语言经济学视角下的英文平面广告语分析

本文是一篇语言学论文，本文对英文平面广告中的言语配置做了较深入的探讨与分析。首先作者通过案例分析法对具体的广告案例进行分析，展示了其所选用广告词产生的效用；其次通过定性分析基于语言经济学理论对英文平面广告语中的语言经济特性展开讨论。

Chapter One Introduction

1.1 Background of the Research
The economist Adam Smith suggests that language is necessary in thetransaction of human and the appearance of language makes it possible for marketingchange and business activity, which is regarded as the earliest description forlanguage from the point of economics. The origin of language economics can dateback to 1965, Jacob Marschak put forward the economic features of language toexplore the most effective communication system, which brings a new researchdirection for the relationship between language and economics. Since then a series ofresearches on language phenomena have been conducted from the perspective oflanguage economics. The new theory was introduced into China by linguist XuQichao in 1999 and then many domestic scholars begin to devote themselves to therelevant studies.
Along with the rapid development of modern internet, people pay more and moreattention on the emerging multimedia and the studies on advertisement also mainlychoose the multimedia advertising as their research objects instead of the print onessuch as magazines and newspapers. As one of the traditional medium, printadvertisement relies more on its language or picture while the multimedia can be
represented by colorful animation and music. However, print medium has itsdistinctive advantages, for instance, it is easy to get and read without the limitation ofdevice or time, and it can be reserved for repeated review as well as it cost lesscompared with multimedia, meanwhile the importance of language in advertisingmakes it win the research interest from linguists.
The research on advertising language has been carried out from variousperspectives and a large number of achievements have been made within thepragmatics, rhetoric, phonetics and so on. This paper mainly focuses on the practicalapplication of language in advertising from the perspective of language economicswhich aims to reveal the relationship between language and economics, in hope ofproviding some suggestions for the further development of advertising career.
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1.2 Significance of the Study
It is of great significance to conduct the analysis on language in printadvertisement from the view of language economics, and the significance of thispaper can be demonstrated from two aspects, the theoretical significance and practicalsignificance.
1.2.1 Theoretical Significance
The language economics is an emerging interdisciplinary theory including botheconomics and linguistics, and it attempts to explain the language phenomena witheconomic theories and methodology. Since the brand-new theory was put forward in1965, many achievements have been accomplished by scholars from various fields,however there is not a clear and accurate framework to conduct the relevant researchsystematically. This paper analyzes language collocation in print advertisement fromthe perspective of language economics instead of the traditional linguistic points suchas the pragmatics, which not only helps to enrich the theory framework of languageeconomics but also offers a new theoretical perspective for the further study ofadvertising language. Based on the views of pragmatics, the characteristics ofadvertising language have been widely analyzed while its economic features, that is,the value, cost, utility and benefit have barely been discovered. In a word, thetheoretical significance of this study is mainly represented by using economic ways todiscuss the language of advertisement.
1.2.2 Practical Significance
As the main publicity of product or enterprise, advertising is used to increasesales volume and make profits for company. The functions of advertisement lie in notonly satisfying the consuming needs of consumers but also playing an important rolein the process of guiding people’s consuming behavior and then changing theirpurchase decision. The persuasion function of advertisement will be achieved bycollocating language in the optimal way because a single word can also generatemuch effect for the promotion from the perspective of consumer psychology. Thereexists a close relationship between economics and advertising language, to be specific,the language of advertisement can affect sales volume or profit and at the same time,it is also restricted by economic principles considering the cost involved in publicity.Therefore, this paper explores how to collocate language in advertisement to achievethe most effective promotion for product from the point of four economic featuresembodied in language, in hope of providing some suggestions for advertisers andhelping them to design advertisement in a more effective and successful way.
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Chapter Two Literature Review

