The Linguistic And Sociological Features Of Advertising English

As a way of propagating and transmitting infOrmation, advertising's role cannot beundereStimated because it is not only an artful technique in persuading people to buy, butalso gradually has become a must for social communication which in turn influences thedevelopment of society and economy The purpose of this paper is to study the linguisticfeatures and sociological features of advertising English, in the hope to help copyWritersat home markets in their creating process.Nowadays advertising has penetrated into every corner of our life as its transmittingmedia exist in many forms; newspaper, magazine, TV radio as well as network. On onehand, the goal of advertising decides its language to be simple and direct, distinct fromthe characteristics of other discourses. Thus an analysis on the linguistic features ofadvertising English in the linguistic field is worthWhile. On the other hand, advertisingderives its origin from society and at the same serves the society, which decides it will beunavoidably affected by mass communication, culture, and psychology, thus exhibitingits sociological features. Wth the entry of China into WTO, lots of fOreign products willpour into Chinese market and compete with the home-made products. Under suchinternational and economic circumstances, a study on the linguistic and sociologicalfeatures of advertising English will have practical effects on the composing andtranslating work of the copyWriters.The whole paper is divided into five chapters. The first chapter traces back theorigin of advertising and a brief introduction on the classifications, roles and definitionsof advertising is presented fOr the later discussion. The second chapter starts fOrm thetheories in syntax, lexicology, rhetoric and ends with the linguistic features analyzed inthe field of discourse analysis. The third chapter presents a detailed analysis on theconnection between advertising and mass communication, culture, psychology ThefOurth chapter combines the viewpoints from the previous two chapters and explores theeffect of the advertising English as a whole advertising process. The Iast chapter, also theconclusion part, shows that though advertising language appears to be flowery andrefined, its content is no better than commonest language could convey By exposing thevarious techniques advertisers have employed in their writing, this part hopes to remindconsumers that advertising English is gradually attaining the negative and ambiguousrole in guiding people to buygradually attaining the negative and aznbiguous role in guiding PeOPle to buy.In composing this paper, the works of noted linguists Iike Halliday, Nida, inaddition to several prominent advertising theorists like Guy Cook, David Crystal, JohnCaPles, are examined. Articles written by linguists at home in the sazne advertisingfield are also studied. What's more, English advertisements from foreign magazinesand newspapers are collected. lt is hoped that by studying the linguistic andsociological features of advertising English this paper wiII be some help incomprehending and translating English advertisements fOr those '',ho are working inthis field.