Prove d\'esame - Linguaggio abbreviato nella pubblicità inglese e americana - Intercultural communication and language variation - English language PDF

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Linguaggio abbreviato nella pubblicità inglese e americana ...

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Abbreviated Language in advertising Article omission in advertising campaigns

Adelajda Gjoshi

Pubblicità, comunicazione digitale e creatività d'impresa 2016/2017

Index Introduction 1. Definition of definiteness 1.1 What does “definite” and indefinite" mean? 1.2 The patterns of use and omission of definite and articles in Italian

indefinite

1.3 The patterns of use and omission of definite and indefinite articles in English

2. Article omission in advertisiments 2.1 Collecting the data sources 2.2 Indefinite article omission 2.3 Definite article omission

Conclusion

INTRODUCTION Advertising is the action of calling public attention to something, especially by paid announcements, for example print media, television, Internet, or any other specific medium. From the syntactic point of view, advertising language can be denoted as block language or Abbreviated Language. Leech defines block language as “the type of restricted variety of grammar called the disjunctive mode”. Abbreviated language is representative of newspaper headlines, advertising slogans, recipes, diaries. This work is dadicated to the research and practical analysis of the advertisements slogans. On the syntactic level in the advertising language are used short and simple sentences because the limited time (in the TV advertising) or space (in print) so this reason do not allow to have complicated and long sentences. Slogan messages are presented in readable, easy to understand and therefore likely to be memorized pieces, for the realisation of its basic aim: memorability. Janoschka(2004) remarks that, besides emotionally appealing strategies, Web adverts need, more than traditional advertising texts, to interact with users: they should create a conversational relationship with users, imitating interpersonal communication. I'm interested in language of advertising because I want to discover how this particular language works in this type of discourse. For example the use of ellipsis in advertising create ambiguity in order to attract the reader’s attention to create a confidential relationship with them. The missing word or words can be inserted "without changing the meaning and without producing an ungrammatical structure". Its main purpose is to condense the same meaning into smaller number of words (Praskova,2009). It entails syntactic reduction, a form of inexplicitness consisting in the unspoken, the unexpressed, but understood. Example: "It Starts perfect… It Stays perfect..." (Maxfactor) The question I would like to answer in this thesis is: "What licenses article drop in advertising written register? Is the advertising language a real language with

grammatical rules? Or advertisements are just composed by short and simple sentences to catch our attention? In advertising grammatical structures the omission of finite verbs transforms a dependent clause into an independent one. This technique significantly saves space and makes the advertisements more concise, yet highly informative. Example: "Absolut attraction" (Absolut vodka) The analysis considers a corpus of 25 advertisements about determiners omission.

1. Definition of "Definiteness" The study of the definite article in English has a long tradition in various disciplines, including linguistics, philosophy, and psychology. Researchers have analyzed the article from a variety of distinct theoretical perspectives—logical semantics, functionalism, psycholinguistics, and computational linguistics, to mention just a few. Nevertheless, previous analyses of the definite article the are remarkably similar in both the kinds of data they examine and the general theoretical questions they attempt to answer. More specifically, research has consistently focused on Cognitive Linguistics what we might call the "referential function" of the article, that is, the use of a noun phrase with the to pick out an individual, "to distinguish it from all other individuals in the universe of discourse". (Lyons, 1977) Theoretical and terminological differences notwithstanding, most studies of the definite article in English share the same guiding intuition that definiteness is essentially just a matter of reference of distinguishing individuals. Christopher Lyons in his work, "Definiteness", begins with a basic observation that noun phrases like the car, proper nouns, possessives, personal pronouns, demonstratives, and universal quantifiers refer to identifiable objects or represent the totality of conceivable objects which match the description in a given context. In other words, definiteness has something to do with the identifiability or the inclusiveness of the description. Familiarity theory claims that felicitous use of the requires only that the referent have been already introduced into the discourse. "The signals that the entity denoted by the noun phrase is familiar to both speaker and hearer.." (Lyons, 1999) This observation provides a starting point for the survey of various manifestations of definiteness: articles, lexical and morphological devices, syntactic agreement

