Article.
Anna Izmalkova DOI 10.31558/1815-3070.2019.38.10 УДК 81`42:811.11 LANGUAGE MEANS TO
EXPRESS THE COMMUNICATIVE TACTIC OF “EMPHASIS SHIFTING”
IN ADVERTISING DISCOURSE Розкрито суть маніпулятивного впливу
комунікативної тактики «зміщення акценту» на реципієнта. Досліджені структурні
та комунікативні особливості рекламних текстів, в яких використана тактика «зміщення
акценту», на прикладі текстів реклами автомобілів німецькою та англійською
мовами. Проведений аналіз рекламних текстів на лексичному, стилістичному та
синтаксичному рівнях. Ключові слова: рекламний
дискурс, рекламний текст, мовна маніпуляція, мовні засоби, комунікативна тактика. There is no doubt, that
advertising plays an important role in a society. Spreading through all spheres
of human life, not only does it promote the sale of goods and advertised
services, but also reflects the current state of socio-cultural, scientific and
technical development. In addition, it is able to massively influence the
worldview, stereotypes, behavior and other aspects of a person. That is why, in
order to better understand the phenomenon of advertising and the impact of
advertising discourse on the recipient's mind, as well as to use this knowledge
in practice, it is important to study communicative strategies and tactics by
which advertising authors achieve their goals. The first studies of advertising
emerged in the 1920s being devoted to the analysis of advertising in terms of
economics. After the Second World War, with the rapid economical development
and the influx of a large number of new products in the market, advertising
researches were gaining popularity. There also emerged numerous popular
scientific works and trade magazines on advertising, marketing and their
psychological impact on the recipient. Vance Packard's book The Hidden
Persuaders (1957), which describes the great potential of advertising to
influence people's minds, was one of the first and most famous of these works.
Linguistic studies of advertising appeared only in the 1950's and 1960's, but
at that time they remained rather superficial, since advertising was perceived
as a negative phenomenon that can manipulate people. This view changed only in
the 1990s and advertising became an acceptable object of study for qualifying
papers and monographs (Janich, “Werbesprache: ein Arbeitsbuch” 15–16). Most of the current researches
focuse on the study of such components of advertising texts as, for example, advertising
slogans. Multimodal advertising analysis is also quite common, considering not
only the verbal component of the advertising message, but also all its
non-verbal aspects, such as images, video and audio, transmission means of an
advertising message (print media, flyers, TV, Internet, etc.), expected
recipient's reaction and others. There are a number of scholars’
works devoted to various aspects of advertising research (linguistic, psychological,
economic, cultural, etc.). Considering the advertising text and advertising
discourse from a linguistic point of view, there should first be mentioned such
researchers as Greg Myers, who studies the social context and language of advertising
texts and their relationship, emphasizing the intertextual links of advertising
texts with other text types; Nina Janich, who analyzes German advertising texts
and their separate components (slogans, names of goods, etc.) at different
language levels and according to their transmission means as well as the
features of advertising communication planning and the coherence between verbal
and non-verbal elements of advertisement; Guy Cook, who examines English advertising
texts in their context; Hristo Kaftandzhiev, who explores the concepts of
advertising strategies and tactics, as well as analyzes the features of
advertising texts and their titles. The issue of advertising and
advertising discourse is obviously very relevant and well-researched, but the
scientific works still lack a clear and unified classification of communication
strategies and tactics, as well as the analysis of their linguistic means. The
above mentioned phenomena determine the novelty of this research. The purpose of the article is
to identify the structural and communicative features of car advertising texts
in German and English languages within the tactic of an “emphasis shifting” as
one of the tactics of the communicative strategy of manipulation. To achieve this purpose, the
following tasks were set: 1) to study the
communicative features of the tactic of an “emphasis shifting”; 2) to make a
corpus of texts of car advertising, which use the tactic of an “emphasis
shifting”; 3) to analyze the
structure of advertising texts; 4) to
distinguish and consider the peculiarities of lexical units, which are
characteristic of the tactic of an “emphasis shifting”; 5) to explore
syntactic relationships in advertising texts; 6) to analyze
the stylistic means used in the texts of cars advertising. The subject matter of the
study is the texts of car advertising in German and English. The scope of the study is the
linguistic means to express the tactic of an “emphasis shifting” as the main
