LANGUAGE MEANS REALISING PRAGMATIC FUNCTION OF ADVERTISING TEXTS

Anna Kubrak

NTUU “KPI”

Contemporary mass communication, high technological advances as well as widening of international contacts prompt the necessity to perform the research in the field of advertising at the interdisciplinary level and expand the frame of the advertising texts analysis with the purpose of better and deeper interpretation of their pragmatic potential. 

From the point of view of pragmatics, advertising is considered as the market instrument used to influence the behavior of consumers at the point of purchase. Besides, being an indispensable present-day communicating element, the advertising functions as a powerful subliminal message through which consumers’ opinions are manipulated in favor of particular products. In order to realize the mentioned pragmatic function, an advertisement should immediately attract the buyers’ attention, keep their interest and arise desire as well as stimulate their confidence and demand towards a purchasing action [1, p. 236]. Therefore, the advertising text incorporates the features of different styles and is characterized by a specific interrelation between various language means of all levels: phonetic, morphological, lexical, syntactical as well as the use of stylistics figures. As a result of the undertaken analysis of the specific features of advertising texts, we can systematize the language means realizing their pragmatic potential as follows.

In terms of lexical units advertising texts tend to use qualitative and quantitative adjectives with positive connotations, which make the advertised idea sound vivid (e.g.: bright, large, light, sensitive), concrete (e.g.: juice, spicy, glossy, delicious), (e.g.: safe, good, extra, hi-tech), unreserved (best, perfect, glamorous, splendid, unforgettable, luxurious, fantastic, magnum) and the like. These adjectives are aimed at helping the addressee visualize the advertised images and assess their qualities. Another lexical feature of advertising texts is use of the so-called words-stereotypes [2, p. 143], i.e. regularly repeated lexical units with a high informative degree, representing a certain concept. Among such frequently used words-stereotypes there are verbs (e.g.: buy, try, ask, get, see, call, feel, taste, watch, smell, find, listen, drive, let, look, drink, do, discover, start, enjoy) and nouns (e.g.: world, freedom, safety, life, magic, style). The choice of words-stereotypes depends on qualities of the advertised goods which are to be noted.

On the morphological level the advertising texts are distinguished by word-building means that make them sound expressive. Such a power is typical of an adjective-building suffix –y that adds specific coloring to the words, e.g.: juicy, spicy, crispy, chunky, etc. It should also be noted that positive qualities of the advertised products are emphasized with the help of prefixes, like extra-, super-, ultra-, micro-, hypo-, etc., which denote extremely high or low degree of quality, denoted by adjective or noun stem.

Grammatical means realizing the advertising texts are characterized, in the first place, by their elliptical structures that make the text sound rather enigmatic, e.g.: Our best just got better; A better deal: And it’s more than skin-deep, etc. Besides, the majority of advertisements are composed of imperative sentences like buy this, discover that, try some today, don‘t forget, treat yourself are rather extended. For example: Share the excitement (Nissan Motor Company Ltd). Manage your risk (Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company). Another feature is that such texts lack long and complex sentences and are rich in comparisons, aphorisms and proverbs, e.g.: The Nova from Vauxhall. Once driven, forever smitten. We have also found out that very often nominative sentences consisting of a noun, a prepositional noun-phrase, or an adverb are employed in advertising texts, e.g.: “Bounty” – the taste of paradise. Such sentences due to their grammatical independence create a special pragmatic effect of picturing the situation I which the positive qualities of a product are described to the advantage. Sometimes they are used to increase the dynamism of narration and to acquaint the listener with the place or origin of a certain commodity. Through the analysis of advertising texts we can also observe that a pragmatic effect is achieved when these texts are realized in the form of direct speech or dialogue, imitating natural conversations.

The most typical feature of advertising texts is the extensive usage of figurative expressions, e.g. Taste the sunshine in K-Y peaches; Oven Crunchies from Ross – the name that stands out in a freezer; But Carvers have a Power-Pack. And it’s power that packs a punch, etc. It should be mentioned that advertising texts are abundant in image-bearing metaphors which appeal to the addressees’ imagination and give them the possibility to interpret the text creatively. The pragmatic function of the advertising text is also realized by a number of other stylistic means, ranging from simile, pun and synonymy to rhetorical questions.

A remarkable feature about advertising texts is that they are permeated with strong sound effects, such as rhythm, alliteration, assonance and rhyme, especially in slogans. Euphony, for instance, is one of the most frequently used phonetic stylistic devices that makes the utterance sound harmonious, providing concordance of sound ad meaning in the advertising text. The analysis of texts also shows that a vivid effect is achieved with the help of alliteration, i.e. a deliberate reiteration of the same or acoustically similar sounds and sound combinations, e.g.: Sea, sun, sand, seclusion – and Spain!

The undertaken analysis proves that the pragmatic function of advertising texts is realized through a specific combination of a variety of language means of different levels, the most typical of which are lexical (qualitative and quantitative adjectives, adverbs of degree, abbreviations, borrowed words, colloquialisms, etc.), morphological (special word-building means and the stylistic usage of notional words), syntactical (ellipsis, parenthesis, imperative and interrogative sentences), stylistic (metaphors, similes, epithets, pun, personification, etc.) and phonetic (onomatopoeia, assonance, alliteration, sound symbolism, euphony).

References

1.     Kotler Ph. The basics of marketing. - Ì.: Wiley, 2003. – 224 p.

2.     Nazajkin A. The practice of advertisement text. - Ì.: Berator-Press, 2003. - 310 p.