The language of advertising with the concentration - Diplomovka

THE LANGUAGE OF ADVERTISING WITH THE CONCENTRATION ON
THE LINGUISTIC MEANS AND THE ANALYSIS OF ADVERTISING
SLOGANS
DIPLOMOVÁ PRÁCA
JANA LAPANSKÁ
UNIVERZITA KOMENSKÉHO V BRATISLAVE
PEDAGOGICKÁ FAKULTA
KATEDRA ANGLICKÉHO JAZYKA A LITERATÚRY
tudijn odbor: Uitestvo veobecno-vzdelávacích predmetov
pecializácia: Anglick jazyk a literatúra – panielsky jazyk a literatúra
Vedúci diplomovej práce: PhDr. Radoslav Pavlík
Dátum obhajoby: október 2006
BRATISLAVA 2006

Many thanks to my diploma supervisor PhDr. Radoslav Pavlík for his valuable advice
and professional help during elaboration the work. I also want to thank my friend
Marek Mrázik for his comments and his interest in the fascinating world of
advertising which influenced me to choose this theme.
Jana Lapanská

ABSTRAKT
Lapanská, Jana: The Language of Advertising with the Concentration on the
Linguistic Means and the Analysis of Advertising Slogans. Diplomová práca,
Univerzita Komenského. Pedagogická fakulta, Katedra anglického jazyka a literatúry.
Vedúci diplomovej práce: PhDr. Radoslav Pavlík. Bratislava: Pedagogická fakulta
UK, 2006. 82 s.
Práca poskytuje analzu jazyka reklamy z lingvistického hadiska a pecifikuje
jazykové prostriedky pouité v reklamnch textoch. Práca prináa poznatky o pouití
jazykovch prostriedkov v reklame v tlai. Analytickou metódou autor zistil mieru
pouitia jednotlivch jazykovch prostriedkov v reklamnch sloganoch, aj vo vzahu
k produktovému zameraniu.
kúové slová: reklama, reklamn slogan, jazyk reklamy, komunikácia, jazykové
prostriedky.
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ABSTRACT
Lapanská, Jana: The Language of Advertising with the Concentration on the
Linguistic Means and the Analysis of Advertising Slogans. Diploma thesis. Comenius
University. Faculty of Education, Department of English Language and Literature.
Diploma thesis supervisor: PhDr. Radoslav Pavlík. Bratislava: Pedagogická fakulta
UK, 2006. 82 p.
The work provides the analysis of language of advertising from linguistic point of
view and specifies linguistic means used in advertising texts. The work brings
knowledge about the use of linguistic devices in print advertising. By analytical
method, author found out the use rate of individual linguistic means used in
advertising slogans, even in relation to product specialization.
Key words: advertising, advertising slogan, language of advertising, communication,
linguistic means.
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PREFACE
In this diploma thesis, I will be concerned with the language of advertising. I
will scope my attention to the linguistic means used in advertising. The main reason to
choose this topic was my interest in English language and advertising, for the most
part from linguistic point of view. I find advertising language fascinating; therefore, I
want to discover its principles, strategies and anatomy of creative writing and
grammatical structures.
The objective of the work is to provide the analysis of language of advertising
from linguistic point of view and specify linguistic means used in advertising texts.
The practical research analyses the advertising slogans and determines the most
widely used linguistic means, even in relation to product specialization. The results of
the study and analysis are useful for familiarizing and understanding the main issues
connected with technique of writing advertising texts; the concrete statements and
data can provide information for those, who write advertising texts in English.
The diploma thesis is addressed to the students of English language for
Specific Purposes, teachers of English language for Specific Purposes, people
working in advertising sphere, copywriters and all people interested in language of
advertising.
I acquired the literature resources and magazines from the library of University
of Granada, the University Library in Bratislava and from British Council in
Bratislava.
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CONTENTS
ABSTRAKT ............................................................................................................. 3
ABSTRACT.............................................................................................................. 4
PREFACE................................................................................................................. 5
CONTENTS.............................................................................................................. 6
LIST OF PICTURES AND GRAPHS ....................................................................... 8
LIST OF SYMBOLS AND ABBREVIATIONS ....................................................... 9
0 INTRODUCTION............................................................................................11
1 DEFINING THE CONCEPT OF ADVERTISING ...........................................13
1.1 Definitions of advertising and advertising slogan ......................................13
1.2 History of advertising................................................................................14
1.3 Types of advertising..................................................................................15
2 ADVERTISING AS KIND OF COMMUNICATION ......................................17
2.1 The process of communication..................................................................17
2.2 Verbal and non-verbal communication in advertising................................19
2.3 Public versus word-of-mouth communication of advertising .....................20
3 TEXT OF ADVERTISING AND ITS STRUCTURE .......................................21
3.1 Cohesion of advertising text......................................................................21
3.2 Informational structure within the text – theme and rheme ........................23
4 LINGUISTIC MEANS USED IN ADVERTISING LANGUAGE....................26
4.1 Phonological aspect...................................................................................27
4.1.1 Rhyme...............................................................................................27
4.1.2 Rhythm .............................................................................................27
4.1.3 Alliteration........................................................................................28
4.1.4 Assonance .........................................................................................28
4.1.5 Graphic aspect of the text ..................................................................28
4.1.6 Transliteration...................................................................................29
4.1.7 Homophones .....................................................................................29
4.2 Lexical and morphological aspect .............................................................30
4.2.1 Verb phrase.......................................................................................30
4.2.2 Noun phrase ......................................................................................30
4.2.3 Adjectives .........................................................................................31
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4.2.4 Numerals...........................................................................................32
4.2.5 Foreign words ...................................................................................32
4.2.6 Intertextuality....................................................................................32
4.2.7 Formation of new words and phrases.................................................34
4.2.8 Idiomatic constructions .....................................................................36
4.2.9 Collocations ......................................................................................37
4.3 Syntactic aspect.........................................................................................37
4.3.1 Sentence types...................................................................................37
4.3.2 Sentence structure .............................................................................40
4.3.2.1 Schematic pattering .......................................................................40
4.3.2.2 Ellipsis ..........................................................................................41
4.3.2.3 Incomplete sentences.....................................................................43
4.4 Semantic aspect.........................................................................................43
4.4.1 Personification ..................................................................................44
4.4.2 Simile................................................................................................45
4.4.3 Hyperbole .........................................................................................45
4.4.4 Metaphor...........................................................................................45
4.4.5 Metonymy.........................................................................................47
4.4.6 Antithesis ..........................................................................................47
4.4.7 Polysemy and homonymy..................................................................48
5 RESEARCH PART ..........................................................................................49
5.1 The aims of research .................................................................................49
5.2 Hypotheses and questions of the research..................................................49
5.3 Research sample .......................................................................................50
5.4 Research methods and process of research ................................................50
5.5 Results of the research ..............................................................................72
6 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................77
BIBLIOGRAPHY ....................................................................................................79
SUPPLEMENT A Review of print advertisements
SUPPLEMENT B Table of attributes
ADDITIONAL MATERIAL - CD
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LIST OF PICTURES AND GRAPHS
Picture 1: the representation of communication process
Graph 1: sentence type
Graph 2: auxiliary verbs
Graph 3: finiteness of verbs
Graph 4: tense/aspect of verbs
Graph 5: narrator
Graph 6: gradability of adjectives
Graph 7: form of adjectives
Graph 8: comparative adjectives – distribution
Graph 9: superlative adjectives – distribution
Graph 10: occurrence of linguistic means in individual branches
Graph 11: popularity and use of linguistic means by individual branches
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LIST OF SYMBOLS AND ABBREVIATIONS
1 - See the supplement A of the diploma thesis.
N – noun
V – verb
Adj – adjective
Adv – adverb
Nph – noun phrase
Num – numeral
PhrV – phrasal verb
AuxV – auxiliary verb
finV – finite verb
non-finV – non-finite verb
grad Adj – gradable adjective
non-grad Adj – non-gradable adjective
Dec. – declarative
Imp. – imperative
Int. - interrogative
1 st Sg narr. – 1 st singular narrator
1 st Pl narr. – 1 st plural narrator
sth – something
sb – somebody
polys/homon – polysemy/homonymy
sent. type – sentence type
T –technique product specialization
Cl - clothes product specialization
S - services product specialization
F – food and drink product specialization
H – household equipment product specialization
A - automobile product specialization
P - press product specialization
O – online shops specialization
Ph - pharamceutical product specialization
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C - cosmetic product specialization
J – jewelry and watch product specialization
To - tobacco product specialization
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0 INTRODUCTION
Advertising has become the part and parcel of present-day life. From
everywhere around us, advertisements of diverse types attack our privacy. In spite of
it, there is an attractive power, which is able to manipulate the consumer; an invisible
voice of advertisement advocates, encourages, asks, announces and deeply embeds
into peoples’ minds.
In last decades, the market glut of advertising caused the increased intention
and interest in linguistic aspect of advertising. Advertising has become a science.
People began to describe, analyze the linguistic means and evaluate the language
trying to find out the principles, create new kinds of relationship between elements of
language and improve the techniques, with the aim to be unique and maximize the
effect at full blast.
Who might be interested in advertising language? Advertising texts are of
great value for the analyses from linguistic, sociologist, sociolinguistic, psychological,
ethnologic and last but not least marketing point of view. Linguists are interested in
language of advertising because they want to know how particular language works in
this type of discourse, which linguistic means are used here and how advertising
language is changing in the course time. Sociologists may be interested in the fact,
how advertising influences the values, attitudes and behaviour of the society. On the
other hand, sociolinguists may study the effects of any aspect of society on the way
language is used in advertising in the course of time. Psychologists may try to
examine the effect of the advertising on human mind and motivation to fulfill material
and social needs. Ethnology may find in this field a good evidence of how the culture
of the nation has been developing. And marketing experts and advertising agencies
are interested in the language of advertising to find the tricks how to make advertising
more effective.
English advertising exploits from the high adaptability of the English
language. English enables the creators of advertisements to use word puns, figurative
language, and to mix individual styles and types of texts. Advertising unifies
language, pictures, music; it contains information, invokes emotions and
imaginations, it can capture all five senses and, besides it, it has social and practical
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aim. As a genre, it seems very diversified. There is often an interference of styles and
registers; therefore, it is often very difficult to classify advertising stylistically. In the
diploma thesis, we will show various aspects and forms of advertising discourse.
The diploma thesis is divided into two parts: theoretical part and practical
research. The objective of the first part of the work is to provide the basic definitions
connected with the issue, the analysis of language of advertising from linguistic
aspect, especially phonological, lexical and morphological, syntactic and semantic
aspect, and to provide examples and describe the most commonly used linguistic
devices and figures of speech in advertising printed text. The second part of the work
is dedicated to the research and practical analysis of the advertising slogans. In fact,
the phenomena theoretically described in the first part served as a foundation for the
practical observation in the second part.
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1 DEFINING THE CONCEPT OF ADVERTISING
In this part of the work we would like to give the reader an idea what
advertising is, how it was developed and which types of advertising exist. This part
brings basic definitions necessary for the reader to understand the whole issue.
Advertising is an inevitable part of our modern capitalist consumer society
whose outstanding feature is its competitive fight. “…advertising is not some external
curiosity which we examine, from which we are separate and superior, but something
of which we are part, and which is part of us…” (Cook 1996: 182). It is everywhere
around us: in newspapers, in magazines, on billboards along the streets, on television,
in radio, in means of public transport and any place the sponsor pays to distribute their
message. The effects of the advertising influence us whether we like it or not.
1.1 Definitions of advertising and advertising slogan
“Advertising, generally speaking, is the promotion of goods, services,
companies and ideas, usually performed by an identified sponsor. Marketers see
advertising as part of an overall promotional strategy.” (http://www.wikipedia.org/)
This definition is according to the free encyclopedia Wikipedia, but there are
also other definitions of advertising, for example, The American Heritage Dictionary
says that the advertising is:
1. “The activity of attracting public attention to a product or business, as by paid
announcements in the print, broadcast, or electronic media.
2. The business of designing and writing advertisements.
3. Advertisements considered as a group: This paper takes no advertising.”
Advertisement is a concrete manifestation of advertising; “a paid public
announcement appearing in the media.” (http://www.motto.com/glossary.html)
Another definition of advertising is according to the Investorwords glossary:
“Description or presentation of a product, idea, or organization, in order to induce
individuals to buy, support, or approve of it.”
(http://www.investorwords.com/129/advertising.html)
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All these definitions have in common the fact, that advertising is a means of
promotion the product, idea, or organization on the market with the aim to give
information and to persuade people of the advantage of the product and induce them
to take and action (e.g. buy it).
To consolidate the terminology, we must define the concept of slogan.
Advertising slogan has many definitions. Among the most apt belong:
Slogan is “a word or phrase that is easy to remember, used for example by a
political party or in advertising to attract people’s attention or to suggest an idea
quickly.” (Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary 2001).
It is “short, memorable advertising phrase: Examples include "Coke Is It," "Just
Do It," and "Don’t Leave Home Without It." When a product or company uses a
slogan consistently, the slogan can become an important element of identification in
the public’s perception of the product.” (http://www.motto.com/glossary.html)
The concept of slogan is used among authors of books about advertising in
various ways. Advertising layout is divided into several parts: headline, body copy
(the main part of the advertising message, often divided into subheads), signature line
(a mention of a brand-name, often accompanied by a price-tag, slogan or trade-mark)
and standing details (e.g. the address of the firm). (See Leech 1972: 59). In this
understanding, slogan is not identified with headline and vice versa and the term is
used in narrow sense. However, Greg Myers (Myers 1997) uses the term ‘slogan’ in
larger sense - for any catchy phrase, what a headline definitely is. In many cases, the
boundaries between slogan and headline disappear. For that reason, we will accept the
second idea and will use the term ‘slogan’ in broader sense.
1.2 History of advertising
Advertising traces its history back to ancient times. Wikipedia says that the
first forms of advertising messages were transferred by word of mouth, however, in
the ruins of Pompeii commercial messages and election campaign displays have been
found. Egyptians used Papyrus to create sales messages and wall posters, while in
Greece and Rome lost-and-found advertising on papyrus was common. Wall or rock
painting for commercial advertising is another manifestation of an ancient media
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advertising form, which is present to this day in many parts of Asia, Africa and South
America.
With the form of advertising, we could meet in the marketplaces, where the
sellers used to shout and extol their products. In the course of time, people more and
more tried to differentiate their products and began to find out new ways of
presenting. They started to accentuate the visual aspect of the advertisement. With the
expansion of colour printing and colourful posters the streets began to revel in
colours. These posters were ancestors to our modern billboards.
As the economy and the trade were expanding during the 19 th century, the
need for advertising grew. Gradually, advertising transformed into a modern, more
scientific and sophisticated conception. New visual techniques have been launched.
Not only the content of the message is important, but also the form. The creativity of
copywriters, who are finding new ways, leads to the richness of various forms of
advertising.
1.3 Types of advertising
According to Geoffrey Leech (Leech 1972), most frequent and important type
of the advertising is “‘commercial consumer advertising’: advertising directed
towards a mass audience with the aim of promoting sales of a commercial product or
service. It is the kind which uses most money, professional skill, and advertising
space in this country.” (‘this country’, here: Great Britain). Example:
“Plump it up. New volume boost liquid lip colour. Paints lips with a high shine
lacquer finish. Feel the tingling sensation as formula begins to work.”
Another type of commercial advertising is ‘prestige advertising’. Here the
name and the positive image of the company are advertised rather than a product or a
service. Example:
“The America’s Cup: the oldest and most coveted trophy in the world of
sailing. Its organizers have entrusted once again the vital timing of the races to
Omega, a company whose experience in watchmaking and sports timekeeping
dates back over 150 years…to the very origins of the America’s Cup itself.”
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We may mention ‘industrial or trade advertising’, where a company
advertises its products or services to other firms, so the communication is between
equals. They both (copywriter and the reader) have as an interest as a particular
knowledge about the product advertised. Therefore, “industrial advertising typically
lays greater emphasis on factual information than prestige and consumer advertising
and less emphasis on the persuasive elements.” (Vestergaard and Schroder 1985: 2)
Example:
“You can trust Trenkwalder. We can search for and find the right professional
challenge for your career. We offer you:
• Advice about the employment market
• An analysis of your personal career opportunities, taking into account your
knowledge, your experience and your preferences”
As an example of non-commercial advertising, we may mention appeals
from associations and societies whether their purposes are charity or political
propaganda:
“Thanks to the World Food Programme, this little girl in Mozambique knows
she won’t go hungry today.”
We can classify the types of advertising also according to the type of medium:
TV, radio, brochures, leaflets, magazines, newspapers and other printed material
advertising, the Internet and Direct Mail advertising, outdoor advertising, etc.
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2 ADVERTISING AS KIND OF COMMUNICATION
According to Widdowson, human language “serves as a means of cognition
and communication: it enables us to think for ourselves and to cooperate with other
people in our community.” (Widdowson 2000: 3). It follows that advertising is a kind
of communication between the creator of advertisement (in fact, the copywriter who
substitutes the producer/seller and transfers his ideas into advertisements), and the
consumer.
2.1 The process of communication
Now we will describe the communication process in general.
Communication is the process between at least two sides – the addresser (transmitter –
speaker or writer) and the addressee (receiver – listener or reader). Between these two
participants, the coded meaning (information) is transmitted through the
communication channel. Each communication is proceeding in given context or
situation. The communication process is represented in the following picture:
Picture 1: the representation of communication process (Vestergaard and Schroder 1985: 16)
From this graphic representation we can clearly see that, in case of advertising,
“the addresser is the copywriter, and the addressee is the reader, the meaning
transmitted is about the product (more specifically, an attempt to make the reader buy
the product), the code (in the case of press advertising) is language and some sort of
visual code, the channel consists of printed publications, and the context will include
such features as the reader’s total situation (does he have the product already? can he
afford it? etc.), the publication in which the advertisement appears, and last but not
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least the knowledge that the text is and advert.” (Leech 1974: 49, in: Vestergaard and
Schroder 1985: 15). From this we conclude that advertising is a kind of
communication with its own principles. The addresser is a producer – a company that
tries to persuade the addressee – a consumer - to buy a product. The code of the
language has to be known by all participants of the communication.
The information communicated by the advertisement is not discussing
everything about the product. It is incomplete because there is no space enough to
describe the product into details. The information only contains what the producer
thinks the consumer needs to know. It always contains the name of the product and
usually the information how it can benefit the customer.
Angela Goddard emphasizes the idea of narrator and narratees. She says
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, for example,
a female writer can construct a male narrator, or an adult writer can construct a child
narrator:
“ “She’s got more than me, mum.” ”
Narratees are, on the other hand, people who appear to being addressed. In fact, in
advertising communication a narratee is not a certain person, but at least a target
group, or a whole public.
“The widest address forms to be given to a narratee in an advertisement are: a)
no address form at all (0) or b) ‘you’ (or the possessive form, ‘your’). In both these
cases, any person reading the advert can feel addressed by it and not excluded from
the communication.” (Goddard 1998: 31). The widely used pronoun ‘your’
symbolizes the closeness of the product to the consumer.
A narrator might be:
o The first person singular narrator ‘I’ – a character in the story
itself; this kind of text sounds more personally; the narrator talks to
us:
“I’m a big looser.”
“ “I am unique. Moissanite is me.” ”
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o The first person plural narrator ‘We’ – This may evoke the
effect the whole company or association talks to the narratee. It
makes a corporate impression:
“We bring Olympic energy to your home.”
o The third person omniscient narrator ‘He’, ‘She’, ‘It’, ‘They’
or ‘0’– it is ‘an observer’ of events, telling us about actions or
product:
“In their eyes, they can tug forever.”
“Stop seeing broken hair everywhere.”
“One just right for you.”
2.2 Verbal and non-verbal communication in advertising
In this branch, various media embody the communication channel, for
example billboards, radio, cinema and television, web banners and web popups,
skywriting, press (magazines, newspapers, printed leaflets), advertisements in public
transport, floating advertising on blips and balloons, illuminated signs, and many
other possibilities to promote the product in public.
In most cases of advertising, we use verbal language for express ideas often
accompanied by a picture or symbol, music, some kind of computer animation or
video related to the verbal text. Verbal language is concerned with words; it is not a
synonym for oral or spoken language. Non-verbal (wordless) message can be sent or
received “through any sensory channel - visual perception, sound, smell, touch, taste;
through gesture, body language or posture, facial expressions and eye gaze; object
communication such as clothing, hairstyles or even architecture; symbols and
infographics; prosodic features of speech such as intonation and stress and other
paralinguistic features of speech such as voice quality, emotion and speaking style”
(http://www.wikipedia.org/).
The use of non-verbal communication, also called paralanguage, is inevitable
part of advertising language. There are many examples of use of non-verbal language
in advertising: web banners of bright colours moving quickly in front of our eyes, a
romantic music in an advertisement for a new women’s perfume and a fragrant stripe
of the same inside the Cosmopolitan magazine, surprised face of a woman who has
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just found a fantastic washing powder and a mild voice of a young man in radio
advertising for an insurance company. A nice example of facial gestures expressing
the smell and taste in printed advertising is included in the supplement A ( 1 ).
It depends on media used whether verbal, non-verbal or both communications
are used in particular advertisement.
2.3 Public versus word-of-mouth communication of advertising
Another question is whether advertising is public (non-personal) or private
(personal) communication.
“Private communication is a process which involves a known number of
persons who are well-known to each other” (Vestergaard and Schroder 1985: 13) and,
on the other hand, public communication is defined as communication between the
addresser and anonymous public - like in literature, film, press and advertising. (See
Vestergaard and Schroder). It follows that advertising is one-way public
communication, because anonymous public cannot answer the copywriter back and
cannot express their opinion. The feedback is missing. However, each seller would
confirm that the best for his or her business is word-of-mouth advertising. The
customers, employees, and friends – they all can be propagators, whether in positive
or negative sense. Many copywriters are completely sure that this is the most
important kind of advertising.
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3 TEXT OF ADVERTISING AND ITS STRUCTURE
Text is a structured unit consisting of smaller units. It is “a stretch of language
which makes coherent sense in the context of its units. It may be spoken or written; it
may be as long as a book or as short as a cry for help.” (Quirk et al. 1990: 434).
Advertising, if we mean the verbal one, is a type of text. We can find advertising texts
in printed materials or, in spoken form, broadcasted by radio or TV. In printed
advertising, the text may serve only for catching the reader’s attention, provide
information about the product or serve as an anchorage (the link between the image
and its context; some guidance to the reader) for the image.
3.1 Cohesion of advertising text
To achieve the unity, continuity and fluency of the text, “English sentences
can be linked in various ways, among which repetition of an element and back
reference by means of pronouns are among the more important.” (Halliday and Hasan
1976, in: Vestergaard and Schroder 1985: 18). Other techniques are also used to join
sentences together, for example, we use synonymy, place and time relaters,
determiners, pro-forms (pronouns, pro-verbs, other pro-forms), ellipsis, enumeration,
parallelism (repetition of sentence structure), conjunctions and various transitions. All
these ‘sentence signals’ refer back or forward to neighboring sentences. This principle
is called cohesion. Widdowson defines cohesion as “the ties that connect up units of
language to form text. (…) The repeated pattern provides a kind of texture to the text,
sets up a kind of connection or cohesion across the sentences.” (Widdowson 2000:
125, 38). Here we give an example of cohesion in advertising text:
“The starting point of a great soup, casserole, or risotto is simple, well-made
stock. Knorr Simply Stock is just that. Made from natural ingredients, with no
artificial colours, flavours or preservatives, it’s a great way of enhancing the
flavour of your dishes.”
We see here that the main subject that everything derives from is Knorr Simply Stock.
In the first sentence, it is expressed by the identification attribute ‘simple, well-made
stock’, in the second sentence by the pronoun ‘that’ and in the last sentence by the
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pronoun ‘it’. All are cohesion devices used for prevent unnecessary repetition in the
text. We can see in this advertisement also another feature typical for advertising, and
that is cataphora: first the description of the product, later on the name of the product
is mentioned. It is because the sellers want to induce the favourable impression that
the product is the solution for given situation.
We can observe cohesion not only at the level beyond sentences but also
within sentences. This is achieved by use of coordination and subordination of
clauses:
“Peter is tired. He wants to sleep a lot.”
We can connect these two clauses into one sentence:
“Peter is tired, so he wants to sleep a lot.”
Coordination is especially important cohesional factor in advertising language. There
are three types of coordination – linking (use of coordinating conjunctions and, or,
so, but), parataxis (“short, simple clauses, often without the use of conjunctions and
often sharing the same subject” (http://www.wikipedia.org/); “it is applying to the
omission of both coordinate and subordinate conjunctions, and to clauses and phrases
both.”(https://lists.usm.maine.edu/) and apposition (“two elements are placed side by
side, with the second element serving to define or modify the first.”
(http://www.wikipedia.org/)). Leech says, that in some cases, copywriters show
tendencies to use
1. Coordination in places, where subordination would have made the relationship
between clauses more explicit, and
2. Non-linking coordination (parataxis and apposition) in preference to linking
coordination. (Leech 1972: 143)
He demonstrates the first case on the following example:
“Just water it on, and weeds shoot up, then curl and wither away.”
This is an imperative linked to an affirmative clause. It might be paraphrased by a
sentence with a conditional clause:
“If you just water it on, weeds shoot up, then curl and wither away.”
There is also a type of sentence in advertising, which consists of a pair of imperative
clauses in apposition:
“Be sure of yourself. Use Body Mist, the perfumed deodorant.”
This, too, might have been expressed by a subordinate clause:
“To be sure of yourself, use Body Mist, the perfumed deodorant.”
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In press advertising, we can observe noun group parataxis for example in the listing of
the addresses of the advertising firm:
“New York – Paris – London”.
Parataxis of adjective groups is also common and serves the same kind of purpose as
the listing of pre-modifying adjectives in a noun group. (See Leech 1972: 147) (here:
noun/adjective group = noun/adjective phrase). Following example is a parataxis of
separate adjectives:
“New. Better. Happier.”
According to these examples we can suppose, that the headline
“Thinking larger. Moving faster.”
is the example of verb phrase parataxis.
The apposition of two noun groups is a construction highly represented in
advertisement language. Usually the product name precedes the noun group, which
describes it, but the reverse order also occurs:
“Neotec. The only tripod with built-in zoom.”
We can observe the tendency to cut up the sentences in places where linking
conjunctions, commas or dashes usually appear:
“After 173 years, we know quite a bit about diamonds. But love is still a
complete mystery.”
“It’s just another Renault. Reliable. Technically superior. Best in its class. Just
like every other Renault we make.”
We could remake these two advertisements:
“After 173 years, we know quite a bit about diamonds, but love is still a
complete mystery.”
“It’s just another Renault – reliable, technically superior and best in its class –
just like every other Renault we make.”
3.2 Informational structure within the text – theme and rheme
The textual structure can be studied not only from the point of view of the
connection of the sentences to make up a text, but we can also consider it from the
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informational point of view. It means, how we can structure units of information