tactic of the communicative strategy of manipulation in car advertising texts
at lexical, syntactic and stylistic levels. The study
material consists of 60 German (17,540 characters) and 60 English car
advertising texts (15,889 characters) from the magazines “Der Spiegel”,” Focus”, “Stern” and others (in
German) and “The Economist”, “NewStatesman” and others (in English) for the
period 2014–2017. Each communicative tactic is aimed
at changing certain aspects of the recipient's personality in order to achieve
the goal of the addresser (Issers 114). The main purpose of any commercial advertisement is to distinguish the
advertised product from other similar goods by emphasizing its only positive
qualities. However, it should be understood that in addition to the
characteristics that attract the buyer's attention and create a positive image
of the goods, each product has its negative sides. In addition, the positive
characteristics of the advertised product as well as the competitor products
often coincide. Therefore, to attract attention to a particular product,
advertisers are often forced to create such
advertising text that would cause the recipient to associate the product with
facts urelated to it, such as achieving complete freedom after purchasing a
car. The tactic of an “emphasis shifting” is used in this case. Using the tactic of an “emphasis
shifting”, the sender of the advertising message focuses on the secondary facts
that form the desired perception of an advertisement by a recipient,
distracting the recipient from full awareness of the real characteristics of
the advertised product. At the same time, similarly to using other tactics of
manipulation strategy, the alertness of recipients is diminished, their
worldview, way of thinking are imperceptibly adjusted, and their stereotypes
are manipulated. Thus, the emphasis shifts to the information that contributes
to the achieving of the hidden goals of a message sender (Bykova 128). In this
case the purpose of the tactic of an “emphasis shift”
is to create a positive evaluation of the product and its manufacturer, that is
“to strengthen the positive characteristics and to
hide, to reduce the impact of negative characteristics” (Pocheptsov 339). Therefore, using the tactic of an
“emphasis shifting”, an advertiser mentions only the part of the information
that forms a positive attitude to the product or brand that produces this
latter. The accumulation of the appropriate lexical means becomes the main tool
in creating the advertising message, e.g., Ger. Jagt
mit Netz. Der
neue CLA Shooting Brake mit Mercedes connect me. Der
neue Shooting Brake ist stets online und damit das verbindende
Element zu zahlreichen innovativen Technologien: Servicedienste,
die Ihr Leben entlasten oder Apps, die es bereichern. Und dank GPS-Ortung auf dem Smartphone ist auch
die Fahrzeugsuche in fremden Metropolen kein
Problem mehr. (Der Spiegel, № 15,
2015) ‘Hunt
with net. The new
CLA Shooting Brake with Mercedes connect me. The new
Shooting Brake is always online and thus the connecting element to the numerous
innovative technologies: services that ease your life or apps that enrich it.
And thanks to GPS tracking on the smartphone, searching for a vehicle in
foreign cities is no longer a problem.’ The exemplified advertising text
draws attention to only one technology: The focus is shifted on the function of
the car to connect with a smartphone. This feature becomes the main one in the
car and its positive evaluation goes on the whole car, other characteristics
not being taken into account. To do this, a number of lexical means that relate to the emphasized technologies, are used:
noun Netz ‘net’, compound nouns Fahrzeugsuche ‘searching for a
vehicle’, GPS-Ortung ‘GPS tracking’, abbreviations GLA, GPS,
foreign words, such as nouns online, Apps, compound nouns Servicedienste
‘services’, and word-groups connec me, smartphone interface, Shooting
Brake. It should be mentioned that foreign words and abbreviations are
quite effective in manipulation due to the lack of an internal meaning for the
addressee's consciousness (Bazanova, Kirilenko). That is why they often
complicate text perception for the recipient, focusing attention away from the
actual characteristics of the product and from the fact of manipulation. The latter is very important for the
manipulation efficiency, because the attempt to manipulate is successful only
when the addressee does not realize the influence or the main purpose of the
manipulator remains unknown (Dotsenko 51–55). However,
recipients always understand that the advertising has the purpose to force them
to purchasing a product. Such awareness of the purpose of advertising alerts
the addressee and creates a negative or preconceived attitude towards the
advertisement and the advertised product. The use of foreign words, numerals
and abbreviations does not give the recipient time to realize that his
consciousness is manipulated The same way the Mercedes-Benz
advertisement focuses on easy car parking: Ger. Passt beim Einparken auf. Sie
tun es ja schon oft genug. Inspiriert von Eltern: die neue V-Klasse mit aktivem Park-Assistenten und 360o-Kamera.
