Foreign Languages in Advertising
Lecture 1:
Progamme
- Fusion of advertising & marketing studies and linguistics.
- Sociolinguistics investigates how society impacts language.
Historical Overview (Piller, 2003)
- Loanwords
- Spanification for Latino customers in 1913.
- Normative perspective (coincides with view of standard language as a closed, uniform
system)
- Haarmann (1984, 1986 for studies in Japan) Foreign languages are employed in
product advertisements to associate the products with ethno-cultural stereotypes of the
speakers of the foreign language (French: elegance and style). Why do advertisers in
Japan use these languages? Mostly linked to specific product.
- From (loan)words to discourse:
o Prior to 1980: especially linguistics
o After 1980: expansion to marketing & advertising
Six topics identified:
1. Frequency of occurrence of FL: Majority of Greek advertisements in English, French,
Italian. (Sella. 1993)
2. Effects of FL: English and French on attitudes, comprehension, intention, recall.
French better for attitude and recall. (Petrof, 1990).
3. FL as a part of standardization: English as main instrument of Westernization in
Japanese ads. (Mueller, 1992).
4. Connections with products and countries: German and Japanese associated with
engineering quality. (Ray et al., 1991).
5. Foreign branding: Brand names such as ‘Larient.’ Different pronunciations. France
hedonism ; USA utilitarianism. French brand names lead to better evaluations when
they promote hedonistic products rather dan utilitarian products. (Leclerc et al., 1994).
6. English versus Spanish for US Hispanics. 4 types of ads in English and in Spanish.
Hispanics perceived the advertiser to be more culturally sensitive when the advertisers
used (some) Spanish than when they used only English. (Koslow et al., 1994).
Solid academic interest in foreign languages in advertising, both in the business domain
(marketing, advertising) and the linguistic domain (applied linguistics, sociolinguistics,
psycholinguistics). But: lack of integration of insights from one field to the other, which
hampers research progress. Studies in the field of linguistics have hardly incorporated insights
from marketing and advertising, and the other way around. Works best if you use both
disciplines together. Makes the best solutions for why those languages are used and their
effects etc.
,Consumer Culture Positioning Strategies
How can this diversity of topics be meaningfully integrated from a marketing point of view?
Snyder et al. (1991) and Mueller (1992) were first to study the use of (foreign) languages in a
marketing context.
- National character: restriction to local language(s).
- Foreign: use of non-local languages but not English.
- Standardized / Global: through the use of English.
Alden et al. (1999) present a framework that captures all three functions of foreign languages
in advertising and goals with which various languages can be used in advertising.
3 different types of brand positioning.
Brand positioning: ensuring that a brand has a unique position among its competitor brands
for the customer depends on number of variables, including language choice.
‘Identifies the brand as a symbol of a given global culture featuring the idea that consumers
all over the world consume a particular brand or appealing to certain human universals might
invest the brand with the cultural meaning of being a conduit to feeling at one with global
culture.’
Local Consumer Culture Positioning Strategies
‘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.’
Lecture 2; Defining and Studying advertising:
Studies reviewed in this course
Mainly two or more versions (FL or not) presented to participants asked to evaluate in terms
of:
- Ad attention
- Ad attitude
- Product and brand attitude
- Recall
- Purchase intention
Two versions too see how they perform.
Strength of experiments
Internal validity (controlled setting, attribution of effects to independent variable = language
& accent choice).
Achieved:
- By having () experimental conditions which only differ on the investigated
(independent) variable.
- By controlling all other variables & possible confounds.
, Weakness of experiments
Ecological validity (experiments deviate from real-life advertising).
When reading the materials: note the tension between implications of results and the material
used in the experiment. (How well can they be generalized?).
Defining foreign languages
L1 = a person’s first language or mother tongue. (For bilinguals both of their languages, in
case raised with both languages)
L2 = any language that is not a person’s mother tongue.
L2 = L2 + L3 + L4 + Lx
Foreign language = any language other than the consumers’ first language.
Consequence = status of a language in advertising can only be defined in terms of the receiver
of the message.
How are foreign languages operationalized in FLA?
1. The official language of the participants’ country = L1
2. Self-reported language abilities
3. Proficiency test
Distinguishing foreign languages
FL variation example
Unidentifiable and incomprehensible Swahili in Italian advertising
Identifiable but incomprehensible Chinese in French advertising
Identifiable and partly comprehensible Spanish in German advertising
Identifiable and fully comprehensible English in Swedish advertising
Official language but not in the consumer’s
part of the country, with varying degrees
of comprehensibility French advertising in Flanders
One of the languages fully mastered and
used daily by bilinguals English in US advertising for Hispanics
Role of French in Flanders and The Netherlands.
- Not the official language
- But, taught to be spoken in Flanders, to be written in The Netherlands.
Manifestations of foreign languages
FLA used in various combinations with receivers’ mother tongue.
Code switching: the use of two different languages or language varieties within a single
conversation or written text. Using a random word in another language in your conversation,
written text. Non-dominant, embedded language.
Hygienic conception: the ideal bilingual switches from one language to the other according to
the appropriate changes in the speech situation but not in an unchanged speech situation, and
certainly not within a single sentence.
