ĐIỀU TRA VIỆC sử DỤNG PHÉP lặp (BIỆN PHÁP TU từ) TRONG QUẢNG cáo TRUYỀN HÌNH TIẾNG VIỆT

This chapter would introduce the research topic, its rationale, aims, significance, scope, and the organization of the research. 1.1. Rationale In such a current socialist marketoriented economy in Vietnam, advertising is an indispensable marketing tool for businesses to promote sales. It is possible to say that never has it squeezed so deeply into the social life and dominated the choices of customers strongly. Also, the development of technology and science has brought about the appearance of many forms of advertising. Among them, TV commercial is identified as the most popular one with a very large number of viewers. To achieve the effectiveness as expected from an advertisement, especially TV commercial, language is of crucial importance and it must be always vivid, creative and persuasive. William Bernbach, a renowned advertising pioneer, said that “the truth isn’t the truth until people believe you, and they can’t believe you if they don’t know what you’re saying, and they can’t know what you’re saying if they don’t listen to you, and they won’t listen to you if you’re not interesting unless you say things imaginatively, originally, freshly”. However, to reach the imaginativeness, originality and freshness of advertising language, there must have the great help of rhetorical figures. Repetition itself is one of the most prevalent rhetorical figures that make a great contribution to this success. For all aforementioned reasons, the researcher has decided to work on this study in the hope of gaining knowledge of repetition, its classification and much further applying effectively them into Vietnamese advertising campaigns.

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

This chapter would introduce the research topic, its rationale, aims, significance, scope, and the organization of the research

1.1 Rationale

In such a current socialist market-oriented economy in Vietnam, advertising is

an indispensable marketing tool for businesses to promote sales It is possible to saythat never has it squeezed so deeply into the social life and dominated the choices ofcustomers strongly

Also, the development of technology and science has brought about theappearance of many forms of advertising Among them, TV commercial is identified

as the most popular one with a very large number of viewers

To achieve the effectiveness as expected from an advertisement, especially TVcommercial, language is of crucial importance and it must be always vivid, creativeand persuasive William Bernbach, a renowned advertising pioneer, said that “thetruth isn’t the truth until people believe you, and they can’t believe you if they don’tknow what you’re saying, and they can’t know what you’re saying if they don’t listen

to you, and they won’t listen to you if you’re not interesting unless you say thingsimaginatively, originally, freshly”

However, to reach the imaginativeness, originality and freshness of advertisinglanguage, there must have the great help of rhetorical figures Repetition itself is one

of the most prevalent rhetorical figures that make a great contribution to this success

For all aforementioned reasons, the researcher has decided to work on this study

in the hope of gaining knowledge of repetition, its classification and much furtherapplying effectively them into Vietnamese advertising campaigns

1.2 Aim of the research

First of all, the researcher would like to investigate the different types ofrepetition used in the selected TV commercials Through synthesis and analysis of theadvertisements, the researcher expects to indicate which types are used mostfrequently in those ads as well as the effectiveness of applying repetition into TV ads.Research Questions:

1 What are typical types of repetition used in the studied TV commercials?

2 What is the frequency of the use of repetition types in the studied TVcommercials?

3 How is the effectiveness of TV ads reflected through the application ofrepetition (rhetorical figure)?

1.3 Scope of the research

The research was carried out to investigate the repetition patterns employed inVietnamese commercials Only 40 Vietnamese TV advertisements were collected fromthe major TV channels in Vietnam such as VTV1, VTV2, VTV3, H1, HTV7, HTV9,etc as well as from the websites such as http://youtube.com andhttp://truyenhinhtv.com in the internet All of these commercials were proved to havebroadcasted in the time ranging from 2010 to 2012

Moreover, the research only investigated the verbal language of TVcommercials to indicate theorical basis of repetition

1.4 Significance of the research

The research would certainly bring many benefits once having been finished.Theoretically, it can indicate the types of repetition used in Vietnamese TVcommercials and their effectiveness It is certain to be a useful source of information

for the other relevant researches Practically, the result of the study is expected to serve

as a noteworthy reference for creating effective TV commercials when it comes to themarketing strategies

1.5 Organization of the research

The paper is divided into 5 chapters as below:

Chapter 1: Introduction, describing the research topic, its rationale, aims,significance, scope, and the organization of the research

Chapter 2: Literature Review, presenting the theoretical background in the light

of which the research matters will be discussed

Chapter 3: Methodology, pointing out the methods applied to investigate theresearch matters

Chapter 4: Findings and Implications, presenting the outcome of the study andprovides answers to the research questions

Chapter 5: Conclusion, summarizing the overall study, proposing somerecommendations with regards to turn-taking in practice, and suggesting some forms

of further studies on the field

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter would discuss the theoretical background of advertising, TV commercials, rhetorical devices and repetition.

