Bobrovnyk S.M.

NTUU “Kiev Polytechnic Institute”, Ukraine

STYLISTIC DEVICES IN ADVERTISING

Diversity of verbal means of advertising language leads to the formation of a special kind of functional language which can be called advertising style. Some linguists relate advertising texts to journalistic style, the other consider that advertising texts include signs of different styles and genres of speech. The main style-forming factor for every functional style is the sphere of human activity where the given style is applied. For advertising style it is the sphere of market, trade, economic relations. Advertisement has the following functions: 1) informational – to spread information about the goods or services in large scale, to pick out the certain goods of the definite brand; 2) economic – to stimulate the spreading of the goods. Thus, the appropriate language tools are selected for this purpose. The key purpose of advertisement is to attract customers’ attention. As it is known, customers are diversified, ranging from age and ending with tastes. Advertising the product, advertisers often choose particular consumers and turn toward them, aiming to buy their product or service. As a result, advertising texts are different by selection of linguistic tools, often belonging to different language styles. To attract customers’ attention the advertising text must be colorful and figurative. Therefore, many expressive language means can be found in advertising messages which bring a living spirit into it making it more effecting. These tools include tropes, stylistic figures, metaphors, aphorisms, slang, hyperbole, epithets, etc. Lets’ consider some of these means.

Trope is a use of a word or expression in an unusual way to help a writer achieve an effect. It is a figure of speech in which a word or expression is used in a figurative sense in order to achieve greater artistic expression, usually at the heart of the trope there is a comparison, the collation of two concepts. In the preparation of advertising texts advertisers address to metaphors. Metaphor is one of the most common tropes in advertising. The usage of metaphors gives advertising texts expressiveness that promotes a product or service on the market.

Metaphor is a word or phrase that means one thing and is used for referring to another thing in order to emphasize their similar qualities. Metaphor is a hidden comparison; meanwhile the similarity can be varied in size, color, functions and etc. There is a great variety of metaphors. For example, in the advertisement of Oasis, TV channel which is dedicated to gardening, a girl, standing at the table with the seedlings on it, is scattering the soil into a plant pot. And the inscription over there says: “This is my oasis – this is my network”. As one can guess, in this advertisement there is a hidden meaning: look only our channel which is like an oasis in the desert give you water to drink and can offer you the most interesting information.

Advertisers often resort to such a device as a personification or embodiment, i.e. it is a picture of inanimate or abstract objects with which they are endowed with the properties of living beings, e.g. the gift of speech, the ability to think and feel. Giving the product features of living beings with a certain character, advertisers achieve greater credibility, make the image more vivid. Personification can be regarded as a special form of metaphors. For instance, in advertising medicine used for bronchitis advertisers depicted a figure, a strange-looking ugly creature and three boxes of the advertised medicine are below it where it is written the name of this medicine and the inscription says: “This medicine knocks your illness (this ugly creature) out of the race”. Phrasal verb “knock out” means to win, overpower, overcome is usually used in relation to living creatures (people, animals). In this case, the advertiser has given animated features of the drug, which is to expel the illness from the body of the sick person.

Advertising texts are also rich in epithets. Epithet is a word or phrase that describes the main quality of someone or something. Epithets as the definitions are very important in advertising for visualization, creating the image of a particular product. The definitions of goods and services should evoke specific associations and images. For example, in bed linen advertising the inscription says: “Luxurious Lustrous. Lasting. The cotton for home fashion”. Luxurious and lustrous are epithets.

Advertising is also characterized by hyperbole. It is possible to say that this device quantifies the intensity of amplification properties of an object, phenomenon, process. It is the inherent feature of the advertising. Hyperbole is a way of emphasizing what you are saying by describing it as far more extreme than it really is. At the same time the exaggerated praise of the object "purchase and sale" is like a mandatory attribute of advertising. For example, "We’ll start working on bringing your dreams to life".

Speaking about the expressive means that help to convey the advertising message to the recipient, it is impossible not to mention such phenomenon as slang which occurs in the language environment of the young. Slang is usually referred to social dialects. Social dialects are varieties of the language, used by one or another social group. The characteristic features of slang include the extensive use of phrasal verbs which are used to form the descriptive expressions and phraseological units. For instance, in the British magazine, one construction firm offers a job to young people. But before telling about the jobs, the ad attracts the attention with the help of the vivid headline: "Stop knocking around and get to work!". Phrasal verb knock around means to waste time. The advertisers who speak the language of young people, want to appear “one of the them, one of the young” and hope that this advertising message can create a positive impact among the youth, and it will give the company manpower.

Thus, stylistic devices are used as special techniques of persuasion and language manipulation that make the advertising unique and expressive.

1. Macmillan English Dictionary for Advanced Learners (2002). Macmillan Publishers Limited, 1692.