Summary Foreign Languages in Advertising (LET-CIWB268-IBC)
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Module
Foreign Languages in Advertising (LETCIWB268IBC)
Institution
Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen (RU)
Book
Foreign Languages in Advertising
This is a summary of the book Foreign Languages in Advertising (ISBN: 978-3-030-31690-7). The lecture notes are also included. This summary was made for the course Foreign Languages in Advertising at Radboud University.
, Chapter 1
1.1 Academic interest in foreign languages in adverting
Piller points out that the first publications dealt specifically with foreign loanwords. These early
publications seem to be both descriptive and normative. Among other linguistic phenomena, they list
and classify loanwords appearing in advertising copy.
Wustmann already commented on foreign language used by business people. He argued that
business people frequently use foreign words, and that they expect them to be more prestigious than
the corresponding words in German.
Haarmann argued that foreign languages are employed in product advertisements to associate the
products with ethnocultural stereotypes of the speakers of the foreign languages. For instance, he
remarked that French was used for specific product categories such as watches, handbags, and
perfume to evoke associations such as elegance and style.
In the 1980s, academics in other domains became more interested in studying foreign languages in
advertising, for instance researchers examining issues of globalization in the domain of business and
advertising.
Six different interest areas could be distinguished:
1. Frequency of occurrence of foreign languages in advertising
2. Effects of foreign languages in advertising
3. Foreign language use as an element of advertising standardization’
4. Connections of foreign languages with products, countries, and characteristics
5. Foreign branding
6. English versus Spanish for U.S. Hispanics
1.2 Starting point: consumer culture positioning
Snyder et al. developed a framework of five categories relevant to the question of nationality and
internationality of the ad: (1) local or domestic, (2) foreign European, (3) foreign non-European, (4)
pan-European or European-wide, and (5) culturally neutral.
Snyder et al. coded an ad as local or domestic if the language presented was only the language of the
country in which the ad appeared. An ad was coded as foreign European if it contained one European
language other than the language spoken in the country where the ad appeared. An ad was coded as
foreign non-European if it contained one non-European language. An ad was coded as pan-European
or European-wide if it contained at least two foreign European languages or if it contained one
foreign European language and a non-linguistic cue referring to another European country. An ad was
allocated to the fifth category, the culturally neutral category, when it did not contain any reference
to European or non-European countries.
Alden et al. present three different types of brand positioning strategies in advertising in the light of
globalization and internationalization. Brand positioning refers to the idea that a brand should have a
unique positioning among its competitor brands from the perspective of consumers. The three
strategies that Alden et al. propose are Local Consumer Culture Positioning (LCCP), Foreign Consumer
Culture Positioning (FCCP), and Global Consumer Culture Positioning (GCCP).
,LCCP refers to ‘a strategy that associates the brand with local cultural meanings, reflects the local
culture’s norms and identities, is portrayed as consumed by local people in the national culture,
and/or is depicted as locally produced for local people’. FCCP is defined as ‘a strategy that positions
the brand as symbolic of a specific foreign consumer culture; that is, a brand whose personality, use
occasion, and/or user group are associated with a foreign culture’. GCCP is a strategy that ‘identifies
the brand as a symbol of a given global culture’.
Alden et al. posit that there are three central components that can be used to express one of the
three types of consumer culture positioning in an advertisement: language, aesthetic style, and story
theme.
, Lecture 1
Historical overview (Piller, 2003)
Loanwords
‘the perfecto sigar’ (Pound, 1913)
Normative perspective (coincides with view of standard language as a closed, uniform system)
“[Businessmen] most deeply believe that a foreign word is always more distinguished than the
corresponding German word. [...] What are these business people actually thinking? Are they
thinking anyway? Who is the stupid one? The one at whom these words are targeted? Or the one
who hopes to make an impact? Tricky question.
Haarmann (1984, 1986)
Foreign languages employed in product advertisements to associate the products with ethno-cultural
stereotypes of the speakers of the foreign languages
Example: French elegance and style
Historical overview
From (loan)words to discourse:
prior to 1980: especially linguistics
after 1980: expansion to marketing & advertising
Literature review
1980-2000
Journals from Communication Abstracts database
(Communication, Linguistics, Marketing)
Six topics identified
1. Frequency of occurrence of FL
Sella (1993)
majority of 1200 Greek advertisements contains FL, mainly English, but also some French and Italian
2. Effects of FL
Petrof (1990)
English and French on attitudes, comprehension, intention, recall
French better for attitude and recall
3. FL as part of standardization
Mueller (1992)
English as main instrument of Westernization in Japanese ads; > 80% contain English
Standardization means that advertising execution strategies intended for one national audience are
also used for a different national audience
Westernization: Western advertising execution strategies (e.g. Caucasian models and the English
language) are applied in advertising in non-Western countries
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