MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

LÊ THỊ CÚC

A STUDY ON LINGUISTIC FEATURES OF ENGLISH
ADVERTISING SLOGANS OF FASHION
(NGHIÊN CỨU ĐẶC ĐIỂM NGÔN NGỮ CỦA
KHẨU HIỆU QUẢNG CÁO THỜI TRANG TRONG
TIẾNG ANH)

M.A. THESIS
Field: English Language
Code: 60220201

Hanoi, 2015


MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

LÊ THỊ CÚC

A STUDY ON LINGUISTIC FEATURES OF ENGLISH
ADVERTISING SLOGANS OF FASHION
(NGHIÊN CỨU ĐẶC ĐIỂM NGÔN NGỮ CỦA
KHẨU HIỆU QUẢNG CÁO THỜI TRANG TRONG
TIẾNG ANH)

M.A. THESIS
Field: English Language


Le Thi Cuc

Approved by
SUPERVISOR

Assoc. Prof, Dr Vo Dai Quang
Date: December, 1st, 2015

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This thesis could not have been completed without the help and support
from a number of people.
First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to
Assoc. Pro. Dr Vo Dai Quang, my supervisor, who has patiently and
constantly supported me through the stages of the study, and whose
stimulating ideas, expertise, and suggestions have inspired me greatly through
my growth as an academic researcher.
A special word of thanks goes to my friends and many others, without
whose support and encouragement it would never have been possible for me
to have this thesis accomplished.
Last but not least, I am greatly indebted to my family, especially to
my husband for the sacrifice they have devoted to the fulfillment of this
academic work.

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Table 3: The frequency of syntactic features in English advertising
slogans of fashion......................................................................................... 52
Table 4: The frequency of pragmatic features in English advertising
slogans of fashion........................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.

Figure 1: The distribution of typical phonological features of English
advertising slogans of fashion ...................................................................... 36
Figure 2: The distribution of lexical features of English advertising
slogans of fashion......................................................................................... 44
Figure 3: The distribution of syntactic features in English advertising
slogan of fashion .......................................................................................... 53
Figure 4: The distribution of pragmatic features of English advertising
slogans of fashion......................................................................................... 58

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY ................................................................... i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT .................................................................................. ii
ABSTRACT ...................................................................................................... iii
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ............................................................................ iv
LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES ................................................................... v
TABLE OF CONTENTS .................................................................................. vi
Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION ............................................................................ 1
1.1

Rationale for the study ........................................................................... 1

1.2 Aims of the study ...................................................................................... 2

Chapter 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION .................................................... 33
4.1 Phonological and lexical features of English advertising slogans of fashion
...................................................................................................................... 33
4.1.1 Phonological features ........................................................................ 33
4.1.2. Lexical features ................................................................................ 36
4.2 Syntactic and pragmatic features of English advertising slogans of fashion
...................................................................................................................... 44
4.2.1 Syntactic features .............................................................................. 44
4.2.2 Pragmatic features ............................................................................. 53
4.3. Implications ............................................................................................ 58
4.4 Summary ................................................................................................. 58
Chapter 5: CONCLUSION ............................................................................... 60
5.1 Recapitulation ......................................................................................... 60
5.2 Concluding remarks ................................................................................ 60
5.3 Limitations of the study ........................................................................... 61
5.4 Suggestions for further studies ................................................................ 62
REFERENCES................................................................................................. 63
APPENDICES.................................................................................................. 66

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Chapter 1
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Rationale for the study
Today, with the rapid development of economy around the world,
business competition becomes very fierce. There is an enormous number of
companies in the world. Each businesses has its own products or services and
how can these companies demonstrate their products or services to the
customers? The companies are required to try many ways to exhibit their

question. The answer depends on the area of products and services the slogan
is used for, the country or geographical regions it is used in and maybe the
population of its target customers. Therefore, choosing one kind of products
or services to study the slogans used in it should bring more thorough and
detailed results of aspects of language exploited.
This study can help the learners improve their understanding of slogans
and help the fashion companies write good and impressive slogan, one
element that can enhance their competitive ability in the market.
1.2 Aims of the study
The thesis is hopefully conducted with a view to helping Vietnamese
learners of English to have better understanding the typical linguistic features
of English advertising slogan of fashion. Thus they could use English
effectively to design advertising slogans.
1.3 Objectives of the study
From the aim above, the study is focused on some specific aspects of
the language. The objectives of this study is to:
- Describing phonological and lexical features of English advertising
slogans of fashion.

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- Point out syntactic and pragmatic features of English advertising
slogans of fashion.
- Propose some implications for learning English via the linguistic
features of advertising slogans of fashion in English
1.4 Scope of the study
The study is mainly focused on some phonological, lexical, syntactic
and pragmatic features of English advertising slogans of fashion. Sound,
image and other features of slogans are out of scope of this study.

Chapter 4 is called MAIN FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS, in which
the author summarizes her findings in the characteristics of the English
language used in fashion advertising slogans and also her conclusions on the
percentage of slogans employing those characteristics.
The last chapter is Chapter 5 – CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS,
which provides the recapitulations, implications of the study to the creating
process of advertising slogans in general and fashion slogans in particular,
and suggestions for further studies.

