The Linguistic Features of English Automobile Advertisements

李瓊璐

【Abstract】Household cars are largely demanded today, stimulating the economic development throughout the automobile industry. To enlarge market, all automobile producers pay great efforts to advertisements which result in a large quantity of automobile advertisements. Due to the rare analysis on the linguistic features of automobile advertisements, this essay makes a specific study on this. Analysis will be done through the perspectives of the lexical level, the syntactic level and the rhetoric level. Hence, valid references could be offered to future automobile advertisers.

【Keywords】automobile advertisements, linguistic features, the lexical level,the syntactic level, the rhetoric level

Introduction

For the increasing significance of automobile advertisement, many researches and studies have been conducted to make better comprehension of them in our country. However, most studies were from the perspective of marketing and communication, such as Advertisement Planning. Among domestic studies on advertisement language itself, like Classic Advertisements, nearly advertisements of all products were included. Actually, automobile advertisements own unique linguistic features compared with advertisements of other products on levels of lexicology, syntax and rhetoric. Based on ninety typical automobile advertisements collected from two latest books, from Image-text Advertisements Official Documents in English(2008, p.252-352) and Advertisement and English in Advertising (2003, p.211-223), this essay summarizes these features in detail, thus more information of English automobile advertisements will be provided to help domestic automobiles to advertise better.

Lexical Features of Automobile Advertisements

From the lexical level, automobile advertisements have distinctive features in the use of words in four properties.

The Application of Words of Four Properties

Nouns, pronouns, verbs and numerals are the most typical words used in automobile advertising.

Nouns and pronouns. “Automobile advertisements make a good use of nouns and pronouns, which contribute to the perfection of brand figures”(Zhang, 2008, p.262-264). Common nouns in vehicle ads are names of brands, countries plus the word “car”. In the sample, the brand names, countries and the word “car” appeared many times. “Since the entry into 21st century... Advertising language is transferred to pass on the philosophy of products and spirit of enterprises and the brand recognition is intensified”(Yu ,2007, p.148). By means of brands and countries, the culture of companies and the spirit of specific nations are implemented, displaying a vivid and profound picture to the public. “A Fiat new to the U.S.” By “Fiat” and “U.S”, both the culture of creation of Fiat and the sense of belonging for Americans are presented.

Besides, the utilization of pronouns plays an essential role in shortening the distance between customers and the company by forming special conversations. In automobile advertisements, frequently used pronouns include “we”, “you” and “it”. “We made the AMX look tougher this year because its tougher this year.” “We”means the production company, showing AMXs attitude to customers which was based on the reality. And “you” refers to customers and occurred 16 times, symbolizing the promise the company made to them. “The worst road you can find is the best place to find out about BMW.” The perfect qualities of BMW were promised to the customers. “It” refers to the car itself and it occur 14 times. By using “it”, the context looked more precise.

Verbs and numerals. Due to the nature of automobiles, advertisements employ many verbs connected with cars appearance, speed and so on. Over 52% advertisements used verbs. Firstly, from the aspect of appearance, verbs like “shape”, “design”, “l(fā)ook” etc were frequently used to show the beautiful appearance of one specific brand. “The CORDIA. Shaped by the wind; born for the road.” CORDIA were endowed with the feature of perfect streamline and high status. Secondly, from the aspect of speed, verbs like“run”,“drive”,“accelerate”, “rule” etc are often used. “All-wheel Drive. It runs in the family.” Here “all-wheel” was used to describe “drive”, emphasizing the speed, while “family” was connected with “run”, making this brand more profound.

Quantity information is always exact, direct and astonishing. As Wang Suxia summarized that advertisers prefer facts rather than illusory imagination to illustrate the performance of commodities by gaining statistics from all round experiments(as cited in Wei, 2008, p.10). Nearly 14% ads in the sample were composed with numbers, covering price, producing year, speed etc.

Syntactic Features of Automobile Advertisements

Syntactic features are characteristics of the whole advertisements related to the sentence forms.

The Syntactic Utilization of Sentences for Different Contact Purpose

Imperative sentences have strong influence on customers psychology. While the combination of positive and negative sentences form a sharp contrast.

Imperative sentences. Imperative sentences are popular among automobile advertisers. “According statistics, there are at least one imperative sentence in every thirty English advertisements” (Zhang, 2008, p.315). Imperative sentences are conversations between companies and the public, forcing direct influence to the audience so that they feel more involved in circumstance of the advertisements. “Think small” is a world-known ad of Volkswagen Beetle. Two simple words suggested people think about the advantages of small cars. Beetle achieved a historical selling record beyond expectation.

Combination of positive and negative sentences. By combining positive and negative sentences, advertisers form a sharp contrast within the sentence indicating the specialty of the product (Wei, 2010, p.19). But this method is not so widely employed as those above. There are only 5 ads. “If you havent looked at FORD lately...LOOK AGAIN.” This advertisement conveyed to people the information that if one looks again, he or she would be surprised at the new FORD. Compared with a declarative sentence stating that FORD has made an innovation, the combination had a better effect.

