VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ĐỖ THỊ THU
AN INVESTIGATION INTO MORPHOLOGICAL AND SYNTACTIC FEATURES
IN ELECTRONIC DEVICE ADVERTISEMENTS IN ENGLISH (WITH
REFERENCE TO VIETNAMESE)

Nghiên cứu đặc điểm hình thái và cú pháp trong các quảng cáo thiết bị
điện tử bằng tiếng Anh (có sự so sánh với quảng cáo bằng tiếng Việt)
M.A. Minor Programme Thesis
Field: English linguistics
Code: 602215

ENGLISH (WITH REFERENCE TO VIETNAMESE)
Nghiên cứu đặc điểm hình thái và cú pháp trong các quảng cáo thiết bị điện tử
bằng tiếng Anh (có sự so sánh với với quảng cáo bằng tiếng Việt M.A. Programme Minor Thesis

Field: English linguistics
Code: 602215
Supervisor: Assoc.Prof.Dr. VÕ ĐẠI QUANG

Hanoi, 2009
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TABLE OF CONTENT

PART I: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale

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LIST OF TABLES


other aids to appeal the consumption of the readers. In the practice of the advertising,
advertisers normally pay more attention to the use of words or types of sentences to make
the advertisements more vivid, persuasive and reliable, and then to stimulate the desire to
buy and use advertised products.
Furthermore, in the era of new technology development, electronic devices are
products that make our life more relaxing and comfortable. As electronic device products
such as television, computer, mobile phone, etc., have become the most important things in
our daily life, it seems to be very difficult for us to manage our life without them.
Everyday we see hundreds of electronic device advertisements on TV, newspaper or
Internet. Language used in electronic device advertisements has become more and more
familiar through different means of mass media. The language used in electronic device
advertisements has some typical features that make it different from the language used in
other products‘ adverts.
As a result, this study will mainly focus on the language of electronic device
advertising. It will describe some features of the language used in advertisements of
electronic devices in English and then find out some similarities and differences between

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English and Vietnamese language used in electronic device advertisements. However, this
study does not desire to describe all the language characteristics of electronic device
advertisements in English and Vietnamese, it only focuses on morphological and syntactic
features which are considered as the most typical features in advertising language to create
the success of products.
2. Aims of the study
This thesis aims at answering the research questions:
- What are the most typical features of morphology and syntax in English
advertisements of electronic devices?
- To what extent are the identified morphological and syntactic features similar and
different between English and Vietnamese advertisements of electronic devices?
- What suggestions should be made for advertisers, translators, learners of ESL

DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
Various concepts and theoretical background in the field of morphology, syntax
and advertising language are required for understanding and analyses of morphological and
syntactic features of electronic device advertisements. Therefore, this chapter will deal
with the basis concepts and ideas to set the theoretical background for analyses which will
be carried out later in this study.

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analyzed any further after removing all such other affixes as –able, in- and –less. The root
morpheme is the primary element of the word, conveys its essential lexical meaning and
contains tangible meaning. Affixational morphemes or affixes are inflectional or
derivational morphs added to the roots. Carstairs-McCarthy (2002:20) also defines that

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―those affixes that precede the root (like en- in enlarge) are called prefixes, while those
that follow it are called suffixes (like –ance in performance, -ness in whiteness)‖.
1.1.2. Inflection, derivation and compounding
In terms of word formation, morphology has three main subdivisions, namely
inflection, derivation and compounding. Inflection deals with patterns of word structure
that are determined by the role of words in sentences. Derivation created new words with
different meanings. Compounding is the combination of nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs
or prepositions to form complex words. The definitions, classification and examples in the
following sections are adapted from the description of these three main processes of word
formation by Carstairs-McCarthy (2002). This description is supplemented with other
consideration from the literature.
1.1.2.1. Inflection
According to Carstairs-McCarthy (2002:30), inflection deals with the inflected
forms of words, it is the kind of variation that words exhibit on the basis of their
grammatical context. Inflection is viewed as the process of adding very general meanings
to existing words, not as the creation of new words. There are eight productive inflectional
affixes (suffixes) in English.
Noun: Number -s/-es book/books, watch/watches
Genitive case -‗s/-‗ the man‘s bicycle
Verb: 3
rd
person singular present -s/-es give/gives, go/goes
past tense -ed learn/learned, paint/painted
perfect aspect -ed paint/painted, play/played