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Chapter 2
LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Review of Previous Researches
2.1.1 Previous studies overseas
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, for example “Advertising language: A pragmatic
approach to advertisement in Britain and Japan” by Keiko Tanaka (1994).
2.1.2 Previous studies in Vietnam

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

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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,

Advertising is the nonpersonal communication of information because
it is not aimed at any individual; it aimed 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 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

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quality or reliability of a product, thus encouraging customer loyalty and
repeat purchases”. (Churchill, 1998:142)
For Geis (1982) advertising is a promotion or "any means of promoting
sales and use of a product" (Geis, 1982: 1). Dyer (1982), on the other hand,
defines it as ''drawing attention to something or notifying or informing
somebody of something'' (Dyer, 1982: 2). The former definition is valid only
for those products that are advertised with the single purpose of being sold.
As we all know, there are also advertisements which offer certain services or
try to encourage or move recipients to do something without the intention of
selling anything; and here the latter definition holds true.
Cook (2001: 182) stated that advertising is not some “external
curiosity” into which we investigate but it is “something of which we are part,
and which is part of us”.
From a linguistics perspective, Adler (1985:25) defines advertising as
“a communicative situation” in which language can function in reference to
the purposes and real possibilities of this type of communication. With a

Goddard (1998) discusses the communication of advertising under the
idea of narrators and narratees. She states that the writer is the person who
constructs the text in reality (in advertising texts, the real writers are the
copywriters and artists who work in an advertising agency’s creative
department), while the narrator is the storyteller within the text. Copywriters
can “construct all sorts of different narrators to convey to us the message of
an advert” (Goddard, 1998:29), for example, a female writer can construct a
male narrator, or an adult writer can construct a child narrator. Narratees are,
on the other hand, people who appear to be addressed. In fact, in advertising
communication, a narratee is not a certain person, but at least a target group,
or the whole public.

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The communicative situation of advertising is a type of communication
called mass communication. The participants of advertising communication
are a copywriter and audience who do not refer to any single person but also
to a collective. The first category is usually represented by an advertising
agency where a group of people works on the production of a certain message
on behalf of the advertiser. The second category stands for a group of people
or audience who are usually exposed to advertising from different sources.
The audience differs in terms of sex, education, social status, age and income.
Hence, the copywriters have to take who different advertisements are
made for into great consideration. Then, the objects of the communication are
products and services which are advertised. Finally, the most important
distinction of media is between speech and writing.
2.2.1.2 Functions of Advertising
Although the primary objective of advertising is to persuade, it may
be achieved in many different ways. One of the most commonly advertising


on

different

criteria.

Geographically, there are local, national and international advertisements. In
terms of advertising medium, they are divided into print and electronic
categories. Besides, as for their purposes, advertisements can be classified
into commercial and non-commercial categories. The basic difference is
that “commercial consumer advertising is directed towards a mass audience
with the aim of promoting sales of a commercial product or service” (Leech,
1966:25) while the non-commercial is produced by governmental agencies or
associations. In other words, the most important aim of commercial
advertising is to sell a product or service whereas the objective of the noncommercial one is to influence the public through political propaganda or
through the contribution to charity.
Even though there exist other types of advertising, it is the commercial
one which uses the largest amount of money, professional skill as well as
space in the media. Vestergaard and Schroder (1985, p1-2) consider three
types of commercial advertising:
- Prestige or good-will advertising - where firms advertise a name or
an image
- Industrial or trade advertising – where a firm advertises its products
to other firms

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- Consumer advertising – where a firm advertises its products to

According to the definition of the advertising, most of the
advertisements should have the following components:
(1) Advertiser
The advertiser is the sender of information and all the advertising
activities should be consistent with the purpose and willingness of the
advertiser. The advertiser should be a recognizable group, including
corporation, enterprise, government, organization and individual.
(2) Advertising Fee
The advertising fees are paid by the advertiser no matter it’s operated
by itself or other agency. Because advertising is a kind of marketing action,
an advertiser has to pay for its advertisement.
(3) Advertising Information
Advertising information is the principal contents an advertisement
wants to disseminate. Advertising is a series of planning actions, so the
information of advertising should be aimed at the certain target market and
consumers, and should avoid aimlessness. The dissemination of information
should be accurate, definite, recognizable and moderate in length.
(4) Advertising Media
Media are the means of the dissemination of advertising, including
newspaper, magazine, broadcast, TV program, billboard and mail. The
newspaper, magazine, broadcast and TV are called the four main media of
advertising. Moreover, any kind of objects or tools can be a medium for the
advertisement, such as airplane, train, bus, building, neon light, movie,
package, exhibition, and etc. Different kinds of media have different features,
disseminating area, target audience and speed.

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Within the advertisement itself, the components are headline, body

b. Requirements of a good advertising slogan
A perfectly-formed slogan should fulfill several criteria. First, it should
be memorable. Memorability has to do with the ability the line has to be
recalled unaided. The more the slogan resonates with the big idea, the more
memorable it will be.
A good slogan should recall the brand name, and ideally, the brand
name should be included in the line. A good slogan should include a key
benefit. In addition, a good tagline should differentiate the brand. The
distinction here is that the slogan should depict a characteristic about the
brand that sets it apart from its competitors. A good slogan should also recall
the brand name. This use of semiotics is immensely powerful when it works,
because it forces the viewer to say the brand name.
One of the best techniques for bringing in the brand name is to make
the tagline rhyme with it. A fall-back position is to use a rhyme and mention
the brand name without it actually rhyming.
An effective slogan should impart positive feelings about the brand.
Importantly, a good slogan should not be usable by a competitor. A slogan
should not be able to substitute a competitive brand name and use the line.
Many slogans have absolutely no competitive differentiation.
A good tagline should be strategic: Some companies can effectively
convey their business strategy in their lines. Catchy taglines also try to
be trendy, often without success.
1. Be memorable
2. Recall the brand name
3. Include a key benefit
4. Differentiate the brand
5. Impart positive feelings for the brand

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