A Comparative Study Of Words In English And Chinese Advertising

Advertising, as both a "selling" art and a means of communication, has proved to have an undeniable effect on our society, economy, everyday life, and culture. Meanwhile, as a practical writing, it has formed its distinctive lexical features in terms of word-formation and rhetorical devices. The use of words in advertising depends on various factors such as the properties of the product or service advertised, the objectives and functions of advertising, the appeals of advertising, the medium and the market demand etc. Great emphasis is laid on the choice of words in advertising not only to attract the audience's attention but also to realize its function of persuasiveness and its ultimate goal- to promote sale.This thesis sets out to study the words in English and Chinese advertising on the basis of the observation and statistics of words with high frequency in a total of 200 commercial advertisements (100 English advertisements and 100 Chinese advertisements respectively). Based on the theories of lexicology and advertising psychology, such a comparative study is conducted with a focus on three classes of words, namely, the noun, the verb and the adjective semantically. Moreover, means of word formation and figures of speech are discussed with examples.It was found that although English and Chinese are two distant languages, they represent several common linguistic features in the special genre-advertising writing. Such a phenomenon is due to certain common rules obeyed in the writing of the advertising copies, i.e. AIDCA (Attention, Interest, Desire, Conviction, Action) and KISS (Keep It Sweet and Simple) formulae that, in turn, are determined by the universal function of persuasiveness and goal of "selling" of advertising. In addition, with the rapidly developing global economy and increasing international cooperation and communication, people's demand for commodities are getting similar, which to a certain extent leads to the overlaps in the words of the two languages.The noun in advertising names the object advertised, its properties and functions. Nouns in Chinese advertising are by far more than that in English. Advertisers tend to mix concrete and fuzzy words. The use of concrete nouns in English advertising is more frequent than that in Chinese advertising. According to statistics, English advertising lays more stress on quality and feature while Chinese advertising is more concerned with ## (function) and ##(charm) of the product or service advertised.The commonly used verbs in advertising generally fall into three groups. Group 1 involves the verbs that inform the customer what functions or features the product has. Verbs in Group 2 tell the customer what effect it will bring about to life if tried. Most verbs with high frequency belong to Group 3, which aim to promote sale by stimulating action. The present thesis deals with the action-stimulating verbs in English adverts by classifying them into four sub-groups based on their degree of "selling power". The English expression help or the Chinese # (#) is actually one of the universal tricks of the trade.Adjectives in advertising are categorized into descriptive and evaluative ones. Outstanding qualities of the product are described and the customer's desire is aroused. Therefore, almost all the adjectives in advertising are positive or appreciative. Such adjectives as new, good and free are widely used all the time in English advertising. The high frequency of #, #, # and # in Chinese advertising reflects customers' universal demand for products. # is a "vogue" word which coincides with the nature of fashionable products. The common use of dangling comparatives in advertising of both languages is also one trick of the trade.Word-formation deals with the inner structure of the word itself. The most productive means are affixation and compounding. English affixes are more plentiful in number and flexible in use than Chinese ones. Compounds formed by two parallel morphemes are unique in Chinese. English compounds are relatively looser in...