involving adpositions, pronouns, or word order. From his studies emerges that the definite article is not always in a complementary distribution with the indefinite article. There is no definable correlation between the way languages encode definiteness and their common typological features. A further examination of noun phrases whose definiteness is due to something other than the use of articles shows that, although definiteness is associated with the Determiner position, it can not be said that this feature is universal. Some languages lack definiteness marking in their noun phrase structure. There are various topics connected with definiteness: the semantic and pragmatic manifestations of identifiability and their various nuances; the interaction between definiteness and direct object marking, verb agreement, animacy, article and nominal feature marking, empty category, classifiers; definiteness effects in existential sentences, superlatives, extraposition, and the organization of information within a discourse. The foregoing survey leads Lyons to characterize definiteness as a morphosyntactic category which represents the semantic and pragmatic notions of identifiability. Languages can be grouped according to how they grammaticalize definiteness. For example "type I" exhibits no grammatical definiteness like Japanese and Korean; "type II" marks definiteness in pronominal noun phrases as Latin and Russian; "type III" encodes definiteness in pronominal and full noun phrases as English or French. 1.1 What does “definite” and indefinite" mean? “Definite” and “indefinite” are terms which are usually applied to noun phrases (NPs). A noun phrase consists of a noun and any articles, determiners, adjectives, or other modifiers with it (such as the book, a cat, or that red bird). We have the following articles in English, and in addition, there are article equivalents and substitutes like some, as well as other determiners. 1. a / an [indefinite article] 2. the [definite article 3. Ø [no article, or “zero article”] Noun phrases (NPs) which begin with the (e.g. the Queen of England, the book), are generally taken to be prototypical examples of definite NPs in English. The term referent means what entity or item that a noun phrase refers to; a noun phrase like "the book" probably refers to a specific book that one has in mind, in contrast to "a book", which could refer to any book. However it should be noted that not all of them show the same pieces of behavior that have come to be taken as criterial for definiteness.

Similarly NPs which begin with a/an (an elephant, a big lie), “indefinite descriptions”, are prototypical examples of indefinite NPs. Definite death Indefinite

the Premier of Italy, the book, this chair, both copies, the man's a politician, some books, any chair, enough copies, three dogs

We use a definite noun phrase when we assume that its content is sufficient, in the context, to identify the referent. There's only one (current) Premier of Italy, so the definiteness in the first example is unproblematic, but with the second example there is of course very heavy reliance on context to make the referent clear. The is a pure marker of definiteness, known as the definite article. Its use effectively pre-empts a which question. If I say: "Where's the key?" I assume you won't need to ask "Which key?". Note that a genitive determiner confers definiteness on the noun phrase: the man's death means `the death of the man', and a man's death likewise means `the death of a man'. Depending on the context or writer’s or speaker’s intentions, what the noun refers to may be more clear; if I say "the car", it is assumed the reader can more easily identify which car the writer has in mind, as opposed to "a car". Identifiability includes factors discussed in grammar books as general versus specific referent, and information status whether the noun has been mentioned before in the context, i.e., new versus old referent. For example, "a penguin" may not refer to a specific penguin, or may introduce a new penguin to the discourse, while "the penguin" may refer to a specific penguin that one has in mind, or one that has been mentioned before. Some nouns are made specific by a following modifier phrase, namely, a prepositional phrase, participle clause or a relative clause, that specifies which item is being referred to, and thus, makes it easily identifiable. Two main types of nouns that are not readily identifiable to a reader, and are not marked with the are normal first-mention items, and generic items, like items that one discusses in general terms. However, it is hard to clearly define generic or give simple rules for what nouns are generic (there are different types of generics), and there are some other tricky noun types as well. Sometimes whether a/an or Ø is used also depends on whether the noun is a more concrete or abstract noun: a / an + singular count noun Ø + singular non-count noun Ø + plural noun determiner like some + plural noun