2.1 Overview of advertising, advertisements and TV commercials

2.1.1 Definition of advertising

Advertising, terminologically, has been defined in a variety of ways First of all,the term “advertising” is originated from the Latin verb “advertere” which means “toturn towards” In the Oxford Learner’s Dictionary, advertising is defined as “the act ofdescribing products or services publicly in order to persuade people to buy or use it”

In a more simple expression of Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (8th Edition), it

is understood as “the activity and industry of advertising things to people on television,

in newspapers, on the internet, etc

Many the previous researchers also provided the different concepts ofadvertising such as Bill Max (1908-1994), Robert Leduc, Angela Goddard (1998), etc.Noticeably, in the early 20th century, a well-known advertising copywriter named John

E Kennedy remarked that advertising was “salesmanship in print” Briefly, but thissaying successfully indicates that the ultimate purpose of advertising is to sell In

1999, Phillip Kotler, et al provided a very brief and concise concept of advertising:

“Advertising is any paid form of non-personal presentation and promotion of ideas,goods, or services by an identified sponsor.”

From the above definition of Kotler, it can be seen clearly that two maincharacteristics are noticed in terms of advertising, namely “presentation” and

“promotion” “Presentation” refers to an offering; “promotion” involvescommunication and persuasion; therefore, advertising is designed to offer peopleideas, goods, or services and persuade them of the benefits, utility, and desirability.(W Downes, Concise Encyclopedia of Sociolinguistics, 2001)

2.1.2 Types of advertising

Before coming deeply into the study on TV commercial, it is necessary to have

a general look at other types of advertising From then, to some extent, it is possible tooffer a comparison among different types

To classify types of advertising, it is possible to base on some criteria likeobjects of advertising or media of advertising However, in the scale of this study, themedia of advertising was preferred According to lesson 23 in the course of businessstudy in The National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS) in India, media-basedadvertising could be categorized into three main kinds as below diagram:

Diagram 1: Types of advertising media

2.1.2.1 Print media

Print media was considered a very common and old media for advertising Thiswas the advertising way through newspapers, magazines, journals, etc it was alsocalled the pressing advertising

A newspaper provides the sources of the news, opinions and the current events.Small or large ads can be given on a newspaper either on the side of a news column of

in front of the paper Therefore, it is very convenient for businessmen to advertising

on this media Although the number of people reading newspapers daily is quiteremarkable, they mainly read for news and pay a little attention to advertisements.

In terms of periodicals, they are published regularly on the basis of week,fortnight, month or even year With the great number of readers on these periodicals,they can bring advertisements to many more people

The commercial are also televised As can be seen, television is an excellentmedia for promoting products since it is one of most popular used means by themasses It would be elaborated much more in the overview of TV commercials

Lastly, the internet is the most updated ways of communication and gatheringthe information It also can be regarded as one of the best media for advertising 2.1.2.3 Other media

Two kinds of media mentioned above can be considered the indoor advertising.Additionally, to these media, they usually spend a certain cost accessing theseadvertisements On the contrary, other media like hoardings, posters, and vehiculardisplays are the outdoor advertising and the consumers have to pay no money to seesuch ads

They are one of the oldest means for advertising something, before theinvention of TV, radio, and computers It is very easy to see them, especially in bigcities like Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh, placed on the roadsides, walls of buildings, rooftops or iron frames

2.1.3 Aims of advertisements

To successfully apply types of repetition (rhetorical figure) into advertisements,especially TV commercials, it is very essential to have certain knowledge of thetypical functions of an advertisement