Die
neue V-Klasse hat alles im Blick. Denn dank 360o-Kamera
und aktivem Park-Assistenten wird das Einparken und Rangieren
selbst auf engstem Raum zum Kinderspiel – damit Sie das Wichtigste
nicht aus den Augen verlieren. Mehr Informationen bei Ihrem Mercedes-Benz
Partner und auf www.neue-v-klasse-de. (Der Spiegel № 14,
2015) ‘Watches out when parking. You do it often enough.
Inspired by parents: the new V-Class with an active parking
assistant and 360-degree camera. The new V-Class has
everything in view. Thanks to the 360-degree camera and active parking assistant, parking
and maneuvering is the child's play even in confined spaces – so you
do not lose sight of the most important things. More information from
your Mercedes-Benz partner and at www.neue-v-klasse-de.’ To draw attention to one particular
function, the repetition of the following lexical means that relate to the emphasized
technologies is used: nouns Einparken ‘parking’, Rangieren ‘maneuvering’, complex nouns Park-Assistant ‘parking
assistant’, 360o-Kamera ‘360-degree camera’, noun phrases aktiver Park-Assistant ‘active parking assistant’, engster Raum ‘confined space’. The impression of technology
newness is intensified by the adjective neu ‘new’. In the English advertisement of BMW
M760Li xDrive the most winning characteristic of the car, that is its speed,
plays a central role. To attract attention to it, there are such lexical means
as the noun phrase (the name of the technology) M Performance TwinPower
Turbo, numerals and abbreviations (6.6 litre V12. 610hp. 0-62mph in 3.7
seconds) and
adjective quicker. Eng. Introducing the BMW M760Li xDrive. M
Performance TwinPower Turbo technology. 6.6 litre V12. 610hp. 0-62mph in
3.7 seconds. For some, the climb to the top is quicker.
(NewStatesman 9–15 Dec 2016) The following example
uses the nouns diesel, smoothness, quietness, engine adjectives quiet,
smooth, word-groups whisper diesel, free of vibration, diesel car, participle heard,
optimized to draw attention to the quietness of the car engine: Eng. QUIET REVOLUTION INTRODUCING
THE NEW “WHISPER” DIESELS NEW MERIVA
SE 1.6 CDTi “It is the excellent refinement that
impresses most. Commendably quiet and free of vibration.” Autocar ASTRA SRi
1.6CDTi “What
impresses you about the 1.6 diesel in the Astra is its smoothness
and quietness.” Autocar ZAFIRA
TOURER SE 1.6 CDTi “The Zafira Tourer's new engine
is a remarkably smooth and quiet affair ... delivers on
Vauxhall's claims - it's quiet, tractable and economical.” Autocar Vauxhall's
revolutionary “whisper” 1.6 CDTi diesels will change the
way diesel cars will be seen (and heard) forever. The high
tech tightweight aluminium construction and the optimised component
design makes them remarkably quiet as well as being smooth,
highly fuel efficient and low on CO2. Definitely something to shout
about. (NewStatesman 14–20 Nov 2014) Consequently, the lexical means used
in the tactic of an “emphasis shifting" help to shift the recipient's
attention to the positive qualities of the product, concealing its negative
characteristics. Such advertisement impedes a comprehensive perception of an
advertised product, creating a specific, unique image of it. Sometimes such a positive image is
completely unrelated to the product. This occurs in cases, where the focus is
shifted not to a particular product characteristic, but to a lifestyle that is
promised after buying of an advertised product (Popova 281). In most cases these advertising texts use words related to
such values as love, freedom, etc. (Janich, “Werbekommunikation pragmatisch” 38). Die
Mobilität der Zukunft wird nicht nur individuell,
intuitiv und vernetzt. Sie wird unser Leben machen und uns
mehr Freiheiten ermöglichen. (Der Spiegel № 35, 2016) ‘The
mobility of the future will not only be individual, intuitive and networked. It
will make our life and give us more freedom.’ In the example, the nouns with a
positive connotation Leben ‘life’ and Freiheit ‘freedom’ are used
to give the consumer the feeling, that his life will be free and careless after
purchasing of the advertised car. Their effect is enhanced by the nouns Mobilität
‘mobility’, Zukunft ‘future’, adjectives individuell ‘individual’,
intuitive ‘intuitive’, vernetzt ‘networked’ and the verb ermöglichen
‘to give / to make possible’. Eng. Change is Good All-New Hyundai Tucson Life is all about change. It frees
up our imagination and we see things in a new light. Change is the spirit that created the all-new
Tucson. Discover the power of change at: change-is-good.eu (The Economist Oct 17–23 2015) The example text emphasizes the
novelty of the car and the technologies used in it. These technologies must certainly
change the life of the car owner for the better. This effect is achieved by
repeating the noun change, nouns and adjectives
with a positive connotation life, imagination, good, all-new, new, the
verb with a positive connotation to free up. In addition, sometimes attention is
shifted to the description of beautiful landscapes that actualize the desire of
a person for freedom and unity with nature. This approach is more common in
video or image advertisements, but sometimes it can be discernible in
advertising texts. E.g., Eng. Introducing the new Golf Alltrack with 4MOTION
all-wheel drive. Soon to be everywhere. Let’s
rethink dirt. Because with dirt also comes green
grass, tall trees, and roads far less traveled. That’s why we
equipped the Golf Alltrack with 4MOTION all-wheel and an Off-Road
Mode, so you can go out there and seize the beauty of this dirt-covered
world, get your wheels muddy, and wash off all that
civilization, After all, dirt is the greatest of cleaners.