Formation
Examples
Compound verb
Verb-Verb
stir-fry
Noun-Verb
Hand-wash
Adjective-Verb
dry-clean
Preposition-Verb
underestimate.
Compound adjectives
Noun-Adjective
sky-high
Adjective-Adjective
grey-green
Preposition-Adjective
under-full
Compound nouns
Verb-Noun
swear-word
Noun-Noun
hair-net
Adjective-Noun
Black-board
Preposition-Noun
in-group
( adapted from Carstairs-McCarthy (2002:60))
1.2. An Overview of Syntax
1.2.1. Some basic concepts

subject, opens is the verb and the door is the object.
Miller, J (2000: 62) states that simple sentences in English consist of a single main
clause, but many consist of several clauses. Depending on what types of clause are
combined, two types of multi-clause sentence are distinguished. Compound sentences
consist of two or more independent clauses joined by a coordinating conjunction. The most
common coordinating conjunctions are: and, or, but, so. For example:
Henry Crawford loved Fanny but Fanny loved Ed.

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The next type of multi-clause sentence is complex sentence which consists of a
main clause and one or more other clauses subordinate it. That is, one clause, the main
clause is preeminent in a complex sentence and the other clauses, the subordinate clauses,
are subject to certain limitation. There are some types of subordinate clauses: noun clause
(modifying verbs), adjective clause (modifying nouns) and adverbial clause (modifying
whole main clauses). For example:
Elizabeth regretted that she had met Wicham. (noun clause)
The building that we liked is in Thornton Lacey. (adjective clause)
When Fanny returned, she found Tom Bettram very ill. (adverbial clause)
(Miller, Jim: 2000)
Talbut Onions, Charles et al (1971:2) also gives another type of sentences, that is
elliptical sentence or ellipsis. Elliptical sentences lack one or some parts that are ideally
necessary to full form of a sentence as defined above. Elliptical sentences play a great part
in English as well as in other languages. They are common in all styles of speaking and
writing, they give precision and brevity, save time and troubles. For example, in the
sentence, The house to be lent or sold, the verb ―is‖ is omitted. Ellipsis is most commonly
used to avoid repetition. Another important reason for ellipsis is that by omitting share
items attention is focused on new material. For example:
A: Have you spoken to him? B: ( I have) Not yet (spoken to him).
1.2.3. Voice, Tense and Mood
The category of voice has to do with the different constructions available for taking

The indicative mood is for statements of actuality or strong probability, for example, a cat
sits on the stove. Most sentences in English are in the indicative mood. It simply states a
fact of some sort, or describes what happens, or gives details about reality. The imperative
mood is for commands and requests made directly: "Give me back my money." One marker
of the imperative is that frequently the subject does not appear in the sentence, but is only
implied: "(You) Give me back my money." Another, rarer mood is the subjunctive mood
which indicates a hypothetical state, a state contrary to reality, such as a wish, a desire, or
an imaginary situation. It is most often found in a clause beginning with the word if. It is
also found in clauses following a verb that expresses a doubt, a wish, regret, request,
demand, or proposal. The subjunctive mood can be expressed by using one of the modal
auxiliaries which include can, could, may, might, will, etc. For example, she
could/may/might be in the library.
In fact, voice, tense and mood are not only parts of English syntax, but also belong
to the morphological features of verbs. Therefore, voice, tense and mood, in this thesis, are
taken into consideration in the light of morpho-syntax. Morpho-syntax is the study of
grammatical categories or linguistic units that have both morphological and syntactic
properties. Voice, tense and mood of verbs have features of inflection morphology, that is
with or without inflectional suffix –s/-es/ed, and they also shows how verbs and other word
classes are put together to build clauses.