Regarding this, in American Marketing Manager’s Handbook (1969), the AIDAtheory was repeated and it pointed out indispensable features of any advertisement.Strong (1925) stated that AIDA is a simple acronym that was devised a long time ago

as a reminder of four stages of the sales process AIDA stands for Attention, Interest,Desire, and Action

First of all, a good advertisement must have something attractive and catching to be able to draw the public’s attention In other words, it must havesomething that pulls consumers towards products advertised rather than something thatpushes them away

eye-After getting attention, it is very important to sustain the public’s interest byappealing to the public in some ways bringing them feelings that what are being saidseems relevant to their lives

Once they are interested in advertised products, then the next step is tostimulate consumers’ desire to buy the product and make them realize that this product

is just what they want

Finally, an advertisement must evoke the consumers to take the specific actionswhich might be a product to buy, a phone number to ring, a behavior they can change,

or a group to join

It can be realized that all these four functions are inter-related to promote theselling power of the advertised product

2.1.4 The criteria to access the effectiveness of using language in advertisements

To gain the effective use of language is not whoever can conduct well Basing

on the aforementioned four functions of advertisement, some criteria drawn to assessthe effectiveness of a commercial include attention, readability, memorability andselling power

Mentioning these criteria, Leech (1966) defined that attention value is generatedthrough some aspects such as illustration, display typography, vocal emphasis, promptspelling, grammatical solecism, metaphor and paradox Readability relates to simpleand colloquial style and familiar vocabulary Phonological regularities such asalliteration, rhythm, rhyme and jingle are connected to memorability Selling power isgenerated through frequent use of imperatives and superlatives

According to Zhao (1992), readability might mean “how to keep up suspense,interest, or amusement on the psychological aspect On the linguistic plane, it means

“how to make the massage easy to grasp and assimilate”

In view of the memorability, the languages must be used suitably and shortly tohelp the viewers remember the brand-name, slogans, key phrases, etc easily Cookand Guy (1985) indicated that phonological regularities of repetition patterns can

“make verse easier to memorize than prose

To the selling power, it related much to the function “action” of TVcommercials It mentioned how to make the advertising massage more persuasive andstimulated the consumers to buy the product

2.1.5 TV commercials

Despite being introduced later than some forms of advertising such asmagazines, newspapers, billboards or radio, etc, TV commercial has developed rapidlywith a very large number of audiences and proven its persuasive power in influencinghuman behaviour day by day

2.1.5.1 History of TV commercials

Regarding the history of TV commercials, Dao Huu Dung, in his book “Quảngcáo truyền hình trong nền kinh tế thị trường” (2006), considered that televisioncommercial was broadcasted for the first time in the United States on July 1, 1941.Right at 8 am of that day, the watches and clocks of Bulova Company was firstadvertised on New York station WNBT before a baseball game between the BrooklynDodgers and Philadelphia Phillies Thus, the USA is the pioneer of televisionadvertising industry For other countries, it was introduced much later, such as Japan

in 1953 on Nippon Television, France in 1968 on TF1, etc

On the whole, it is not a long time since TV commercial was presented to thepublic; however, it has built up dramatically, especially in some developed countriessuch as the USA, Japan, France, etc In Vietnam, although the first televisionbroadcasts were in the 1960s when the United States set up two channels (oneVietnamese language and one in English in Saigon), TV commercial was reallyexpanded after the “Doi Moi” policy in 1980 At that time, the Vietnam’s Governmentbegan to adopt open-door policies which allowed foreign enterprises and companies to

do business with Vietnamese ones

2.1.5.2 Elements of TV commercials

TV commercial is a mix of a lot of different factors such as image, language,sound, etc According to a Presentation (Retrieved fromwww70.homepage.villanova.edu) named “Creating Broadcast Advertising”, it can beclassified into two typical elements, namely video and audio

Diagram 2: Creating Broadcast Advertising

In an advertisement, it is necessary for images to be fused with words aiming topresent not only a creative concept, but a story as well Thus, images and words orlanguage in a TV commercial play a very important role in generating sustained appealfrom television viewers Besides, the audio should be accompanied by the visualmassage to develop the point Thus, if all above elements work well together, TVcommercials can easily catch the public’s attention and interest