within the sentences.
Units of information can be placed in various ways, according to the degree of
their prominence. In case of sentence where unmarked end-focus principle is
applied, the RHEME (also called new, focal element; comment) is the informationally
most prominent element of a tone group containing the new information, while the
THEME (also called given, non-focal element; topic) is the least prominent element
containing given information, which is assumed to be known from the former text or
from the context. The most important information goes at the end of the statement and
the least important one, by contrast, at the beginning, functioning only for
“announcing that the starting point of the message is established” (Quirk et al. 1972:
397). In following example, (and in most cases), the theme is the subject of the
sentence, while the rest of the sentence is rheme. The hearer or reader usually expects
this unmarked form:
“I wrote Ann a letter.”
We put the characteristic accent (intonational nucleus) on the last stressed
syllable of the tone group. “It is natural to place the new information after providing a
context of given information, so we can regard focus (identified prosodically) as most
naturally and normally occurring at the end of informational unit.” (Quirk et al. 1972:
398). In this case, the subject ‘I’ is the theme; the rheme is the rest of the sentence
increasing the communicative dynamism from ‘ wrote Ann a’ towards the last word
‘letter’.
This occurs very frequently also in advertising language, where copywriters
are in the habit of making short but condensed sentences. This evokes the impression
of much new and important information within a short text. This technique saw its
‘boom’ in the 1960s.
Copywriters try to remove verbs at all, or to remove finite verbs and replace
them by their non-finite forms, eliminate pronouns and create as short sentences as
possible in order to “cut up the sentences into more information units”, so that the
same sequence of words will contain more focal elements rather than one. (See
Vestergaard and Schroder 1985: 23). Following advertisements offer examples:
“Solgar ingredients are selected on quality. Not price.”
“Take the World. Touched by THAI.”
“DVD triple boxsets. From £15.97. Typical. 3 for the price of 1.”
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“Jeans that fit. Beautifully.”
Now we will consider the fourth example as a single utterance:
“Jeans that fit beautifully.”
This does not mean the same as the original text. “The original asserts that these are
jeans that fit (implying they fit well), presenting the verb "fit" as new information,
then following up with the further new information that the jeans fit beautifully. In the
revised version, only "beautifully" is new information. Additionally, by segmenting
the first utterance in the original as "Jeans that fit", the advertisement authors create
the implication that there may be jeans that do not fit (well).”
(http://www.stanford.edu/class/linguist34/Unit_02/given-new.htm)
These advertisements reflect the quest to make the text more dynamic; the
utterances are organized into smaller units to underline the content of each. In each
group, there is new information, a new rheme, each containing its own nuclear accent.
Nowadays, copywriters still remain creating text with short sentences full of
important information about the product. However, many advertising texts are more
compact; the text is an integrated unit, ordinary connected whole rather then some
unnatural sequence of phrases. In the supplement A, we offer the reader an example
of an advertisement showing, how copywriters today compose the texts even into
short narrations ( 2 ).
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4 LINGUISTIC MEANS USED IN ADVERTISING LANGUAGE
Leech in his book (Leech 1972: 25) writes, that the language of advertising
belongs to so called ‘loaded language’. Wikipedia defines it as “the writing or
speech, which implies an accusation of demagoguery or of pandering to the
audience.” Leech says that loaded language has the aim to change the will, opinions,
or attitudes of its audience. He claims that advertising differs from other types of
loaded language (such as political journalism and religious oratory) in having a very
precise material goal – changing the mental disposition to reach the desired kind of
behaviour – buying a particular kind of product.
To persuade people to buy the product is the main purpose of the advertising.
Among such great competition, the producer wants to demonstrate the uniqueness of
his product. He wants to differentiate it from the rest. He is trying to find new
techniques of advertisement. Also, the advertisement texts must be more attractive
and more unexpected. They must catch the attention of the audience and then identify
the product. Copywriters create uncommon, surprising, interesting texts with catchy
slogans or phrases. The reader or listener must give it some thought and the result is
manipulation with him in order to buy the product. Leech sets following principles of
advertising texts: Attention value, Readability (by means of simple, personal, and
colloquial style), Memorability (most important in the process of advertising is to
remember the name of the product) and Selling power (Leech 1972: 27). The last
principle is crucial. David Ogilvy (Ogilvy 1985: 7) in his book says:
“I do not regard advertising as entertainment or an art form, but as a medium of
information. When I write an advertisement, I don’t want you to tell me that you find
it ‘creative’. I want you to find it so interesting that you buy the product.”
We may identify the advertising as a type of discourse, because “it can tell us a
good deal about our own society and our own psychology (…) Discourse is text and
context together.” (Cook 1996: 2-5). We could analyze the whole discourse of
advertising, it means “the interaction of all elements that participate in advertising
discourse: participants, function, substance, pictures, music, a society, paralanguage,
language, a situation, other advertising and other discourse.” Although such analysis
would be complete, it would be very difficult to elaborate it in such limited space. For
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that reason, in this work we will analyze the language of advertising from the
linguistic, especially phonological, lexical and morphological, syntactic and semantic
point of view. We will provide examples and describe the most commonly used
linguistic devices and figures of speech in advertising printed text.
4.1 Phonological aspect
Advertising language often uses the techniques similar to those in poetic texts.
The advantage of so-called mnemonic devices (rhyme, rhythm, alliteration and
assonance) is the mnemotechnical effect. It guarantees that the receiver of the
advertisement better remembers the text and recalls it at the right moment.
4.1.1 Rhyme
Rhyme is a pattern of “identity of sound between words or verse-lines
extending from the end to the last fully accented vowel and not further.” (Concise
Oxford English Dictionary 2004). Rhyme refers to sounds, not spelling. It is
commonly found in jingles, slogans and headlines, like in this one:
“Eukanuba gives their teeth the strength they need.”
4.1.2 Rhythm
The aim of advertising is to be catchy and easy to remember. One of the
devices how copywriters can reach it is to use prosodic features – intonation, rhythm
and lexical stress - because they have a great emotional and mnemonic effect. Even
the scientists cannot explain why has rhythm and repetition so powerful attraction on
human mind. Some suggest that it recalls the regular sound of the mother’s heartbeat
in the womb (Langer 1967: 324; Stetson 1951, in: Cook 1996: 120) or other compare
it to the dances of ritual magic (Olson, 1950, in: Cook 1996: 120), that they have an
enhancing effect on neuronal circuits in the brain (Newman 1986, in: Cook 1996:
120).
Copywriters often use language with rhythmical arrangement. The listener or
reader need not notice it and he perceives it only subconsciously. The result is, that
the text is memorable and linguistically neat. If the rhythm has some regularity, it is
called metre. “Metre is a pattern composed of rhythm groups (feet) consisting of
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similar or identical patterns of stressed and unstressed syllables. (…) Metrical scheme
may easily pass unnoticed.)” (Leech 1972: 186). English poetry has various types of
metrical feet. Among the most important belong an iamb (an unstressed syllable
followed by a stressed syllable: x / ), a trochee (a stressed syllable followed by an
unstressed one: / x ), a dactyl (a stressed syllable followed by two unstressed
syllables: / x x ), a spondee (consisting of two stressed syllables: / / ), a pyrrhic
(two unstressed syllables: x x ), and an anapest (two unstressed syllables followed
by a stressed one: x x / ). Advertisement slogans often benefit from the metrical
regularity:
“Flatter your figure with Dietrim.” This slogan is composed of three dactyls.
/ x x / x x / x x
'flæ/t(r) j(r) 'fI/g(r) wI 'daI//trIm
4.1.3 Alliteration
Alliteration can be defined as “literary technique, in which successive words
(more strictly, stressed syllables) begin with the same consonant sound or letter.”
(http://www.wikipedia.org/). It is widely used in advertising slogans. There are 20
consonant sounds in English, but those that are made by stopping the air-stream
completely (p, b, m, n, t, d, k and g) are according to Greg Myers (Myers 1997) most
used, because stand out more than others.
“Performance. Prestige. Passion for Innovation.”
4.1.4 Assonance
Assonance is a linguistic device, in which the same vowel in successive
stressed syllables creates a vowel harmony. It is not so obvious type of scheme as
alliteration.
“How much reality can you handle?”
4.1.5 Graphic aspect of the text
We will not devote ourselves to the graphic aspect of the advertising text into
details, but we will draw attention to the most important ways in which the letters can
be presented. It does not have anything with sounds. It deals only with graphic
elaboration of the text. Almost all printed advertisements exploit from the fact of
being printed. Copywriters have to decide how to make the layout. The selection of
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script, its colour, type and size is the inevitable part of making a good advertisement.
However, not only this may contribute to the final effect. The other possibilities are:
o Unpredictable spelling of words (“Beanz Meanz Heinz”, “4ever”,
“Bar B Q”, “süper”, etc.)
o Higher frequency of low-frequent letters that produce
outstanding sounds (‘X’ is very popular: “Xerox”, “Botox” and use
of palato-alveolar consonants /t/, //, /d /).
o Unexpected print of letters - whether the size or their shape is
similar to some object and this object replaces the letter.
o Acronyms and initialisms with graphic exploitation – the letters
of abbreviation create the first letters of words. The effect is
highlighted by means of colour, size or layout:
“XTROVERT. XPLOSIVE. LOVE THE COLOUR. COLOR XXL”
Examples of in an interesting way printed texts are provided in the supplement A
( 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 ).
4.1.6 Transliteration
Using of transliteration in advertisement is not so frequent, but when occurred,
it makes a positive result. It definitely attracts reader’s attention. Transliteration
means the transformation of foreign words into English. Usually the spelling of the
foreign word is different but the pronunciation in these special cases is the same as
English:
“BE COINTREAUVERSIAL.” (here: COINTREAU is the name of French
alcoholic drink)
4.1.7 Homophones
In English, there are many words that sound the same but are spelled
differently. Linguists call them homophones. Copywriters use homophony to create
puns in advertising language. This kind of play works best in print. As the fantastic
example we show following example:
“Sainsbury’s have discovered that the finest whisky is kept under loch and
quay.” (Myers : 43).
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Myers says: “The spelling and pictures make us think of the relevant Scottish
meanings first, but we must also recall the idiomatic phrase that fits in the sentence,
lock and key. (…) Each of two interpretations – as spelling or as sound – has some
support.”
4.2 Lexical and morphological aspect
This part of the work will be concerned with typical characteristics of the
vocabulary of advertising and most commonly used figures of speech.
4.2.1 Verb phrase
There exist two types of structure of verb phrase: finite verb phrase and nonfinite
verb phrase. The first one is “a verb phrase in which the first or only word is a
finite verb (it has the tense contrast, person and number concord with the subject), the
rest of the phrase (if any) consisting of nonfinite verbs. (…) The infinitive, the –ing
participle and the –ed participle are the non-finite forms of the verb.” (Quirk et al.
1990: 41). In advertising, “verbal groups are mostly of maximum simplicity,
consisting of only one word.” (Leech 1972: 121). It is obvious by a quick look
through our advertising material in research part that the majority of finite verb
phrases are either simple present forms (to satisfy the customer’s desire for the present
state of the product and its implication of universality and timelessness) or else simple
imperatives. Phrasal verbs are also used. According to Leech, passive voice occurs
very sporadically and so does the application of auxiliary verbs. Two auxiliary verbs
often used in advertising are the future auxiliary ‘will’, because it evokes the
impression of ‘promise’ and the modal auxiliary ‘can’. If an animate subject precedes
the verb ‘can’, (in most cases ‘you’ = ‘customer’ ‘you can…’), the consumer is told
that the product gives him or her the ‘ability’ to do this or that. If an inanimate subject
(in most cases the brand-name e.g. ‘Nivea peeling can…’) precedes ‘can’, the
consumer is told what ‘possibilities’ the product offers. (See Leech 1972: 125).
4.2.2 Noun phrase
In general, noun phrases in advertisements are far more complex than verb
phrases. In advertising language, the interesting part of the noun phrase is the pre-
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modifying part, which is usually very complex and is characterized by certain unusual
structural features. The complexity of pre-modification is based on the effort to catch,
describe and specify the properties of the product in attractive way:
“First automatic chronograph with a 72-hour power-reserve and patented
compression push-buttons. Mechanical automatic movement 751, made inhouse.”
Here the only verb is the verb ‘make’ in passive voice.
In many cases, whole advertising text does not contain any verb; it consists
only of noun phrases. Inside the noun phrase, clusters of two, three or more adjectives
are possible:
“Gingery Fudgy Nutty Creamy Mischievous Mouthfuls.”
A word ‘fudgy’ is a neologism created by copywriters. Normally it is a noun and it
does not exist in form of an adjective.
High number of genitives occurs in names of manufacturer, names of time and
names of towns.
“Bigham’s gourmet canapés”
“Britain’s No.1”
4.2.3 Adjectives
While reading the advertisement, the reader may notice the hyperbolic
character of the language. This exaggeration causes increased number of
comparative and superlative adjectives. The product is better, nicer, newer, and
tighter and the customer is happier and more satisfied. The product offers more
information, more entertainment, more comfort, more than any other product. We
may observe in our list of advertisements that gradable adjectives (they describe
qualities that can be measured in degrees; they can be used in comparative or
superlative forms) outnumber non-gradable adjectives (“they describe qualities that
are completely present or completely absent; they do not occur in comparative and
superlative forms, and cannot be used with adverbs such as very or extremely,
because we don’t usually imagine degrees of more or less of the quality being
described.”
(http://www.onestopenglish.com/teacher_support/ask/Grammar/grammar15.htm), e.g.
biological, school, telephonic.)
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Epithet is a descriptive word or phrase, which “emphasizes particular characteristic
of described object or event and concretizes its idea, eventually expresses author’s
evaluative and emotional attitude.” (Slovník literární teorie 1997, in: mejrková
2000: 91). There are two types of epithets: epithet constans (commonly used
stereotyped collocation, e.g. heavy rain, bright day) and epithet ornans (decorative). In
advertising, most widely used are epithets like fresh, new, gentle, creamy, silky,
delicious, beautiful, ideal, excellent, unforgettable, eternal, etc., and, accordingly, the
gradational forms of them.
4.2.4 Numerals
In many advertisements, we can see the use of numerals. It is necessary if the
copywriters want to define the characteristics of the product exactly. Numerals are
used to define quantity of various aspects, for example percentage of some substance
in a product, number of years in connection to the length of the tradition of the
product, the number of satisfied customers, etc.
4.2.5 Foreign words
Foreign words are used in advertisements to emphasize the origin of the
product or exclusiveness of the product in relation to particular country:
“La crème de la crème of lipcolour.”
French word ‘crème’ evokes the impression of good-class French cosmetics. Even
more, the phrase ‘crème de la crème’ is taken from French and it means ‘the best
people or things of their kind’ (Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary 2001).
4.2.6 Intertextuality
Intertextuality is “the way in which one text echoes or refers to another text. It
means that, for example an advertisement:
“To be in Florida in winter, or not to be in Florida in winter”
would contain an intertextual reference to a key speech in Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
Intertextuality can operate at many different levels of language, from phonological
and lexical references in titles and slogans to visual aspects such as layouts and
images. (…) Intertextuality can be an important component of and advert’s meaning,
in that the original text being referred to establish a message, which the second text
can then use and elaborate on. (…) For intertextuality to work completely, readers
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have to be able to remember the original advert and place the reference being
established. But if they don’t, it doesn’t matter too much, for the contemporary advert
will simply be enigmatic…” (Goddard 1998: 124)
In advertising, the intertextuality is used in such conditions, where there is
justifiable supposition that the original text is well-known among people. “Tyto texty
(jsou-li krátké) nebo jejich prvky (v pípad vtích celk) se bu doslova citují, aneb
– astji – se modifikují. Pozmují se ovem tak, aby odkaz k pvodnímu textu
zstal zejm a aby se text a jeho kontext vnímateli vybavil. Na základ tohoto
kritéria se nkdy rozliuje citát, kter je doslovnou reprodukcí podkladového textu
a bvá, nikoli vak nutn, vyznaen v novém textu uvozovkami, a aluze (z latinského
alludere = zahrávat si), která je jen narákou, poukazem k njakému podkladovému
textu.” (mejrková 2000: 169-191).
Svtla mejrková further presents various ways how intertextuality can be
used in advertising. It can be based on:
o Fixed phrases, idioms and collocations (“A SMOOTH MOVE
HAIR REMOVAL FROM HEAD-TO-TOE”),
o Biblical sentences (“Do unto you as you would have others do unto
you. Toyota.” The original statement says: “Do unto others as you
would have them do unto you”),
o Quotation of famous people or employees of the company,
o Statements of historical persons (“iThink, Therefore iMac.” ‘I am’
is replaced by ‘iMac’. The original phrase is a philosophical
statement by René Descartes: “I think, therefore I am.”; a phrase
used by Julius Caesar “Veni, vidi, video.”)
o Proverbs and sayings,
o Names of literary works, films, or television programmes (“Not
trying it would be a Greek tragedy”),
o Quotations from songs and fairy tales,
o Mixing of various styles - e-mail, letter, interview, telephonic
conversation, recipe, etc. (“Pleased to meet you”).
As example of intertextuality in visual aspect, see the advertisement in the
supplement A of the diploma thesis ( 8 ).
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4.2.7 Formation of new words and phrases
In English, there exist many different ways of adding new words to the
vocabulary. Advertising texts take advantage of using made-up or adapted words and
expressions in order to support the creative aspect of advertisement and its attraction.
In the text, of course, occur words formed by affixation, compounding, conversion,
shortening, blending, and back-formation and by other ways of creating new words.
The readers even needn’t notice such words, because they sound familiar and ordinary
to them. However, if a new word is ‘deviated’ (it is accommodated somehow to the
context of the advertising text), it becomes striking and interesting for the reader. Let
us introduce you a few examples:
We can find new words and phrases formed by compounding. Very striking
feature of advertising language is a variety of “lexical units, where each unit is
consisting of two or more bases (roots)” (Kvetko 2001: 40) They are called compound
words. A compound word may be characterized by its inseparability (it cannot be
interrupted by another word), semantic unity, morphological and syntactic functioning
and certain phonetical and graphic features. (See Kvetko 2001: 40).
Examples of compounds are: breakfast, hard-working, double-click, within,
fine-tune, airship, world-wide, etc. Compounds may be of two types: coordinative
(south-west) and subordinative. Subordinative compounds are divided into 1.
Germanic type = determinant + determinatum (e.g. highway) and 2. French type =
determinatum + determinant (e.g. snow-white). (See Kvetko 2001: 43)
The creativity of copywriters goes beyond the normal frequency of compounds
used in other types of discourse. Because of the intentions to render in best possible
way the product, various compounds are used and created (e.g. good-as-homemade,
Jus-Rol, pain-relieving, state-of-the-art, hand-crafted, head-to-toe, one-of-a-kind,
platinum-inlayed, all-new, front-facing, touch-sensitive, built-in).
Affixation is another “very effective process of building new words by adding
an established prefix or suffix to the existing base. (…) It is a most productive process
of creating new words in English.” (Kvetko 2001: 35). A suffix occurs after and a
prefix occurs before the base. “A suffix usually changes not only the lexical meaning
of a word but also its word class” (Kvetko 2001: 36), e.g.: to read (V) a reader (N);
a friend (N) friendly (Adv); a clock (N) clockwise (Adv, Adj); to differ (V)
different (Adj) differential (Adj). “A prefix usually changes or concretizes the
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lexical meaning of a word and only rarely word class.” (Kvetko 2001: 38), e.g.
nonsmokers, dislike, rebuild, postwar, autobiography, antinuclear, hypersensitive.
The following examples show the creativity of advertising language: “provodkative,
cookability” (Cook 1996: 140), anti-aging, jewel-like, Casiology.
Shortening in general is “a process in which part of the original word is taken
away. It expresses the trend of Modern English towards monosyllabism.” (Kvetko
2001: 47). Shortening contains clipping, acronyms and initialisms. Clipping is “a
reduction of a word to a shorter form. It is a cutting off one or more syllables of a
word.” (Kvetko 2001: 47), e.g. fan (fanatic), gym (gymnastics), bus (omnibus), exam
(examination), taxi (taxicab), phone (telephone), mobile (mobile phone), fridge
(refrigerator), lab (laboratory), photo (photography). Acronyms are words formed
from the initials of expressions consisting one or more word and read as ordinary
words, e.g. NATO, UNESCO, AIDS. Initialisms are abbreviations with alphabetical
reading, e.g. VIP, XXL, TV, PC. We have already mentioned the possibility of taking
advantage of acronyms and initialisms in connection with the graphic layout (See p.
30 of the diploma thesis).
Blending is similar process to shortening, combined with fusing the elements
of two different words, e.g. smog (smoke + fog), vegeburger (vegetarian +
hamburger), motel (motorway + hotel), brunch (breakfast + lunch), tellyphone
(television + telephone).
“The process of coining new words in a different part of speech without
adding any derivative elements is called conversion.” (Kvetko 2001: 44) The two
words differ in meaning and syntactic function within the sentence. The major types
of conversion are: the formation of verbs from nouns: a call to call; nouns from
verbs: to walk a walk; adjectives from nouns: an orange orange and nouns from
phrasal verbs: to make up a make-up. (See Kvetko 2001). Conversion is more
productive in some languages than in others; in English, it is a fairly productive
process. In advertising, application of puns created by conversion is often very
resourceful. The most frequent strategy is to replace a word (of any word class) with a
brand name (N), so the brand name acquires syntactic features of original fictive
word. This tendency is still used after a hundred years:
“Get that Pepsi feeling.” ‘Pepsi’ is the adjective
“TDK it.” ‘TDK’ is the verb
“Let’s go Kroegering.” ‘Kroegering’ is the verb (to ‘kroeger’)
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Conversion may be used not only with the association with brand names. Here is an
example of advertisement for Penguin books situated on railway platforms. (Myers
1997: 65):
“Book at any station.”
Book is both the verb (‘reserve a ticket’) and the noun (‘a a written work published
and dedicated to reading.’). The picture of the trademark Penguin at a station links the
two.
4.2.8 Idiomatic constructions
“An idiom is an expression (i.e. term or phrase) whose meaning cannot be
deduced from the literal definitions and the arrangement of its parts, but refers instead
to a figurative meaning that is known only through conventional use. In linguistics,
idioms are figures of speech that contradict the principle of compositionality (the
principle, which tells that the meaning of a complex expression is determined by the
meanings of its constituent expressions and the rules used to combine them.).”
(http://www.wikipedia.org/). Idioms have multiword character, they are fixed and
they have common figurative meaning. The phrase ‘to be in the same boat’ has the
literal meaning ‘to be in the same boat’, and also the idiomatic figurative meaning ‘to
be in the same difficult situation’. We write more about figurative meaning in a part
Semantic aspect.
A proverb is a type of idiomatic construction. It is “a well-known phrase or
sentence that gives advice or says something that is generally true.” (Oxford
Advanced Learner’s Dictionary 2001), e.g.: ‘Too many cooks spoil the broth.’ means
that if too many people are involved in something, it will not be well done.
Copywriters use idioms and proverbs in advertisements, because these
constructions are familiar to most potential customers in a society. The idiom or a
proverb in a text may be used without formal changes, or in a creative way, where an
element of a proverb or idiom is slightly changed or replaced by another word to
create a pun and, consequently, a connection with a product. If the picture
accompanies the text, the picture usually does not represent the figurative - and, of
course - correct and common meaning of the idiom, but it represents the image and
representation of the literal meanings of its constituents ( 9 ):
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“Challenge us – and get yourself a bigger slice of the cake.” (Siemens
Financial Services)
An idiom ‘a bigger slice of the cake’ means a share of the available money or benefits
that you believe you have a right to. A picture represents two happy young women
eating a cake.
4.2.9 Collocations
A collocation is “a combination of words in a language, that happens very
often and more frequently than would happen by chance.” (Oxford Advanced
Learner’s Dictionary 2001). Collocations are used in advertisements, however often
without any deviation or play on words and for the reader it is often imperceptible.
We offer here an example of and advertisement with the use of deviated collocation:
“Do you believe in love at first touch?”
The original collocation sounds ‘love at first sight’, but this advertisement emphasizes
a “sleek stainless steel body” of a mobile phone.
4.3 Syntactic aspect
4.3.1 Sentence types
We may distinguish four sentence types: declaratives, interrogatives,
imperatives and exclamatives. Following definitions of each of them are quoted from
Quirk et al. 1990: 231. “Declaratives are sentences in which it is normal for the
subject to be present and to precede the verb. Interrogatives are sentences, which are
formally marked in one of two ways: yes-no interrogatives (an operator is placed in
front of the subject), and wh-interrogatives (an interrogative wh-element is positioned
initially and there is generally subject-operator inversion). Imperatives are sentences,
which normally have no overt grammatical subject, and whose verb has the base form.
Exclamatives are sentences which have an initial phrase introduced by what or how,
usually with subject-verb order.”
To these types of sentences are normally associated four discourse functions:
statements, questions, directives and exclamations. However, the association
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etween syntactic type and discourse function does not always match, as the
following case shows:
“Give me a glass of water.” is an imperative, a directive.
“Could you give me a glass of water?” is an interrogative, but semantically it
is a directive, more precisely an indirect command.
A statement can also function as an indirect command: “I’m thirsty.”
So can exclamations: “What a fresh cold water!”
Because most advertisements approximate to every-day conversation, there is
relatively free selection of sentence types. Leech offers us the results of the research
dealt with the frequency of sentence types in English advertising: “…in the television
sample, over one in thirty major independent clauses were interrogative, and over one
in four major independent clauses were imperative.”
Therefore, according to the results of the research, we can say, that the second most
widely used sentence type after declarative type are the imperative clauses.
However, this research does not say anything about the frequency of direct and
indirect commands. We cannot identify the imperative sentence type with discourse
function. Imperative is not the same as directive. We may say that the imperative is
always a directive but a directive need not necessarily be an imperative.
Copywriters use imperatives, because it creates a sense of “one person is
talking to another (…) because all ads are urging us to some action.” Leech
establishes certain groups of verbal items, which are especially frequent in imperative
clauses:
Items, which have to do with the acquisition of the product: get, buy, ask
for, choose, etc.
Items, which have to do with the consumption or use of the product: have,
try, use, enjoy, etc.
Items, which act as appeals for notice: look, see, watch, remember, make
sure, etc.
“Prohibitive warnings are very infrequent. (…) Only about one imperative in fifty is
accompanied by a negative form.” (Leech 1972: 111)
Myers accentuates the absence of ‘please’ in imperative sentences and lack of
politeness. “One explanation may be that in our culture we cut out the politeness
devices if we are asking somebody to do something that benefits the hearer, not the
speaker, like in phrase “Take a seat.” ” (Myers 1997: 48)
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Why do advertisements use questions? It is for the same reason as why they
use commands: it evokes the sense of personal communication in the reader. It causes
that the reader cooperates with the text having his own individual situation in mind.
Although the copywriters cannot expect the direct answer and feedback (as we have
mentioned in section about public communication above), they expect the readers to
answer themselves silently. Another reason is the presupposition. Presuppositions
are present in any communication and many questions presuppose something. Here
comes an example of it:
“Why do leading beauty experts and models use and recommend Perfectil?”
In this case, we can deduce and belief from the content of this advertisement that
beauty experts and models use and recommend Perfectil.
In advertising language, presupposition is very frequent way of expressing the
content. Advertisers rather use presupposition than assertion because it is much easier
to deny an assertion than a presupposition:
The statement “Leading beauty experts and models use and recommend
Perfectil.” one may oppose: “I don’t believe. No way.” But in question mentioned
above, the receiver is unconsciously led to believe that the content is truthful and that
there are no doubts about the fact that they use and recommend it. Another example of
presupposition is following:
“Just the touch of the button gives you voice control of your music, climate
control and your Bluetooth hands-free phone.”
It presupposes that the car will certainly have got a button, radio player, air-condition
and hands-free set and that everything will be able to be controlled by voice.
Angela Goddard writes that presupposition is “all about reading between lines;
since this is, as it suggests, a hidden process, it is very interesting to advertisers, as we
can be taking in all sorts of assumptions without consciously paying attention to
them.” (Goddard 1998: 125)
In advertisements, there are often cases where the question is stated as kind of a
‘problem’ and then the text offers an answer – ‘a solution’ for the problem:
“Got wedding on the brain? Time to visit our new website.”
Another typical type of question used in advertising is rhetorical question. It
assumes only one possible answer:
“What more could anyone ask from a Clarins gift?”
The implied answer to this is “Of course, nothing.”
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There is one other sentence type plentifully presented in advertisements –
exclamatives. The use of exclamation marks is very liberal and widespread. (We may
notice that exclamation marks are more frequently used in exclamations than in
imperatives in English; that is why it is called ‘exclamation mark’ and not ‘imperative
mark’; while in Slovak the exclamation mark is more often used in imperatives than
in English.)
“And, it’s already wrapped!”
Exclamations may have the sentence structure as simple statements, but the
exclamation mark tells us to read them emphatically.
4.3.2 Sentence structure
In this part of the work, we shall focus our attention on the structure of sentences
in advertising language. We will mention the most important structural tendencies
used by copywriters.
4.3.2.1 Schematic pattering
The formal schemes can be represented in various ways. Parallelism is one of
the forms of schematic pattering. It can be defined as “repetition of formal patterns”
(Leech 1972: 186). Parallelism means the parallel presentation of two or more than
two similar or relevant ideas in similar structural forms. It is a rhetorical device
heightening the emotional tone of the message and its importance. We offer here an
example of parallelism of clause with the same structural pattern:
“Tips for a good night’s sleep: - Drink less caffeine.
- Take warm baths.
- Arrange your insurance with NFU
Mutual.”
Each clause has the same idea and structure beginning with verb in imperative
following by direct object. The typography and layout often contributes to the text; in
this case, each clause is printed in separate line. The last clause makes up a semantic
and formal parallel to first two clauses. Parallelism is often accompanied by
- anaphora – “the repetition of the same word or group of words at the
beginning of several consecutive sentences or verses to emphasize an
40