2.1 Previous Studies on Print Advertisement
The word “advertising” derives from the Latin “advertere”, which means“attention” or “induction”, so advertising refers to the discourse that tries to draw theattention of consumers. In 1890, the advertising was defined as the news aboutproduct or service in western society. Late in 1894, Albert Lasker, known as the fatherof American modern advertising, described advertising as the salesmanship in print,which reveals the nature of commercial advertisement more accurately. Advertising isan effective tool for enterprises to sell or promote their products, and it can beregarded as the bridge connecting the seller and buyer. As a way of promoting, it ismore important for advertising to guide or change the attitude towards consumptionand even life of consumers just like a tour guide, not only to meet the existing needsof customers. The realization of persuasion from advertising largely depends on thelanguage which is the carrier of information in advertisement. The wording inadvertisement plays a significant role in the process of promoting products, and it hasgradually become the research focus in many fields both at home and abroad.
2.1.1 Studies on Print Advertisement Abroad
The advertising is an art of persuasion, and the language in advertising is thebackbone force to persuade consumers. From the perspective of stylistics, rhetoric,semiotics and other linguistic points, the scholars carried out a series of researches todiscuss how the advertising language achieved its persuasive function. Early in 1966,Geoffrey N. Leech studied the language in advertisement from the perspective ofstylistics and demonstrated its unique language features. He made a detailedinterpretation to the written English advertisements in the aspects of pronunciation,phoneme, grammar and vocabulary. Semiotics is an interdisciplinary subject, and thestudy mainly focuses on the composition of symbols and the ways of expression orcommunication. Symbols in semiotics represent the different relations betweensymbolic meaning and signifier as well as signified. French Roland Barthes whodevoted to the semiotic research and Judith Williamson, a British scholar, made agreat contributions to the study of advertising from the perspective of semiotics.
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2.2 Previous Studies on Language Economics
In modern society, the function of language has become more significant inscience and technology, economy, social life and so many industries, especially withthe rapid development of economic globalization, the international communicationamong all the countries is increasingly close, and as a tool of communication, thelanguage is also becoming more connected with economy. From the inpidualdecision on foreign language learning to the formulation and implementation oflanguage policy in a country, and even the evolution of language, are closely relatedto economic factors. As an emerging interdisciplinary subject, language economicsemerged in 1965, and it has been greatly developed at home and abroad after nearlyfifty years of studies, however, the theory system of language economics is not perfectenough, so it is not really a relatively independent branch of economics now.Therefore, to further deepen the study of language economics, it is necessary toinduce and summarize the existing research findings, which also has a greatsignificance to the long-term development of language economics.
2.2.1 Studies on Language Economics Abroad
The generation of language economics needs to be expounded from three levels:as a term, “Economics of Language” came from the same titled essay The Economicsof Language written by American economist Jacob Marschak in 1965; as a productionof the times, language economics was born out of the nationalism issues, andoriginated from the official language research in Canada; as a subject or field of study,the achievements of language economics resulted from the emergence anddevelopment of the human capital theory and education economics.
The term “Economics of Language” was first brought up in an essay also namedThe Economics of Language which was published in the magazine of BehavioralScience in 1965. In this paper, the author Jacob Marschak put forward some economicthoughts about language. First of all, there is a close relationship between economicsand the optimization of language or communication methods. Secondly, some certainfeatures of a language are remained or abandoned over time, which depends mainlyon the ability that whether this kind of language can deliver the maximum informationin the shortest time. Finally, as an indispensable tool in human economic activities,the language also has the economic attributes such as the value, utility, cost andbenefit, which is the most important view to the research of language economics.Jacob Marschak has been regarded as the first economist to explore language issuesfrom the perspective of economics, and it is a significant attempt to analyze languageproblems by means of economic theories and methods.
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Chapter Three Theoretical Framework........................... 25
3.1 Language Economics........................... 25
3.1.1 Definition of Language Economics........................ 25
3.1.2 Basic Researches on Language Economics..................... 26
Chapter Four Methodology.................................30
4.1 Research Methods.................................. 30
4.2 Research Procedure.........................31
4.3 Data Collection....................31
Chapter Five Data Analysis and Discussion................ 33
5.1 Value Analysis of Language in the Print Advertisement......................33
5.1.1 Use Value of Language..................... 33
5.1.2 Non-use Value of Language...............37

Chapter Five Data Analysis and Discussion

5.1 Value Analysis of Language in the Print Advertisement
In general, value refers to the positive meaning or usefulness to human in thesocial affairs. In economics, value is an important nature involved in the commodity,and from the point of Marx’s political economics, value is the undifferentiated humanlabor attached to the goods, that is, the value of commodity. According to the view oflanguage economics, value is one of the economic features demonstrated in languagejust like other economic resources. The value of language in print advertisement willbe analyzed from two aspects, the use value and non-use value. The single word hasno meaning or value at all, however, in the advertising, language can be used tointroduce and promote products and in the process of description, language providesthe value for products.
5.1.1 Use Value of Language
Value is pided into the use value and exchangeable value by Marx, and the usevalue is one of the common features embodied in a commodity. The languageeconomics held that language shows the economic nature of value, which means thatlanguage can generate value in economic activities. The purpose of advertising is toattract consumers and then promote the goods, and the advertising language is playinga quite important role in the process of introducing the distinguishing features ofproducts. Language itself has no value and the value of advertising language isrealized by means of helping consumer to understand the products value in use. Thesame product can generate different impressions for customers in the help ofadvertising language collocation. Therefore, consumers are more easily to accept acommodity just because of its advertising language, which is called the magic powerof language.
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Chapter Six Conclusion

6.1 Research Findings
Based on the theory of language economics, the author chooses several printadvertisements and pides them into four categories according to the four featuresembodied in language. In chapter five of this study, the characteristics of selectedadvertisements are discussed in detail from four perspectives, the value analysis,utility analysis, cost analysis and benefit analysis. The main findings of each aspectwill be represented as follows:


From the perspective of value, the advertising languages are analyzed based onthe views of use value and non-use value. The language in advertising helps tounderstand the use value of product by proper expression and the violation of theCooperative Principle on purpose can produce the implication for advertisement. Onthe other hand, the non-use of advertising language is achieved by satisfying a certainfeeling of customers. For instance, the example (3) uses word “hotter” to emphasizethe function of hot sauce and expression “future” conveys a beautiful prospect forchildren in example (7). As for the cost analysis of language, this paper explores theireconomic features from explicit cost and time cost.
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