MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING 2019 – 2021 (2) HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY M. THESIS ENGLISH LANGUAGE LINGUISTIC FEATURES OF COFFEE ADVERTISING SLOGANS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE (Đặc điểm ngôn ngữ trong các khẩu hiệu quảng cáo cà phê trong tiếng Anh và tiếng Việt) PHAN THỊ MAI HƯƠNG Field: English Language PHAN THỊ MAI HƯƠNG Code: 8.01 HANOI, 2021 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY M. THESIS LINGUISTIC FEATURES OF COFFEE ADVERTISING SLOGANS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE (Đặc điểm ngôn ngữ trong các khẩu hiệu quảng cáo cà phê trong tiếng Anh và tiếng Việt) PHAN THỊ MAI HƯƠNG Field: English Language Code: 8. LE PHUONG THAO HANOI, 2021 CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report entitled “Linguistic features of coffee advertising slogans in English and Vietnamese” submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master in the English Language.
Except where the reference is indicated, no other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgment in the text of the thesis. Hanoi, 2021 Phan Thị Mai Hương Approved by supervisor Lê Phương Thảo, Dr. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the following people for their great supports during the time I carried out this research. First and foremost, I would like to express my deep gratitude to Dr.
Le Phuong Thao, my supervisor, for her clear guidance, insightful comments, and dutiful supervision. I would like to give my sincere thanks to all the lectures at Hanoi Open University for their knowledge, experience, and enthusiasm in their lectures from which I have acquired valuable knowledge and inspiration to fulfill this minor thesis. Last but not least, I must express my gratitude to my family. It is their endless love and expectations that have motivated me to complete this thesis.
I am immensely thankful for all the assistance they have given to me. ii ABSTRACT This study focused on syntactic and semantic features of coffee advertising slogans in English and Vietnamese to find out the similarities and differences between them. This research used quantitative and qualitative approaches. A quantitative approach was employed to obtain the frequency of the types of structures, and the types of meaning conveyed through the selected slogans.
And the qualitative approach was used to describe and analyze the features of slogans from linguistic aspects. The data were in the form of slogans used by different companies in English and Vietnamese. The results of this research show that in terms of syntax, clauses, phrases, and simple sentences are the most common structures used in English slogans, while Vietnamese ones focus on clauses and sentences. These structures in general keep the slogans short, and easy to remember, which are the key points in making marketing and creating slogans.
In terms of meanings, both English and Vietnamese slogans convey different types of meaning to make a specific impression, but most of them express the conceptual meaning which shows the direct meaning based on the dictionary. These results are meaningful for those who are working in marketing, for lecturers who are teaching language, and for learners who are studying English language, so that they can have different viewpoints about the language used in advertising language in general, and in slogan in specific. iii LIST OF ABBREVIATION AIDA: Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action A: Adverbial C: Compliment O: Object S: Subject V: Verb iii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 3.1: Types of English slogans in terms of syntax 30 Figure 3.2: types of Vietnamese slogans in terms of syntax 36 Figure 3.3: Types of English slogans in terms of semantics 40 Figure 3.4: Types of Vietnamese slogans in terms of semantics 49 vi TABLE OF CONTENTS CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY. iii LIST OF ABBREVIATION .iv LIST OF FIGURES.
v TABLE OF CONTENTS. vi Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION. Aims and objectives of the study. Scope of the study.
Methods of the study. Methods of the study. Significance of the study. Structure of the study.
5 Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW. Previous studies on English slogans. Previous studies on Vietnamese slogans. An overview of linguistic features.
Theories of syntax in English. Theories of syntax in Vietnamese. Theories of semantics in English. Theories of semantics in Vietnamese.
An overview of advertising. An overview of slogans. Definition of slogan. Classification of slogans.
An overview of coffee advertising slogans in English and in Vietnamese. 30 COMPARISON BETWEEN COFFEE ADVERTISING SLOGANS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE. Syntactic features of coffee advertising slogans in English and in Vietnamese. Syntactic features of coffee advertising slogans in English.
Syntactic features of coffee advertising slogans in Vietnamese .Semantic features of coffee advertising slogans in English and in Vietnamese .Semantic features of coffee advertising slogans in English .Semantic features of coffee advertising slogans in Vietnamese. A comparison between coffee advertising slogans in English and in Vietnamese. A comparison between coffee advertising slogans in English and in Vietnamese in terms of syntax .A comparison between coffee advertising slogans in English and in Vietnamese in terms of semantics. Limitation of the study.
Implications and suggestions for further research. For language learners. Some suggestions for further studies. 69 iv Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION 1.