Lecture 1:
Progamme
- Fusion of advertising & marketing studies and linguistics.
- Sociolinguistics investigates how society impacts language.
Historical Overview (Piller, 2003)
- Loanwords
- Spanification for Latino customers in 1913.
- Normative perspective (coincides with view of standard language as a closed, uniform
system)
- Haarmann (1984, 1986 for studies in Japan) Foreign languages are employed in
product advertisements to associate the products with ethno-cultural stereotypes of the
speakers of the foreign language (French: elegance and style). Why do advertisers in
Japan use these languages? Mostly linked to specific product.
- From (loan)words to discourse:
o Prior to 1980: especially linguistics
o After 1980: expansion to marketing & advertising
Six topics identified:
1. Frequency of occurrence of FL: Majority of Greek advertisements in English, French,
Italian. (Sella. 1993)
2. Effects of FL: English and French on attitudes, comprehension, intention, recall.
French better for attitude and recall. (Petrof, 1990).
3. FL as a part of standardization: English as main instrument of Westernization in
Japanese ads. (Mueller, 1992).
4. Connections with products and countries: German and Japanese associated with
engineering quality. (Ray et al., 1991).
5. Foreign branding: Brand names such as ‘Larient.’ Different pronunciations. France
hedonism ; USA utilitarianism. French brand names lead to better evaluations when
they promote hedonistic products rather dan utilitarian products. (Leclerc et al., 1994).
6. English versus Spanish for US Hispanics. 4 types of ads in English and in Spanish.
Hispanics perceived the advertiser to be more culturally sensitive when the advertisers
used (some) Spanish than when they used only English. (Koslow et al., 1994).
Solid academic interest in foreign languages in advertising, both in the business domain
(marketing, advertising) and the linguistic domain (applied linguistics, sociolinguistics,
psycholinguistics). But: lack of integration of insights from one field to the other, which
hampers research progress. Studies in the field of linguistics have hardly incorporated insights
from marketing and advertising, and the other way around. Works best if you use both
disciplines together. Makes the best solutions for why those languages are used and their
effects etc.
,Consumer Culture Positioning Strategies
How can this diversity of topics be meaningfully integrated from a marketing point of view?
Snyder et al. (1991) and Mueller (1992) were first to study the use of (foreign) languages in a
marketing context.
- National character: restriction to local language(s).
- Foreign: use of non-local languages but not English.
- Standardized / Global: through the use of English.
Alden et al. (1999) present a framework that captures all three functions of foreign languages
in advertising and goals with which various languages can be used in advertising.
3 different types of brand positioning.
Brand positioning: ensuring that a brand has a unique position among its competitor brands
for the customer depends on number of variables, including language choice.
‘Identifies the brand as a symbol of a given global culture featuring the idea that consumers
all over the world consume a particular brand or appealing to certain human universals might
invest the brand with the cultural meaning of being a conduit to feeling at one with global
culture.’
Local Consumer Culture Positioning Strategies
‘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.’
Lecture 2; Defining and Studying advertising:
Studies reviewed in this course
Mainly two or more versions (FL or not) presented to participants asked to evaluate in terms
of:
- Ad attention
- Ad attitude
- Product and brand attitude
- Recall
- Purchase intention
Two versions too see how they perform.
Strength of experiments
Internal validity (controlled setting, attribution of effects to independent variable = language
& accent choice).
Achieved:
- By having () experimental conditions which only differ on the investigated
(independent) variable.
- By controlling all other variables & possible confounds.
, Weakness of experiments
Ecological validity (experiments deviate from real-life advertising).
When reading the materials: note the tension between implications of results and the material
used in the experiment. (How well can they be generalized?).
Defining foreign languages
L1 = a person’s first language or mother tongue. (For bilinguals both of their languages, in
case raised with both languages)
L2 = any language that is not a person’s mother tongue.
L2 = L2 + L3 + L4 + Lx
Foreign language = any language other than the consumers’ first language.
Consequence = status of a language in advertising can only be defined in terms of the receiver
of the message.
How are foreign languages operationalized in FLA?
1. The official language of the participants’ country = L1
2. Self-reported language abilities
3. Proficiency test
Distinguishing foreign languages
FL variation example
Unidentifiable and incomprehensible Swahili in Italian advertising
Identifiable but incomprehensible Chinese in French advertising
Identifiable and partly comprehensible Spanish in German advertising
Identifiable and fully comprehensible English in Swedish advertising
Official language but not in the consumer’s
part of the country, with varying degrees
of comprehensibility French advertising in Flanders
One of the languages fully mastered and
used daily by bilinguals English in US advertising for Hispanics
Role of French in Flanders and The Netherlands.
- Not the official language
- But, taught to be spoken in Flanders, to be written in The Netherlands.
Manifestations of foreign languages
FLA used in various combinations with receivers’ mother tongue.
Code switching: the use of two different languages or language varieties within a single
conversation or written text. Using a random word in another language in your conversation,
written text. Non-dominant, embedded language.
Hygienic conception: the ideal bilingual switches from one language to the other according to
the appropriate changes in the speech situation but not in an unchanged speech situation, and
certainly not within a single sentence.