image or a concept” (http://www.wikipedia.org/):
“Explore the hills. Explore the rivers. Explore the mountains. Explore the
sea.”
- epiphora - “the repetition of the same word or words at the end of
successive phrases, clauses or sentences.” (http://www.wikipedia.org/)
“See new. Hear new. Feel new.”
We suppose that an antimetabole is another form of schematic pattering. It is
defined as “the repetition of words in successive clauses, but in reverse grammatical
order, e.g. ‘I know what I like, and I like what I know’.” (http://www.wikipedia.org/):
“Instead of moving the furniture around, why not move around the furniture?”
Schematic pattering occurs in all levels of language. Anaphora, epiphora,
alliteration, assonance and antithesis also belong to techniques of schematic pattering.
4.3.2.2 Ellipsis
Ellipsis belongs to cohesive devices and it is defined as “the omission of part
of a structure.” (Goddard 1998: 123). Ellipsis in advertising is used for many
purposes:
For economical reasons; to save space and money because words cost
money.
Guy Cook (Cook 1996: 170) gives following example of anaphoric textual ellipsis:
“When Lisa made a surprise visit, you didn’t have time to worry about spotted
glasses. Fortunately, you didn’t have to. Cascade. Because you don’t have
time for spots.”
The second orthographic sentence contains ellipsis:
Fortunately, you didn’t have to Ø Ø Ø Ø
= Fortunately, you didn’t have to worry about spotted glasses.
The ellipted elements correspond to the preceding sentence. Repetition of these
elements would be needless. There is ellipsis also in the last two orthographic
sentences ‘Cascade’ (a single word) and ‘Because of you don’t have time for spots’ (a
subordinate clause). Cook suggests: “In the latter case, a main clause seems to have
been ellipted in entirety. But the missing elements are by no means clear.” The main
clause we can only deduce.
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It may be started with
“You ought to use Cascade…
“You ought to buy Cascade… …because you don’t have time for spots.”
“We recommend Cascade…
“To avoid drawing attention to features of the message which do not serve
the advertiser’s interest” (Cook 1996: 169)
To create a sense of informality. Ellipsis is normally used in spoken
language, in face-to-face casual communication. Ellipsis in advertising
creates an effect of closeness with the reader and conversational tone;
sometimes suggests immediacy.
In advertising, we can find many examples of situational ellipsis of
interrogative clauses:
“Expecting guests?”
In this case, we can observe the omission of subject and operator:
= “(Are you) expecting guests?”
It creates proximity and intimacy. “…it is indicative of shared knowledge
and interests, (…) it suggests a trusting relationship, in which people
assume a desire to understand on the part of their interlocutor.” (Cook
1996: 171). “…people who know each other well don’t need to be all that
explicit about their meanings, because they know the other person will fill
in the gap as a result of shared knowledge and shared history.” (Goddard
1998: 42):
“Nespresso. What else?”
This is the advertisement headline for a coffee. Everybody may recognize that the
person, who asks the question, is a waitress in a café. The whole utterance may be
“You’ll take Nespresso. What else would you like to drink?” It is clear to everybody
that ‘What else’ means that they can order something more.
The intention to make short dynamic slogans leads to the tendency to use the
symbol of colon between two noun phrases:
“Summer 2005: True Bronze.”
We can complete the expression with deduced words:
“In summer 2005, with Clinique cosmetics you may take pleasure in true
bronze skin.”
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4.3.2.3 Incomplete sentences
In advertising text, one can read whole advertisement without coming across a
main verb. There is a widely spread tendency to punctuate phrases. One reason is, that
the reader of the advertisement turns to the visual layout, which provides him many
clues to correct interpretation, so the explicit structure of the sentence is not so
important. A L’OREAL advertisement text ( 10 ) says:
“Revolutionary lift. Revolutionary results. REVITALIFT DOUBLE LIFTING.
Intense Re-Tightening Gel + Anti-Wrinkle Treatment.”
It is accompanied not only by the picture, but also by the body copy explaining the
phrases above. We can supply more possibilities in the beginning of the phrases, for
example:
“If you /For those who want/need a revolutionary lift of your skin and to see
revolutionary results, try/buy Revitalift Double Lifting Intense Re-Tightening
Gel and Anti-Wrinkle Treatment.”
“The effect is to suggest that we already have these desires, that they are completing
our own thoughts.” (Myers 1997: 56)
Following advertisement shows the lack of linking verb:
“The curls of your dreams. Now available when you’re awake.”
We may connect these two incomplete sentences with the linking verb ‘are’. In this
case, the verb can be clearly deduced from the context and integrated, but there are
cases where the tense and aspect are not so definite. Another reason for omitting verbs
is that there is no importance to define neither the tense nor the aspect of the verb or it
would be cumbersome.
4.4 Semantic aspect
Each linguistic expression has its literal meaning. Literal meaning denotes
what it means according to common or dictionary usage (or more exactly, what “the
reader is most likely to assign to a word or phrase if he or she knows nothing about
the context in which it is to be used.” (http://www.wikipedia.org/)). The same
linguistic expression, however, may have also its figurative meaning. It connotes
43

