A contrastive analysis of english and vietnamese real estate adertising slogans in printed advertisements

Therefore, the study “A Contrastive Analysis of English and Vietnamese Real Estate Advertising Slogans in Printed Advertisements” is conducted to figure out some distinctive phonologic

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

NGUYỄN THỊ THU THẢO

A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE REAL ESTATE ADVERTISING SLOGANS

IN PRINTED ADVERTISEMENTS

Phân tích đối chiếu khẩu hiệu quảng cáo bất động sản tiếng Anh và

tiếng Việt trên ấn phẩm quảng cáo

M.A MINOR THESIS

Field : English Linguistics 1 Code : 60220201

Hanoi, November 2015

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

NGUYỄN THỊ THU THẢO

A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE REAL ESTATE ADVERTISING SLOGANS

IN PRINTED ADVERTISEMENTS

Phân tích đối chiếu khẩu hiệu quảng cáo bất động sản tiếng Anh và

tiếng Việt trên ấn phẩm quảng cáo

M.A MINOR THESIS

Field : English Linguistics 1 Code : 60220201

Supervisor: TRẦN THỊ THU HIỀN, Ph.D

Hanoi, November 2015

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DECLARATION

I hereby, certify the thesis entitled “A Contrastive Analysis of English and

Vietnamese Real Estate Slogans in Printed Advertisements” is the result of my own

research for the Minor Degree of Master of Arts at University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi The thesis has not been

submitted for any degree at any other universities or institutions I agree that the

origin of my paper deposited in the library can be accessible for the purposes of study and research

October, 2015

Nguyễn Thị Thu Thảo

Secondly, my thanks also go to all the lecturers, professors and doctors teaching at the post graduate faculty of ULIS for their lectures and supports during

my course

Last but not least, I would like to give thanks to my beloved family and friends, who have encouraged and supported for my study process to finish this MA thesis

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ABSTRACT

Due to the high demand of current market, every product needs effective strategies to introduce its image to the potential customers, and a successful slogan seems to be an impressive way Among various types of products, real estate is gradually paid much attention for its significance in people‟s living condition However, there exist differences in terms of linguistic features between English and Vietnamese real estate slogans that need to be investigated Therefore, the study

“A Contrastive Analysis of English and Vietnamese Real Estate Advertising Slogans

in Printed Advertisements” is conducted to figure out some distinctive

phonological, lexical and syntactic features among English and Vietnamese real estate slogans The total of 90 advertising slogans are collected from well-known English and Vietnamese real estate newspapers and magazines, and analyzed to support the aim of the study The finding of the research emphasizes the similarities and differences in terms of phonological, lexical and syntactic features between English and Vietnamese real estate advertising slogans The thesis was carried with the hope to implement some suggestions for teaching and learning business English, and some advice for advertisers

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ii

SUMMARY iii

PART 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale 1

2 Aims and objectives of the study 2

2.1 Aims 2

2.2 Objectives 2

3 Research question and approaches 2

4 Scope of the study 3

5 Significance of the study 3

6 Design of the study 3

PART 2: DEVELOPMENT 4

CHAPTER 1 4

LITERATURE REVIEW 4

1.1 Review of previous studies 4

1.2 Discourse 5

1.3 Discourse analysis 6

1.3.1 Context 6

1.3.2 Role of context in discourse analysis 6

1.3.3 Components of context 6

1.4 Advertising as a form of communication 6

1.4.1 Definition of advertising 6

1.4.2 Functions of advertising 9

1.4.3 Types of advertising 9

1.4.4 Structure of advertisement 10

1.5 Advertising slogan as a part of an advertisement 11

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1.5.1 Definition of a slogan 11