Ø + plural count noun (collective generic) Ø + mass noun

1.2 The patterns of use and omission of definite and indefinite articles in Italian I would like to start saying that when an article is important for the sense of a sentence, you can never omitt it. Omission can mean two things, an omitted element is superficially non-visible, but is available in the syntax as an empty category; or, it can means the omitted element is non-existent in the syntactic structure. There are particular nouns which allow article omission in Italian speech: -Mass nouns (vino, acqua) -Plural nouns in object position -Vocative (Ragazzo! Vieni qui!) -Predicative (Mario è dottore) -Nominal phrases in object position Singular count nouns never allows article omission exept for vocative and predicative position. The article is obligatory required when a mass noun is count, singular and in subject/object position. If we say "Il vino era buono", "Il" can not be omitted. Otherwise in this case, in English, you can have article omission,"Water is in the fridge". In the case of "Ho mangiato maiale", maiale is a mass noun in object position, if we say "Ho mangiato un maiale", maiale becomes a count noun. As can we see in vocative and in predicative the noun can be bare. A bare noun is a noun used without any apparent quantifier or determiner to modify it. What happens with preverb and postverb mass nouns? Let's see: PREVERB: Acqua cade dalla bottiglia. It can't be bare. POSTVERB: Dalla bottiglia cade acqua.

As we see mass nouns can be bare in postverb position. With count plural nouns this is what happens in argument positions. Object position: "Ho visto ragazzi". It works. Pre subj. position: *"Ragazzi parlavano male". It needs the article. Post subj. position: "Arrivano ragazzi dal mare" It's right. Otherwise in non argument position. Vocative: "Ragazzi! Andate!". It doesn't need the article. Predicative: "Gli studenti sono ragazzi". It doesn't need the article. Definitive article introduce a definitive noun phrase, "la radiologia", or a generic noun phrase, "la libertà di parola" ( which is an item, refers to a generic group). . 1. Ho comprato __ libro Here, we can use: 1. un (indefinite art.), introduces new references. When the noun is new and we have never mentioned it before we have to use an indefinite article. 2. il (definite art.). We use the definite article when the reference is known and available. If libro (book) was previously introduced in the discourse we can use il. In the case of: 2. a. Ho comprato LA birra. We can see it as a Generic reading, so we are talking about a particular type of object (beer). It doesn't tell us that we have already talk about it before, but we're talking about the whole item. Or a definitive proper: we mentioned the beer yesterday/before. So, the definite article could be generic or definitive. "I dinosauri sono estinti", refers to the entire class. Or, "C'era una volta un re. IL re aveva una figlia", the king is known from previous information. Let's see what happen when with the same sentence we use an indefinite article. 2. b. Ho comprato __ birra.

Birra in italian is a bear noun so it can be right without the article. If we put UNA it becomes a count noun. Una can mean a particular type of beer or just one beer. We can put the partitive article della without changing the meaning of the word. The partitive article can be used only with mass nouns. We can't say "Ho comprato del libro". But, in plural count nouns the partitive article is obbligatory: "Ho comprato dei libri".

1.3 The patterns of use and omission of definite and indefinite articles in English It is useful to say that English nouns fall into four classes: pronouns, proper names, mass nouns, and count nouns. According to Heine(1997) the English indefinite article exemplifies the prototypical behavior of this grammatical category: it combines only with count singular nouns (or with mass nouns that allow to be coerced into a“count denotation”): 1. a. Tom found a key. b. *Tom found a money. c. *Tom found a keys. In English, the distinction between mass nouns and count nouns has clear morpho-syntactic criteria. First and foremost, English count nouns admit a morphological contrast between singular and plural; mass nouns do not, being almost always singular. For example, advice is a mass noun (*advices), whereas suggestion is a count noun (suggestions). But there are several other criteria: cardinal numerals and quasi-cardinal numerals (e.g., several) modify count nouns, never mass nouns. For example, two drinks is acceptable, since drink is a count noun; but two milks is not, since milk is a mass noun. Moreover, little and much modify mass nouns, never count nouns; whereas few and many modify count nouns, never mass nouns. Mass nouns do not tolerate the indefinite article (*an advice), whereas singular count nouns do (a suggestion). 2. a. *Jane gave Tom advice and John gave her some/*one too. b. Jane gave Tom a suggestion and John gave her one too.