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1.3. Advertising
1.3.1. Definition of Advertising
Advertising is a form of communication that typically attempts to persuade
potential customers to purchase or to consume more of a particular brand of product or
service. The term ―advertising‖ originates from a Latin word "advertere", which means to
warn, or to call attention to something. Modern advertising with the meaning ―to spread
commercial information‖ developed with the rise of mass production in the late 19th and
early 20th century.
Advertising is aimed to influence consumers‘ behavior, stimulated them towards

Based on the classification by target audience, advertisements can be divided into
consumer advertisements, business advertisements, and service advertisements.
In term of the classification by medium, English advertisements may be classified
into two main parts: printed advertisements (newspaper advertisements, magazine
advertisements, and etc.) and non-printed advertisements (television advertisements, radio
advertisements, and etc.). Different kinds of advertisements have their special advantages
and disadvantages. For example, the non-printed advertisements have many a strong point
that the printed ones don't have because they can be screened quickly and widely, and they
can combine picture, music and color together or some of them together to make excellent
sensuous.
1.3.3. Functions of Advertising
Although the primary objective of advertising is to persuade, it may achieve this
objective in many different ways. Henderson, Steuart (1994) in Marketing Manager’s
Handbook points out that an advertisement should have four functions: AIDA, which
represent four words—Attention, Interest, Desire, Action.
(1). Attention—a good advertisement should attract the consumer to direct their
attention to the product of it. This function is also considered as the identification function,
that is, to identify a product and differentiate it from others; this creates an awareness of
the product and provides a basis for consumers to choose the advertised product over other
products.
(2). Interest—the introduction and publicity of an advertisement should arouse
consumers‘ great interest. This function can help establishing an interpersonal relationship
between producer or advertiser and the consumer. This aims at creating a trust or good-will
to customers, which helps the acceptance of product and consumer image.
(3). Desire—the publicity of advertising should stimulate consumers‘ desire to buy
the product, and make them realize that this product is just what they want. This is also
considered as persuasion function which is to induce consumers to try new products and to
suggest reuse of the product as well as new uses.
(4). Action—the advertising makes consumer to response to the advertising
information and evoke them to take the action of purchasing.


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CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY
In this chapter, the research question will be raised in 2.1, the methods of the study
will be shown in 2.2, the data will be described in 2.3, and data analysis will be presented
in 2.4.
2.1. Research Questions
Three research questions which are restated in this thesis are:
- What are the most typical features of morphology and syntax in English
advertisements of electronic devices?
- To what extent are the identified morphological and syntactic features similar and
different between English and Vietnamese advertisements of electronic devices?
- What suggestions should be made for advertisers, translators, learners of ESL
from morphological and syntactic features of electronic device advertisements?
2.2. Methods
In order to reach the final aims of this study, the following methods have been used:
Deductive and inductive methods: the principal method is used in the current thesis
is deduction. Being motivated by theories of morphology, syntax, the author makes some

There are hundreds of electronic products are advertised on these magazines and websites,
I have randomly chosen 40 samples (20 of English and 20 of Vietnamese) to analyze.
Among my 40 samples, to get the exact and the best data, I have also randomly chosen 35
texts of medium length (from five to twenty sentences) and 5 texts of lengthy length (more
than twenty sentences). These 40 samples are to be investigated from a cross-linguistic
perspective to study the morphological and syntactic features in advertisements of two
languages.
2.4. Data analysis
As mentioned above, this study is carried out by the combination of qualitative and
quantitative methods. The samples were mainly analyzed through mechanical techniques
rely on counting words, phrases, or coincidences of tokens within the data. These
techniques can help the author scan and sort large sets of qualitative data. Descriptive
statistics then are used to quantitatively summarize the advertisement sample sets and
describe the main morphological and syntactic features of these sets.

