1 1

232 C

233 C 1 1 1

234 C 1 1

235 C 1 1

236 J 2 2 1 1 1

237 C 1 1

238 O 1 1 1

239 F 1 1 2

240 T 1 1 1

241 J 2 2 1

242 J 2 2 1

243 T 2 1 1 1 1

244 C 2 1 3 1

245 C 2 1 1 1

246 F 1 1 1

247 T 1

248 T 1 1

249 T 1

250 T 1 2

251 S 1 1

252 F 1 2 1

253 J 1 1

254 T 1

255 H 1

256 S 3 1 3 1 1 1

257 T

258 S 1 1

259 T 1 1 1 1 1

260 To 2 2

261 J

262 T 3 3 1 1

263 A 2 1 1

264 T 1 2 1 1

265 S 1 1 1

266 A 6 1 1 1 1

267 S 3 1 3 1 1

268 A 1 1 1

269 S 2 2 1

270 S 1 2 1

0 120 85 22 114 49 9 13 130 54 18 24 140 45 26 10 32 29 16 24 75 9 27