business slogans in english and vietnamese = khẩu hiệu kinh doanh trong tiếng anh và tiếng việt

Realizing the importance of advertising slogans to every business, this study is carried out to investigate the exploitation of some stylistic features in terms of graphology, phonology,

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PART I: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale ……… 1

2 Aims and Objectives of the Study……… 1

3 Scope of the Study……… 2

4 Method of the Study……… 2

5 Design of the Study……… 2

PART II: DEVELOPMENT Chapter 1: Theoretical Background 1 Business Slogans – Another Term of Advertising Slogans……… 4

2 A Review of Previous Studies ……… 4

3 Advertising as a Form of Communication……… 6

3.1 Communication……… 6

3.2 The Definition of Advertising……… 7

3.3 Advertising Functions……… 8

3.4 Types of Advertising……… 9

3.5 Structure of an Advertisement……… 10

4 Advertising Slogan as Part of an Advertisement……… 10

4.1 Definition of Slogan……… 10

4.2 Characteristics of a Good Advertising Slogan……… 12

Chapter 2: An Investigation into Certain Linguistic Features of some English and Vietnamese Advertising Slogans 1 Procedures……… 14

1.1 Data Collection……… 14

1.2 Data Analysis……… 15

2 The Analysis……… 15

2.1 Graphetic Features……… 15

2.2 Phonological Features……… 16

2.3 Lexical Features……… 18

2.4 Syntactic Features……… 22

2.5 Semantic Features……… 25

Chapter 3: Findings and Discussions 1 Findings and Discussions on Graphetic Features……… 27

2 Findings and Discussions on Phonological Features……… 27

3 Findings and Discussions on Lexical Features……… 28

4 Findings and Discussions on Syntactic Features……… 30

5 Findings and Discussions on Semantic Features……… 31

PART III: CONCLUSION 1 Recapitulation of main ideas……… 32

2 Limitations of the study……… 34

3 Suggestions for further research……… 34

APPENDIX I LIST OF ENGLISH ADVERTISING SLOGANS……… I APPENDIX II LIST OF VIETNAMESE ADVERTISING SLOGANS…… III

PART I: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

Advertising slogans are critical to the image of the business, regardless of the size The slogan or tagline is part of the business image It is a major part of the branding Therefore, slogans must be central and condensed messages which leave unforgettable impressions on

the consumers’ minds

The question that is often raised for advertisers is how to create a successful slogan In order to compose a meaningful slogan that can wrap up the essence of a product, there has been a full exploitation of language from phonology, lexicology, and syntax to semantics and pragmatics A slogan is a combination of many stylistic features which deserves to be written and researched by a copywriter with experience in writing slogans that gets the business noticed

Because creating a successful slogan is not an easy task, slogan writing has now become an industry It requires the study into the aspects of language exploited

Realizing the importance of advertising slogans to every business, this study is carried out

to investigate the exploitation of some stylistic features in terms of graphology, phonology, lexicology, syntax and semantics of some English and Vietnamese advertising slogans The results of the study may be useful for Vietnamese advertisers to produce successful slogans

2 Aims and Objectives of the Study

This study aims to find out the similarities and differences in the writing style of advertising slogans between English and Vietnamese To achieve this aim, two objectives are set Firstly, an investigation into certain stylistic features in terms of graphology, phonology, lexicology, syntax and semantics must be carried out Secondly, there should

be comparison between English and Vietnamese slogan writing style in business From this investigation and comparison, some hints can be drawn for Vietnamese advertising language in order to improve the effectiveness and profession of Vietnamese advertising

3 Scope of the Study

It is impossible for an M.A thesis to cover such a broad topic of business slogans Therefore certain stylistic features of some English and Vietnamese advertising slogans were chosen to take into consideration

4 Method of the Study

This study represents itself as descriptive research, as it “involves a collection of techniques used to specify, delineate, or describe naturally occurring phenomena without experimental manipulation” (Seliger & Shohamy, 1989: 124) In this type of research,

collecting data will be carried out through non-intrusive and non-manipulative procedures This typical characteristic will be specifically suitable for the job of collecting data in the study