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CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
3.1. Morphological and Syntactic Features of Electronic Device Advertisements in
English
3.1.1. Morphological Features
This part will focus mainly on the outstanding morphological characteristics of
electronic device advertisements, particularly inflection, derivation and compounding
3.1.1.1. Inflection
Inflection is a grammatical phenomenon which helps characterize an academic text

at arousing the reader‘s interest on the names of products. Let‘s have a look at some
following examples taken from selected English advertisements of electronic devices:
The ultra-easy SELPHY CP780 features a simpler user and 2.5‖ screen with a
straightforward layout – so anyone can start making prints effortlessly.
[Appendix 1]
When it comes to telecommunications, the Strata® CIX40 IP business
communication system delivers.
[Appendix 2]
MacBook provides a fast 1066MHz frontside bus and 3MB of shared L2 cache, so
you’ll have more than enough horsepower to get the job done.
[Appendix 8]
Inflectional suffix –er/-est after adjectives
One remarkable feature of adjectives in English advertisements of electronic
devices is the frequent use of comparatives and superlatives by adding suffix –er or –est.
Here are some examples:
With its faster Intel processor, faster memory, and larger hard drive, MacBook is a
full-powered, full-featured, do-it-all notebook.
[Appendix 8]
All that and more makes it the best phone you’ll ever use.
Your iPhone gets even better with every new app. Play games. Be more productive.
The iPhone keyboard is software based, so it’s smarter and more adaptable than
the physical keyboards on other phones.
[Appendix 9]
It’s compact enough to take anywhere, which is made even easier with an
optional battery pack.
[Appendix 1]
The adjectives in advertisement help to build a pleasant picture in readers‘ minds
and manage to create a belief in the potential consumer. Comparatives and superlatives
occur to highlight the advantage of a certain product or service. The customers are always
interested in the products which they hear or listen with comparatives or superlatives. By

-cy

-ness

-age

- er/or - ing
state/condition state/condition action/result state/action state/quality

state/quality

action/result

person/thing


preference, appearance,
performance, difference

requirement, investment,
equipment

urgency, efficiency, frequency

brightness, preparedness

storage, breakage

player, processor, printer, caller,
filter, converter

handling, scrolling, recording

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-ful

-en

-less -al -able


N + -less -> adj mainly V + -al ->adj V + -able -> adj

V+ -ive-> adj N + -ous -> adj

mainly adj + -ize-> V

powerful, helpful, colourful

widen, wooden

cordless, wireless, seamless,
effortless

visual, ideal, professional,
optional

adaptable, capable, compatible,

productive, innovative,
responsive,

Scalability means you can expand capacity as your requirements change—without
losing your initial investment.
Because it's from Toshiba, you can count on unsurpassed reliability, audio clarity,
and performance.
[Appendix 2]
Built-in 802.11n wireless capabilities mean you can connect at work-friendly
speeds wherever you are.
[Appendix 8]
Suffixes –a/ence, -ing and –ment, especially –er, adding to verbs are also some
common derivational suffixes to form nouns in collected advertisements. Normally suffix –
er is used to describe a person of an action, but in these advertisements of electronic
products, it mainly means ‗something for an action’. Common technical nouns ended with
–er in these advertisements are printer, player, converter…. Latin suffix –ment means
―state or action‖ and -ance means ―action or result of action‖. Following are examples of
these derivational suffixes taken from advertisements:
If you want an easy, one-stop way to take and print photos, you’ ll love Canon’s
new SELPHY CP780 compact photo printer.
[Appendix 1]

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Once you register your Walkman MP3 player with Slacker.com, you can choose up
to 3 stations of music.
[Appendix 3]
Easily connects to professional recording mixers and equipment for studio
telephone recording and playback.
[Appendix 10]
Derivation of Adjectives
Adding suffixes –ed and –ing after verbs or nouns are normally two ways to form
adjectives for advertisements. Using these adjectives is an effective way to make
impressive to the readers, because they can help the readers find out a detailed and vivid

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