additional layers of meaning and evokes associations; for example, the word
‘professional’ has connotations of skill and excellence. It is not possible to give an
exhaustive account of the connotations of the expression, because connotative
meanings, which have been evoked in an individual, depend on people’s entire
previous experiences and on conventions of community. Therefore, the connotations
of the same expression will differ slightly from person to person. Furthermore, the
same denotations can have different connotations in different context. Vestergaard
and Schroder (Vestergaard and Schroder 1985) believe that in advertising language,
the most frequent word for ‘acquisition of product’ is ‘get’, and not ‘buy’, because
‘buy’ has some unpleasant connotations, like ‘money’ and the parting with it.
For people, associations are very powerful, so the advertisers pay attention to
this aspect of language. They play with colours, because colours may have various
positive or negative connotations: innocence / snow / ice / race, and others for white;
passion / blood / stop signal /fire for red; etc. They must be careful about the target
group, because each culture may have different connotations to the same expressions:
in Chinese and Indian tradition, white is the color of mourning, death, and ghosts. In
India, white also stands for peace and purity. Red colour in Eastern European
countries may have slightly negative connotation in relation to the identification of
communism with "socialist" red.
A trope is “a word or phrase that is used in a way that is different from its
usual meaning in order to create a particular mental image or effect.” (Oxford
Advanced Learner’s Dictionary 2001). It is a figurative expression. In this part, we
give a list of most important tropes used in advertising language: personification,
simile, hyperbole, metaphor and metonymy. In relation to semantic aspect of
language, we define also antithesis, polysemy, and homonymy.
4.4.1 Personification
Personification is a term used mainly in literature to name the figure of speech,
which “involves directly speaking of an inanimate object, or an abstract concept, as if
it were a living entity, often one with specifically human attributes. These attributes
may include sensations, emotions, desires, physical gestures and expressions, and
powers of speech, among others.” (http://www.wikipedia.org/). The readers of
advertisements usually do not register or realize that there is used personification in
the text. It is used very widely – in all the expressions like “…(name of a facial
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crème) gives you silky skin”, “…(name of a product) fulfills your wishes” or “Dirty
kitchen? Nothing cleans it up like … (name of a cleaner)” are on the base of
personification of a brand name: a cleaner ‘cleans’, but even thought, cleaning is an
activity proper to human beings.
4.4.2 Simile
Simile is defined as “a direct, expressed comparison between two things
essentially unlike each other, but resembling each other in at least one way.”
(http://home.cfl.rr.com/eghsap/apterms.html).
Usually, similes are marked by use of the words ‘like’, ‘than’, ‘as’ or ‘as if’.
We may also find comparative constructions used when comparing two things or two
situations: “as…as”, “so…as”.
“Ibuleve gel as fast & effective as pills? Now there’s clinical evidence.”
“Breakfast without orange juice is like a day without sunshine.” (Myers
1997: 125)
4.4.3 Hyperbole
A hyperbole is “the deliberate use of overstatement or exaggeration to achieve
emphasis. Businessmen and manufacturers use the figure of speech to advertise their
goods in as attractive a way as possible.”mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
(http://www.languageinindia.com/march2005/advertisingenglishhongkong1.html):
“No other pain-relieving gel works like Deep Relief.”
“The best just got bigger!”
“The number one to Eastern Europe.”
4.4.4 Metaphor
A metaphor is very difficult issue to define and there are many ways how to
define it. We shall introduce here a definition of metaphor from Oxford Advanced
Learner’s Dictionary: it is “a word or phrase used in an imaginative way to describe
sb/sth else, in order to show that the two things have the same qualities and to make
the description more powerful.” Lakoff and Johnson in their book (Lakoff and
Johnson 1980) define metaphor as “statements and/or pictures which cause a receiver
to experience one thing in terms of another.”, for example:
“Clearly, Mother Nature is a romantic.”
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A single metaphor may be worth of a hundred words of advertising text. It has
an interesting value and stimulates the curiosity of the reader about the product. In
advertising, a metaphor usually creates a comparison between the product or service
and some other quality the advertiser wishes to be associated with the product or
service advertised:
“One touch. One light, effortless touch and she realized freedom was
something you feel.”
This advertisement is for Revlon face powder. The sentence indicates that the freedom
is actually the powder, because when you put the powder on your face, you will feel
free.
There are two types of metaphor: verbal and visual. Visual metaphors do not
relate only to words, but they depict relationships between a product or service and
some object or visual element with qualities that the advertiser wishes to attribute to
the product or service. In print advertising, visual metaphor is widely used, because it
takes advantage from the possibility to accompany the text by the image (or vice
versa). The following advertisement for deodorant clear stick would be
incomprehensible without the picture explanation ( 11 ):
“AVOID UNWANTED CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS.”
Another advertisement for Austrian Airlines ( 12 ) says:
“The number one to Eastern Europe.”
A picture of caviar on a plate designed in a way that each small ball of caviar
represents one of the European destinations makes the parallel between the caviar (it
connotes luxury) and luxurious airlines.
The picture of woman with a scarf ‘knitted’ from pills makes the relation
between the pills Redoxon – all day defence ( 13 ):
“Keep yourself covered all day.”
Advertisements for perfumes often without the body text but with the picture
of a young beautiful model in light transparent dress use a metaphorical implication: a
perfume will ‘cover’ you in the same way like the dress gently covers the woman in
the picture.
There are cases, in which a famous person stands for and represents the whole
brand. The qualities of him or her are attributed or aligned with the qualities of the
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product, as in the following advertisement for charm bracelet. Sasha Cohen, a famous
figure skater, represents the unstoppable quality and charm of the product:
“UNSTOPPABLE Charm SASHA COHEN HAS IT. So does her Citizen
Eco-Drive.”
The simplest advertising phrase pattern is the pattern of a brand name (one element)
and the additional phrase in apposition (second element). It creates a metaphorical
parallelism between a product and a feature or quality to which is compared:
“Infusium 23. A remedy for your hair.”
4.4.5 Metonymy
A metonymy is “the use of a single characteristic to identify a more complex
entity. (…) It is extremely common for people to take one well-understood or easy-toperceive
aspect of something and use that aspect to stand either for the thing as a
whole or for some other aspect or part of it.” (http://www.wikipedia.org/)
Wikipedia offers some clear, commonly used examples of metonymy: ‘The
press’ for the news media, ‘Wall Street’ for the American financial industry, ‘The
Crown’ for the British monarchy. Among other examples belong following sentences:
‘He reads Shakespeare.’ (= his books), ‘I drink Champagne’ (= a drink), etc.
In advertisements, an associated word often expresses the whole group: ‘I like
Volvo’ (= Volvo cars), ‘woman is an uncharted territory’ (= all the women), ‘a
fragrance of Sabatiny’ (= perfumes made by Sabatiny).
4.4.6 Antithesis
“Antithesis is a figure of speech, which uses the same or similar structure to
express two opposite ideas so as to achieve the effects of emphasizing the meaning
and the contrast. The figure has the characteristics of harmonious combination of
sound and rhyme, balanced syllables, sharp rhythm and compendiousness. The
combination of pleasant senses of vision and hearing often stimulates the good
feelings of readers and arouses consumers' buying desire.”mmmmmmmmmmmm
(http://www.languageinindia.com/march2005/advertisingenglishhongkong1.html)
Antithesis relates to words, clauses or sentences. It is based on antonyms
(words of opposite meaning) or opposite ideas:
“Talks inside. Shouts outside. New 2006 Fiesta.”
“Imagine a mini phone with maximum style and design.”
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“Feel the surge of calm.”
4.4.7 Polysemy and homonymy
According to Ladislav Trup, there is a difference between polysemy and
homonymy from the point of view of etymology. A homonym is a lexeme, which has
the same pronunciation and spelling as another lexeme, but a different meaning, so
there is no semantic connection between the two lexemes, only phonological one
(Trup 1999: 90). For example, ‘seal’ = 1. Sea animal (N), 2. A piece of wax on letters
and boxes (N); ‘fair’ = 1. Treating people equally (Adj), 2. A market at which animals
were sold. (N).
A polyseme is a lexeme with two or more multiple, related meanings, so the
connection is not only phonological, but also semantic. The additional meaning/-s are
derived from the original meaning of the lexeme: ‘seal’ = 1. A piece of wax on letters
and boxes (N), 2. To close an envelope (V); ‘fair’ = 1. Animal market (N), 2. An
event at which people, business, etc. show and sell their goods (N).
It is usually very difficult to define, which of the meanings is original and
which are derived. Often it is difficult even to define whether the meanings are related
or not. The following advertising shows an example of a polyseme ( 14 ):
“To tackle weeds permanently you have to get to the Root of the problem.”
A picture shows the root of a plant in detail. The first meaning of ‘root’ is ‘the part of
a plant that grows under the ground, and the second meaning, which is related to the
first one by the value of ‘something substantial’ means ‘the main cause of a problem
or difficult situation.’ In addition, the collocation ‘to get to the root of the problem’
has here both literal meaning (‘to get under the ground and get rid of the root of the
problem = weed’) and figurative meaning (‘to find out the cause of the problem’).
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5 RESEARCH PART
5.1 The aims of research
The aim of practical research analysis is to determine the use rate of linguistic
means used in advertising slogans, even in relation to product specialization.
5.2 Hypotheses and questions of the research
1. What is the percentage of slogans containing ellipsis?
2. What is the percentage of slogans containing phrasal verb?
3. What is the percentage of slogans containing parallelism?
4. On the basis of observation of the research sample, we suppose, that the most
widely used sentence type is the imperative sentence type and the second most widely
used is the declarative sentence type.
5. On the basis of Leech’s ideas (p. 30 of this work) we suppose, that the most
widely used auxiliary verbs are ‘can’ and ‘will’.
6. On the basis of observation of the research sample, we suppose, that the
majority of verbs is finite.
7. On the basis of Leech’s ideas (p. 30 of this work) we suppose, that the
majority of finite verbs is in present simple form (due of timelessness of present
tense) and the second are future forms of verbs (due to promise something).
8. On the basis of observation of the research sample, we suppose, that the
majority of slogans are of third person omniscient narrator.
9. Because of the fact, that advertisements usually describe qualities that can be
measured in degrees, we suppose that the majority of adjectives are gradable.
10. On the basis of observation of the research sample, we suppose, that after
basic form of adjectives (majority) the second most widely used form is comparative
form.
11. Slogans of which product specialization mostly use comparative adjectives?
12. Slogans of which product specialization mostly use superlative adjectives?
49

