广告英语的语言特色

goods to do something to

make

people

want

to

acquire

their

commodities.”

(Vestergaard

and

Schroder

4)

The

embryonic

form

of

advertising

in

the

world

is

street

cries,

which

exist

even

today.

Advertising

was

not

unknown

in

ancient Greece and Rome, but advertising

as

we

recognize

it

did

not

start

until

the

seventeenth century in the West. It was at

about

this

time

that

newspaper

began

to

circulate.

Before

that,

it

is

printing

which

was

first

invented

in

China

and

then

introduced

to

the

West

that

played

a

vital

role in the production of print advertising.

“Classified”

(small

ads)

types

of

advertising

were

dominant

before

the

nineteenth century and style and language

used in ads at that time tended to be direct

and informative. The industrial Revolution,

which began in England in the mid-1700s

and reached the United States by the early

1800s,

facilitated

mass-production

of

goods.

Meanwhile

advertising

became

more and more important in the industrial

market.

The

great

breakthrough

for

advertising

came

only

in

the

late

nineteenth

century.

Technology

and

mass-production

techniques

were

then

sufficiently developed for more firms to be

able

to

turn

out

products

of

roughly

the

same quality and at roughly the same price.

This brought on a crisis of over-production

and

under

consumption

which

meant

that

the

market

needed

to

be

stimulated

by

advertising.

At

this

time

advertising

changed its function from proclamation to

persuasion.

In

the

twentieth

century,

advertising

developed

rapidly

alongside

the

advent

of

new

media-radio

and

television in succession.

According

to

Richard

Pollay

’

s

content

analysis of two thousand print ads from ten

leading

magazines

in

the

USA,

ads

have

progressively

turned

towards

the

emotional

rather

than

the

informative

approach and there is a shift seeing human

nature

as

rational

to

seeming

it

as

emotional.

Today

in

China,

while

our

economic

structure

is

shifting

from

the

entirely

planned

economy

to

the

socialist

market

economy

system,

advertising

is

becoming

more and more active and sophisticated. In

1992,

China

’

s

advertising

expenditure

reached

$$

862

million,

among

the

fastest

growing countries in Asia. This year with

the

entry

of

China

into

WTO,

this

expenditure

figure

will

undoubtedly

rise

up,

which

will

support

the

view

that

advertising

is

an

indispensable

means

for

providing

the

information

that

all

market-oriented

industrialized

societies

need

for

their

economies

to

function

efficiently.

Classifications of Advertising

Advertising

may

be

classified

by

medium

(newspaper,

magazine,

radio,

television).

By

target

audience

(consumer,

industrial,

business),

by

geography

(international,

national, regional, local), or by its function

or

purpose

(product

or

non- product,

commercial

or

noncommercial,

primary

demand or selective demand, direct action

or indirect action).

Because

it

is

difficult

to

gain

access

to

enough

date

for

English

commercials

and

ads on radio or TV

, thus, the subject of this

research paper will mainly concentrate on

the print advertising.

Roles of Advertising

An advertiser

’

s main purpose is to present

and

exhibit

product

or

service,

and

to

spread

the

influence

and

coverage

of

which

to

the

extent

that

the

potential

purchasing

population

becomes

real

and

actual.

Simply

put,

advertisers

try

by

the

various

means

at

their

disposal

to

get

people

to

buy

the

product

or

service

advertised.

Moreover,

advertisers

want

potential

purchasers

to

consider

what

is

advertised

to

the

exclusion

of

all

other

similar

products

or

services.

They

therefore

attempt

to

construct

an

advertisement

that

will

fully

involve

the

attention

of

the

potential

purchaser

and

which

will

have

a

persuasive

effect.

Advertisers thus create a semiotic world in

order

to

persuade

their

audience

of

essential

“rightness”

of

purchasing

the

product or service advertised.

Definitions of Advertising

After

a

brief

introduction

of

the

classifications and roles of advertising, we

now come to the definitions of advertising.

From

different

perspectives

or

purposes,

the definitions might also vary. In English,

the

word

“advertise”

has

its

origin

in

“advertere”

in

Latin,

meaning

“to

inform

somebody

of

something”,

“to

bring

into

notice”

or

“to

draw

attention

to

something”, etc. In Chinese, the equivalent

term

“guanggao”

means

“widely

announce”.

The

father

of

modern

advertising,

Albert

Lasker

said

that

advertising

was

“salesmanship

in

print”.

Although

the

definition

was

given

long

before

the

advent

of

radio

and

television,

and

the

nature and scope of advertising at that time

were

considerably

different

than

they

are

today,

this

often-repeated

saying

indicates

that the ultimate objective of advertising is

to

sell.

Obviously

it

is

not

a

working

definition

because

we

cannot

use

it

to

cover

all

advertisements.

Today,

a

widely

quoted

working

definition

of

advertising

was

put

forward

by

Courtland

L.

Bovee

and William F. Arens :” Advertising is the

nonpersonal

communication

of

information,

usually

paid

for

and

usually

persuasive

in

nature,

about

products