1.5.5 Criteria of a good advertising slogan 12

1.6 Features of advertising language 13

1.6.1 Phonological features 13

1.6.2 Lexical features 13

1.6.3 Syntactic features 15

CHAPTER 2 17

METHODOLOGY 18

2.1 Research approaches and methods 18

2.2 Research question 18

2.3 Data collection instruments 19

2.4 Research procedure 19

2.5 Chapter summary 20

CHAPTER 3 21

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 21

3.1 Phonological features 21

3.1.1 Use of rhymes 21

3.1.2 Use of alliteration and anaphora 23

3.2 Lexical features 24

3.2.1 Use of field words 24

3.2.2 Use of geographical names and brand names 26

3.3 Syntactic features 28

3.3.1 Use of short simple sentences 28

3.3.2 Use of imperative sentences 28

3.3.3 Use of questions… …… ………29

3.3.4 Use of phrases 30

3.3.5 Use of parallelism 31

3.3.6 Use of comparison 32

3.3.7 Use of person addressee “we”, “you” 32

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3.4 Chapter summary 34

PART 3: CONCLUSION 36

1 Recapitulations 36

2 Implications 37

2.1 For teaching and learning business English and linguistics 37

2.2 For advertisers 38

3 Suggestions for further studies 40

REFERENCES 41 APPENDIX I

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LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES

As concerning much about advertisements which appear in high frequency on newspapers and magazines, the researcher realizes that real estate advertisements seem to take much room among other kinds of advertisements Due to theirs stereotype, real estate advertisements focus on the facility of living and they employ language as a presenting tool to emphasize that However, in Vietnamese, the real estate advertisers seem not to pay much attention to their slogans as there is no focusing point for customers to memorize about the product or service In this field, the numbers of slogans which can carve an unforgettable impression on customers‟ mind are rare Whereas in English, real estate advertisers try their best to create a sharp and smart slogan to attract their potential customers and there exist many outstanding slogans worldwide Thus, the situation is to put advertisers to questions about what is a good slogan, and which linguistic features should be included in the

slogan to make it a successful one Therefore, “A Contrastive Analysis of English

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and Vietnamese Real Estate Advertising Slogans in Printed Advertisements” is

intentionally carried out to provide some useful knowledge of language used in real estate advertisements for English teachers and learners as well as Vietnamese advertisers

2 Aims and objectives of the study

2.1 Aims

The aim of this study is to analyze and figure out the similarities and differences in the linguistic features of real estate advertising slogans in English and Vietnamese language

2.2 Objectives

Due to the aim stated above, the study will focus on some features of real estate advertising slogans of English and Vietnamese in terms of phonology, lexicology, syntax, as well as draw out some hints for Vietnamese advertisers, especially in real estate services which may help to improve their effectiveness and professionality

Phonological features play a vital part in creating the sounds of the slogan when reading aloud so that customers can be impressed and remember the product better

Lexical features are necessary elements to understand the purpose of the advertiser toward his target customers, the strategies he employs to shorten the distance between the producer and the customers in the indirect communication Syntactic features use types of sentences, phrases, word order to express the purpose of the advertiser in the form of language Without these syntactic features, slogans cannot be created and therefore, the purpose of the communication between the advertiser and customers is not achieved

3 Research question and approaches

Due to the aims and objectives, the study is conducted to answer the following question:

What are the similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese Real Estate Advertising Slogans in Printed Advertisements in terms of phonological, lexical and syntactic features?

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This study employs descriptive, contrastive and statistic approaches since

they mainly involve collecting data and describing the features without any experiments These approaches help to investigate the frequency of some linguistic

features of real estate slogans in English and Vietnamese

4 Scope of the study

 All the slogans investigated in this study are taken from the printed advertisements of popular real estate companies and groups in English and Vietnamese language

 In this study, phonological, lexical and syntactic features of real estate slogans in English and Vietnamese are extensively discussed

5 Significance of the study

Both theoretical and practical aspects are considered the values of the study In theory, the research helps to find out typical linguistic features used in real estate slogans in English speaking countries and Vietnam In practice, it helps English learners to be aware of those linguistic features in learning and practicing daily English and to promote Vietnamese advertisers to create new and emphasizing slogans for Vietnamese real estate market