2.1.5.3 Language of TV commercials

Vorlat (1976, p 291) claimed that language is an indispensable tool inadvertising in general and in TV commercial in particular, which is to convey amessage about a product or service so that the potential consumer gets informationand, which is more important, gets persuaded to take action of buying it

Video

Dominates Massage Perception, Use Visuals and Motion to Convey Massage

Audio

Music,Voices,Sound Effects

TV Commercials Can Achieve Audience Acceptance If They Are Well-done

Elements of TelevisionCommercials

As a pioneer of the study on language in advertising, Leech (1966) has alsopointed out in detail different aspects relating to grammar, vocabulary, discourse andrhyme and rhetoric of advertising language with special reference to television Heclearly indicated such functions as attention value, readability, memorability andselling power which aspects of language have brought

From the above features of language, having a good understanding of aspects oflanguage, especially repetition as well as their functions will help to create a successful

TV commercial

2.2 Overview of rhetorical figure and repetition

2.2.1 Overview of rhetorical device

The ultimate goal of advertising is to persuade consumers to sell productswhereas the rhetorical figures are a useful linguistic tool with extremely strongpersuasion Aristotle (Corbett, 1990) presented his concept of rhetorical devices as

“the faculty of discovering all available means of persuasion in any given situation.”Catching this typical feature, rhetorical figures have been employed more and morepervasively in most types of advertisements, especially in TV commercials

Many previous researchers such as Angela Goddard (1998), Phillips (2002),McQuarrie (1996), Leigh (1994), Lagerwerf (2005) also had studies on the use ofrhetorical figures in a monolingual advertising context However, the investigation intothe use of rhetorical figures in Vietnamese TV commercials, especially the use ofrepetition of sound, word and structure is rarely seen

2.2.2 Definition of repetition

According to Le Ba Han, Tran Dinh Su and Nguyen Khac Phi (1997), repetition

is “the simple repeating of a word, within a sentence or a poetical line, with no

particular placement of the words, in order to emphasize or make a strong impression

on reader or listener”

Edward and David (1996) defined that the rhetorical operation of repetition

combines multiple instances of some element of the expression without changing themeaning of that element In advertising, repetition is mainly applied to sounds, words,and phrase structure

Yuan Chuandao (2005) also gave another concept of repetition as a rhetoricaldevice in which some words or sentences are repeated many times aiming to make anemphasis on important massages and make a great impression on listeners Therepetition of sounds and words makes sentences more fluent and rhythmic In anadvertisement, this characteristic helps to create readability and memorability on theadvertising words

With the aforementioned concepts of repetition, it can be concluded thatrepetition is merely the repeated use of sounds, words, or structures in language of anadvertisement aiming to improve memorability of listener or viewer

2.2.3 Classification of repetition

First of all, Halliday, in his book “Cohesion in English” (1994), classifiedrepetition into many different types on the base of word level He classified it into 4types, including repetition of the same words, of synonym or near-synonym words, ofsuperordinate words and of general words

Another classification was introduced by Edward and David (1996), which hasbrought a better and clearer understanding of types of repetition Repetition wasdivided into a lot of different types basing on three main levels, namely sound, word

and sentence This classification is also the base of building types of repetition in thisresearch.

Table 1: The Classification of Repetition Patterns by Edward and David (1996)

1.Sound A Rhyme Repetition of syllables at end of words

B Chime Keywords in a phrase begin with identical consonants

C Assonance

& Alliteration

Three or more repetitions of a vowel or consonant

2 Word A Anaphora Repetition of words at the beginning of phrases

B Epistrophe Repetition of words at the end of phrases

C Epanalepsis Repetition of a word toward the beginning and end of

a phrase

D Anadiplosis Repetition of a word toward the end of one phrase or

sentence and the beginning of the next

3 Structure A Parallelism Marked parallelism between successive phrases; often

involves use of one or more embedded repeatedwords

2.2.3.1 Sound level

2.2.3.1.1 Rhyme: Jessica Wesley (2006) indicated that rhyme is “a repetition ofsyllables at the end of the words.” In a TV commercial, a rhyme will help viewerseasily recall what is advertised before A rhyme will easily stick in someone’s head so

that when they think about purchasing, they have surpassed simple awareness of theproduct, they will be familiar with it

