International Journal of English

and Literature (IJEL)

ISSN(P): 2249-6912; ISSN(E): 2249-8028
Vol. 4, Issue 6, Dec 2014, 9-14
TJPRC Pvt. Ltd.

THE LANGUAGE OF ADVERTISEMENT AND ITS FEATURES AND

CHARACTERISTICS: INVESTIGATING THE ISSUE FROM A DEEPER VIEW
SEPIDEH MOGHADDAS JAFARI1 & TENGKU SEPORA TENGKU MAHADI2
1
2

PhD Research Scholar, School of Languages, Literacies and Translation, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Malaysia
PhD, Associate Professor, School of Languages, Literacies and Translation, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Malaysia

ABSTRACT
This study is designed to investigate and discuss about the fundamental as well as the main characteristics of the
advertising language. In effect, this study is proposed to shed light on what it takes to be an effective and successful
advertisement in terms of its features. To reach the aim of this study, some of the main subjects, topics, and points which
can be related to the goal of article are introduced, explained, and discussed. Afterword, they are followed by a precise
discussion and conclusion.
On the whole, this study attempts to identify the characteristics of the good and operative advertising language.
For the most part, this article looks at the features which are essential and indispensable for the advertising language, or to
be more exact, the traits which create some piece of work so called an advertisement, in detail, and from a deeper view.

KEYWORDS: Advertisement, Advertising Language, Persuasion, Communication.

INTRODUCTION
As people interact with one another in society they communicate in numerous ways. Some communication is just
an exchange of data and facts, while some forms of communication are more egotistical, since they are persuasive.
It is through persuasiveness that individuals look for to stimulate and effect the actions and attitudes of others and,
then, change their situation for their own benefit. There are countless ways to induce, but the least of which is the written
word. It is a fact that the written communication or better to say, the written word has a distinct feature; in the sense that, it
is the tangible recording of thoughts, beliefs and ideas. Writing is a more prudently thought out and deliberate version of
verbal communication. That is, much more care goes into writing than is employed in speech.
Persuasiveness is not all the time palpable and understandable. Without a doubt, the best persuasion is furtive and
most operational when the one who is being persuaded does not grasp what is just about. On the other hand, good
persuasive writing is well fashioned or well-constructed, not only at the single-word level, but also at the sentence and
paragraph level.
This article attempts to discuss about all the mentioned points in detail and also mainly it attempts to investigate
the essential features of an effective and successful advertisement in terms of its language.
Persuasion
Persuasion is an umbrella term of influence; in the sense that, persuasion can effort to influence an individual's
beliefs, attitudes, intentions, motivations, or behaviors (Seiter,2010, p. 33). In business, persuasion is a process aimed at
www.tjprc.org

editor@tjprc.org

10

Sepideh Moghaddas Jafari & Tengku Sepora Tengku Mahadi

changing a person's (or a group's) attitude or behavior toward some event, idea, object, or other person(s), by using written
or spoken words to convey information, feelings, or reasoning, or a combination there of (Studlar, 2002;
http://www.businessdictionary.com/).
It should be mentioned that persuasion has a strong coherence with imagination, and thus, creativity; In the sense
that, if persuasion is appeared in a text, the comprehension of that text in general and the translation of the text in particular
turn into a difficult task. This point can be highlighted in Peter Newmark's Approaches to Translation (1981), where he
says:
The stronger the persuasive element in the text (unless it is
formulaic) the more the translator is likely to stretch his
imagination, to exercise his choices, unconsciously to let
internal images, memories of sense impression, records of
activities imbued with feelings suffuse his language. The
translator is at his most creative when he is handling the
persuasive function (pp. 133-134).

The focus of this paper is mostly on advertisement due to the fact that advertisements are the excellent example of
persuasive texts. Therefore, for the purposes of this article, the term advertisement refers to any material that is written
with the aim of promoting a product or service. This study attempts to investigate the features of the advertising language
exhaustively and in detail.
Advertising
Advertising in business is a form of marketing communication employed to encourage, persuade, manipulate,
or influence an audience (viewers, readers or listeners; occasionally a particular group) to take or continue to take some
action. In the main, the preferred and favorite result is to conduct consumer behavior pertaining to a commercial
contribution, while political and ideological advertising is common too.
The word advertising originates from the Latin word advertere, which means to direct attention towards
(Cohen, 1987, p.129). This is the first step in what advertisements attempt and challenge to accomplish. When an
advertisement directs attention toward itself, it can initiate its true target, that is, to persuade.
Advertising is in numerous forms and it surrounds all people of the world. It would be: advertisements on
television, on radio, in magazines, in newspapers, on buses, and so on. We are, accordingly, overwhelmed in a world which
is full of advertisements and indeed, they are too countless to be often noticed.
According to Taylor (1978) advertising is at the obverse of conveying the proper message to customers and
prospective customers. The intention or aim of advertising is to influence customers that a company's services or products
are the best, improve the image of the company, highlight and create a need or a necessity for products or services, make
evident new uses for established products, proclaim novel products and programs, strengthen and support the salespeople's
individual messages, draw customers to the business, and to hold existing customers (Ibid).