13. On the basis of the fact that jewelry slogans put their attention to long-lasted
tradition of their products (expressed in number of years), we suppose that the
majority of numerals are used specially in jewelry slogans.
14. Which of three tropes (metaphor, personification, polysemy/homonymy) is
most widely used in advertising slogans and in which product specialization?
5.3 Research sample
We observed the slogans from 270 random advertisements from the sample of
48 different copies (25 titles) of English-writing magazines from UK, USA and
Slovakia. The sample did not contain newspapers. The magazines were of various
types: political, technical, business-oriented, nature-oriented, cooking-oriented,
women magazines, tabloids and scientific.
5.4 Research methods and process of research
First we wrote out the advertising slogans and collected the research material.
Once completed the list of slogans, we made a linguistic analysis of them and
determined the linguistic means used in each of them (p. 51 – 71). We made an
overall observation and stated questions and hypotheses. Then we produced a table of
attributes for exact enumeration of linguistic means (supplement B). This table was
the basis for the measurable evidence. From the table we could make the general
statistics and consequently generate graphs and interpret data. The interpretations and
explanations of graphs are on pages 72 – 76.
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Photography
1. CATCH EVERY MOMENT.
Imp.
Olympus camera
2. Winning results, time after time.
idiom ‘time after time’ = on many or all occasions; Nph; comma is
used unnecessarily; non-grad Adj
Pentax camera
3. Cameras at the ready, the 2004 Photo Award is here!
ellipsis ‘Have the cameras at the ready’; idiom ‘at the ready’ = ready
for immediate use; exclamation; clipping
Panasonic
4. THE TOUGHER THE BETTER..
idiom ‘the…the…’; 2x grad Adj in comparative form
Lowepro bags
5. meet the king of prints
Imp.; graphics; metaphor: ‘king’ = the best + visual metaphor:
picture of Elvis Presley (king of music); assonance of /i/; hyperbole
Photobox online
laboratory
6. Perfect Pictures Posted Pronto
ellipses of verb ‘Pictures are Posted’; non-fin. V; alliteration of /p/;
rhythm; ‘pronto’ (informal); non-grad Adj
Photobox online
laboratory
7. Photospeed. Inspiring perfection.
apposition; parataxis; metaphor: ‘Photospeed is perfection’; 2x Nph;
grad Adj in basic form
Photospeed
8. Expanding your creativity with Interfit.
Dec.; non-finite V
Interfit
9. The route to better photography
Nph; metaphor; grad Adj. in comparative form; ‘photography’ =
metonymy for all photographs
Sekonic
10. Sharing Your Passion For Photography
Dec.; ellipses of subject and verb ‘We are/Elinchrom is sharing…’;
non-finite V; sound //
elinchrom
11. You can CANON
Dec.; AuxV; conversion with brand name
Canon
12. JESSOPS. NO. 1 IN PHOTOGRAPHY
apposition; parataxis; metaphor; 2x Nph; Num
JESSOPS
13. make the paper work better
Imp.; assonance of /ei/; personification ‘paper to work’; grad Adj in
comparative form
Imajet paper
14. NEOTEC. THE ONLY TRIPOD WITH BUILT-IN ZOOM.
apposition; parataxis; metaphor; 2x Nph; non-grad Adj + compound
Adj.; hyperbole
NEOTEC
15. 15 When you only get one chance, take it with Fujifilm.
Imp.; ‘get one chance’ = collocation; ellipsis ‘chance to take a
photo’; cohesion it a) take it – chance (idiom) b) take it – photo;
finV; present; active
Fujifilm
16. “It’s the abstract in nature that fascinates me – the ability to make
you see things completely anew.” Daren Seymour
quotation; intertextuality
Fujifilm
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Good Food
17. GET HEALTHIER WITH 5 MINUTES OF CRUNCHES EVERY
DAY.
Imp.; grad Adj in comparative form; Num; metonymy – ‘crunches =
eating crunches’
Ryvita
18. Solgar ingredients are selected on quality. Not price.
Dec.; parataxis; fin. V; passive; present; new rheme
Solgar
19. Waitrose. The best of everything this Christmas.
apposition; parataxis; metaphor; 2x Nph; grad Adj in superlative form;
hyperbole
Waitrose
champagne
20. expecting guests?
Bigham’s gourmet canapés … just pop them in the oven for 10
minutes, relax & wait for the doorbell to ring!
Int.; ellipsis ‘Are you expecting…’; non-finV; ellipsis – ‘Take
Bigham’s gourmet canapés and then just pop them…’; genitive; grad
Adj in basic form; 3x Imp.; cohesion ‘them’; Num; metaphor –
ringing doorbell = guests; hyperbole
Bigham
21. Real stock. Real simple. Knorr Simply Stock is just that.
Nph; AdjPh; metaphor; parataxis; anaphora; parallelism; Dec.;
present; finV; active; hyperbole
Knorr
22. If your kitchen costs less you can work less.
Dec.; 2x present; 2x finV; 2x active; 2x grad Adj in comparative
form.; AuxV; logical implication
IKEA
23. Live your life, love your home.
parallelism; 2x Imp.; alliteration of /l/; rhythm; metaphor: If you love
your home and live your life, IKEA is for you.
IKEA
24. Life shouldn’t be this easy. 2 – tronic fingertip gears. Convenient gear
changing that’s always within reach. Also with electric sliding doors.
From only £10.850.
Dec.; AuxV; parataxis; 2x Nph; Num; 2x compound Adj; 4x non-grad
Adj; grad Adj in basic form; finV; present; active; ‘within reach’ =
collocation; hyperbole
Peugeot
25. Burgundy. The home of Pinot Noir.
apposition; parataxis; metaphor; 2x Nph; metonymy – ‘Pinot Noir’
stands for all Burgundy wines
Burgundy wine
26. Jus-Rol TM Jus delicious. Cook this simple but stunning recipe in jus Jus-Rol ready
20 minutes.
ellipsis – ‘Jus Rol are Jus delicious.’; unpredictable spelling of ‘just’;
pun of a brand name; Imp.; 2x epithet; sound of /s/; Num; hyperbole;
3x grad Adj in basic form
pastry sheets
27. The ideal Christmas present. (And, it’s already wrapped!)
Treat yourself to something special, try Wyke Farms Farmhouse
Cheddar.
Nph; 2x grad Adj in basic form; parataxis; Dec.; exclamation; present;
passive; finV; 2x Imp.; hyperbole; rhyme; rhythm
WYKE FARMS
28. It’s never just another day.
Dec.; finV; present; active; hyperbole; metaphor
Arniston Bay
wine
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29. 1000 years of heritage Arniston Bay
wine
Num; Nph
30. SPANISH CLEMENTINES ARE NATURE’S SWEETS.
ALL THE GOODNESS OF THE SPANISH SUN IN ITS OWN
PHONE LITTLE WRAPPER.
Dec.; finV; present; active; non-grad Adj; 2x metaphor; genitive;
epithet; grad Adj in basic form; ellipsis of verb ‘of the Spanish sun is
in…’; clipping
31. 1 AROMA GENEROSO Bertolli sauce
Nph; foreign word; epithet
32. Talks inside. Shouts outside. New 2006 Fiesta. Ford
2x Dec.; parataxis; parallelism; antithesis; ellipsis ‘It talks…’; 2x
finV; 2x active; 2x present; grad Adj. in basic form; Num
33. Oh! that’s smart! Oh! that’s delicious! Oh! that’s quick! Samsung oven
6x exclamation.; 3x finV; 3x present; 3x active; 3x grad Adj in basic
form; parallelism, anaphora
34. Get juicing with the Magimix Le duo Magimix juicer
Imp.; conversion: ‘juice’ (N) new word ‘to juice’ (V)
35. Potty about food? a Gastronaut
book
Int.; ellipsis ‘Are you potty…’; grad Adj in basic form
36. It is a pleasure to eat good meat. Campbell’s
Dec.; finV; active; present; non-finV; rhyme ‘eat – meat’; grad Adj in
basic form
37. Simply süper for süpper parties! Available in Sainsburys, Tesco and
Computer act!ve
Waitrose and other Gü-d supermarkets.
53
GÜ chocolate
puds
Dec.; exclamation; 2x ellipsis ‘It is simply/ It is available …’;
unpredictable spelling ‘süper’for ‘super’ + ‘Gü-d’ for ‘good’ –
adapted acc. to brand name GÜ
38. BioFresh & NoFrost – a cool combination Liebherr fridge
‘cool’ – homonymy/polysemy 1. very cold, 2. non-problematic, great;
2x Nph; metaphor
39. EAT TO YOUR HEART’S CONTENT… Mornflake
idiom = as much as you want; Imp.
40. Enjoy more of your favourite entertainment. MESH computers
Imp.; grad Adj in comparative form; grad Adj in basic form
41. .euphoria. STRATO is giving away 100.000 .eu Domains Europe
wide!
STRATO
webmaster
Nph; unpredictable spelling; personification ‘Strato is giving away’;
PhrV ‘give away’ = as a gift; Num; non-grad Adj; compound; Dec.;
exclamation; finV; present, active
42. Clear Picture, Clean Sound – PureAV AV home cinema
3x Nph; parallelism; alliteration in /kl/; metaphor; 3x grad Adj in
basic form

43. Sony recommends Windows XP for Business.
More than you’d expect
Gardeners’ World
Less than you thought
54
Sony
2x Dec.; 2x finV; 2x present; 2x active; antithesis; parallelism;
comparison; 2x grad Adj in comparative form; ellipsis ‘It is more
than…and less…’; AuxV
44. the biggest brands at low low prices dabs.com
Nph; grad Adj in superlative form; hyperbole; grad Adj in basic
form; pleonasm
45. 16 Tiny dots. Astonishing detail. Canon
2x NPh; alliteration in /t/ and /d/; 2x grad Adj in basic form
46. 14 To tackle weeds permanently you have to get to the Root of the
problem.
non-finV; Dec.; AuxV; poysemy –root; collocation ‘get to the root of
the problem’; metaphor – ‘problem’ = ‘weeds’
Bayer Garden
47. The Iron Rose
connotation ‘iron’ = ‘very strong and resistant’ like if it were from
iron; Nph
Bayer Garden
48. Gladiators of the garden, advance and choose your weapons.
addressing; metaphor – ‘gladiators’ are ‘brushcutters’; 2x Imp.;
metaphor – ‘weapons’ = good knives, for example
Efco brushcutter
49. Professional results start with STIHL.
Dec.; finV; present; active; grad Adj in basic form
STIHL
50. The complete range of versatile master gardeners
Nph; 3x grad Adj in basic form; metaphor – ‘gardener’ = tractor
tractors
51. 17 Looks different works better. Viking 6 series. Easy start, quick
finish.
Dec.; ellipsis ‘It looks… and works…’; parataxis; 2x finV; present;
active; 2x parallelism; antithesis; 3x Nph; 3x grad Adj in basic form;
grad Adj in comparative form; visual metaphor: a goat with a missile
on its back
Viking mower
52. Not trying it would be a Greek tragedy.
non-finV; AuxV; Dec.; intertextuality
CARTE D’OR
icecream
53. aD’ORABLE
a word pun
CARTE D’OR
54. No other pain-relieving gel works like Deep Relief.
Dec.; finV; present; active; hyperbole; compound Adj
Deep Relief
55. Let’s get composting.
Imp.; collocation ‘get + V-ing’ = to do it now
56. Food for Thought! Blueberries and strawberries to grow at home!
2x exclamation; idiom ‘food for thought’ = ‘an idea that makes you
think seriously and carefully’, non-finV; idiom ‘at home’
57. John Deer. Nothing Runs Like A Deer.
apposition; Nph; hyperbole; Dec.; finV; active; present;
personification ‘Deer runs’; metonymy – ‘a Deer’ for John Deer
mowers; figurative mean. ‘Nothing runs like a deer’ (animal +
mower)
John Deere
mower

58. 18 Pressed on Boxford Farm, Suffolk.
Dec.; non-finV; visual simile ‘pressed’ like flowers are pressed
Copella Apple
juice
59. Wyevale blooms in summertime
graphics: i in ‘summertime’ in form of a flower; Dec.; finV; present;
active; personification ‘Wyevale blooms’
Wyevale
60. The 4head Garden of Dreams
unpredictable spelling; 4head = forehead + for head; epithet; Nph
natural headache
treatment
61. Ibuleve gel as fast & effective as pills? Now there’s clinical Ibuleve
eve
Reveal
evidence.
Ellipsis ‘Is Ibuleve…’; Int.; simile; 2x grad Adj in basic form; Dec.;
finV; present; active; non-grad Adj
62. Is there an easier way to get my prescriptions? Boots
Int. rhetorical; grad Adj in comparative form; 1 st narr.; finV; present;
active
63. Superior from every angle greenhouses
ellipsis ‘It is/ They are superior…’; polysemy – ‘angle’ a) a position
from which you look at sth b) a particular way of presenting or
thinking about situation; non-grad Adj; hyperbole
64. Flatter your figure with Dietrim Vitabiotics
Imp.; rhythm; alliteration in /f/. Vitabiotics – blending of ‘vitamins’ +
‘antibiotics’
65. We know it’s the best. But don’t just take our word for it.
Dec.; 1
Nivea visage
st Pl narr.; 2x finV; present; active; grad Adj in superlative
form; a dot where comma would be more appropriate; collocation
‘take our word for it’ = believe us; negat. Imp.; 2x present;2x active
66. “She’s got more than me, mum.”
Aunt Bessie
Aunt Bessie’s Crispy Roast Potatoes.
intertextuality – dialogue of mother and child; 1 st Sg narr.; genitive; 2x
grad Adj in basic form; Nph; ‘crispy’ – (approving)
67. Not sure how to help build your baby’s natural defenses if you’re not
breast feeding?
55
Cow&Gate milk
for babies
Int.; ellipsis ‘Are you…’; genitive; compound Adj; non-finV; finV;
present; active
68. Gingery Fudgy nutty creamy mischievous mouthfuls. chocolate
Nph; parataxis; ‘fudgy’ – neologism; 5x epithet; 5x grad Adj in basic
form
69. Obeys when spoken to (unlike most blokes). New 2006 Fiesta. Ford
Dec.; ellipsis ‘It obeys…’; finV; present; active; ‘bloke’ – a man
(informal); Nph; personification ‘a car obeys’; Num; epithet
70. In their eyes, they can tug forever. Eukanuba gives their teeth the
strength they need.
2x Dec.; AuxV; 2x finV; 2x present; 2x active; rhyme ‘teeth – need’;
rhythm; collocation ‘in their eyes’ = to see the situation from their
point of view; personification ‘Eukanuba gives’; ‘they need’ – a) they
= dogs b) they = teeth
Eukanuba

71. Anchor: Incredible Spreadable Anchor
Spreadable
a word pun: affixation ‘to spread’ ‘spreadable’, original phrase:
‘Incredible edible’; ellipsis ‘Anchor is…’Nph; AdjPh
THE WEEK
72. TAKES YOU MILES AWAY IN SECONDS.
Dec.; ellipsis ‘It/Lexus takes…’; personification ‘Lexus takes’; idiom
‘to be miles away’ = figurative: to be thinking deeply about sth and
not aware about of what is happening around you. + literal: miles
away = very far; finV; present; active
LEXUS
73. 19 We have hidden 400 CDs in this picture. Guess where?
Dec.; 1
BANG &
OLUFSEN
st Pl narr.; finV; pres. perf.; active; Num; inicialism; Imp.;
visual metaphor – mp3 system is able to compile 400 CDs of music
74. First to bring broadband internet to your seat.
First to give you access to your network in flight.
First to let you follow your team at 35.000 feet.
Lufthansa
VOGUE
All for this one moment.
75.
parallelism; anaphora; ellipsis ‘Lufthansa is/ We are the first…’; 3x
non-finV; non-grad Adj; collocation ‘in flight’ = when it is flying;
‘follow your team’ = figurative: watch the match of your favourite
team; Num; hyperbole; ellipsis ‘Lufthansa does all for…’; graphics
the bigger they are, the longer they take
idiom ‘the…the…’; 2x grad Adj in comparative form; Dec.; 2x finV;
present; active; parallelism
bmi small British
airline
76. PETER’S SCANNER. MICHAEL’S COPIER. MARY’S FAX
MACHINE. EVERYBODY’S HP COLOR LASERJET.
parallelism; 4x genitive; 5x Nph; graphics
hp
77. Fight wrinkles! Renew collagen in just 48 hours. Lancôme
2x Imp.; exclamation; hyperbole; Num
78. Yes. Great skin can be created. Clinique
79.
exclamation; grad Adj in basic form; epithet; AuxV; Dec.
What extraordinary love looks like.
Int.; (the question mark is missing); grad Adj in basic form; epithet;
simile ‘extraordinary love looks like Cartier’; finV; present; active;
figurative: ‘love looks’
Cartier
80. This year, old man winter will be conquered by a little squirt.
Dec.; grad Adj in basic form; metaphor: ‘winter’ = old man; AuxV;
metaphor: ‘a little squirt’ = body lotion
Olay body lotion
81. love this skin you are in
Imp. or ellipsis ‘You should/may/etc. love…’; rhyme ‘skin – in’;
rhythm
Olay
82. The new Chevy HHR is proof that cool can be useful & useful can be
cool.
Dec.; epithet; 3x grad Adj in basic form; antimetabole; 2x AuxV
Chevrolet
56

83. THE WORLD’S BEST COSMOPOLITAN STARTS WITH GREY GREY GOOSE
GOOSE L’ORANGE.
Dec.; finV; present; active; grad Adj in superlative form; genitive;
metonymy: ‘cosmopolitan’ stands for all cosmopolitans (name of
alcoholic long-drink); ellipsis ‘starts with adding grey…’
vodka
84. Proof…not promises.
ellipsis ‘It’s/ Give me a proof, not …”; logical antithesis
EA anti-aging
treatment
85. reveal your glimmering blond highlights
Imp.; 2x grad Adj in basic form; epithet
Pantene
86. discover your jewel-like brunette
Imp.; affixation
Pantene
87. needle or not? How do you plump your lips? Lose the needle. (No
needles. No waiting. No kidding.)
non-finV; 2x Int.; finV; present; active; Imp.; the needle = metonymy
for ‘plastic operations’; parallelism; anaphora
LIPFUSION XL
88. Give a new woman to your husband. You.
Imp.; epithet; grad Adj in basic form; a dot used where a dash would
be appropriate
Guitay body
optimizer
89. The curls of your dreams. Now available when you’re awake.
Nph; ellipsis of verb ‘…dreams are now…’; grad Adj in basic form;
finV; present; active; unconventional collocation ‘the curls are
available’
OUIDAD
90. IN CASE OF FIRE STOP, DROP & ROLL AROUND. fire spicy
cinnamon chewing gum
3x Imp.; PhrV ‘roll around’ = to be laughing so much that you can
hardly control yourself.; Nph; 2x grad Adj in basic form; non-grad
Adj; Picture shows two people rolling on the floor.
Dentyne
91. Discover the secret for truly radiant skin.
Imp.; metaphor: ‘secret’ = Aveeno; grad Adj in basic form; epithet
Aveeno
92. Cure for the wintertime blues.
metaphor; Nph; non-grad Adj
essie nail polish
93. Mountains have crumbled. Glaciers have melted. Continents have
drifted. Diamonds remain the same. Clearly, Mother Nature is a
romantic.
5x Dec.; parallelism; 3x pres. perf.; active; 2x finV; 2x present; 2x
active; parataxis; metaphor
jewelry
94. Celebrate your past, present & future with one thing on Earth as A DIAMOND IS
timeless as love.
Imp.; simile; metaphor: ‘one thing’ is ‘a diamond jewel’; Num
FOREVER
95. 6 Navigating the LAND OF CREDIT with Citi Simplicity. IT’S
SIMPLY THE CARD THAT TREATS YOU RIGHT.
non-finV; rhyme ‘city – simplicity’; 2x Dec.; 2x finV; 2x present; 2x
active; rhyme ‘card – right’; rhythm; personification ‘a card treats’;
picture of ‘the land of credit’
credit card
96. The Address.
Nph
Armani Hotel
Dubai
97. New level of radiance, revealed.
Dec.; ellipsis ‘radiance of the skin is/has been revealed’; non-finV;
epithet
Clinique
57