2.2.3.1.2 Chime: It is defined as the similarity of consonants of keywords in a phrase.The most important effect of this figure is to create rhythm and memorability in thelines

2.2.3.1.3 Assonance and alliteration: Jessica (2006) defined both of them as a form ofrepetition that is applied to word choice It is specifically a type of repetition known as

an anaphora because the repetition of words is at the beginning of the phrases.However, according to Edward and David (1996), it was defined as the three or morerepetitions of a vowel or a consonant

2.2.3.2 Word level

2.2.3.2.1 Anaphora: Richard Nordquist, the professor emeritus of rhetoric and English

at Armstrong Atlantic State University, defines it as the repetition of a word at thebeginning of successive phrases In terms of its effect, anaphora can create a strongemotional effect Moreover, it can make a great impression which helps to increase therhythm and memorability in the line

2.2.3.2.2 Epistrophe: It is considered the repetition of a word or many words at theend of successive phrases The last words of series of phrases are stressed which canhelp presented concepts, ideas or situations more prominent Besides, like anaphora, itcan generate the memorability in the lines as well as rhythm in the speakers’ words

2.2.3.2.3 Epanalepsis: It is repetition of the same word or clause after interveningmatter More specifically, it is repetition at the end of a line, phrase, or clause of theword or words that occurred at the beginning of the same phrase or clause Thus, thebeginning and the end are the two positions of stronger emphasis in a sentence The

useful feature of this figure can make the listener pay more attention to the speaker’sspeech

2.2.3.2.4 Anadiplosis: It is repetition of the final words, or any prominent word, of asentence or phrase at the beginning of the next Anadiplosis is considered a means ofconveyance of advertising massage in more creative and alluring way as well as the art

of speaking and writing more effectively

2.2.3.3 Structure

Parallelism: According to Yuan Chuandao (2005), parallelism means the similarity ofstructure in a pair or series of related words, phrases or clauses or the repetition of thewhole sentences Once this repetition is employed successfully, it will generate a

“beautiful sense of balance” through structure of the figure and a “beautiful sense ofrhythm” through its sound Moreover, it can help to put emphasis on the words,increase the beauty of the metre, and improve the memorability of listener or reader.All these characteristics of parallelism prove its necessity in creating the persuasive,attractive and memorable advertisements

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY

This chapter would describe the methods applied to investigate the research matters Besides, the researcher would present procedure of data collection as well as procedure of data analysis

After the research proposal had been finished, the authentic Vietnamesecommercials were considered and collected immediately aiming to guarantee theprogress of study This phase lasted more than two months from the middle ofDecember 2011 to the end of February 2012 In order to capture Vietnamesecommercials that were truly relevant to the study, the researcher spent most of time ofover these 2 months on gathering information of truly official commercials onVietnamese TV channels as well as available on the internet

3.1 Selection of Subject

The whole study was an investigation into the use of repetition in TV Vietnamesecommercials, so the authentic commercials from the only Vietnamese TV’s channelswere considered the subject used for the process of data collection and analysis.Additionally, in order to have the update of collected data, the precise statistics as well

as the clearer understanding of how the effectiveness of TV commercials was reflectedthrough the use of repetition (rhetorical device), the commercials, indispensably, had

to meet the requirements as following:

 The time range of broadcasting was the 3 years from 2010-2012 in order toguarantee that the advertisements were recently televised

 In the scope of the research, the only Vietnamese official TV commercials werecollected

 Any commercials for the same brand and promotional ads for the station orprograms were excluded from the sample to eliminate redundancies that mayhave contorted the results

3.2 Research Instruments

In order to address the research questions, an observation-based data collectionprocess was employed According to “Collecting evaluation data: Direct observation”

of Ellen and Sara (August 1996) at the University of Wisconsin, observation is an

“underused but a valuable method for collecting information” They regarded “seeing”and “listening” as the two essential factors to observation Thus, Vietnamese TVcommercials would be seen and heard thoroughly Subsequently, all speeches in eachcollected commercials were recorded on the base of transcription conventions

3.3 Procedures of Data Collection

The process of data collection played a very important role during the study andhad a strong effect on its results Therefore, it was very necessary to satisfy all aboverequirements It was possible to say that the biggest advantage of this process was thatall commercials were from Vietnamese TV channels, so the researcher could view andcapture them easily at any time Generally speaking, this process was possiblyclassified into three stages as follows:

Stage 1

The first stage was the preparation one for the data collection; for this reason,before selecting commercials, many different factors need to be considered thoroughlysuch as information of broadcasting commercials on Vietnamese TV channels, theeffective downloading tools, the website of TV commercials available on the internet,and the products advertised on Vietnamese TV channels

As it could be seen in Vietnam, the number of TV channels which broadcastedthe commercials of all kinds has accounted for a considerable percent, even includingthe local TV channels Among of them, however, some were selected such as VTV1,

VTV2, VTV3, VTV6, HTV7, HTV9, and HANOI TV1 The reason was due to thefact that these channels have been considered the most general ones broadcastedmostly nationwide with the great number of different fields such as culture, society,tourism, sports, education, entertainment and etc In terms of HTV7, HTV9 andHANOI TV1, despite the local channels (HTV7 and HTV9 are of Ho Chi Minh stationand HANOI TV1 is of Ha Noi one), they were picked out since they have been proved

to reach a large number of audiences all over the country Moreover, as it can beknown, the capital of Ha noi and the city of Ho Chi Minh are the cultural, social andeconomic centers of the country

Apart from some commercials captured from TV channels, the rest would bepicked out from some websites, such as http://youtube.com andhttp://truyenhinhtv.com on which a great number of Vietnamese TV commercials wereuploaded Particularly, both of websites are very convenient and easy to access withhigh speed of downloading

Stage 2

The second stage was the period of collecting data For this one, Vietnamesecommercials were selected and verified their validity and reliability To collect thedata, apart from capturing commercials from a great number of official TV channelswith the help of the device named the EasyCAP USB 2.0 Video and Audio CaptureCard, some available on the internet were also downloaded to support the process ofdata collection

After ending this period, it was counted that there were 21 commercials fromthe websites and 19 ones from the TV channels Since all of these commercials hadbeen televised recently on major TV channels in Vietnam, they could meet fully theaforementioned requirements In other words, the validity and reliability were ensuredregarding the chosen commercials

3.4 Procedures of Data Analysis

After all 40 Vietnamese TV commercials had been collected, they wereobserved cautiously in combination with transcribing speeches of each commercial.The selected commercials were coded in the form like C1, 2, 3…The capital letter Creferred to the commercials, whereas, the number 1, 2, 3, etc denoted the order of TVcommercials in the table

The study also employed the descriptive statistics in order to calculate thenumber of TV commercials using repetition out of 40 ones, and the percentage of eachtype of repetition in total of advertisements which used repetition The repetition wascategorized into 8 smaller types basing on the classification of Edward and David(1996) They were coded like the following table:

Table 2: The Code of Repetition Patterns

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND IMPLICATIONS

The key aim of this chapter is to present the findings which the researcher obtained from processing the collected data All the statistics were performed in the form of table and pie chart which expressed the percentage of each kind of total of 100

% Additionally, the implication and application of the study were also expected to make clearly on the base of the findings.

4.1 Repetitions in Vietnamese commercials

The findings of the study indicated that all of 8 repetition patterns of rhetoricaldevice given by Edward and David (2006) were applied into the collected Vietnamesecommercials However, the frequency of each repetition’s occurrence in commercialswas not the same Despite being mentioned in the literature review, repetition patterns

also should be elucidated more on the base of some typical examples as below:

Table 3: The Examples of Each Repetition Pattern

1 Rhyme (C12) HAZELINE cho làn da tr[ắng], rạng↑ ngời trong nắng

(C17) Đôi môi x[inh] như ngàn nụ hoa lung linh

2 Chime (C4) Lạm phát cao mà Ôi:: [ng]ất ngây giờ đây

(C17) Cho bao chàng trai [ng]ẩn ngơ, [th]ẫn thờ xin làm quen

3 Assonance &

Alliteration

(C28) Sunlight khử mùi t[anh] với chiết xuất trà xanh và chanh khử sạch mùi tanh và đánh bay các vết dầu mỡ

4 Anaphora (C2)

[Chúc] ông bà một câu như ý = Chúc cô chú một chén an