Impact Factor (JCC): 4.0867

Index Copernicus Value (ICV): 3.0

11

The Language of Advertisement and its Features and Characteristics:

Investigating the Issue from a Deeper View

DISCUSSIONS
In reality, the main challenge that advertisers encounter is: to be notable in a gigantic and enormous sea of
advertising and seize the consumer's attention. To achieve these main targets, the advertisers should be careful and cautious
about the language of advertisements. In other words, the language of advertisements should be manipulated in a way in
order to make any specific advertisement interesting enough to draw a passive observer's attention.
A precise consideration of advertising writing will reveal an exceedingly schematic as well as formalized
language. Writers of advertising copy, indeed, are certified and professional turning a phrase and at selling an image
accompanied with a few words. Concerning the mentioned fact about too much thought and exertion that is specified for
writing and inscription of an advertisement, it is clear that the translation of that advertisement must be very prudently
deliberated and reflected.
Any communication has a purpose; in the sense that it has an envisioned influence or effect. One intended effect
would be to just transfer information to an audience. In this case indeed, the communication would have a mainly
informative function. Trosborg (1997) labels the concept of advertisement as a genre. In this sense, he believes that the
defining principle and standard of any genre is the communicative purpose that it is projected, proposed, and planned to
achieve.
In effect, for realizing the communicative purpose of the text, language functions play a significant part. Each text
is of benefit to some specific language function which succors to effectuate the communicative purpose of the text and
permits us to assort texts into varieties. Concerning this matter, Nord (1997), refers to the four different language functions
as follows:

Referential Function which deals with reference to objects and phenomena of the world.

Expressive Function which is expression of the senders attitude or feelings.

Phatic Function which deals with establishing, continuing or finishing contact.

Appellative Function which is about engaging the receivers experience, feelings, knowledge, as well as
sensibility with the intention of making him or her react or respond in a particular way (pp. 50-51).
Indeed, as Trosborg (1997) believes, there is always one foremost or one principal function while other functions

are used as subordinate and supplementary employed to attain a whole objective of the text. For instance, information
involved in advertisement should not be considered as a primary end. As an alternative, it should be observed or supposed
as a complimentary function that helps the advertisement be more persuasive (Ibid). Therefore, texts can be classified into
categories or types on the basis of their leading contextual emphasis.
Thus, advertisements, as an instrument of communication, have the intended effect of persuading the audience
and moving them to action. In effect, an advertisement must be fashioned or generated in a way which it influences the
consumers attitude, stimulates his behavior, and accordingly, results in increased sales.
Advertisers, as was mentioned before, are persistently faced with the challenge of absorbing and achieving their
envisioned audience. Leech (1966) accepts as true that, "whereas other forms of persuasion can expect to meet with
interested responses varying from active support to active hostility, the average person's attitude to advertising is bored

www.tjprc.org

editor@tjprc.org

12

Sepideh Moghaddas Jafari & Tengku Sepora Tengku Mahadi

tolerance, mixed with varying degrees of good or ill-humour (p.26). In a few words, an advertisement must find a way to
prompt a positive response in the receptor.
With reference to the advertising language, it is worth mentioning that the written part of advertisement is not the
only component of the message and works in mixture with the visual and acoustical portions in an attempt to touch and
have emotional impact on individuals consciousness. All constituents or all elements of advertisement are associated,
interrelated, and they influence each other, accordingly, an alteration in one component generates or causes an alteration in
the entire and every part of advertisement. According to Cook (1992) advertisement is not as a stable object, but it is a
dynamic synthesis of many components which comes into being through them (p. 3).
Bakanauskas (2004, p. 77) declares and highlights that the most significant component of advertisement is its
textual part. Text is perceived as a linguistic sign describing some state, actions and feelings, consequently touching the
addressee to respond in one way or another. What is more, text dominates in approximately all kinds of advertisements
such as: television, radio, magazine, and etc. The textual part of advertisement is not fundamental, central, or crucial and
can be divided into smaller components which are slogan and body text. Goddard (2003) describes slogan as a phrase
designed to be memorable, attaching to a product or service during particular advertising campaign (p. 127). Typically,
slogans are followed by the body text which transfers more exhaustive information about the product which is advertised.
Occasionally, the textual part of advertisement can comprise merely slogan, however, the body text can never exist
unaccompanied.
Thus, one of the main elements of advertisement is slogan or tagline (Foster, 2001). Generally, a slogan or a
tagline is a short, attention-drawing and easy to think of as well as easy to remember phrase which describes and outlines
the companys activities, function as a call to action, pass on and transmit the benefits of a brand, and reapprove an
assurance or goes over the main points that information delivered in the advertisement. On the other hand, a good slogan or
a useful tagline has further significant functions. That is to say, it must inspire and stimulate the customers to involve and
employ companys product or service. Consequently, taglines must use particular linguistic means with the intention of
attracting consumers attention and pursuing him to purchase a product (Miletsky and Smith, 2009).
Modern advertising (chiefly in printed ads) is inclined to give partiality and first choice to pictorial or graphic
advertising means with least possible of wording (Forceville, 1998, p. 70). However, language is still a crucial issue in
assessing which advertising message will be more persuasive and stimulate more attention among the addressees (Ibid).
For that reason, advertisers challenge to express their persuasive influences and opinions in the best conceivable and
promising language.
Technically speaking, as a rule, the text of advertisement must carry out and accomplish the following tasks:

To conquer or attract readers attention;

to appeal to the reader;

To generate desire for the product and to arouse action.