This study combines both qualitative and quantitative methods Firstly, the advertising slogans are investigated so that stylistic features appearing in them are discovered and named Secondly, quantitative method is employed to find out the differences and similarities between Vietnamese and English slogans

5 Design of the Study

The study consists of three parts Part 1 entitled “INTRODUCTION” provides the reason

why the topic is chosen It then provides the aim and objectives of the study It is also in

this section that we are concerned with the scope and the design of the study

Part 2, named “DEVELOPMENT”, deals with the main contents of the study Chapter 1

begins with the concept of business slogan and advertising slogan, and then provides a review of some previous works done on advertising language both in English and Vietnamese It is followed by briefly looking at the language of advertising as a form of communication in order to find out the basic functions that an advertising message is intended to accomplish It, later on, provides some classifications of different types of advertisements and the popular structure of an advertisement After that, it gets insights into the term “advertising slogan”, its definition and its characteristics

Chapter 2 will start with the procedures of the investigation The analysis is then presented

in details in terms of graphology, phonology, lexicology, syntax and semantics In this analysis, some advertising slogans – both in English and Vietnamese – are chosen to support for the argument

Chapter 3 focuses on presenting findings of the research and discussions The discussion comes after statistical results for each stylistic feature It is the basis of the later conclusions

Part 3 “CONCLUSION” provides the recapitulation of main ideas, the limitations of the

study and some suggestions for further research

The study is closed with the appendix of English and Vietnamese advertising slogans that are used for the analysis

PART II: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

1 Business Slogan – Another Term of Advertising Slogan

There are three types of slogans: life slogans, career slogans and business slogans And the most popular type that can be seen everyday everywhere is business slogan

According to Oxford Collocations Dictionary, “business” is an activity of goods buying and selling Therefore, advertising is a means that a business can employ to introduce their products to consumers In other words, business slogans are advertising slogans which producers or advertisers use to sum up or to convey the central message about their products or services

Business slogans are critical to the image of the business, regardless of the size The slogan

or tagline is part of the business image It is a major part of the branding One of the most important things an advertising agency does is to create a slogan for a company The size of your company or business doesn't matter Large or small, you need a company slogan Even a small business needs a slogan; they need to brand their image That is the reason why business slogans or company slogans are named under a term

“advertising slogans”

Because advertising slogan is the central message that advertisers want to convey to consumers, it is an important part of an advertisement which is written to introduce, promote the product or service of a business Hereafter is a review of advertising language, advertisement and slogan

2 A Review of Previous Studies

In the US and European countries, advertising is a kind of industry Studies have been carried out in the aspect of advertising language, of which some well-known studies are

“English in advertising: A linguistic study of advertising in Great Britain” by Geoffrey N.Leech (1996), “Advertising as communication” by Gillian Dyer (1982), “English for sale: A study of the language of advertising” by Lars Hermeren (1999), or “The discourse

of advertising” by Guy Cook (2001) There are also some studies which only focus on certain language features of advertisements Some of these are “Selling America: Puns, language and advertising” by Michel Monnot (1982), “Pictorial Metaphor in Advertising”

by Char Forceville (1998) There are also some contrastive studies which compare the

advertising language in English and that in other languages, e.g “Advertising language: A pragmatic approach to advertisements in Britain and Japan” by Keiko Tanaka (1994)

Meanwhile advertising activities in Vietnam are quite new and have been rapidly expanded for the last few years Therefore, the number of studies in this field in Vietnam is limited Some notable researches on the language of advertising include two PhD theses done by

Mai Xuan Huy (2001) about “Các đặc điểm của ngôn ngữ quảng cáo dưới ánh sáng của lý thuyết giao tiếp” (Features of advertising language on the theory of communication) and

Ton Nu My Nhat (2005) in which she carried out a contrastive discourse analysis of travel advertisements based on the theory of Functional Grammar

Besides, there are many articles on the matter of advertising language which are collected

by Nguyen Kien Truong (2004) in a book called “Quảng cáo và ngôn ngữ quảng cáo (Advertising and the language of advertising)