A and AN are called indefinite articles. "Indefinite" means "not specific". They have to be used when you are talking about a thing in general, not a specific thing. 3. "I need a phone". Not a specific phone, any phone. A/an are used to talk about a thing which is new, unknown, or introduced to a listener for the first time. 4. "I have a car." The car is being introduced for the first time. You cannot use the indefinite article with plural nouns because it means "one" or "a single". THE is called a definite article. "Definite" means "specific". The definite article is used when you are talking about something which is already known to the listener or which has been previously mentioned, introduced, or discussed. 5. "I have a cat. The cat is black." The can be used with both singular and plural nouns. There are some cases where articles can be omitted. Definite and indefinite articles can be omitted before a common noun used in its commonest sense. 6. "Man is mortal." 7. "Iron is a useful metal." Before plural nouns used to denote a class. 8. "Apples are red." 9. "Camels are useful animals." In definititely, when generalizing about uncountable nouns and plural countable nouns. 10. "Curiosity is a great trait". Uncountable 11. "Water is an important resource". Uncountable 12. "Vegetables are good for you". Plural countable

2. Article omission in advertisiments

2.1 Collecting the data sources Once that the mapping target has been defined, article omission on advertising, my next step was to select the required survey tools: advertisiments pictures. I extracted large amount of data from websites and all around the Internet. I collect thousand images about every type of publicity and I discarded those that were unecessary for my studies. After that, I separated the photos in many categories: determiners omission, verb and auxiliary omission, omission of object/subject pronouns and omission of overt conjunction and finally the complex omission. At first I focused on the most simple sentences with determiners omission and I tried to notice if there were some rules behind the omissions and how frequently they happens. I did the same work with the others categories, trying to discover grammatical rules that has something to do with determiner omission, so I deleted the useless photos and I kept those with sentences connected with the point. My study is based on 25 advertisements. I will not show the pics of the advertisements I studied, and I will write the brand of the ad just in case it is needed. The analized titles are very different from headlines titles, because advertisements have different structures. Not all cases rapresented by Stowell were find in ads titles. The reason is beacause an ad promotion donesn't indicate the subject of the article using short phrases or sentences (as happens in healines) but they exhibit the product, confering to it many beautiful adjectives closed in a short phrase that calls the reader's attention. Originals advertisements titles will be pointed out with an asterisk (*). 2.2 Indefinite article omission What I will try to illustrate is that omissions don't happen just to capture attention on the buyer, or for space reduction, there are some syntactic relations that I noticed in the advertising Abbreviated Language. In most cases is always the TO BE verb that is omitted. Advertising language is different from spoken language and we can notice it from this first sentence: 1. a.* "Natural food experience" b."Convivio is a natural food experience" What we notice is that this phrase, extrapolated from the context has not a real meaning. What are we talking about? It's the first question that pass through our

mind. I have to underline that advertising Abbreviated language is extremely different from Abbreviated language in headlines. The image of the product help us to understand about what we are talking, and even if the name of the product is not pointed out in the phrase, it is showed by the image. In Advertising language in most cases the subject is omitted. What is omitted here apart from the subject pronoun is the verb, and the indefinite article. The verb to be is shown as a stative predicate so it can be omitted because "natural food" is a state of being, besides we already know what we are talking about so, we don't need all the sentence in standard English. "A natural food experience" could be enough to understand to what the ad is refered, but why also the article is omitted? Consider that food is a mass noun, precedeed by an adjective, natural. Let's see another example: 2. a.* "Inner beauty..." b. "This is an inner beauty..." Even in this case we find just a noun precedeed by an adjective. The verbe and the pronoun are missing, the image speaks itself about the product and about what the ad is talking about. The article is missed too. 3. a.*"Healthier tomorrow" b. "For a healthier tomorrow, eat Yogurtland" Third case where we find a phrase without NP, but only and adjective followed by a noun. I will show other examples. 4. a*...