98. winter rescue
Nph; metaphor; non-grad Adj
Pantene
99. Gorgeous makes EFFORT look effortless.
Dec.; finV; present; active; non-finV; epithet; 2x grad Adj in basic
form
Jaguar
100. The new rush.
Nph; metaphor; epithet; grad Adj in basic form; polysemy: ‘rush’ =
a) fast movement b) sudden demand for goods
Land Rover
101. 20 THE FEMINE MYSTIINT. STILL UNCHARTED TERRITORY.
2x Nph; ellipsis ‘…mystique is still…’; non-grad Adj; metaphor:
‘femine mystique = uncharted territory’
ROLEX
102. Redken reinvents hairspray.
Dec.; finV; present; active; affixation; assonance of /e/;
personification ‘Redken reinvents’
Redken
103. Ever think you’d see “beautiful” and ”heels” in the same sentence?
Moisturizer actually heals dry skin so even your roughest parts get
Jergens
noticed.
Int.; ellipsis ‘Do you ever…’; grammar deviation; AuxV;
personification ‘moisturizer heals’; Dec.; 2x finV; 2x present; 2x
active; homonymy: ‘heel’ + ‘heal’; metaphor: ‘roughest parts’ =
‘heels’; 2x grad Adj in basic form; grad Adj in superlative form
104. Euphoria. Live the dream. Calvin Klein
fragrance
apposition; Nph; metaphor: ‘Calvin Keil fragrance provokes
euphoria and with this fragrance you will live your dream’;
parataxis; Imp.
105. it’s a mousse revolution! matte-perfect foundation with an amazing
air-soft feel
Dec.; exclamation; finV; present; active; non-grad Adj; conversion:
‘a mousse’ (N) a new word ‘mousse’ (Adj); 2x compound Adj;
epithet; metaphor: ‘make-up’ = ‘revolution’
106. Dear Ketel One Drinker
Not everyone likes Ketel One
Then again, not everyone’s tried it.
58
Maybelline
make-up
Ketel One vodka
intertextuality – a letter
107. Britain’s No.1 beauty brand arrives in America Boots online
cosmetics
personification: ‘brand arrives’; metaphor: ‘Boots’ = ‘No.1.beauty
brand’; genitive; Num; grad Adj in basic form
108. Picture your Perfect LVI Smile The LVI Smile
dentist
Imp.; alliteration of /p/; polysemy: ‘picture’ = a) imagine b) to show
in photograph; conversion – a brand name is used in a place of
Adjective. The adjective may be ‘white’, ‘nice’, ‘beautiful’, etc.; 2x
non-grad Adj
109. lift your spirits. BE COINTREAUVERSIAL Cointreau
alcoholic drink
2x Imp.; ‘lift’ = synonym of ‘raise’; homonymy: ‘spirits’ – a) a
person’s feeling or state of mind b) ‘spirit’ as a strong alcoholic
drink; idiom: figurative meaning: ‘raise sb’s spirits’ = to make sb
feel more cheerful or brave + literal meaning: ‘raise the glasses with
alcohol drink’; transliteration; grad Adj in basic form

110. Vogue. TAKES LONDON TO NEW YORK
Nph; ellipses ‘It takes London…’; apposition; personification: ‘Vogue
takes’; metonymy: ‘London’ = England, ‘New York’ = USA; Dec.;
finV; present; active
Vogue
111. REVEAL NEW SKIN.
Imp.; epithet; grad Adj in basic form
ROC
112. Instant lash extensions! Extend lashes up to 60%.
Nph; exclamation; 2x non-grad Adj; Imp.; Num
Lancôme
113. More defined. More conditioned. More beautiful lashes.
More Than Mascara
Estee Lauder
with more black impact
114.
2x Dec.; Nph; parallelism; parataxis; anaphora; 2x non-finV; ellipsis:
‘You will have more…’, ‘It’s more than mascara’; grad Adj in basic
form; comparison; non-grad Adj
Saks love art for art’s sake. Saks 5 th Dec.; finV; present; active; collocation ‘art for art’ sake’ = because of
value art has, not because of the advantages it may brings; similarity
of the phonic aspect of the words ‘Saks’ and ‘sake’
Avenue
online store
115. DESIGN LIP PERFECTION IN ONE COAT. LASTING.
Lancôme lipstick
LUSCIOUS. SENSATIONAL EFFECTS.
116.
Imp.; parataxis; non-grad Adj; alliteration of /l/; ellipsis ‘…coat and
make lasting, luscious and sensational …’; 3x grad Adj in basic form
New. Perfectly Real Compact Makeup. Believably perfect.
epithet; parataxis; 3x grad Adj in basic form; Nph; hyperbole;
pleonasm – unnecessary words ‘perfectly, perfect’; affixation
‘perfectly’ + ‘believably’; non-grad Adj
Clinique
117. RÉNERGIE MICROLIFT. 25,000 MICROLIFTS FOR VISIBLE Lancôme
RESULTS. My skin is tighter. Firmer. More defined.
apposition; Num; 2x Nph; affixation ‘micro-‘; metaphor: ‘microlifts’
= microelements, which tighten the skin’; Dec.; 1 st Sg narr.; finV;
present; active; parataxis; 2x grad Adj in comparative form; non-finV
118. La crème de la crème of lipcolour. L’Oreal
Nph; the phrase ‘crème de la crème’ is taken from French and it
means ‘the best people or things of their kind; compound N
119. GET IT FIRST. GET IT FAST. shopvogue.com
graphics: I in form of lipstick; 2x Imp.; parallelism; anaphora;
hyperbole
120. DON’T JUST APPLY! STYLE YOUR LASHES! UP TO A 65%
LIFT. A BOLDLY THICKENED LOOK.
59
Maybelline
mascara
2x Imp. negat.; ellipsis ‘…apply, but style…’; Nph; Num; ellipsis ‘It
is up to… for a boldly thickened/ and have a boldly…’; parataxis;
compound Adj ‘boldly thickened’
121. Escape from toxic town Noxzema cleaner
Imp.; metaphor: ‘to escape from toxic town’ = to use Noxzema
cleaner and feel clean as escaped from dirty place
122. MORE THAN A FASHION STATEMENT. A CULTURE. THE
CULTURE OF COLOR.
ellipsis: ‘It’s more than a fashion statement. It’s a culture.’; new
rheme: ‘…of color’ – emphasis; parataxis; metaphor: ‘O.P.I. is the
culture of color.’; comparison
O.P.I. nail polish

123. Stop seeing broken hair everywhere.
Imp.; rhyme ‘hair – everywhere’; grad Adj in basic form
Pantene
124. Flirting with an idea of an eye lift?
Int.; ellipsis ‘Are you flirting…’; non-finV; PhrV ‘flirt with’ = to think
about but not very seriously’
OLAY eye lifting
serum
125. A SMOOTH MOVE HAIR REMOVAL FROM HEAD-TO-TOE
Nph; compound Adj ‘smooth move’; non-grad Adj; assonance of /u:/;
idiom ‘from head to toe’ = covering all your body – here used
unnecessarily with hyphens
Surgi Wax
126. Serious Dark Circles?
ellipsis ‘Have you got/ Are you afraid of serious…’; 2x grad Adj in
basic form; Nph; sound of /s/; rhythm
Hylexin
127. Shine on.
Imp.; PhrV ‘shine on’ does not exist, but the preposition ‘on’ evokes the
idea that sth starts or continues, similarly like ‘go on’, ‘switch on’
‘Shine on your hair’
hair treatment
128. Your Life. Your Car. Connected.
2x Nph; parataxis; parallelism; anaphora; non-finV; ellipsis: ‘Your life
and your car are connected.’
Acura car
129. Why ask your doctor about BOTOX Cosmetic?
Int.; non-finV
130. Finally, a paste that does more than just talk about whitening.
Nph; finV; present; active; comparison; hyperbole; non-finV;
personification: ‘a paste that talks’
Rembrandt tooth
paste
131. Infusium 23. A remedy for your hair.
apposition; 2x Nph; metaphor
132. My clothes don’t stink.
Dec.; 1
Nicoderm CQ
plaster
st Sg narr.; presupposition that her clothes stank before
133. “Do unto you as you would have others do unto you.”
intertextuality - a command based on words of Jesus in the Sermon on
the Mount: “All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you,
do ye even so to them.” saying: “Do unto others as you would have
them do unto you”
Toyota
134. Twice the lashes… for eyes that smile.
ellipsis of verb ‘Make twice the lashes for …’; metaphor: ‘eyes smile’;
assonance of /ai/
Max Factor
135. 171 years of offering very small objects that express very large Tacori jewelry
emotions.
Nph; Num; antithesis; 2x grad Adj in basic form; parallelism; metaphor:
‘small objects that express emotion’ = jewelry; figurative: ‘objects
express emotions’
136. I am timeless, not a trend. The Concord
Saratoga watch
Dec.; 1 st Sg narr.; logical antithesis; non-grad Adj; metaphor: those, who
wear Saratoga watch is timeless, not only a trend, which passes away
137. Men will melt. Elizabeth Arden
fragrance for
women
Dec.; AuxV; assonance of /e/
60

138. Was there beauty before there were beauty products?
Int.; finV; past; active
Evian
139. NOT MANY THINGS KNOCK YOU OUT LIKE MIGRAINE
BUT YOU CAN KNOCK OUT A MIGRAINE WITH RELPAX.
Dec.; PhrV ‘knock sb out’ = 1. (informal) to surprise sb 2. to make sb
very tired 3. to defeat sb; figurative: ‘migraine knock you out’; AuxV;
antimetabole
Relpax
140. The first creme that renews your skin during the night.
Nph; hyperbole; personification: ‘crème renews’
Nivea
141. FRÏS lime
graphics: I letter has two green dots ‘created’ from limes; the
pronunciation of the name is /freeze/: evokes the effect of refreshing
cold alcoholic drink
Frïs Vodka
142. Shake up your night.
Imp.; phrV ‘shake up’ - it relates to a) drink of Bacardi (literal) b) the
night (figurative) ‘to move’
Bacardi Limón
143. cool just got hot
Dec.; finV; past; active; 2x grad Adj in basic form; antithesis; rhyme
‘got – hot’
hot. diamonds
144. Dirty mouth? Nothing cleans it up like Orbit.
Nph; ellipsis ‘Have you got dirty…’; hyperbole; Dec.; finV; present;
active; PhrV ‘clean up’= to remove dirt; personification: ‘Orbit cleans
sth up’
Orbit
145. Little. The next big thing. Meet iPod mini.
Nph; parataxis; ellipsis ‘The fact that it is little is the next big…’; 2x
grad Adj in basic form; antithesis; Imp.
Apple
146. Protect. Bodify. Beautify.
3x non-finV; parataxis; affixation = a neologism ‘bodify’ made as
parallel to ‘beautify’ (to make sb beautiful) – it means ‘to make your
body being a nice body (again); a body what it should be like’
Redken
147. “I’m a big loser.” Whoopi Goldberg
intertextuality – quotation by W.G.; Dec.; 1
Slim Fast
st Sg narr.; antithesis; ‘big
loser’ here means that she lost weight and she is therefore ‘a big’ –
enthusiastic real woman
148. Smooth Move.
Nph; grad Adj in basic form; rhythm; assonance of /u:/
Veet.
149. After almost two centuries, we’ve found more than a few ways to say Bailey Banks &
“I love you.”
Dec.; 1
Biddle jewelry
st Pl narr.; finV; pres. perf.; active; Num; comparison; allusion
on the tradition; metaphor: ‘ways to say I love you’ = to give a jewel
to sb as a present’
150. “I am uniInt.” Moissanite is me.
2x Dec.; 1
jewelry
st Sg narr.; intertextuality – quotation; 2x finV; present;
active; grad Adj in basic form; metaphor: I am moissanite; logical
implication: Moissanite is unique
151. Brings out the glow.
Dec.; finV; present; active; PhrV ‘bring out’ = to produce; polysemy:
‘glow’ = a) the pink colour in your face b) a feeling of pleasure and
satisfaction’; personification: Olay brings both
OLAY
152. Got wedding on the brain? Time to visit our new website.
Int.; finV; present; active; ellipsis ‘Have you got…’; idiom ‘Have sth
on the brain’ = to think about sth all the time; Nph; ellipsis ‘It’s
time…’; non-finV; epithet; grad Adj in basic form
Brides
61

153. Light. Loose. Layered. John Frieda
parataxis; 2x grad Adj in basic form; non-finV; alliteration of /l/
154. Your heart should race from being in love, not from a diet pill. online advice
service
Dec.; AuxV; collocation ‘in love’ – sth healthy; metonymy: ‘a diet
pill’ for a diet – sth unhealthy – logical antithesis
The Scientist
155. 21 Growing excellence… eBioscience present IL-17, IL-23, IL-27
Nph; grad Adj in basic form; metaphor: a new products IL-17, IL-23,
IL-27 are excellence; visual metaphor: a big tree (is matured but still
grows); Dec.; finV; present; active
eBioscience
156. BD Photosflow. Phospho-Specific Flow Cytometry Reagents
apposition; 2x Nph; inicialism; 2x compound Adj ‘phosphospecific’
+ ‘flow cytometry’; 2x non-grad Adj
BD cell analysis
157. Thinking Larger. Moving Faster.
2x Dec.; 2x non-finV; parataxis; parallelism; 2x grad Adj in
comparative form
exelixis.com
work offer
158. Now! Real-Time PCR results in under 40 minutes! Applied
Biosystems
2x exclamation; ellipsis ‘…results are/ can be set in under…’; Num;
159. No Contaminating Ig Bands!
Nph; exclamation; grad Adj in basic form; inicialism
eBioscience
160. delivery>purification>analysis>detection
4x Nph; parataxis
BIORAD
161. FOR EVERY ACTION THERE’S A
SIMULTANEOUS
OLYMPUS
Science
ACTIONREACTION
intertextuality – Isaac Newton’s third law of motion says: “For every
action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.”; Dec.; finV; present;
active; graphics
162. The best just got bigger. Invitrogen gel
Dec.; finV; past; active; hyperbole; grad Adj in superlative form;
grad Adj in comparative form
163. We’re all ears! Free Technical Assistance For expert solutions Cole -Parmer
Dec.; exclamation; 1 st Pl narr.; idiom: ‘be all ears’ = to be waiting
with interest to hear what sb has to say; parataxis; Nph; 2x grad Adj
in basic form; non-grad Adj
164. The complete blotting solution is easy to spot. BIORAD protein
blotting
equipment
Dec.; finV; present; active; grad Adj in basic form; non-grad Adj; ‘to
blot’ = to make spots – ‘easy to spot’ = to notice; visual metaphor: a
ladybird.
62

Scientific American
165. Plastic optical filter networks in tomorrow’s cars will put more
pleasure in the road ahead.
Dec.; 3x non-grad Adj; genitive; AuxV; personification + figurative:
‘networks put’; metonymy: ‘road’ = all roads
166. This innovative technology can watch the human brain at work –
using only light…
Dec.; AuxV; personification: ‘technology can watch’; grad Adj in
basic form; non-grad Adj; metonymy: ‘brain’ = ‘brains’; dash
functions as the way to make more focal elements; non-finV
Business Journal Slovakia
63
HAMAMATSU
HAMAMATSU
167. Your World of Certainty Allianz
Nph; metaphor: Allianz is your certainty; idiom ‘world of certainty’ =
to emphasize how much certainty there is with Allianz
168. Who will pay for Your healthcare? Union
Int.; AuxV; rhyme ‘pay – care’; compound N
169. Pleased to meet you AQUACITY
congress services
intertextuality – a collocation, phrase said by introducing;
personification: Aquacity welcomes you
170. You are on the right way Crown Plaza
Dec.; finV; present; active; visual metaphor: picture of compass;
ellipsis ‘…way to Crown Plaza’
171. Blazing speed. Cool price. Copy. Print. Scan. Fax. Get it Done. Xerox
2x Nph; 2x epithet; 2x grad Adj in basic form; parataxis; 5x Imp.
172. We bring olympic energy to your home Slovakia Olympic
Team &
Západoslovenská
Energetika
Dec.; 1 st Pl narr.; finV; present; active; non-grad Adj; ‘olympic
energy’ – epithet + metaphor = from Olympic Games; metonymy:
‘home’ = ‘all homes’
173. We want you to be the best in your business. ORANGE
Dec.; 1 st Pl narr.; finV. present; active; non-finV; grad Adj in
superlative form; alliteration of /b/
174. Always aim for technical perfection. Toshiba
ellipsis ‘There’s always…’; non-grad Adj
175. Thanks to T-Mobile you can always have office in your pocket. T-Mobile
Dec.; idiom ‘Thanks to sb’ = sth has happened because of sb/sth;
AuxV; hyperbole; metaphor: ‘office’ = mobile phone; idiom ‘to have
sth in your pocket’ = figurative: to be certain to win sth + literal: to
have mobile in your pocket; idiom ‘be in sb’s pocket’ = to be
controlled – we can say that you can control your office if your
mobile phone is in your pocket