6 Design of the study

The study consists of three parts, entitled “INTRODUCTION”,

“DEVELOPMENT”, and “CONCLUSION”

Part one Introduction states the identification of the problems, the research

question, objectives, scope, significance and the design of the whole study

Part two Development composes of three chapters, namely Literature review,

Methodology, Findings and Discussion, respectively

Part three is the Conclusion which summarizes typical findings of the study,

involves contributions of the research and suggests further research

The study ends with the References and Appendices

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PART 2: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER 1 LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Review of previous studies

There are many researches worldwide which have been carried out in every aspect of the matter related to advertisements in English and covered the features of advertising language Some famous titles generally mentioned the language of

advertising such as “Words in Advertisements” by Myers (1994), “The language of

advertising” by Goddard (1998), or “Advertising as communication” by Lars

(1999) In Vietnam, some outstanding researches on the language of advertising include

the one written by Phung with “Vấn đề quảng cáo” (1992), “Về đặc điểm của ngôn ngữ

quảng cáo” (1993) by Tran and Nguyen , “Một vài nhận xét bước đầu về ngôn ngữ quảng cáo” by Nguyen (1993), Mai with “Các đặc điểm của ngôn ngữ quảng cáo dưới ánh sáng của lý thuyết giao tiếp” (2001) These works mainly discuss the functions,

structure and wording used in advertisements

There are also some other studies focus on some certain features of advertising

language Some typical examples are “The discourse of Advertising” by Cook (1992), “The use of metaphors on online advertising” by Anderson (1998),

“Advertising language: A pragmatic approach to advertisements in Britain and

Japan” by Tanaka (1999), and one written by Ton with “A discourse analysis of travel advertisements in English and Vietnamese” (2005)

The aspects of advertisement has also been studied in many M.A theses carried out at institutional level in ULIS with some aspects of advertising language, such as one in English language used in airline service slogans by Bui (2010) and

another one “Presupposition and implicature in English and Vietnamese

Advertising slogans” by Tran (2007)

All these works have covered typical features of advertising language in general and slogans in particular in terms of semantics, discourse and pragmatics In the spirit of inheriting and upholding the previous studies, however, the contrastive

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analysis of advertisement between the two languages, especially in some specific fields such as real estate, is not commonly covered Therefore, what is done hereafter is to figure out some similarities and differences in other certain linguistic features between collected English and Vietnamese real estate advertising slogans

1.2 Discourse

Discourse has been identified as a major focus of research in diverse intersecting disciplines Due to its widely applied in many different aspects of the multidisciplinary area, the term discourse is researched under various viewpoints

Cook (1989:7) considers discourse as a composition of “one or more well-formed

grammatical sentences”; this term, however, was previously explored by Halliday

and Hasan (1985:3) and regarded as functional language Crystal (1992:25) defines

that discourse is “a continuous stretch of language larger than a sentence, often

constituting a coherent unit”, such as argument, joke or narrative

Basing on these definitions above, advertisements and advertising slogans are unquestionably discourses because they serve as a means of communication and they are found coherent by their customers They themselves convey the messages from manufacturers or service providers to their customers and slogans are considered the concise ways to cover those messages

According to Fairclough (2003), “any actual instance of language in use” is a text In other words, text can be “written or printed” articles, or even “transcripts of

(spoken) conversations and interviews, as well as television programs or pages” However, Mey (1993:184) defined that text is “not a particularly helpful or interesting concept in understanding human speech behavior” as it may not support

web-the understanding of a particular speech without mentioning oweb-ther elements such as speaker, listener, the relationship between them, spatial element Fairclough also

claimed that there exists a close relationship between text and discourse, as “any

analysis of texts which aims to be significant in social scientific terms has to connect with theoretical questions about discourse”, and conversely, “no real understanding of the social effects of the discourse is possible without looking

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closely at what happens when people talk or write” Therefore, text is an essential

part of discourse but discourse analysis is not “merely the linguistic analysis of

texts” (Fairclough, 2003)