Rationale It is undeniable that nowadays, we can find ourselves be surrounded by advertising by companies that keep telling us about their products and what should we do, or what should we buy. Rajpal (2014), an anchor and correspondent for CNN International, wrote that everywhere we go, everywhere we look, we are inundated with messages. That is why the customers do not even have to think for themselves. All they have to do is to sit on our comfy couch and be told how to live their lives, from how to look, what to wear, what to eat, to drink, etc.
That can be considered as the power of advertising. However, this diversity also puts challenges to marketers. They need some devices that can catch the customers’ attention, arouse their desire, and induce their action. And they realized that slogan is a good choice.
Slogans can be made in the form of short, catchy, and creative sayings that leave an unforgettable impression on the potential customers’ minds. And to achieve that result, it requires a sophisticated linguistic insight of phonology, lexicology, syntax, as well as semantics and pragmatics. As a result, it is true to say that using language in advertising is a kind of art. There have been studies on slogans of fast food, cosmetics, mobile phone, car, etc.
but there have been no studies on slogans for drinks, or coffee in particular. Realizing the missing here and the benefits of understanding the method for generating slogans, as well as the syntactic and semantic features of slogans towards those who are working in the marketing fields and those who are finding documents and studying this topic, the writer decided to carry out a study to analyze and compare the coffee advertising slogans in English and in Vietnamese to find out the similarities and differences between them. The paper presents theoretical background about previous studies in English and in Vietnamese on slogans in general, as well as necessary theories about syntax and semantics, marketing, and slogans in English and in Vietnamese, which will be used to analyze the slogans to draw out the similarities and differences between them. The slogans analyzed in the study are collected from different companies’ websites and the internet.
The result of the study, hopefully, will be beneficial for the marketers who are trying to seek and create their slogans, and for those who are interested in the art of language in slogans. Theoretically, the study provides a comprehensive understanding of the syntactic and semantic features 1 of the English and Vietnamese slogans. It is of great significance for anyone who desires to study more about advertising language in general and advertising language for a beverage in particular. Practically, the results of the study value for those who intend to start their journey into studying syntactic and semantic features of the language.
It also helps English and Vietnamese customers, who are interested in language, master linguistic features used by marketers to advertise their products. For the above reasons, the author would like to choose the topic “Linguistic features of coffee advertising slogans in English and Vietnamese” with the attempt to find out the similarities and differences between slogans in English and Vietnamese and draw out the implications for further studies in the same field. Aims and objectives of the study This study aims at helping the readers, who are English and Vietnamese customers of coffee companies and have an interest in language, master linguistic features of slogans used by marketing writers to advertise their products. It is also helpful for further studies on slogans by providing linguistic background theory.
In order to achieve the aim, the study is expected to reach the following objectives: - To investigate syntactic and semantic features of coffee advertising slogans in English and Vietnamese. - To uncover the similarities and differences between the slogans in English and Vietnamese in terms of syntactic and semantic perspectives. - To propose some implications about linguistic features of language in advertising. Research questions This study is aimed at answering the following questions: 1.
What are the syntactic and semantic features of coffee advertising slogans in English and Vietnamese? 2. What are the similarities and differences of coffee advertising slogans in English and Vietnamese? 3. What are the implications about language in advertising slogans for advertisers who are working in marketing, for teachers and for English language learners in learning English and Vietnamese coffee advertising slogans? 2 1. Scope of the study This study looks at the syntactic and semantic features of the selected slogans, so it presents related theories about syntax and semantics.
In the framework of the study, this thesis only focuses on slogans used for drinks, or coffee in particular, in English and Vietnamese. 60 slogans, including 30 ones in English, and 30 ones in Vietnamese, were collected from June 2021 to December 20021, from companies’ websites and social networks in English and Vietnamese. Therefore, this research may not cover all slogans about drinks in English and Vietnamese. Methods of the study 1.
Research approaches To reach the goal of the study, two main research approaches are used. They are quantitative and qualitative approaches. According to Saville-Troike (1982), comparing and contrasting are the two of the best ways to point out the features between different objects. This process will reveal the similarity and differences features of linguistics patterns and their meanings.
Thus, contrastive linguistics with its associated research method – Contrastive analysis – will be used as the primary research framework for this study. For the comparison of the frequencies of patterns in the two languages under the study, a quantitative analysis of the corpus is adopted. Under the quantitative method, data have been collected for the study including both slogans in English and Vietnamese. And the qualitative method is used to describe and analyze linguistic features of the data in the study.
Methods of the study 1. Major methods In order to achieve the aims are given, descriptive and contrastive methods are used in the thesis. Firstly, the descriptive method is used to describe in detail the syntactic and semantic features through the examples of English and Vietnamese slogans about coffee collected from companies’ websites and social networks. Secondly, contrastive and comparative methods are used to find out the similarities and differences in the syntactic and semantics features through the examples of English and Vietnamese slogans used by coffee companies.
Supporting methods The supporting methods are analytical, synthetic methods, and others.