The Language Of Press Advertising

365 Pages·2015·21.23 MB·English

by  Mohammad Mahdiraji

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THE LANGUAGE OF PRESS ADVERTISING: THE CASE
OF PERSIAN ADVERTISING IN PRE. AND POST.
REVOLUTIONARY IRAN AND ABROAD
Submitted by
i
Mohammad Amuzadeh Mahdiraj
B.A. English Language and Literature: National University of kan
M.A. Apptied Linguistics: University of Queensland, Australia
A thesis submitted in total fulfilment of the
requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
Linguistics
Faculty of Arts
University of Adelaide
December 1997
Table of contents
Notations and abbreviations v
vi
Abstract
vii
Statement of authorship
viii
Acknowledgments
1 Introduction
1.1 Background 1
1.2 Língtistic and non-linguistic phenomena in han 4
1.2.1 The languages of han 5
1.2.2 Oral and literate modes of communication in Persian 10
1.2.3 Socio-political changes in han l4
1.3 Islam and modernisation t6
1.4 Commercial advertising in han 22
1.5 Organisation of the thesis 26
2 Survey on advertising linguistics
2.1 Linguistics and advertising 28
2.2 Stylistics and advertising 30
2.3 T ruth-conditional semantics and advertising 32
2.3 Descriptive linguistics and advertising 37
2.4 Semiotics and advertising 40
2.5 Prugmatics and advertising 45
2.6 Sociolinguistics and advertising 60
2.7 Discourse analysis and advertising 65
2.8 Concluding remarks 70
3 The datarmethods, and theoretical orientation
3.1 Types of data: commercial advertising 11
3.2 Source of data 72
11
3.3 The readership 75
3.4 Types of products 11
3.5 Data collection 81
3.6 Methods 81
3.7 Theoretical orientation 83
3.8 Limitations of the study 86
4 Linguistic construction of reality in advertising
4.l lntroduction 88
4.2 Language and reality 89
4.3 Social reality and advertising 92
4.3.1 Reality construction in the pre- revolutionary era 93
4.3.2Reality construction in the post-revolutionary era 108
4.4 Concluding remarks TT]
5 Symbolic value of European language use in Persian
advertising
5.1 Introduction t20
5.2 Langtage contact in han 12I
r2t
5.2.1 Abrief history of language contact in han
5.2.2 The situation of foreign language teaching in han r25
5.2.3 Stereotypes about Europeans in kan r27
5.3 Language contact and symbolic value of language use 130
5.4 Language display as code-switching 133
5.5 Analysis of data r39
5.5.2 European names for trade names r52
5.5.3 Quantitative analysis r63
5.6 Concluding remarks 119
6 Metaphor in advertising
6.1 Introduction 182
6.2 Linguistic theories and metaphor 183
111
6.3 Metaphor and advertising linguistics t92
t9l
6.4 Pictorial metaphors in advertising
6.5 Analysis of data 198
6.5.1 The analysis of ad 6.2 from the post-revolutionary period 198
6.5.2 The analysis of ad 6.3 from the pre-revolutionary period 205
6.5.3 The analysis of ad6.4 from the post-revolutionary period 201
6.5.4 The analysis of ad 6.5 from the pre-revolutionary period zto
6.5.5 The analysis of ad 6.6 from the post-revolutionary period 2tt
6.5.6 The analysis of ad 6.7 and other advertisements from
the post-revolutionary Period 2t2
6.6 Metaphors in brand-names 216
6.7 More on metaphors from the pre- and post-revolutionary data 226
6.8 Concluding remarks 232
7 Persian language advertising outside Iran
7.1 Introduction 237
7.2 Environment and language 239
7.3 Types of advertisements and source of data 241
7.4 Analysis of data 242
7.5 Concluding remarks 258
I
Summary, implications, and future directions
8.1 Summary and implications 26I
applications
8.2 Future direction and 265
han)
Appendix 1 (ethnolinguistic maps of 267
sounds)
Appendix 2 (Persian alphabet and 210
data)
Appendix 3 (the 271
Appendix 4 (the English translation of those data which have been referred in thesis,
translation)
but with partial or no 324
Bibliography
333
1V
Mahdiraii's thesis:
Amendments to
Persian Advertising in Pre- and Post
"The Language of Press Advertising.
Revolutionary Iran and Abroad."
General comment: The use of articles in glosses translated directly form Persian may be at variance
with English rules of article case.
page 3 line 1 Lossesses should read possess
page 75 line 3 Pubic should read public
page92 line 14 veiled images of women should read images of veiled women
page 108 title revolutionar should read revolutionaty
111 9
page line delete have
page I 14 line 4 has used should read uses
page 118 line 16 soccer. teams should read soccer teams
r22 5 shoutd read from the gth to the l1th
page rine
page 139 footnote 17 the people's pret-erence is given to should read people preler
page 1'44 line l0 according to should read in conforrnity with
page 1.78 line 10 Han'mann should rcad Haarmann
page 187 line 2 MazandaranilanguageshoulrlreadtheMazanclaranilanguage
page 188 line l0 in print shotrld road in Pt'ess
page224 line 17 fairf,- iaced should read fai r-l'aced
'lor tlavel agenls'
page24l line l0 insert as before
line 16 accomodates should read accommodatcs
page 250 line 1 delete t'irst token of ahroad
line 13 hierarchicy should read hierarch)'
page 25 I line l0 invovles should read itivolves
Notations and abbreviations
/ / obliques enclose phonological representations.
/ oblique is followed by an alternative item.
[ ] square brackets enclose my conìments inside direct quotes'
' ' single quotation marks are used as 'scare quotes', for technical terms, terms which are not
mine, and terms not previously introduced.
"
" double quotation marks are used for direct quotes.
italics are used for Persian words, utterances, and texts and their English translation. They
are also used for citing titles of works and propositions.
Note that transliteration of Persian and Arabic words are very diverse in literature. For
example, for the Qur'an other versions such as the Koran, Qour'an, Qora'n, Kouran can be
seen. However, I use 'the Qur'an' in this study unless I quote from other sources.
Ad for advertisement, I use this abbreviation only whenever the specified number of relevant
advertisements are indicated.
Adj for adjective
M for modifier
N for noun
NP for noun phrase
O for object
OM for object marker
S for subject
V for verb
v
University of Adelaide
Abstract
THE LANGUAGE OF PRESS ADVERTISING: THE CASE OF
PERSIAN LANGUAGE ADVERTISING IN PRE. AND POST.
REVOLUTIONARY IRAN AND ABROAD
kan has undergone profound social, political and ideological changes over the past two
decades, following the Islamic Revolution in 1979. The current research is focused on the
ways in which these changes are reflected and embodied in language, and in particular in
the language of commercial press advertising in han. This study will describe and theorise
about the changes found before I9l9 and after 1990, to investigate their varying effects on
sociolinguistic norms, and to relate the changes to extemal factors in the ideology and
social history of han. The thesis will also address the wider issue of the relation between
language and ideology in different kinds of societies, in particular Islamic societies. It will
also shed light on Persian commercial advertisements from abroad, where the Persian
language is used by a minority migrant group. Qualitative and quantitative analyses of
advertisements from pre- and post-revolutionary times, as well as advertisements from
abroad, form part of the empirical foundation of the thesis. The study demonstrates that
advertising language in han does not directly reflect the society. This finding differs from
previous studies (Henry, 1963; V/illiamson, 1978; Geis, 1982; Vestergaard and Schrøder,
1985; and Cook, 1992) canied out in western societies, which have concluded that
advertising language is a mirror image of its society. This study suggests that advertising
language in han does not function the same way as it does in western countries.
vl

