PHONOSEMANTICS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE IN ADVERTISINGNowadays linguists study the discursive representation of the advertising texts (brand names) as well as numerous linguistic means and methods applied in advertising discourse such as the usage of colourful pictures, special slogan illustrations, various ways of delivering the slogans’ meaning with the help of proverbs, schemas, concepts, categories, analogies, metaphors, associations, etc. Another tendency of a target advertising discourse investigation includes its phonosemantic studies with the focus on the representation of the phonosemantics of a particular langauge in brand names (English texts) and how it influences the buyers' choice. We think that the study of the phonosemantics in advertising helps to investigate the communicative aim found in the advertising discourse and identify its power or influence in the brand names (English texts) on buyers.
In view if this, the aim of this publication is to ascertain the semantic representation of the English sounds in advertising mainly in the brand names (English texts) of fast food, drinks, clothes and informational innovative codes that people normally buy nowadays.
To do our work we have worked out a scheme of the advertising text study based on the semiolinguistic investigation of advertising texts found in the works by Umberto Eco, examining iconic, linguistic and sound codes of advertising based on the notion of sound symbolism or phonosemantics. We have taken and then further studied 65 brand names of fast food, drinks, clothes, and informational innovative codes found in the English texts in the following magazines such as Elle, Cosmopolitain, Bazaar, etc. We have obtained the following results. First, the true iconism theory is the most fundamental type of linguistic iconism that can be applied to the semiolinguistic studies of the phonosemantics in brand names (English texts). Second, the phonosemantic power or influence of the brand names (English texts) can be defined due to their consonantal and vocalic sound symbolism studies. Let us have a closer look at an English phonestheme /n/. It is considered to bear the meaning of something 'new' and 'neat' that can be found in the popular modern products in the brand names people buy these days such as Sony, Nokia, Cannon, Lenovo, Panasonic, Naf-Naf, Fendi, DKNY, Giorgio Armani, Mango, Arizona. Let us study the role of the /n/ phonestheme within the brand names (English texts) now. Well, it has its strongest phonosemantic power or influence in the initial position: Nokia, Naf-Naf; its weaker phonosemantic power or influence in its middle position within a brand name (English text): Sony, Lenovo, Fendi, DKNY, Giorgio Armani, Mango; its weakest phonosemantic power or influence in its final position. Stressed phonesthemes are considered to possess greater phonosemantic power or influence (e.g.: ˈNokia, Leˈnovo,ˈNaf-ˈNaf). The frequency of certain phonesthemes found in the brand names makes a phonosemantic accent on the overall power or influence of the brand name on the buyers (e.g.: Naf-Naf, Panasonic and Cannon). What is more, the phonosemantic power or influence of the same phonesthemes varies within different brand names (English texts). For example, in the brand names of clothes and informational innovative codes the phonosemantics of /n/ implies the meanings of 'new' and 'neat' (Sony, Nokia, Cannon, Lenovo, Panasonic, Naf-Naf, Fendi, DKNY, Giorgio Armani, Mango) whereas, in the brand names of food and drinks (Arizona, Fornetti), the target sound /n/ symbolizes 'nice' flavour and taste. The study of the other English sounds found in the brand names (English texts) in advertising can go on. We have come to the conclusion that the role of sound symbolism in the advertising studies cannot be underestimated as we have proved the semantic representation of the English sounds in advertising (study the brand names) and assumed the existence of various semantic representations of the same sound in brand names of the popular products that we normally buy nowadays. In conclusion, we can state that the text creation in advertising is realized by means of phonosemantic selection of sounds that carry definite motivation within them and may be used as a textual-discursive strategy. References Author: Daria Rastiegaieva (Kyiv, Ukraine) |
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