The Economist
176. A partner to design & integrate your global network end-to-end. verizon business
Nph; metaphor: ‘verizon business is a partner’; 2x non-finV; idiom
‘end to end’ = in a line, with the ends touching; unnecessary use of
hyphens; grad Adj in basic form;
177. At Cardif, you are not just a number CARDIF
insurance
company
Dec.; finV; present; active; figurative: ‘to be just a number’ = not to
treat with sb like a person, only like a registration number; picture of
people with numbers on their clothes
178. On a quest for the right values? We Hear You Huawei
Int.; ellipsis ‘Do you go/ Are you on …’; grad Adj in basic form; Dec.;
1 st Pl narr.; finV; present; active
179. Game, set, history. Rolex watch
intertextuality – ‘Game, set, match’ = parts of tennis match; it is used
here because Rolex watch are worn by tennis players; 3x Nph
DigitAll
180. imagine touching beauty. Samsung phone
Imp.; metaphor: ‘to touch beauty’ = to touch Samsung mobile phone
181. imagine wearing your favourite music. Samsung mp3
player
Imp.; grad Adj in basic form; figurative: parallel ‘wear clothes/
perfume, etc. - wear music’
182. imagine an LCD-HDTV that reflects your unique style. Samsung
Imp.; inicialism; finV; present; active; figurative: ‘TV reflects’; grad
Adj in basic form
183. Rock On. Samsung phone
with music
Imp.; PhrV ‘rock on’ does not exist, but the preposition ‘on’ evokes
the idea that sth starts or continues, similarly like ‘go on’, ‘switch on’
‘Rock on’ = homonymy/ polysemy 1. start to dance to rock music
2. shock sb 3. move gently from side to side
184. The right thing says everything. Samsung phone
intertextuality – evokes the saying; Dec.; finV; present; active;
personification: ‘Thing says’; epiphora ‘thing – (every)thing’; visual
metaphor: ‘right thing’ = Samsung mobile phone
185. The world’s fastest-moving brand is still on the move. Samsung
Dec.; finV; present; active; genitive; compound Adj; grad Adj in
superlative form; idiom ‘be on the move’ = 1. be travelling between
one place and another (figurative: Samsung products are distributed to
whole world); 2. to be going somewhere (figurative: Samsung
develops) 3. to become active
Nature
186. “All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point
is to discover them.” Galileo Galilee
intertextuality – quotation of famous scientist
64
Shimadzu

187. Faster protein purification? It’s not rocket science.
Int.; ellipsis ‘Do you want/need a faster…’; grad Adj in comparative
form; non-grad Adj.; Dec.; finV; present; active; idiom ‘It’s not rocket
science’ = if something is not rocket science, it is not very
complicated or difficult to understand. This idiom is normally used in
the negative.
(http://www.usingenglish.com/reference/idioms/rocket+science.html)
GE
188. Achieve Beadlytenment
Imp. or ellipsis ‘To achieve…’; affixation + neologism: ‘beadlyte
(brand name) + -ment (suffix; the action or result of)
Beadlyte research
products
189. “The ability to perceive or think differently is more important than the Shimadzu
Newsweek
knowledge gained.” David Bohm
190.
intertextuality – quotation of famous scientist
Everybody, really everybody is welcome to Sunday Brunch!
Dec.; exclamation; finV; present; active; hyperbole; blending ‘brunch
= breakfast + lunch); non-grad Adj; this advertisement was written
also in Slovak and German language to emphasize that everybody is
welcome
Radisson SAS
191. R&D Systems Reagents. Making discoveries happen for over 25
years.
Nph; apposition; non-finV; Num; ellipsis ‘Regents are making…’
R&D
192. How can we produce more energy but lower carbon emissions? Livio
Accattatis has an answer.
Int.; AuxV; 1
Shell
st Pl narr.; antithesis; grad Adj in comparative form; nongrad
Adj.; metonymy: a name of a person from Shell company
represents the whole company; finV; present; active
193. Simplicity is making hospitals feel less like hospitals.
Dec.; finV; present; active; figurative: ‘simplicity is making’;
personification: ‘hospitals feel themselves like hospitals’; grad Adj in
comparative form; simile
Philips
equipment
194. profession: pilot career: actor
4x Nph; parataxis; use of colons; ellipsis ‘His profession is pilot and
his career is actor’; picture of John Travolta wearing Breitling watch –
a famous person represents the brand – logical implication: only
famous people wear Breitling watch, so if you wear Breitling watch,
you will certainly be/you certainly are famous, too
Breitling
navitimer
195. Heavy industries
Happy industries
2x Nph; parataxis; 2x grad Adj in basic form; parallelism; epiphora
Hyundai
196. Make the right connections
Imp.; grad Adj in basic form; poysemy: ‘connection’ = 1. literal: a
point, especially in an electrical system (here: telegraphing system)
where two parts connect 2. figurative: a person or an organization that
you know and that can help or advise you in your social or
professional life
Telecom
65

197. YOU CAN LOOK FOR OIL AT GREAT DEPTHS WITHOUT
DISTURBING THE NEIGHBOURS
Dec.; AuxV; PhrV ‘look for’ = to try to find sth; grad Adj in basic
form; metonymy: ‘depths’ = deep parts; non-finV; visual metaphor:
picture of marine animals (= neighbours) in the closeness to the
divers in the sea ‘without disturbing the neighbours’ = protecting
marine life
TOTAL
198. Smile! You are in Spain
Nph; exclamation; Dec.; finV, present; active
Iberia
199. Simplicity is a lamp with the power to purify water.
Dec.; finV; present; active; metaphor ‘simplicity is a lamp’; nonfinV
Philips
200. I am my music. Nokia N series. See new. Hear new. Feel new.
Dec.; 1
Nokia
st Sg narr.; finV; present; active; metaphor: ‘I am music’;
Nph; 3x Imp.; parallelism; epiphora; assonance of /i:/
201. image is everything
Dec.; finV; present; active; metaphor
Toshiba TV
202. Refresh your Soul in Seoul
Imp.; figurative: ‘make new thoughts, feelings and improve your
state of mind’; a word pun
Hiseoul
203. Exploring the world for gas to warm your winter
2x non-finV; ellipsis ‘We are exploring …’
TOTAL
204. Xerox Colour. It makes business sense.
apposition; graphics; Dec.; finV; present; active; sound of /s/;
personification: ‘Xerox makes sense’; idiom ‘to make sense’ = to
give meaning
Xerox
205. Performance. Prestige. Passion for Innovation.
3x Nph; alliteration of /p/; parataxis; sound of //; metaphor:
Breitling watch is prestige
Breitling watch
206. Nespresso. What else?
intertextuality – dialogue in a cafe
coffee
207. 22 Take the World. Touched by THAI.
Imp.; non-finV; ellipsis; parataxis; rhyme ‘by – Thai’; visual
metaphor: ‘Take the world touched by Thai’– take the postcard with
the photo of world places, where Thai has the destination’
Thai airway
208. “A dandy on the boulevards (…) strolling at leisure until his Breguet, Breguet watch
ever vigilant, reminds him it is midday.”
Alexander Pushkin ‘Eugen Onegin’ 1829
intertextuality – quotation from a novel; it represents tradition of
Breguet; Num
209. “He drew out the most delicious thin watch that Breguet had ever
made. Fancy, it is eleven o’clock, I was up early.”
Honoré de Balzac ‘Eugénie Grandet’ 1833
intertextuality – quotation from a novel; it represents tradition of
Breguet; Num; past perf.
Breguet watch
210. Hit a hole-in-one. Hit the right impression.
2x Imp.; metaphor between a hole-in-one (an occasion in golf when
a player hits the ball from the tee into the hole using only one shot –
the best alternative) and Nokia mobile phone – also the best
alternative, both a hole-in-one and Nokia phone make a right
impression; picture shows a hand worn in a golf glove catching a
phone
Nokia phone
66

211. It’s just another Renault. Reliable. Technically superior. Best in its
class. Just like every other Renault we make.
Dec.; 2x finV; present; active; parataxis; apposition; grad Adj in basic
form; non-grad Adj; grad Adj in superlative form; metonymy:
‘Renault’ for all Renault cars; simile; 1
Renault
st Pl narr.
212. Hospitality that knows no borders
Nph; finV; present; active; personification: ‘Hospitality knows’;
‘borders’ –the line that divide countries nikko hotels are in many
countries and in each country the stuff of the hotels is hospitable
nikko hotels
213. Feel the surge of calm
Imp.; logical antithesis
Lexus
Geographical
214. Explore the hills
Explore the rivers
Explore the mountains
Explore the sea
Explore the moors
Explore yourself.
More
Explore plas y brenin.
67
national
mountain center
plas y brenin
7x Imp.; parallelism; anaphora
215. Fujifilmed. Award grabbed by crab snap. Fujifilm
2x non-finV; neologism: ‘Fujifilmed’ = brand name + conversion
from N to V; Dec.; word puns; sounds of /æp/; visual metaphor: a
picture of crab, which has won the award; polysemy: ‘to snap’ = 1. if
an animal (here: a crab) bites sb/sth rapidly 2. to take a photograph;
‘to grab’ – means the same as snap, but it is related to humans
216. IT TAKES A BRAVE MAN TO VENTURE DEEP INTO THE
JUNGLE. IT TAKES A SPECIAL KIND OF IDIOT TO OPEN THE
SUNROOF.
Nissan New
Patrol
2x Dec.; 2x finV; present; active; parallelism; anaphora; 2x grad Adj
in basic form; 2x non-finV
217. SCOTT SPIKER SHOOTS THE WORLD WITH A SIGMA LENS SIGMA
Dec.; finV; present; active; name of the famous professional
photographer represents the quality of the brand
218. Would you put dandruff in this picture? head & shoulders
Int. rhetorical; AuxV
219. Save up to price on Oral B toothbrushes. Boots
Imp.; PhrV; Num
220. A STROKE OF GENIUS TO MULTILIGHT YOUR HAIR GARNIER
non-finV; ellipsis ‘It’s/Get/Try a stroke…’; collocation + metaphor:
‘stroke of genius’, here: ‘genius’ = brush for dying hair ‘stroke of
brush’; compound V
221. That’s a great Christmas in the bag. Hair cosmetic
Dec.; finV; present; active; hyperbole; grad Adj in basic form;
metaphor: ‘Christmas’ = cosmetic
222. XTROVERT. XPLOSIVE. LOVE THE COLOUR. COLOR XXL Schwartzkopf
graphics; inicialism; unpredictable spelling; parataxis; Imp.;
alliteration of /x/

New!
223. 23 Spring water with a splash of fruit. Robinsons
Nph; non-grad Adj; layout: splash of water in shape of face with
fruit eyes
224. 24 There’s only one naughty thing in Dolmio and that’sa Papa! DOLMIO
Bolognese
Dec.; finV; present; active; Num; grad Adj in basic form; dialect;
familiar words; visual metaphor: a man has his finger in a pot with
Dolmio sauce, trying it his finger = only naughty thing; Dolmio is
without any harmful substances
ES magazine
225. If the world of culture is your choice, your world is Madrid.
Dec.; 2x finV; 2x present; 2x active; metaphor: ‘world of culture’ is
Madrid
Turismo Madrid
226. MUJI Xmas
intertextuality – ‘Merry Christmas’ – a greeting used at Christmas;
unpredictable spelling; conversion: brand name (N) stands for Adj
Muji online shop
227. The Legend is Back.
Dec.; finV; present; active; intertextuality
ORIS watch
228. UNSTOPPABLE Charm SASHA COHEN HAS IT. So does her watch
ELLE
Citizen Eco-Drive
229.
Nph; non-grad Adj; homonymy: ‘charm’ = 1. the power of attracting
people, 2. a small object worn on a chain or bracelet; the characteristic
of a famous figure skater (‘unstoppable charm’) represents the quality
of the product; 2x finV; 2x present; 2x active
How will you keep your Gold safe?
Int.; AuxV; visual metaphor: a picture of Gold bread in a safe;
copywriters took advantage from the name of the bread
KINGSMILL
Gold bread
230. IT’S YOUR WATCH THAT SAYS MOST ABOUT WHO YOU
ARE.
Dec.; 3x finV; 3x present; 3x active; personification: ‘watch says’
SEIKO
231. DARE TO GO THERE. 12 TIMES MORE VOLUME! L’OREAL
Imp.; non-finV; sound of /e/; Num; exclamation
232. “Who says you can’t look as young as you feel?” Christey Brinkley OLAY
intertextuality – quotation of famous person
233. 25 The silky feel of olay bar OLAY
Nph; grad Adj in basic form; visual metaphor: a picture of silky
gown you will feel as silky when you wash with Olay bar as you
feel when you wear a silky gown
234. PLUMP IT UP RIMMEL
lipstick
Imp.; PhrV ‘plump up’ = to make sth larger
235. HOW DO YOU DEFINE eternity?
Int.; finV; present; active
68

236. After 173 years, we know quite a bit about diamonds. But love is Bailey Banks &
still a complete mystery.
2x Dec.; 2x finV; 2x present; 2x active; Num; 1
Bidle
st Pl narr.; metaphor:
‘love is mystery’
237. Your shade. Your finish. Your match.
3x Nph; parallelism; anaphora; parataxis
Estee Lauder
238. that’s why I bluefly.com
Dec.; finV; present; active; 1
bluefly.com
online shop
st Sg narr.; rhythm ‘I – (blue)fly’;
graphics; neologism: conversion – verb is replaced by brand name
239. New LAY’S Dips (Finally, dips worthy of LAY’S chips)
Nph; 2x genitive; epithet; 2x grad Adj in basic form; rhythm ‘dips –
chips’; ellipsis ‘dips are worthy of…’
LAY’S Dips
240. Do you believe in love at first touch?
Int.; finV; present; active; collocation ‘love at first sight’ is deviated
to make the relation with the material of the product; metaphor:
Nokia phone is love at first sight (touch)
Nokia
241. Real People. Real Jewelry.
2x Nph; anaphora; parallelism; 2x grad Adj in basic form
Danecraft
242. 26 You never actually own a Patek Philippe. You merely look after it Patek Philippe
for the next generation.
2x Dec.; 2x finV; 2x present; 2x active; metonymy: ‘Patek Philippe’
= watch Patek Philippe; PhrV ‘look after’ = to take care of sth; ‘next
generation’ = your children
watch
you magazine
243. The digital camera that takes pictures as easily as it takes the plunge.
Nph; non-grad Adj; 2x finV; 2x present; 2x active; simile; figurative:
‘camera takes pictures’; collocation: ‘to take pictures’ = to
photograph; idiom ‘take the plunge’ = to decide to do sth important or
difficult, especially after thinking about it for a longer time;
personification: ‘camera takes the plunge’
PENTAX
244. YOU MAKE UP YOUR EYES, MAKE UP YOUR LIPS, NOW IMEDEEN
heat
MAKE UP YOUR AGE
2x Dec.; Imp.; parallelism; 3x PhrV ‘make up’ = homonym: 1. to put
cosmetics on sb’s face, 2. to form sth
245. Summer 2005: True Bronze. CLINIQUE
bronzing gel
2x Nph; Num; grad Adj in basic form; ellipsis ‘In summer 2005 you
may have with Clinique cosmetics true bronze skin
246. Best before: 1908 food
grad Adj in superlative form; Num; ellipsis
247. tellyphone Nokia TV in
mobile phone
Nph; blending: ‘television’ + ‘telephone’
248. PRINTS AS REAL AS LIFE hp
Nph; simile; grad Adj in basic form
69

249. CASIOLOGY CASIO
Nph; affixation, neologism: ‘Casiology’ = brand name + suffix –logy
(a science or subject of study)
WALLPAPER
250. Instead if moving the furniture around, why not move around the Dyson vacuum
furniture?
Int.; 2x non-finV; antimetabole
cleaner
251. A bank of ideas
Nph; metaphor: Investec is a bank of ideas; a bank provides money,
Investec provides services
Investec
252. First Class ESPRESSO EXPERIENCE.
Nph; 2x non-grad Adj; sound of /s/; metaphor: Lavazza is first class
experience
LAVAZZA
253. IO, COMANDANTE DEL TEMPO Panerai watch
Nph; apposition; intertextuality – quotation; foreign words; 1 st Sg narr.
254. For inside. For outside. For ever.
parataxis; parallelism; anaphora; antithesis; ‘for inside’ = at home, ‘for
outside’ = at the gate
SSS SIEDLE
door
communication
255. Merry Kissmas.
intertextuality - – ‘Merry Christmas’ – a greeting used at Christmas;
unpredictable spelling; visual metaphor: a picture shows two Alessi
bottle-openers kissing
Alessi
TIME
256. Your boss changed the meeting. Your client changed the deadline.
Your wife changed her mind.
Now change to an airline with more departures.
70
Scandinavian
Airlines
257.
3x Dec.; Imp.; parallelism; anaphora; 3x finV; past; active; idiom
‘change sb’s mind’ = change the decision or opinion; metaphor:
‘boss, client; wife’ = your everyday life; ‘airline’ = at least one good
thing, escape from problems
“We cannot hang up on the world” Kathryn Walker
intertextuality – quotation of employee – she represents the thoughts
of whole company
hp
258. Kediaman Kedua-ku – The Malaysian phrase for My Second Home Tourism
Malaysia
Nph; foreign words; apposition; non-grad Adj
259. 9 Challenge us – and get yourself a bigger slice of the cake.
Imp.; 1
Siemens
st Pl narr.; idiom ‘a bigger slice of the cake’ = a share of the
benefits or available money that you believe you have a right to; grad
Adj in comparative form
260. Slow down. Pleasure up.
2x Imp.; 2x PhrV
Camel
261. “Time is the lens through which dreams are captured.” Francis Ford
Coppola.
intertextuality – quotation of famous person
Blancpain watch