With the intention of accomplishing the mentioned tasks and reaching or attaining the estimated response or

projected reaction from the audience, numerous rhetorical persuasive ways and means are employed in advertising texts.
The main chore of advertisers is to use associations that could raise insight, discernment, as well as awareness, create
Impact Factor (JCC): 4.0867

Index Copernicus Value (ICV): 3.0

13

The Language of Advertisement and its Features and Characteristics:

Investigating the Issue from a Deeper View

sturdy mental image or portrait and stimulate consumers behavior in an estimated way. The most influential instrument for
initiating and causing such changes, as Huber and Snider (2005) believe, is the presentation or use of right words, or better
to say, linguistic elements, in advertising manuscripts; In the sense that, style and adept use of language accompanied by
rhetorical devices is one of the stages of persuasion (Ibid).
Another point worth mentioning is that when speaking about the characteristics of advertisements, one main thing
that must be taken into consideration is that they are closely linked to culture. More accurately, advertisements use
images, notions, concepts, myths, etc. already available in the culture (Dyer, 1982, p.129). Furthermore, the substance
and images woven into advertising messages are appropriated and distilled from an unbound range of cultural references
(Jhally, 1982, p. 142). For an advertisement to successfully motivate a consumer to purchase, it must make a connection
with the reader on an individual level. In fact, it must be coherent to the readers culture.

CONCLUSIONS
From all mentioned discussions in the paper, it can be concluded that advertising language is a persuasive
language linked closely to the culture. This language has informative function. Thus, the way the informative language of
the advertisement is presented, must deal with the concept of persuasion. Syntactically, simple statements are often used in
advertisements. Sentences in advertisements are short. Normally, a sentence consists of a few words. Some of the short
sentences are indirect sentences. Simple words as well as the phrases which can be easily remembered are common in
advertisements. They make advertisements like dialogs and easy to be understood. Moreover, short sentences, which are
very emotive, are frequently used. They make the information that the advertisement wants to deliver seem more
important. Sentence fragments have the distinctive value of emphasis and association. Slogan is one of the main elements
of advertising language combined with pictures. To sum up, the advertising language comprises the text part of the
advertisement in combination with the visual, pictorial, and acoustical portions in an attempt to persuade, touch, and have
emotional impact on the individuals.

REFERENCES
1.

Bakanauskas, A. (2004). Marketingo komunikacija. Kaunas: VDU leidykla.

2.

Cohen, R. (1987). The Ad Game: Recreating Creativity To Sell. Toronto: CCH Canadian Limited.

3.

Cook, G. (1992). The discourse of advertising. London: Routledge.

4.

Cook, G. (1992). The discourse of advertising. New York: Routledge.

5.

Dyer, G. (1982). Advertising as Communication London: Routledge.

6.

Forceville, Ch. (1998). Pictorial Metaphor in Advertising. Oxford: Routlege.

7.

Foster, T. (2001). The Art and Science of Advertising Slogan. United Kingdom.

8.

Goddard, A. (2003). The language of advertising. London: Routledge.

9.

Goddard, A. (2003). The language of advertising. New York: Routledge.

10. Huber, R. and A. Snider. (2005). Influencing through Argument. Amsterdam: International Debate Education
Association.

www.tjprc.org

editor@tjprc.org

14

Sepideh Moghaddas Jafari & Tengku Sepora Tengku Mahadi

11. Jhally, S. (1982). The Codes of Advertising. New York: Routledge.

12. Leech, Geoffrey N. (1966). English in Advertising: A Linguistic Study of Advertising in Great Britain London:
Longmans.
13. Miletsky, J. and G. Smith. (2009). Perspectives on Branding [online]. Boston: Course Technology.
14. Newmark, P. (1981). Approaches to Translation. Oxford: Pergarnon Press Ltd.
15. Nord, Ch. (1997). A functional typology of Translations, In Text typology and translation. Amsterdam/
Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, pp. 43-66.
16. "Persuasion". Business Dictionary. Retrieved 23 Oct 2012 from http://www.businessdictionary.com/
17. Seiter, Robert H. Gass, John S. (2010). Persuasion, social influence, and compliance gaining (4th ed.). Boston:
Allyn& Bacon.
18. Studlar, Donley T. (2002). Tobacco Control: Comparative Politics in the United States and Canada.
Peterborough, Ont.: Broadview Press.
19. Taylor, J. (1978). How to start and succeed in a business of your own. Reston, Va.: Reston Pub. Co.
20. Trosborg, A. (1997). Text typology and translation. Amsterdam/ Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing
Company.

Impact Factor (JCC): 4.0867

Index Copernicus Value (ICV): 3.0