Also, there are some MA theses carried out at institutional level They are: a thesis on

advertising language used in trade studied by Hoang Thi Thuy (2005), “Presupposition and Implicature in English and Vietnamese Advertising Slogans” by Tran Thien Tu (2007) and “An Investigation into the Style of the English Language Used in Advertising Slogans issued by some World-Famous Airlines” by Bui Thi Bich Thuy (2008)

All these works have revealed typical and very interesting features of advertising language

in general and slogans in particular Also in the spirit of inheriting and upholding the previous studies, what is being done hereafter is to partially find out some similarities and differences in certain stylistic features between some English and Vietnamese advertising slogans I hope that my small contribution will be useful in the future

3 Advertising as a Form of Communication

3.1 Communication

Communication plays a vital role in human life In his work, Fiske (1990:51) defines communication as social interaction through messages It can be inferred that communication appears in social contexts among people with messages to be transferred Here, he emphasizes that the messages are not only information but also relationship between the speakers and the hearers However, this definition seems too broad and blurred in meaning

According to Bovee and Thill (2000:57), communication can occur in various forms, written or spoken, verbal or nonverbal, to show a process of sending and receiving messages This concept has much to share with the definition given by Saundra Hybels and

Richard L Weaver (1992: 7) which says “communication is any process in which people share information, ideas, and feelings That process involves not only spoken or written word, but also the body language, personal mannerism and style, the surroundings – anybody that adds meanings to a message.” As seen from this definition, communication

itself is an on-going process with a lot of factors that help Based on particular situations, communicators will choose to make use of some factors that are most useful and available

in such cases to make their messages understood

For Shannon (1948: 379-423 and 623-656), he breaks the process of communication down into eight discrete components:

1 An information source Presumably a person who creates a message

2 The message, which is both sent by the information source and received by the

destination

3 A transmitter

4 The signal, which flows through a channel

5 A carrier or channel The most commonly used channels include air, light,

electricity, radio waves, paper, and postal systems

6 Noise, in the form of secondary signals that obscure or confuse the signal carried

Today we use noise more as a metaphor for problems associated with effective listening

7 A receiver In Shannon's conception, the receiving telephone instrument In face to

face communication a set of ears (sound) and eyes (gesture) In television, several layers of receiver, including an antenna and a television set

8 A destination Presumably a person who consumes and processes the message

The model of the communication process by Shannon (1948) provides, in its breakdown of the flow of a message from source to destination, an excellent breakdown of the elements

of the communication process that can be very helpful to students who are thinking about how they communicate with others

3.2 Definition of Advertising

According to Bovee (1992), "Advertising is the nonpersonal communication of information usually paid for and usually persuasive in nature about products, services or ideas by identified sponsors through the various media."(Bovee, 1992, p 7)

Advertising is the nonpersonal communication of information because it is not aimed at any individual; it aims at the public or a certain group of people It is different from interpersonal communication in which both speakers and hearers are there to interact with each other

According to Churchill, Jr and Peter (1998):

“Advertising is noted as any announcement or persuasive message placed in the mass media in paid or donated time or space by an identified individual, company, or organization to serve a number of audience about products and persuade or remind them of buying, to convey information about the organization itself or issues important to the organization in order to create or enhance perception of the quality or reliability of a product, thus encouraging customer loyalty and repeat purchases” (p.142)

It can be seen that advertising is a type of social-cultural communication between advertisers and customers As it is a communicative activity, it must share the principle procedures with other types of communication The following model of communication represents rather appropriately the procedure in advertising communication

It is clear that the intended message does not come to the receiver directly The intended message is often decoded and transmitted to the receiver by means of media Therefore, the message sounds implicit

3.3 Functions of Advertising

Although the primary objective of advertising is to persuade, it may achieve this objective

in many different ways

The first and foremost function of advertising is to get consumers’ attention This is considered to be the first step in trying to be persuasive In trying to reach this goal, some

SOURCE

Intended message

Decoded message

Selective awareness

Selective memorization

Noise

RECEIVER

Figure 1 A model of communication

(Hoang, T & Nguyen, V T 2000)

advertisers have made their advertisements sound annoying or even stupid This is because striking things remain longer in human minds than normal ones

Another function of advertising is to arouse consumers’ interest The interest may be caused by the effects of supporting tools like sounds, eye-catching images, a pleasant jingle, a funny advertising plot or a surprising slogan