From these viewpoints, it is concluded that advertisement, the main target of this study, is discourse as it reflects the relationship between advertisers and customers in the act of buying and selling and the effect of advertisement to customers on the process of purchasing

1.3 Discourse analysis

1.3.1 Context

In Nunan (1993:10) context is considered as “the situation giving rise to the

discourse and within which discourse is embedded” While Cook (1989) claims

that context is “knowledge of the world outside language” which helps to

understand and interpret the messages in both spoken and written form Thus, it can

be concluded that context and discourse are inseparable

1.3.2 Role of context in discourse analysis

According to Hymes (1962) context is seen as a limit of the range of possible interpretations, and on the other hand, a supporter of the intended interpretation as

context can “support a range of meanings” Context, as well as other components

namely social phenomena, social relationships and cultural factors, has influence on the language phenomena, whilst the language phenomenon is also a target to study

of discourse analysis

1.3.3 Components of context

Hymes mentioned the features of context which is relevant to reading and

interpretation of discourse, including Adresser and Adressee, Audience, Topic,

Setting, Channel, Code, Message-form, Event, Key, Purpose

1.4 Advertising as a form of communication

1.4.1 Definition of advertising

According to Jeremy Bullmore, director of Wire and Plastic Products (WPP)

advertising is “any paid-for communication overtly intended to inform and/or

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influence one or more people” In the light of American Marketing Association

(AMA), advertising is defined as “the placement of announcements and persuasive

messages in time or space purchased in any of the mass media by business firms, nonprofit organizations, government agencies, and individuals who seek to inform and/ or persuade members of a particular target market or audience about their products, services, organizations, or ideas”

It is clear that both the two definitions emphasize advertising as non-personal communication In other words, advertising is not aimed at any individual, but at a group of people, generally the public Because of this feature, advertising, along with essential components namely information, media and other components of advertising, should be limited by the law of a country, the moral standards and people‟s psychology In addition, it is the fact that advertising is money-spinning for its value given from its well-chosen and relevant language with great impact and persuasion

Advertisement is defined by AMA 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” In other words, advertisement is the act or

process of advertising

The model below shows the process of transferring advertising information or messages between advertisers and customers in which the context may affect the use of language

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Figure 1.1 A model of communication

(Hoang, T & Nguyen, V T 2000)

As discussed, when analyzing the context of a particular discourse, the first components to be mentioned are the addresser and addressee of the underlying message In the communication of advertisements, the two main participants are the company and the customers It has been already clear that the purpose of any advertisements is to emphasize the quality of a product and to impress the targeted customers so that the trading choice can be made, thus, the language used to direct the readers of these advertisement should be manipulated exotically The selected channel in the current study is printed media In this channel, the whole intended message is encoded in the form of linguistic text only, which determines that linguistic features play the essential role in creating the impression of the targeted buyers As each piece of advertisement only promotes the sales of one particular range of products, thus, a vocabulary focus on the field of those products is also necessary By this, the content expressing what customers can benefit from the products will be impressively directed Besides, since the form of an advertising slogan must always be brief and informative, the use of the linguistic devices should

be carefully considered

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1.4.2 Functions of advertising

Since its introduction of the American advertising and sales pioneer Lewis (1898), and generally attributed in the marketing and advertising literature by

Strong (1925), functions of advertising have been known with the term AIDA

(Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action) Although the primary objective of

advertising is to persuade the receiver, it may reach this objective in different ways with its functions

(1) Attention: this is the first step to achieve persuasion All advertising

slogans try to reach customers‟ attention in some special ways, even silly or weird due to the fact that unusual things often remain longer in customers‟ minds than any other normal ones

(2) Interest: the advertisement should attract customers‟ interest in its product

This is built up by eye-catching images, entertaining advertising plots, amusing music melodies, or remarkable slogans After the interest is roused, the customers will learn more about it and the purpose of the product is reached

