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WORDS AND ADS asist.univ.drd. Monica Ariana Sim Universitatea din Oradea, Facultatea de ŞtiinŃe Economice, Str. Armatei Române nr.5, Oradea, telefon: 0259408276, e-mail: [email protected] Advertising is possibly the most prevalent cultural form of the twentieth century and will probably have the greatest longevity. Business needs to advertise. Language has a powerful influence over people and their behaviour. This is especially true in the fields of marketing and advertising. The choice of language to convey specific messages with the intention of influencing people is vitally important. Visual content and design in advertising have a very great impact on the consumer, but it is language that helps people to identify a product and remember it. In a sense, advertising began around 3200 BC when the Egyptian stenciled inscriptions of the names of kings on temples being built. Later they wrote runaway-slave announcements on papyrus. Signboards were placed outside doors in Greece and Egypt around 1500 BC. Historians believe that outdoor signs above shop doors were the first forms of advertising. As early as 3,000 BC, the Babylonians, who lived in what is now Iraq, used such signs to advertise their shops. The ancient Greeks and Romans also hung signs outside their shops. Few people could read, and so merchants used symbols carved in stone, clay, or wood for the signs. For example, a bush indicated a wine shop, and a boot advertised a shoemaker's shop. In ancient Egypt, merchants hired criers to walk through the streets and announce the arrivals of ships and their cargo. By the AD 900's, town criers, which called out the news, were common in European countries. They were hired by merchants to direct customers to their shops. Adverising had gone a long way and evolved so much. Still it was not until 1704 that paid advertisements were printed in the United States (which is now the leading nation in annual volume of advertising).The first modern advertising agency was N.W. Ayer and Son, Incorporated, founded in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1869. Ayer introduced the commission system in the 1870's by convincing newspapers to give discounts; the agency then charged the client full price for the space used. This same concept later spread to magazines, radio, and television. Commercial radio dates only from about 1920, when Westighouse began to utilize the vast investment it had made in radio research and in the manufacture of radio equipment during World War 1. Advertising reaches people through various forms of mass communication. These media include newspapers, magazines, television, and radio. Advertisers buy space in newspapers and magazines to publish their ads. They buy time on television and radio to broadcast their commercials. The chief advertising media are newspapers, television, direct mail, radio, magazines, and outdoor signs. Newspapers and TV receive the largest share of the money spent on advertising. But the area of the present research will be the one of magazines due to the fact that they feature advertisements with long texts and which, in their turn, are the best samples for translation analysis. Magazines have a number of advantages over newspapers as an advertising medium. They are usually read in a leisurely manner and are 345 often kept for weeks or months before being discarded. Another advantage of magazines is that they offer better printing and color reproduction than newspapers do. Advertisers can thus show off their products to greater advantage in magazines. Full color is especially desirable for food and fashion advertising because the color of these products is part of their appeal. According to the New Encyclopedia Britannica advertising is designed to inform, influence, or persuade people. To be effective, an advertisement must first attract attention and gain a person's interest. It must then provide reasons for buying a product and for believing the advertiser's claims. Advertisers use a variety of techniques to create effective advertisements. They start with a basic appeal, which is the main selling point, or theme, of an advertisement. They then use certain specific techniques. The most commonly used techniques include attention-getting headlines, slogans, testimonials, product characters, comparison of products, repetition. Advertisers rely on many kinds of appeals to persuade people to buy. In general, advertisers may present their message either in a factual way or in an emotional way. Advertisements that use a factual approach describe the demonstrable characteristics of a product. Such ads tell what the product is, how it works or how it is made. Advertisements that use an emotive appeal stress the ways in which a product will give personal satisfaction. Such an ad might appeal to a person's need for love, security, or prestige and suggest that the product will satisfy the need. Advertisers often use sexual themes that appeal to a person's desire to be attractive to the opposite sex. For example, an advertisement for aftershave lotion might suggest that the product would help a man attract women. To persuade the largest possible number of people, many advertisements combine factual information with an emotional appeal, or they use several appeals. In such cases, the appeal is aimed specifically at a limited group of people, such as business executives or young married couples. Both the mass media, when reporting news items, and marketing and advertising personnel have to consider the emotive power of the words they use. First, they make a decision about what to communicate and what to withhold. One way in which advertisers adapt language to their own use is to take compound words and use them as adjectives. These compounds often later become widely used in normal situations. Examples of these compounds which have become part of the English language are: top-quality, economy-size, chocolate-flavoured, feather-light and longerlasting. The language of advertising is, of course, normally very positive and emphasizes why one product stands out in comparison with another. Advertising language may not always be "correct" language in the normal sense. For example, comparatives are often used when no real comparison is made. An advertisement for a detergent may say "It gets clothes whiter", but whiter than what? A study of vocabulary used in advertising listed the most common adjectives and verbs in order of frequency. They are: Adjectives: new, good/ better/ the best, free, fresh, delicious, full, sure, clean, wonderful, special, crisp, fine, big, grea, real, easy, bright, extra, safe, rich. Verbs: make, get, give, have, see, buy, come, go, know, keep, look, need, love, use, feel, like, choose, take, start, taste. Advertisers rely on many kinds of appeals to persuade people to buy. In general, advertisers may present their message either in a factual way or in an emotional way. Advertisements that use a factual approach describe the demonstrable characteristics of a product. Such ads tell what the product is, how it works or how it is made. Advertisements that use an emotive appeal stress the ways in which a product will give personal satisfaction. Such an ad might appeal to a person's need for love, security, or prestige and suggest that the product will satisfy the need. Advertisers often use sexual themes that appeal to a person's desire to be attractive to the opposite sex. For example, an advertisement for aftershave lotion might suggest that the product would help a man attract women. 