The third function of advertising is to induce consumers to try new products and to suggest reuse of the product as well as new uses; this is the desire-stimulating function Previously,

most advertisements aimed at promoting their products’ merits, which is called oriented However, there has been a shift of focus from product-oriented to audience- oriented, which is primarily concerned with the needs and wants, the hopes and fears of the

product-target audience

3.4 Types of Advertising

Advertisements are classified based on different criteria Geographically, there are local, national and international advertisements In terms of advertising medium, they are divided into print and electronic categories Another classification is based on their purposes which sorts them out into commercial and non-commercial categories The former includes Consumer Advertising, Trade Advertising and Service Advertising The latter can be called Public Interest Advertising

Consumer advertising aims directly at mass audience; trade advertising is responsible for the communication between manufacturers and retailers; and service advertising is directed

at raising customers’ awareness and attitude toward the organization rather than its products or services

Public Interest Advertising aims to inform, persuade, or remind people about the particular idea, cause, or philosophy being advertised This kind of advertising is often used by non-business institutions, such as schools, hospitals and charitable organizations We also see advertising by associations or government organizations Much government advertising announces the availability of such valuable government services as consumer assistance,

welfare aid, or career guidance Many state government use advertising to attract new businesses, tourists, or workers to aid their economy

Because of the fact that public interest advertising is nonprofit, the words it uses are much more different from the other 3 kinds of advertising Its purpose is not to urge readers to spend their money, but to disseminate a kind of concept or advocate a social ethic

3.5 Structure of an Advertisement

Generally, an advertisement begins with a headline which has the function to attract audience’s attention It is followed by a body copy Normally appearing at the end of every advertisement, a slogan serves to represent the central message that the producers want to convey as we have noted earlier The easiest way to find out the slogan of an advertisement

is to look for the logo as normally they appear together to draw customer’s attention Besides that, there are other components such as illustrations and colors, trademark and brand name All the components mentioned above are named as visual elements Another kind of elements – audio elements are advertising commentary, advertising music and advertising sounds

However, there is a difference between TV advertisements and printed advertisements In

TV advertisements the place of advertising slogans is shown clearly as they always come after all the other parts In printed advertisements, the position of an advertising slogan is obviously marked by its companion with the logo of the product and a separated and outstanding placement which is normally at the end of the advertisement

Thus, headline, body copy and slogan are the most important elements in an advertisement And in this study I would like to focus on slogans – the explicit, refined and inflammatory element

4 Advertising Slogan as an Essential Part of an Advertisement

4.1 Definition of a Slogan

The word slogan originates in a Scottish Gaelic word sluagh-ghairm pronounced as

slogorm which is used to mean battle-cry

An advertising slogan is often considered to be a verbal logo as it normally appears just beneath or beside the brand name or logo of the product in a printed advertisement The use of a slogan is to sum up or to convey the central message of the advertisers And a slogan is especially useful in reinforcing the product’s identity Though placed together with a logo to symbolize for the product, a slogan is thought to be even more powerful than

a logo as people often remember and recite the slogan of a product rather than sketching its logo

According to Charles L Whittier (1955), a slogan “… should be a statement of such merit about a product or service that it is worthy of continuous repetition in advertising, is worthwhile for the public to remember, and is phrased in such a way that the public is likely to remember it.” (p.36) That means the typical characteristics of a slogan is

memorable

However, one interesting fact is that slogans are referred to with different terms in different countries Here are some of them

In the UK, they are end lines, endlines or straplines

In the USA, they are tags, tag lines, taglines or theme lines

In Germany, they are claims

In Belgium, they are baselines

In France, they are signatures

we call 'em slogos (the slogan by the logo)

They are often ™ Trade marks (UK)

™ Trademarks (USA)

SM Service Marks (USA)

® Registered Trade Marks (UK)

® Registered Trademarks (USA) (http://www.adslogans.co.uk/ans/nomenclature.html)

4.2 Slogan Characteristics

As mentioned above, the typical characteristics of a slogan is memorable However, there are also many characteristics which form a perfect slogan:

 It should be memorable

 It should recall the brand name

 It should include a key benefit

 It should differentiate the brand

 It should impart positive feelings for the brand

 It should reflect the brand's personality

 It should help in ordering the brand

 It should not be in current use by others

 It should not be bland, generic or hackneyed

 It should not prompt a sarcastic or negative response

 It should not be pretentious

 It should not be negative

 It should not be corporate waffle

 It should not make you say “so what?” or "ho hum"

 It should not make you say "oh yeah??"