(3) Desire: depending on customers‟ need, advertisements emphasize the

necessity of the product and gain its merits This strategy boosts customers‟ want on the product and encourages customers to purchase one

(4) Action: after concerning costumers‟ desire, it is likely that purchasing is

aroused and the purpose of the advertisers is successfully achieved

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Consumer Advertising

Most advertisements on television, radio, magazines, and newspapers are called Consumer Advertisements, for their covering of daily consumed products including foods, drinks, transports, electric appliance and so forth Although people are unpleasant with ads spreading in printed papers and other media, they still need

a source of information to guide their purchases Therefore, it is absolutely necessary for advertisers to draw customers‟ attention

Business Advertising

For those who are not involved in business, they may rarely see business

advertisements Consequently, while most consumer advertisements are shown on mass

consumer media, business ads tend to appear in specialized business periodicals, business emails, or sometimes in trade shows with specific business areas

1.4.4 Structure of advertisement

According to Fletcher (2010) and Hoxie (2011), a standard structure of an advertisement consists of these following components:

attention A good headline will introduce the product to customers or at least attract customers‟ curiosity about the product

advertiser‟s idea It is used to explain, clarify or emphasize the outstanding characteristics of the product

important features or advantages of the product, the ones that advertisers intentionally send to audience Therefore, it should always be short and memorable

to draw customers‟ attention

body should act as a campaign and must explain how the advertised product satisfies customers‟ need

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customers when visual image is attached to it Visual effect can work as a transmitting device to support advertiser‟s idea and avoid misunderstanding caused by wording

types of products It is vital since it is used to avoid customers‟ confusion while purchasing

size of the image, headline, sub-headline or body used in the advertisement It can appear in film scenes, posters, brochures

1.5 Advertising slogan as a part of an advertisement

1.5.1 Definition of a slogan

According to Oxford Dictionary, a slogan is “a word or phrase that is easy to

remember, used for example by a political party or in advertising to attract people’s attention or to suggest an idea quickly” It means that, generally, a slogan is a

memorable saying used in political, commercial, and some other contexts to express

an idea or purpose In particular, advertising slogan is a verbal logo appearing just under or beside the brand name of the product It is also the short message of the whole advertisement which advertisers want their customers to memorize most, and

it is reminded by customers first when they think about the product

Interestingly, slogans are often referred to with various terms in different countries

The Netherlands and Italy Pay-offs, payoffs

Some others Rip-offs, Slogos (slogan by the logo)

Table 1.1 Different terms of slogan worldwide

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1.5.2 Criteria of a good advertising slogan

In this thesis, real estate advertising slogans are the ones belong to the field of real estate, which are created by real estate advertisers in order to attract customers‟ attention and persuade them to buy the product Therefore, slogan is often one of the first elements that can impress customers and present outstanding characteristics

of the product According to Simister (2013), a good advertising slogan should include the following criteria:

1 It’s memorable

2 It recalls the brand name

3 It includes a key benefit

4 It differentiates the brand

5 It reflects the brand personality

6 It’s believable

7 It’s strategic

8 It’s competitive

9 It’s original

10 It’s not in current use by others

1.6 Features of advertising language

According to McQuarrie and Mick (1996), a rhetorical figure can be defined

as “an artful deviation in the form taken by a statement” The topic of rhetorical

figures, or also known as figures of speech, is necessarily addressed in any kinds of advertising research with the three following reasons

pervasiveness of figuration in the language of advertising (Leigh 1994)

protocols without the appreciation of their history and distinctiveness

(Sherry 1999), semiotic (Mick 1986), and text-based perspectives (Hirschman and Holbrook 1992) is conducive to a focus on rhetorical phenomena in advertising

(cited in McQuarrie and Mick 1996)

Figure 1.2 A taxonomy of rhetorical figures in advertising

(McQuarrie and Mick 1996)

