2.3 Differences at the lexical level
2.3.1 Gender identity in advertisements
While we found quite a lot of similarities in the choice of words, we have also found some delicate differences in the choice of words in the three types of advertisements as classified before: daily consumer goods ads, technical equipment ads, and service ads.
Language, as a communicative tool, is not only to impart information, to communicate ideas about a product, etc., but also to convey information about the relationship between the addresser (advertisement) and the addressee (the audience). An intimate relationship between the advertisement and the audience is always hoped to achieve. So according to different audience, language applied is different.
What constitutes a female and a male identity, according to advertising? Table 1, based on the language of advertising (Torben Vestergaard & Kim Schr der, 1981:74), gives the commodity profile of two gender-identified magazines: Women and Playboy and also provides the distribution of the different types of advertisements.
Table 1 Distribution of three types of advertisements
Percentage of ads
Women (%) Playboy (%)
Daily
Consumer
GoodsHygiene103
Beauty181
Clothes1214
Food, Detergents31-
Tobacco815
Beer, Spirits-25
Leisure-3
Technical
EquipmentVehicle-27
Radio, hi-fi-4
Computer-7
ServiceInsurance, banking2-
Others191
It can be seen from table 1 that the hygiene, beauty, food and detergents ads are dominant in the women’s magazines while technical equipment ads prevail in men’s magazines. The reason is that women are potential purchasers of daily consumer goods while men are potential purchasers of technical equipment. So advertising language tries to win its audiences by noticing audiences’ gender identity.
In addition, since the subjects involved in advertisements vary from simple to complex, shared knowledge by the addresser (ads) and addressee (the audience) varies. For example, knowledge of technical equipment, sometimes demands high educational background or special interests in a certain field. To convey different knowledge clearly, advertisements don’t always speak in the same way. In the following section, we will make a comparative study of three points in order to find differences in the choice of words in three types of advertisements: the selection of adjectives, the use of compound words and the use of pronouns.
2.3.2 Selection of adjectives
Adjectives, as emotive and exciting words, are used to enhance the facts of a certain product or service. In the study of the selection of adjectives, we have first divided adjectives into two groups: descriptive adjectives and evaluative adjectives. The former is used in objective description and the latter give the advertiser’s subjective comments. Then we have listed those frequently used descriptive adjectives and evaluative adjectives in daily consumer goods ads and technical equipment ads, and we surprisingly have discovered descriptive adjectives differ from each other in two kinds of advertisements.
Table 2 Comparison of frequently-used adjectives
in daily consumer goods ads and technical equipment ads
Descriptive adjectivesEvaluative adjectives
Daily
Consumer
Goods
Ads
radiant, shiny, dazzling, gold
soft, smooth
fresh
creamy, crispy
clean
easy, convenient
rich, effective, crucial
healthy, fast
valuable, flew
essential
good/better/best
magic
Technical
Equipment
Ads
audible, visible
high-volume, full-colour,
high-speed
magnetic, sharp
invisible, multiple
flexible, versatile
Table 2 shows that descriptive adjectives in daily consumer goods ads such as fresh, crispy, and soft, tend to convey the sense of sight, touch, and taste. The temptation aroused by this vivid description of a product is hard to resist especially for women who tend to be moved by pleasant senses; compared with men, women are inclined to think in terms of images and perceive through senses. However, men, the target audience of technical equipment, are good at rational thinking. Men are not controlled by senses. On the contrary, the product’s interior quality and function is what they pay attention to. So the descriptive adjectives used in technical equipment ads are the ones conveying information of the product, such as audible, visible, high-volume, high-speed, etc.
2.3.3 Compound words
A compound word is often a noun or an adjective made up of two or more words. Compound adjectives are often seen in advertisements. In the present study, we found compound words turn up with varying proportions in three types of advertisements.
Compound-
used AdsTotal
AdsPercentage
Daily Consumer Goods52025%
Technical Equipment132065%
Service72035%
Obviously, compound words turn up in 65% technical equipment ads, 40 percentage points higher than that of daily consumer goods ads; 30 percentage points higher than service ads.
Compound words in technical equipment ads, are usually combined to give an exact description of a certain feature or a certain function such as high-volume, full-color, multi-functional, non-stop, water-cooled. Often numbers are employed in front of the hyphen, which is seldom seen in other advertisements, such as 64-bit, 24-valve, 4-wheel, 255-horsepower.
This difference can be accounted for in terms of the different complexities of the goods. In comparison with daily consumer goods and services, technical equipment is much more complicated in function and structure. It is just the advantageous function or newly designed structure that the advertiser wants to highlight in technical equipment ads. Thus, the advertiser employs, even coins, so many compound words that they can make the introduction of complicated technical equipment brief and precise. Grammatically, compound words help to avoid using clause, which enhance the readability of advertisements.
2.3.4 Use of pronouns
Pronouns of the first and second person: we, I and you outnumber the other pronouns in advertisements. It is because that you, we and I help create a friend-like intimate atmosphere to move and persuade the audience. Advertisements with lots of pronouns of the first and second person are called gossip advertisements. Here, gossip has not the least derogative meaning. It originates from old English god sib, meaning friendly chats between women. Advertisements that go like talking with friends closely link the advertisement and the audience. The audience will easily accept a product, a service or an idea as if a good friend recommended them.
Though pronouns of the first and second person are popular in advertisements, there are some differences in the use of these pronouns in the three kinds of advertisements. The first person we almost never occurs in daily consumer goods ads and technical equipment ads, whereas we is used in almost 80% the service ads in the corpus. The following are some examples.
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