The Syntactic Utilization of Sentences with Different Structural Features

Simple structures and elliptical structures are widely used while those complex ones are less popular.

Simple structures. In all the advertisements gathered, most of them are short in length, and simple in structures. “Simple structures key places are more visible than other places, thus making the content understood more easier, and improving their rhythm and attraction”( Sedivy&Carlson, 2012, p.95). Usually single words and compounds are frequently used. MAZDA used ZOOM-ZOOM as the title of its advertisement. Jaguar also used “Finally” as a title to absorb attention to the its new-designed car.

Elliptical structures. “Elliptical structures are widely applied in automobile advertisements” (Zhang, 2008, p.318). There are 22 examples of elliptical structures. Thus, its a common feature in ads. Especially, phrases, nouns plus subordinate clauses and ellipsis of subjects are most often used. “From the land of British racing green.” Only a preposition phrase was used to indicate the origin of the British Triumph TR-6 with no subject and verb. Just like “Jay Conrad Levinson mentioned in his Guerilla Advertising, ‘Never worry that sentences are incomplete, as they are often easier to read and more encouraging.”(as cited in Sedivy&Carlson, 2012, p.95),

Rhetorical Features of Automobile Advertisements

Under the categories of rhetorics, several figures of speech are proved to be the characteristics of automobile advertisements. And they all function to the point.

The Utilization of Rhetorics of Meaning Transferring

Hyperboles, personification and rhetoric questions are the most common rhetorics used by advertisers.

The application of hyperboles. Hyperboles seem to be favored most by advertisers. “In order to attract consumers, advertisers adopt quantities of functional modifiers, ‘the best, ‘the fastest and ‘the most are common to see in English advertisements” (Yang, Zhou & Lu, 2009, p.159). In the data collected, hyperboles occurred 15 times. “Nothing handles like an Alfa.” “The toughest bargain you can drive.”etc, prices and functions are always overstated.

The application of personifications. Personification is the second most common rhetoric used in automobile advertisements, According to the 90 examples, personification applied in more than 10 percent ranks the highest, and metaphor comes the second. Vehicles accompany their owners every day, so its reasonable that people regard them as their friends. “Advertisers, by personification, endow products with life and shorten the distance instantly between the products and the potential customers”(Qi, 2003, p.320). “Together we will rule the world. Well, the garage anyway.” “We” is LINCOLN Aviator, that is the car will rule the world just like a King.

The Utilization of Rhetorics of Composite Construction

Among all the rhetorics of composite construction, repetition, parallelism and antithesis are the most typical.

The application of repetitions. Repetition focuses on words, phrases and sentences. In automobile advertisements, usually words and phrases are repeated. All the five examples repeat words, they are “when” “where”“car” “certified”and “beat”. Hence, it can conclude that the repeating objects are more often verbs, adjectives and nouns. Repetition contributes to the stress on several elements of advertisements, which are more impressive.

Parallelisms and antithesis. Parallelisms and antithesis are similar in structures but different in effect. In total, there are 12 parallelism structures and eight antithesis structures. The former one is composed with several phrases or sentences of the same structure and with close meanings serving the central topic. Such structures are usually easy to read and remember. Besides, they make the topic more profound. “This is the car. That beat the Shelby GT-350. That beat the Lotus. That beat he Mustang. That beat the other GT-350. That beat the Corvette.” The cars emphasized to be better than many well-known cars. Conversely, antithesis is more often presented with contrast words, one positive and one negative. “Easy to find, hard to beat!” “Easy” and “hard” are of opposite meanings, but they both make the brand of Honda impressive.

Conclusion

Automobile advertising is the nonpersonal communication of information usually paid for and persuasive in nature about vehicles by identified sponsors through different media. According to the above analysis, advertisersd better to apply these effective measures to attract customers attention.

Advertising is more demanding at the language skills than writing and speaking as its much shorter and customers should be convinced of the automobiles performance and be encouraged to purchase. This essay only serves as a modest spur to induce further more valuable English researches and studies.

References：

[1]Sedivy, J.,&Carlson, G. (2012). How Advertisers Talk to You and What This Says about You. Beijing: Publishing House of Electronics Industry.

[2]Qi, Y. (2003). 21st Century Practical Business English Series?Advertisement and English in Advertising. Zhejiang: Zhejiang University Press.

[3]Wei, S. (2010). Linguistic Features of Automobile Advertising. Unpublished M. A. Dissertation, Northeast Normal University.

[4]Yang, Y., Zhou, D.,&Lu, Y. (2010). Research into Advertising Language from the Perspective of Pragmatics. Shanxi: Northwestern Polytechnical University Press.

[5]Yu, G. (2007). Advertising Language Generality. Beijing: China Radio and Television Publishing House.

[6]Zhang G.(2008). Image-text Advertisements Official Documents in English. Xiamen: Xiamen University Press.