346 To persuade the largest possible number of people, many advertisements combine factual information with an emotional appeal, or they use several appeals. In such cases, the appeal is aimed specifically at a limited group of people, such as business executives or young married couples. Most often people believe in their immunity to advertising. The naives believe that advertising is childish, dumb, a bunch of lies, and influences only the vast crowds of the less sophisticated. Their own purchases are made purely on the basis of value and desire, with advertising playing only a minor supporting role. Advertisers know better. Although few people admit to being greatly influenced by ads, surveys and sales figures show that a welldesigned advertising campaign has dramatic effects. A logical conclusion is that advertising works below the level of conscious awareness and it works even on those who claim immunity to its message. Ads can be studied to detect their psychological hooks, they can be used to gauge values and hidden desires of the common person, they can be studied for their use of symbols, color, and imagery. But perhaps the simplest and most direct way to study ads is through an analysis of the language of the advertising claim. The "claim" is the verbal or print part of an ad that makes some claim of superiority for the product being advertised. The reason so many ad claims fall into this category of pseudo-information is that they are applied to parity products, products in which all or most of the brands available are nearly identical. Since no one superior product exists, advertising is used to create the illusion of superiority. The largest advertising budgets are devoted to parity products such as gasoline, cigarettes, beer and soft drinks, soaps, and various headache and cold remedies. The first rule of parity involves the Alice in Wonderlandish use of the words "better" and "best." In parity claims, "better" means "best" and "best" means "equal to." If all the brands are identical, they must all be equally good, the legal minds have decided. The second rule of advertising claims is simply that if any product is truly superior, the ad will say so very clearly and will offer some kind of convincing evidence of the superiority. To create the necessary illusion of superiority, advertisers usually resort to one or more of the following ten basic techniques. Each is common and easy to identify. The Weasel Claim A weasel word is a modifier that practically negates the claim that follows. The expression "weasel word" is aptly named after the egg-eating habits of weasels. A weasel will suck out the inside of an egg, leaving it appear intact to the casual observer. Upon examination, the egg is discovered to be hollow. Words or claims that appear substantial upon first look but disintegrate into hollow meaninglessness on analysis are weasels. Commonly used weasel words include "helps" (the champion weasel); "like" (used in a comparative sense); "virtual" or "virtually"; "acts" or "works"; "can be"; "up to"; "as much as"; "refreshes"; "comforts"; "tackles"; "fights"; "come on"; "the feel of"; "the look of"; "looks like"; "fortified"; "enriched"; and "strengthened." e.g. "Helps control dandruff symptoms with regular use." The weasels include "helps control," and possibly even "symptoms" and "regular use." The claim is not "stops dandruff." "Leaves dishes virtually spotless." We have seen so many ad claims that we have learned to tune out weasels. You aresupposed to think "spotless," rather than "virtually" spotless. The “We’re Different and Unique”Claim This kind of claim states that there is nothing else quite like the product being advertised. e.g."There's no other mascara like it." "Either way, liquid or spray, there's nothing else like it." 347 The”Water is Wet” Claim "Water is wet" claims say something about the product that is true for any brand in that product category. The claim is usually a statement of fact, but not a real advantage over the competition. e.g."Mobil: the Detergent Gasoline." Any gasoline acts as a cleaning agent. "Great Lash greatly increases the diameter of every lash." The “So What” Claim This is the kind of claim to which the careful reader will react by saying "So What?" A claim is made which is true but which gives no real advantage to the product. This is similar to the "water is wet" claim except that it claims an advantage, which is not shared by most of the other brands in the product category. e.g."Strong enough for a man but made for a woman." This deodorant claim says only that the product is aimed at the female market. The Vague Claim - Ads that leave you hanging The vague claim is simply not clear. This category often overlaps with others. The key to the vague claim is the use of words that are colorful but meaningless, as well as the use of subjective and emotional opinions that defy verification. e.g."Lips have never looked so luscious." Can you imagine trying to either prove or disprove such a claim? "Winston tastes good like a cigarette should." The “Compliment the Consumer” Claim This kind of claim butters up the consumer by some form of flattery. e.g."We think a cigar smoker is someone special." "The lady has taste." Ads are a social phenomena that can be found all around us, becoming a part of our everyday life, so no one can ignore them. Everyone is influcenced by words and images to a certain extent. The language of ads is both inventive and complex. The style of advertisements is dependent upon the purpose of the advertisement. The main stylistic features characteristic of all types of advertisements were presented and it was stated that the advertisements of a logical nature, i.e. in order to be translated properly they must be understood properly. References: 1. Myers, G. 1994 "Words in Ads".Edward Arnold: London 2. Briggs, A and Cobley, P. 1998 "The Media". Longman 3. The Encyclopedia Americana, Volume 3, International Edition Groiler, Inc., Connecticut, 1993, p. 164-234 4. Turcu, F.1998 "Engleza in afaceri". Editura Uranus: Bucuresti 5. Jeffrey Schrank, "The Language of Advertising Claims", www.olemiss.edu/~egjbp/comp./ad-claims.html, 1995 348 349