 It should not be meaningless

 It should not be complicated or clumsy

 You should like it

 Trends in slogans

http://www.adslogans.co.uk/ans/index.html

CHAPTER 2: AN INVESTIGATION INTO STYLISTIC FEATURES OF SOME ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE ADVERTISING SLOGANS

1 Procedures

1.1 Data Collection

In this study, 80 advertising slogans (40 Vietnamese and 40 English) are collected and used to find out the different and common stylistic features between them The English advertising slogans are taken from the database of slogans on the website: http://www.textart.ru/database/english-advertising-slogans.html The presence of these slogans in those highly prestigious lists of the world businesses proves their effectiveness and success in extending their services, among which their advertising strategies in general and their advertising slogans in particular play a vital part What’s more, as they are among the biggest companies in the world, the current trend in creating slogans will be present in their own ones

The population of 40 English advertising slogans to be investigated is considered large enough as it includes:

 Some famous brands, many of which belong to English-speaking countries situated

in Europe and are famous for their services

 Some randomly-chosen slogans in the database of advertising slogans to ensure the generalization of the study

 All the slogans are originally English We do not collect the translated ones

40 English advertising slogans and 40 Vietnamese ones are respectively divided into 4 categories (finance and banking; telecommunication, broadcasting and publishing; food and drinks; fashion) with an equal number of slogans in each category

The population of 40 Vietnamese advertising slogans covers mostly all famous brands in Vietnam They are representative enough to reflect the current trend in creating slogans in our country And certainly, foreign companies which have their branches in Vietnam will not be taken into consideration

1.2 Data Analysis

To find out the prevailing trend in creating advertising slogans, all the chosen slogans will

be studied and compared in the light of common features of advertising slogans to see what features or techniques are mostly employed by advertisers This purpose is best achieved

by working out the commonly-employed stylistic features and the proportion of slogans possessing each feature and employing each technique

The result of this study will be presented based on the statistics to see which features are most used by slogan makers as well as the differences between English and Vietnamese advertising slogans in terms of language style The findings will be provided after the statistical results

2 The Analysis

In this section, some stylistic features of English and Vietnamese advertising slogans are presented in terms of graphology, phonology, lexicology, syntax and semantics From each perspective, the slogans will be analyzed in terms of subtypes to investigate their language style in details

2.1 Graphetic Features

Consistent use of initial capitalization

To achieve an emphatic effect, the advertising slogan is just like a headline which uses initial capitalization to attract more attention or to stress every word it says to impress the reader

For example:

Regarding to slogans investigated in the study, there are some English advertising slogans

employing initial capitalization consistently

H.J Heinz Company 57 Varieties

Nestle Aberfoyle Natural Spring Water Pure Life

In Vietnamese, no advertising slogans use this technique

Inconsistent use of initial capitalization

The initial letter of some words, regardless of brand names, in advertising slogans is capitalized so that these words can receive the emphasis and stress These words often carry the meaning of the whole slogan and they are the most important words

Among 80 advertising slogans investigated, only 3 English slogans use initial capitalization inconsistently:

Calvin Klein Between love and madness lies Obsession

In the slogan of ABC, the most important word is “One” which implies the highest ranking

of the brand In the slogan of Coca cola, the implication that it is real, it is not just a saying

is expressed by the initial capitalization of “Real Thing” And the spirit of Calvin Klein’s slogan lies in the word “Obsession” “Obsession” is what Calvin Klein brings about

Full use of capitalization

Sometimes for the same reason as above, the advertising slogan needs to emphasize every letter it uses or to make the advertising slogan look trim and tidy However, none of 80

advertising slogans in this study use full capitalization

2.2 Phonological Features

From the perspective of phonology, the two most noticeable phonological items employed here are rhymes and alliteration