Volkswagen. (Time December 2016) In this advertisement for the
Volkswagen Golf Alltrack, the author first names the new technology used in the
car (4MOTION all-wheel drive) and then gradually moves to philosophical
contemplation about what dirt is. This kind of reasoning, on the one hand, is
related to 4MOTION all-wheel drive technology, but on the other hand, it is
completely irrelevant to the addressee and completely distracts the recipient’s
attention from the car itself. At the same time, thanks to such lexical means
as nouns dirt, beauty and noun phrases green grass, tall trees, roads
far less traveled, dirt-covered world, muddy wheels, the pictures of
unspoiled nature appear in front of the recipient: green grass, tall trees,
untraveled roads. Speaking of stylistic means, it
should be mentioned that for the tactic of an “emphasis shifting” they serve to
enhance the effect of lexical means. Their main purpose is to promote better
memorizing of both the product and its relevant characteristics. E. g., in
the previous advertisement of the automobile Golf Alltrack the following
stylistic means are used: the metaphor wash off all that civilization
and the oxymoron dirt is the greatest of cleaners that are rather catchy
and can stay in the recipient's memory for a long time. Similarly, in the advertisement of
BMW cars, the slogan, which consists of the antithesis, is used to emphasize
their fuel-efficiency: Ger. Weniger
Verbrauch. Mehr Fahrfreude. (Der Spiegel, № 15, 2015) ‘Less consumption. More driving pleasure.’ To intensify the emphasis on the
particular key element of the advertisement, different syntactic expressive
means may be used. E.g.: Ger. Wir
bewegen Menschen. In die Zukunft. Es
ist an der Zeit, Mobilität neu zu denken. Für individuelle Erlebnisse. (...)
Gemeinsam mit unseren Marken gestalten wir richtungsweisende Ideen, die neue
Wege eröffnen. Von der Vision zum Erlebnis. Gemeinsam
schreiben wir Geschichte. Die der Zukunft. (Der Spiegel № 35, 2016) ‘We move people. In the future. It's time to rethink mobility. For individual experiences. (...) Together with our brands, we design
trend-setting ideas that open up new paths. From the vision to the experience. Together we write the history. Of the
future.’ The example uses the parceling (Wir
bewegen Menschen. In die Zukunft.; ...richtungsweisende Ideen, die neue
Wege eröffnen. Von der Vision zum Erlebnis.; Gemeinsam schreiben wir
Geschichte. Die der Zukunft.) and the incomplete sentence Für individuelle
Erlebnisse. In the following advertisement of
Abarth 124 Spider incomplete sentences are also used (e.g., Season change.;
No excuses.): Eng. New Abarth
124 Spider. (...) Season change. Our passion for performance is
all year round. Take to the road and drive. No
excuses. (Esquire March 2017) Analysis of car advertising texts in
German and English showed that the tactic of an “emphasis shifting” is the most
common tactic due to its efficiency: It is used in 43 % of car advertising texts in German (25 texts out of 60) and 56 % of texts in English (33 texts out of 60 ). As a result of the frequency
analysis of language means use to express the tactic of an “emphasis
shifting" by the implementation of the manipulation strategy in the German
language, 296 units of language means were
identified that are characteristic of these tactics. Among these, ≈78 % (231 units) of lexical means, consisting
of ≈60 % (177 units) of
lexemes, which emphasize a certain positive feature of the goods (105 nouns and noun phrases (≈35 %), 61 adjectives (≈21 %), 6 verbs (≈2 %), 5 adverbs (≈2 %)) and ≈18 % (54 units) of
lexical means that distract the recipient’s attention and complicate the
analysis of product characteristics (21 foreign words
(≈7 %), 25 numerals (≈8 %), 8 abbreviations (≈ 3%)). The number of stylistic (mainly metaphors) and syntactic