262. The better the competition. The better the tyre. The better for you.
idiom ‘the…the…’ is deviated in a way that three, not two elements
are in relation; parataxis; parallelism; 3x grad Adj in comparative
form
Bridgestone
263. aim: zero emissions
2x Nph; ellipsis: ‘the aim is zero emissions’; colon; Num
TOYOTA
264. When we look into the future, we have hers in mind.
Dec.; 1
Siemens
st Pl narr.; 2x finV; 2x present; 2x active; idiom ‘in mind’ = to
be thinking of
265. This time the marathon will end in the place where it all started.
Dec.; AuxV; finV; past; active; antithesis
Athens 2004
266. 3 years of preparation 550 experts 36 nationalities 17 races 17 Toyota
precious lessons ONE AIM
6x Nph; Num; parallelism; grad Adj in basic form; parataxis; 6x
metaphor: Toyota = 3 years of prep.; Toyota = 550 experts; etc.
267. networks shaping cities
networks shaping events
network shaping deals
one network connects them all
71
Orange
3x Dec.; 3x non-finV; finV; present; active; Num; ellipsis of verb
‘networks are shaping…’; anaphora
268. Watch us. Toyota
Imp.; idiom ‘Watch it’ = used as a warning to sb to be careful, here:
deviated to ‘watch us’ = Be careful of us; 1 st Pl narr.
269. FLAGS-A-WAVING. PEOPLE-A-DANCING. IT’S GOING TO BE
SOME BIRTHDAY PARTY.
Tourism
Malaysia
unpredictable spelling: ‘Flags are waving’; parataxis; 2x Dec.; 2x
finV; 2x present; 2x active; non-grad Adj; intention to imitate
informal language
270. Small seeds generate big ideas. CNN
Dec.; antithesis; 2x grad Adj in basic form; metaphor: ‘seeds’ =
attempts, ideas

5.5 Results of the research
1. 20 % of all slogans (54/270) contains ellipsis, it means that on average a fifth
of slogans uses ellipsis.
2. 7 % of all slogans (18/270) contains phrasal verb, it means that on average a
fifteenth of slogans uses phrasal verb.
3. 11 % of all slogans (29/270) contains parallelism, it means that on average a
ninth of slogans uses parallelism.
4. Our assumption was not correct. The most widely used sentence type is not the
imperative one, as we supposed, but the declarative one (120/227). The second are
imperatives (85/227), then interrogatives (22/227). There were 130 noun phrases in
research sample. Exclamative sentences did not occur in the sample, although
exclamations occurred.
37%
10%
sentence types
53%
Graph 1: sentence types
72
Declaratives
Imperatives
Interrogatives
5. Our assumption was correct. The most widely auxiliary verbs are ‘can’ (11/23)
and ‘will’ (6/23). The following are ‘would’ (4/23), ‘should’ (1/23) and negative form
of ‘should’ (1/23).
4
6
1
1
auxiliary verbs
11
Graph 2: auxiliary verbs
can
will
w ould
should
should not

6. Our assumption was correct. The majority of verbs is finite (114/163), the rest
is non-finite (49/163).
30%
finiteness of verbs
70%
Graph 3: finiteness of verbs
73
finite verbs
non-finite verbs
7. Our assumption was correct. The majority of finite verbs are in present simple
form; the second most widely used are future forms ‘will’, then past simple, present
perfect and one case of past perfect.
5%
4%
1%
4%
tense/aspect
86%
Graph 4: tense/aspect of verbs
present simple
future 'w ill'
past simple
present perfect
past perfect
8. Our assumption was correct. The majority of slogans are of omniscient 3 rd
person narrator (249/270), then 1 st person plural narrator (13/270) and 1 st person
singular narrator (9/270).
3%
5%
92%
narrator
Graph 5: narrator
3rd person narrator
1st Sg narrator
1st Pl narrator

9. Our assumption was correct. 76 % (140/185) adjectives were gradable and
24 % (45/185) adjectives were non-gradable.
24%
gradability of adjectives
76%
Graph 6: gradability of adjectives
74
gradable adjectives
non-gradable
adjectives
10. Our assumption was correct. The majority of gradable adjectives occur in
basic form (104/140), the second group are adjectives in comparative form (26/140)
and the third group are superlative adjectives (10/140).
19%
7%
form of adjectives
74%
Graph 7: form of adjectives
basic form
comparative form
superlative form
11. Comparative adjectives are mostly used by slogans for technique product
specialization (16/26).
comparative adjectives - distribution
10
Graph 8: comparative adjectives - distribution
16
technique
other

12. Superlative adjectives are mostly used by slogans for food (3/10) and cosmetic
(2/10) product specialization.
superlative adjectives - distribution
1
1
1
1
1
2
3
Graph 9: superlative adjectives - distribution
75
food
cosmetics
online shops
pharmacy
services
technique
automobile
13. Our assumption was not correct. The majority of numerals are not used by
slogans for jewelry product specialization, but by slogans for automobiles. Numerals
indicate parameters of the vehicles and years of production.
0,50
0,40
0,30
0,20
0,10
0,00
occurance of linguistic means in individual branches
metaphor idiom personification polys/homon Num
Graph 10: occurrence of linguistic means in individual branches
technique
cosmetics
food
services
jew elry
automobiles

14. From the graph 10 and 11 we can see that in advertising the most widely used
trope is metaphor (metaphor: 75/270; personification: 24/270; polysemy/homonymy:
9/270). Metaphor is mostly used by slogans for jewelry (9 in 21 jewelry slogans
contain metaphor.). Personification is mostly used by automobile slogans;
polysemy/homonymy is mostly used by jewelry slogans. Idioms are mostly used by
automobile and technique slogans.
0,50
0,40
0,30
0,20
0,10
0,00
popularity and use of linguistic means by individual branches
technique cosmetics food services jew elry automobiles
Graph 11: popularity and use of linguistic means by individual branches
76
metaphor
idiom
personification
polys/homon
Num

6 CONCLUSION
In the theoretical part, we approached advertising as a type of communication
between producer and consumer of the product. We analyzed and described basic
principles of advertising printed texts. The theoretical part of the diploma thesis
provided an analysis of language of advertising and served as a basis for the research
part. To be able to make analysis of slogans in such extent, we had to include all the
aspects of language – from phonological to semantic aspect.
The results of the research confirmed the correctness of 6 in 8 hypotheses and
disproved the correctness of 2 in 8. We shall briefly offer the results of the research:
• On average, every fifth slogan contains ellipsis.
• On average, every fifteenth slogan contains phrasal verb.
• On average, every ninth slogan contains parallelism.
• The most widely sentence type is declarative (53 %).
• The most widely used auxiliary verbs are ‘can’ and ‘will’.
• The majority of verbs are finite (70 %).
• The majority of finite verbs are in present simple form (86 %).
• The majority of slogans are of third person narrator (92 %).
• The majority of adjectives are gradable (76 %).
• The second most widely used form of adjectives is comparative form
(19 %).
• Comparative adjectives are mostly used in slogans for technique
product specialization.
• Superlative adjectives are mostly used in slogans for food product
specialization.
• The majority of numerals are used in slogans for automobile product
specialization.
• From the 3 tropes (metaphor; personification; polysemy/homonymy),
metaphor is most popular among slogans and it is most widely used in
slogans for jewelry product specialization.
77

• Personification is mostly used by automobile slogans;
polysemy/homonymy is mostly used by jewelry slogans. Idioms are
mostly used by automobile and technique slogans.
By the research we also discovered that the writers of advertising texts often
use words like ‘new’ (+ words containing ‘new’: anew, renew) (16 times/sample),
‘just’ (12), ‘perfect’ (+ perfection, perfectly) (8), ‘real’ (+ really) (8), ‘better’ (7),
‘best’ (7), ‘first’ (7), ‘right’ (6), ‘only’ (5), ‘complete’ (+ completely) (5).
The values, which express the use of pronoun ‘you’ (27 times) and possessive
form ‘your’ (57 times) in research sample confirm the intention of the copywriters to
come closer to the consumer and evoke the feeling of intimacy.
The correctness of the theory of Vestergaard and Schroder (p. 44) has been in
our research certified. We have found 11 cases of using the verb ‘get’, but any case of
a verb ‘buy’.
We observed that the informal style of advertising language predominates over
the formal style. We found the formal style of writing only in scientific and business
types of magazines. In scientific magazines, there occurred advertisements for a
specific group of people – scientists, doctors, physicists; the vocabulary was technical
and incomprehensible for common people. The linguistic means were the same in all
types of magazines.
We hope that the diploma thesis will contribute to the present knowledge
about advertising language and will introduce new facts, findings and observations on
such creative and extremely interesting discourse. We believe that it will be useful
and contributing for all who are interested in English language and its multiplicity.
78

BIBLIOGRAPHY
MONOGRAPHS:
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Remedium
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Series). London: Longman
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LAKOFF, George, JOHNSON, Mark. 1980. Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: The
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OGILVY, David. 1985. Ogilvy on Advertising. Vancouver: Vintage
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PAVLÍK, Radoslav. 2000. Phonetics and Phonology of English. A Theoretical
Introduction. Bratislava: Pedagogická fakulta Univerzity Komenského
PICKETT, J. P. et al. 2000. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English
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SOANES, C., STEVENSON, A. 2004. Concise Oxford English Dictionary. The 11 th
edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press
TRUP, Ladislav. 1999. panielska lexikológia. Banská Bystrica: Univerzita Mateja
Bela, Filologická fakulta
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BBC Gardeners’ World Magazine. June 2006. UK
Business Journal Slovakia. February 2006, June 2006, July – August 2006. Slovak
Republic
Computer Active. May 2006. UK
DigitAll. fall 2003, spring 2005, summer 2005, winter 2005. Samsung brand magazine
80

ELLE. November 2005. UK
ES Magazine. December 2005, UK.
eve. February 2006. UK
Geographical. April 2003, December 2004. UK
Good Food. February 2005, January 2006. UK
Heat. December 2005. UK
More. December 2005. UK
Nature. May 2006, June 2006. Harvard University Press, USA
New. November 2005. UK
Newsweek. February 2006, March 2006, May 2006, June 2006, July 2006. USA
Photography. September 2004. UK
Reveal. December 2005. USA
Science. June 2006. UK
Scientific American. July 2006. USA
The Economist. July 2006. UK
The Scientist. November 2005, December 2005, April 2006. UK
The Week. October 2005, March 2006
81

Time. May 2003, July 2003, September 2003. UK
Vogue. January 2004, January 2005, February 2005, March 2005, May 2006, June
2006. UK
Wallpaper. July – August 2005, December – January 2005 – 2006. UK
You magazine. June 2005. UK
THE INTERNET RESOURCES:
http://home.cfl.rr.com/eghsap/apterms.html
http://mktg-sun.wharton.upenn.edu/advertising/dictionary/h.htm
http://www.investorwords.com/129/advertising.html
http://www.languageinindia.com/march2005/advertisingenglishhongkong1.html
http://www.motto.com/glossary.html
http://www.onestopenglish.com/teacher_support/ask/Grammar/grammar15.htm
http://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOflinguisticTerms/Index.htm
http://www.stanford.edu/class/linguist34/Unit_02/given-new.htm
http://www.thefreedictionary.com
http://www.wikipedia.org/
https://lists.usm.maine.edu/
82

SUPPLEMENT A
Review of print advertisements

1 (see: p. 20)

2 (see: p. 25)

3 (see: p. 29)
4 (see: p. 29)

5 (see: p. 29)
6 (see: p. 29)

7 (see: p. 29)

8 (see: p. 33)

9 (see: p. 36)
10 (see: p. 43)

11 (see: p. 46)
12 (see: p. 46)

13 (see: p. 46)
14 (see: p. 48)

15 (see: supplement A)
16 (see: supplement A)

17 (see: supplement A)
18 (see: supplement A)

19 (see: supplement A)
20 (see: supplement A)

21 (see: supplement A)
22 (see: supplement A)

23 (see: supplement A)
24 (see: supplement A)

25 (see: supplement A)
26 (see: supplement A)

SUPPLEMENT B
Table of attributes

No. of slogan
slogan type
No. of
slogan finiteness narrator Adj grad
Dec.
Imp.
Int.
finV
non-finV
1st Sg
1st Pl
Nph
ellipsis
PhrV
AuxV
grad
non-grad
comparat.
Adj.
form
superlat.
Num
parallelism
compound
personification
metaphor
polys/homon
idiom
1 T 1
2 T 1 1
3 T 1 1
4 Cl 2 1
5 S 1 1
6 S 1
7 T 2 1
8 T 1
9 T 1 1 1
10 T 1
11 T 1 1
12 T 2 1 1
13 T 1 1 1 1
14 T 2 1 1 1
15 T 1 1 1 1
16 T
17 F 1 1 1 1
18 F 1
19 F 2 1 1 1
20 F 3 1 1 2 1 1 1
21 F 1 1 1 1 1
22 H 1 2 1 2 2
23 H 2 1 1
24 A 1 1 2 1 1 4 1 2
25 F 2 1
26 F 1 1 3 1
27 F 1 2 1 2 2
28 F 1 1 1
29 F 2 1
30 F 1 1 1 1 1 2
31 F 2
32 A 2 2 1 1 1 1
33 T 3 3 1
34 T 1
35 P 1 1 1
36 F 1 1 1 1
37 F 1 2
38 T 2 1 1
39 F 1 1
40 T 1 2 1
41 S 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

42 T 3 3 1 1
43 T 2 2 1 1 2 1
44 O 1 2 2 1
45 T 2 2
46 Ph 1 1 1 1
47 Ph 1
48 T 2 2
49 T 1 1 1 1
50 T 1 3 1
51 T 1 2 3 1 4 2 1
52 F 1 1 1
53 F
54 Ph 1 1 1
55 T 1
56 F 1 2
57 T 1 1 1 1
58 F 1 1
59 Ph 1 1
60 Ph 1 1
61 Ph 1 1 1 1 2 1
62 O 1 1 1
63 H 1 1 1 1
64 Ph 1
65 C 1 1 2 1 1
66 F 1 1 2
67 F 1 1 1 1 1
68 F 1 5
69 A 1 1 1 1 1 1
70 F 2 2 1 1
71 F 1 1 1
72 A 1 1 1 1 2
73 T 1 1 1 2 1 1
74 S 3 2 1 1 1
75 S 1 2 2 1 1
76 T 5 1
77 C 2 1
78 C 1 1 1
79 C 1 1 1
80 C 1 1 1 2
81 C
82 A 1 2 3
83 F 1 1 1 1
84 C 1
85 C 1 2
86 C 1
87 C 1 2 1 1 1

88 C 1 1
89 C 1 1 1 1
90 F 3 1 1 2 1
91 C 1 1 1
92 C 1 1 1
93 J 5 2 1 1
94 J 1 1 1
95 S 2 2 1 1
96 S 1
97 C 1 1 1
98 C 1 1 1
99 A 1 1 1 2
100 A 1 1 1
101 J 2 1 1 1
102 C 1 1 1
103 C 1 1 2 1 1 3 1 1 1 1
104 C 1 1 1
105 C 1 1 1 2 1
106 F
107 C 1 1 1 1
108 S 1 1 1
109 F 2 1 1 1
110 P 1 1 1 1
111 C 1 1
112 C 1 1 2 1
113 C 2 2 1 1 1 1 1
114 O 1 1
115 C 1 1 3 1 2
116 C 1 3 1
117 C 1 1 1 1 2 2 1 1
118 C 1 1
119 O 2 1
120 C 2 1 2 1 1
121 C 1 1
122 C 1 1
123 C 1 1
124 C 1 1 1 1
125 C 1 1 1 1
126 C 1 1 1
127 C 1 1
128 A 1 2 1 1
129 C 1 1
130 C 1 1 1 1
131 C 2 1
132 Ph 1 1
133 A

134 C 1 1
135 J 1 1 1 1 1
136 J 1 3 1 1 1
137 C 1 1
138 F 1 1
139 Ph 1 1 1
140 C 1 1
141 F
142 F 1 1
143 J 1 1 2
144 F 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
145 T 1 1 2
146 C
147 Ph 1 1
148 C 1 1
149 J 1 1 1 1 1
150 J 2 2 1 1 1
151 C 1 1 1 1 1
152 O 1 1 1 1 2 1 1
153 C 1 2
154 O 1 1
155 T 1 1 1 1 2 2
156 T 2 2 2
157 S 2 2 2 1
158 T 1 1
159 T 1 1
160 T 4 1
161 T 1 1
162 Ph 1 1 2 1
163 S 1 1 1 2 1
164 T 1 1 1 1 1
165 T 1 1 3 1
166 T 1 1 1 1 1 1
167 S 1 1 1
168 S 1 1 1
169 S 1
170 S 1 1 1 1
171 T 5 2 2
172 S 1 1 1 1 1
173 S 1 1 1 1 1 1
174 T 1 1
175 T 1 1 1 3
176 S 2 1 1 1 1
177 S 1 1
178 S 1 1 1 1 1 1
179 J 3

180 T 1 1
181 T 1 1
182 T 1 1 1
183 T 1 1 1
184 T 1 1 1 1
185 T 1 1 1 1 1 1
186 T
187 T 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
188 T 1 1
189 T
190 S 1 1 1
191 T 1 1 1 1
192 T 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
193 T 1 1 1 1 1
194 J 4 1
195 A 2 2 1
196 S 1 1
197 S 1 1 1 1 1 1
198 S 1 1 1
199 T 1 1 1 1
200 T 1 3 1 1 1 1 1
201 T 1 1 1
202 S 1
203 S 2 1
204 T 1 1 1 1
205 J 3 1
206 F
207 S 1 1 1 1
208 J 1
209 J 1
210 T 2 1
211 A 1 2 1 2 1 1
212 S 1 1 1
213 A 1
214 S 7 1
215 T 1 2 1 1
216 A 2 2 2 2 1
217 T 1 1
218 C 1 1
219 O 1 1 1
220 C 1 1 1 1
221 C 1 1 1 1
222 C 1
223 F 1 1
224 F 1 1 1 1 1
225 S 1 2 1

226 O
227 J 1 1
228 J 1 1 1 1
229 F 1 1 1
230 J 1 3 1
231 C 1 1 1
232 C
233 C 1 1 1
234 C 1 1
235 C 1 1
236 J 2 2 1 1 1
237 C 1 1
238 O 1 1 1
239 F 1 1 2
240 T 1 1 1
241 J 2 2 1
242 J 2 2 1
243 T 2 1 1 1 1
244 C 2 1 3 1
245 C 2 1 1 1
246 F 1 1 1
247 T 1
248 T 1 1
249 T 1
250 T 1 2
251 S 1 1
252 F 1 2 1
253 J 1 1
254 T 1
255 H 1
256 S 3 1 3 1 1 1
257 T
258 S 1 1
259 T 1 1 1 1 1
260 To 2 2
261 J
262 T 3 3 1 1
263 A 2 1 1
264 T 1 2 1 1
265 S 1 1 1
266 A 6 1 1 1 1
267 S 3 1 3 1 1
268 A 1 1 1
269 S 2 2 1
270 S 1 2 1
0 120 85 22 114 49 9 13 130 54 18 24 140 45 26 10 32 29 16 24 75 9 27