Use of rhymes

Rhyme is the best technique to make something memorable You can easily know by heart

a poem or a song because they are rhythmical Taking advantage of this feature, advertising slogans both in English and Vietnamese employ rhyme as an effective way to stick in people’s mind

The English slogan is often rhythmised with the brand name Therefore, the brand name is always haunting in customers’ mind

Natwest Bank To save and invest, talk to Natwest

The rhyming effect between the slogan and the brand name “Natwest” helps customers not

to forget the bank’s name

Like English advertising slogans, Vietnamese slogans also use rhyme but in another way The rhyme is created by parallel structures, in which the word in the second structure is made rhyme with the word in the first structure:

Nhà xuất bản khoa học kĩ thuật Nâng tầm tri thức, vững chắc tương lai

Broadening the knowledge, securing the future Nhà xuất bản trẻ Nuôi dưỡng tâm hồn – Khơi nguồn trí thức

Nourish the soul – Enlarging the knowledge Dệt kim Đông Xuân Khẳng định uy tín – Giữ trọn niềm tin

Affirming prestige – Keeping trust

In the first slogan, “chắc” is rhythmised with “thức” (uneven tone) In the second slogan,

“nguồn” and “hồn” are rhymes (partial tone) And in the third slogan, the whole tone is created by the rhyme between “tin” and “tín”

Thus, rhyme is a typically phonological feature of advertising slogans

Use of alliteration

Alliteration can help the slogans achieve the strong beating rhythm needed to make it a

repeatable sentence They can be easily remembered by the audience:

Allied Irish Bank Britain's best business bank

This effect is achieved by beginning each word with the same letter “b” in those words as

“Britain”, “best”, “business”, and “bank”

Because the beating rhythm achieved by alliteration is too strong and the creation of it is not easy at all, the English slogans employing this technique is countable This is also the reason why no trace of it in Vietnamese advertising slogans is found

2.3 Lexical Features

From the lexical point of view, there are some typical lexical items that are noticed as the followings:

Common uses of first and second person addressee “you”, “we”, and “us”

The use of second person addressee “you” tends to shorten the distance between the product or the producer and consumers, as if the producer or the advertiser is speaking to you face to face, making sincere promises, honest recommendations In so doing, the advertising slogans stand a better chance to move the receiver or customers to action, because the receiver feels that he is being thought of and taken care of and he is the center point of the producers

The use of first person addresser “we” and “us” is the most direct way to tell the receiver what the sponsor of an advertising slogan stands for, his idea, his view, and his credit It’s

a little bit like a self-introduction to the potential customers to let them know you, recognize you, believe you and trust you

Advertisers in Vietnam also employ the second person addressee when making advertising slogans:

Bảo Minh CMG Nếu bạn đi tìm sự vững chắc

If you look for stability

Say it your way

Use of unqualified comparison

Admen have to abide by the code of commercial practice and stick to the rules of advertising They should not advertise their product at the expense of others So they resort

to unqualified comparison to avoid defaming other products They can not say: “Brand X is better than brand Y.” (XUE Hangrong, 2003:189) Otherwise, unpleasant lawsuits will

inevitably occur They can say:

Carlsberg Probably the best beer in the world ABN AMRO bank ABN AMRO Making more possible

Stones bitter There’s no taste like Stones

Allied Irish Bank Britain’s best business bank

Bank of America Bank of America Higher standards

However, this technique is hardly employed by Vietnamese advertisers

Use of “every” “always”, etc.

These words are often used in advertisements to indicate the universal application of the product or to include as many potential customers as possible or to achieve the emphasis of the product’s utility or the company’s unswerving commitment

In the slogans of CitiBank (The United States), Levis jeans (The United States), Mobile phone (Vietnam) we can see these words:

Levis jeans Quality never goes out of style

Anytime, anywhere

Use of “no”, “none”, etc.

Negatives tend to be used very sparingly because the purpose of all advertising slogans is

to strengthen the positive side But when negatives do occur, they are usually placed in an emphatic position to highlight the special the positive side

Stones bitter There’s no taste like Stones

However, it seems that these words are not favored by Vietnamese advertisers

Use of verbs