(incomplete sentences, parceling) means is ≈7 % (22 units) and ≈15 % (43 units)
respectively. In English texts of car
advertisements the tactic of an “emphasis shifting” is expressed with 407 units of language means. Among these, ≈59 % (242 units) of lexical means, consisting of ≈60 % (177 units) of lexemes, which emphasize a certain positive feature of the
goods (135 nouns and noun phrases (≈33 %), 86 adjectives and participles (≈21 %), 16 verbs (≈4 %), 5 adverbs (≈1 %)) and ≈21 % (84 units) of
lexical means that distract the recipient’s attention and complicate the
analysis of product characteristics (41 numerals (≈10 %), 43 abbreviations (≈11 %)). The number of stylistic (mainly metaphors and repetitions) and
syntactic (incomplete sentences) tools is ≈11 % (44 units) and ≈9 % (37 units)
respectively. To sum up, the following structural
and communicative features were identified during the analysis of car advertising
texts in German and English: 1. The purpose
of the tactic of an “emphasis shifting” is to draw the addressee's attention to
controversial facts: positive product features or the lifestyle that the
product promises to provide to its owner. 2. The strategy
of manipulation in the car advertising is implemented by the tactic of an
“emphasis shifting” mainly at the lexical level in both languages. The main
role plays the lexis, which emphasizes a certain positive characteristic of the
car (e.g., nouns ger. Onlinedienst ‘online service’, ger. Einparken ‘parking’, eng. battery,
noun phrases ger. Matrix LED-Scheinwerfer ‘Matrix LED spotlight’, ger. engster
Raum ‘confined space’, eng. Direct Adaptive
System, eng. smothness, eng. fuel consumption, adjectives
ger. schnell ‘fast’, ger. neu ‘new’,
ger. innovativ ‘innovative’, eng. connected, eng. new,
eng. advanced, etc.). The lexis that focuses attention away from the
actual characteristics of the product is also important (e.g., words of foreign
origin in German ger. online, ger. Apps, ger. Servicedienste ‘services’,
numerals ger. 4,9 Sekunden von 0 auf 100 km/h, eng. 44 g/km, abbreviations ger. LTE, ger. GLA, eng. HTRAC, eng.
SUV). 3. Stylistic
means serve mainly as an auxiliary tool to intensify lexical means and promote
their better memorizing. The main stylistic means in both languages are
metaphors (e.g., ger. Jagd mit Netz ‘Hunt with net’,
ger. die Eroberung der digitalen Welt ‘the
conquest of the digital world’, eng. keep your business on track, eng. „whisper“
diesels), hyperboles (e.g., ger. Nichts ist unmöglich ‘nothing is
impossible’, eng. the absolute opposite of ordinary), antithesis
(e.g., ger. Weniger Verbrauch. Mehr Fahrfreude. ‘Less consumption. More
driving pleasure.’; eng. The inaccessible just became accessible). In
English, the repetitions are also common (e.g., eng. Self-breaking.
Self-correcting. Self-parking.; eng. The head says yes. The heart says definitely yes.). 4. At the
syntactic level, incomplete sentences are used in both languages (e.g., ger. Schluss
mit Einkaufs-Bummeln. ‘The end of the shopping on foot’; eng. A car
designed to win hearts – and conquer the road.), and parceling is also
commonly found in German advertisements (e.g. ger. Wir erfinden uns neu. Und die Zukunft. ‘We reinvent ourselves.
And the future.’; ger. Wir bewegen Menschen. In die Zukunft. ‘We move
people. In the future.’). These linguistic phenomena emphasize lexical means used in a sentence
that is divided or constructed in a peculiar way.
The prospects for the further
research may include a comparative analysis of the features of advertising
discourse in other languages, multimodal analysis of car advertising texts, as
well as the analysis of the structural and communicative features of other
tactics by which the strategy of manipulation is implemented.
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