The figure shows the classical distinction between scheme and trope In the

third level, four rhetorical operations, namely repetition, reversal, substitution,

destabilization, are presented that distinguish different application in each

This study will adapt the framework proposed by McQuarrie and Mick in analyzing English and Vietnamese real estate advertising slogans in collected advertisements in order to find out similarities and differences of real estate advertisements in the two languages Based on the stock of real estate slogans collected, some outstanding features will be covered and presented Although there are many elements to create a meaningful and memorable slogan, such as

phonology and lexicology (belong to the first rhetorical operation named repetition), syntax and semantics (belong to the second rhetorical operation called reversal),

and so on; however, this paper will look at English and Vietnamese real estate

According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, rhyme is “correspondence in

terminal sounds of units of composition or utterance” In other words, rhyme is the

repetition of the last stressed vowel sound and all the sounds that follow it in two or more words

Don’t just book it Thomas Cook it! – Thomas Cook

1.6.1.2 Use of alliteration

Alliteration is a very useful poetic technique in which the initial consonant sounds of words are repeated in close succession By applying alliteration, the slogans can achieve the strong beating rhythm to create a repeatable sentence, and

to reach readers‟ memory

Functional….Fashionable…Formidable… - Fila 1.6.1.3 Use of anaphora

Anaphora is the repetition of words at the beginning of phrases The presence

of anaphora in slogans makes them stay focus on the benefits brought by the product

Early treatment Early cure - Gyne Lotrimin medicine

1.6.2 Lexical features

1.6.2.1 Use of lexical verbs

a) Use of finite and non-finite verbs

Verbs which have the past or the present form are called finite verbs, while

verbs in any other form (infinitive, -ing, or -ed) are called nonfinite verbs This

means that verbs with tense are finite, and verbs without tense are nonfinite

Going beyond expectations – Malaysia Airlines

British Airways To fly To serve - British Airways

b) Use of modal verbs

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The use of modals in general in advertisements aims to suggest the benefits of the products rather than to make categorical product claims This is characteristic of

a softer, less aggressive sales approach

Betcha can’t eat just one - Lay‟s chocolate c) Use of tense of verbs

It refers to the correspondence between the form of the verb and the concept of time In advertising language, the common-used verb tense is the simple present Thus the predominant tone of the advertisements is one of certainty, of the presentation of facts, complemented by the appellative function of the imperative

Ultra softness is all you need – Kleenex Ultra Catch the Spirit! – Spirit Airlines d) Use of voice

As usual in advertising, more active than passive verb constructions were found, attributing an active role to both the potential customer and the advertiser/product

No one knows the land like a Navajo – Mazda 1.6.2.2 Adjectives

The use of adjectives in advertisements is considered factual An additional point concerning the use of adjectives in advertisements is the relative scarcity of comparative and superlative forms The key to this lies in the use of numbers

THAI - Smooth as Silk – Thai Airways International The closest thing to paradise - Raintree apartments 1.6.2.3 Geographical names and brand names

Geographic feature is a crucial element that helps locate the origin of target object since it is essential for audience to identify and distinguish the different source of information or objects In the field of real estate, for example, brand names, and especially geographical names will act as good indicators of the place they are from, which helps customers a lot in choosing their product

Ultra softness is all you need – Kleenex Ultra THAI - Smooth as Silk – Thai Airways International 1.6.2.4 Use of negation

Hawaii starts here – Hawaii Airlines

In the sentential level, one element that needs to be covered is the use of personal addressees In English, the use of personal addressees is very common due

to its benefit of establishing the relationship between speakers and audience According to Hymes (1964) and Cook (1992), addressers and addressees are crucial elements in communication It seems that the second addressees are used to shorten the distance between the speaker and audience, create face-to-face communication, and make promises or guarantee about things

Nobody does it like you – Hover Vacuum Cleaner

We’ll take more care of you – British Airways

1.6.3.2 Phrasal level

According to Merriam Webster, phrase is known as “a group of two or more

words that express a single idea but do not usually form a complete sentence”

Various types of phrases are employed such as noun phrases, verb phrases, adjective phrases, etc They are so concise and straight that they are beyond our power to do any addition or subtraction

Lower fares, fewer restrictions – American West Airlines 1.6.3.3 Repetition of structures

Parallelism is the similarity in structure of two clauses or sentences to serve the need of special effect in layout or sounding of language It is vital that parallel

structure must follow strict regulations in terms of parallel language, number of

words, parallel words, the harmony in rhyme and sounding

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CHAPTER 2 METHODOLOGY 2.1 Research approaches and methods

To figure out the answer for the objectives of the study, these following approaches are employed

 The descriptive approach, according to Seliger & Shohamy (1989), involves

“a collection of techniques used to specify, delineate, or describe naturally

occurring phenomena without experimental manipulation” This study is considered

a descriptive study since it mainly involves collecting data and describing the features without any experiments This approach aids to investigate the frequency of the occurrence of some linguistic phenomena among the slogans of some famous real estate agencies in English and Vietnamese

 The contrastive approach is employed to point out some similarities and differences in real estate slogans in English and Vietnamese This approach helps to identify the typical features of slogans in both languages and avoid some mistakes

in creating advertisements

 The statistic approach is applied to calculate the statistics in terms of proportion and frequency It is necessary for the reliability of conclusions in the study The statistical results are presented in tables in order that the distinctive linguistic features of English and Vietnamese real estate slogans are clearly

In the study, phonological, lexical and syntactic features of both English and Vietnamese real estate advertisements are conveyed in order to answer the given question

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2.3 Data collection instruments

This study collects 45 slogans from the advertisements in English and other 45 ones in Vietnamese to figure out some common features in the language used by real estate advertisers The slogans are mostly taken from printed advertisements of large real estate groups or famous real estate companies

 Fifteen newspapers and magazines in English published in England and America in the period of 2011-2015

 Fifteen newspapers and magazines in Vietnamese published in the period of 2011-2015

These newspapers and magazines are selected due to their popularity and their target audience

The population of 45 real estate slogans in English and 45 ones in Vietnamese

to be investigated is considered large enough as it includes some national real estate groups in English-speaking countries and in Vietnam, and the number of slogans are sufficient to cover some general language features of real estate advertising in both languages

2.4 Research procedure

Particularly, after the aim of the study is set, data is collected from printed media including newspapers, magazines, and leaflets Accordingly, the procedure of the study will follow:

(1) Collect 45 real estate slogans from English and Vietnamese from printed advertisements

(2) Examine and analyze the phonological, lexical and syntactic features of those slogans

(3) Figure out the proportion of slogans using each feature to find out the outstanding trend among them

(4) Identify the similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese real estate slogans in terms of those linguistic features mentioned above

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(5) Propose implications and suggestion for teachers and learners of business English as well as advertisers in the field of real estate

As mentioned earlier, a slogan is the most condensed and meaningful message

is sent to customers by the advertiser, it is clearly understood that all the single components contribute to the success of the communication process between customers and advertisers Due to the length of a slogan, some common ideas should be taken into consideration:

 The sounds of the slogan when read out An impressive slogan is certainly memorized by the customers, which can be achieved from the slogan‟s sounds in

reading out, especially with the appearance of rhythms, alliteration

 The words used to make the message understood What are some common

words to use, how many words in average are needed, what structure to apply, etc

are commonly investigated

 The arrangement of the words chosen Some questions to be thought about

such as Is the slogan a complete sentence or a phrase? What kind of sentence?

What punctuation is appropriate?

2.5 Chapter summary

The study focuses on the distinguished characteristics between English and Vietnamese real estate slogans in terms of phonology, lexicology and syntax In order to achieve the aims and objectives of the study, three linguistic approaches are employed, namely descriptive, contrastive and statistic approaches During the procedure of the study, 45 slogans in each language are collected from newspapers, magazines and other printed sources such as brochures, leaflets, posters The proportion of slogans using each feature is covered to compare and contrast the typical characteristics of real estate slogans in each language