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I wish to express my thanks to those people and organisations without whose support, advice
and encouragement the completion of this thesis would not have been possible.
My deepest gratitude goes to my supervisor, Professor Peter Muhlhausler, for his academic
and personal support. In fact, it has been a great privilege for me to benef,rt from his first
rate supervision. I am also very grateful to my sponsor, The Ministry of Culture and Higher
Education in han, which fînanced me to conduct this study.
A special thank goes to Dr Phillip læppard, my statistical consultant, who contributed
immensely to the work in chapter 5, resulting in a useful and sophisticated quantitative
analysis. I would like also to thank Margaret Young for teaching me the statistical program,
SPSS. I am also thankful to Jackie Mühlhäusler, Carol Gibson and Janice Laurie for their
proof reading. I wish also to thank my family members, in particular my wife (Ashraf) and
children (Salva and Abulhasan), and friends, particularly Rodney Huddleston and Hussein
Shiravi, who have provided critically needed moral support and encouragement. I am also
immenseþ indebted to Khadijeh and Farzaneh for their direct involvement in my study, the
former for her help following up my student affairs in the Department of Scholarship in kan,
and the latter for her involvement in sending me data. It would be impossible to mention all
the friends who have supported me during these years.
v111
Chapter I
THE LANGUAGE OF PRESS ADVERTISING: THE
CASE OF PERSIAN LANGUAGE ADVERTISING IN
PRE. AND POST.REVOLUTIONARY IRAN AND
ABROAD
INTRODUCTION
Among His other signs are the creation of heaven and earth and the diversity of ]¡our
tongues and colours. Surely, there are signs in this for all mankind. (The Qtt'an,30:22
translated by Dawood, 1990)
L.1 Background
In recent decades, advertising has attracted the attention of many scholars in different
disciplines, including economics, sociology, psychology, and communication studies.
Language (verbal and visual) performs important functions in advertising discourse; one of
the main functions of advertising language is to persuade the addressee to buy goods and
services or develop positive images of a product or company. Even Iæech (1966), who
gives a completely descriptive analysis of advertising language, describes it as 'loaded
language' and says (1966:26) that the aim of the advertising industry is "to change the will,
opinions, or attitudes of its audience".
Advertising in Iran has not been studied until now, although several advertising studies
have been ca:ried out for other languages and cultures (for Chinese: Han, I99I; a cross-
cultural study incorporating Hindi, Chinese, Japanese, French, Italian, and Spanish: Bhatia,
1992; for Japanese: Takashi, 1990 and l99l; and English vs Japanese: Tanaka, 1994;1or
Japanese: Haarmann, 1984, 1986 and 1989; and Hoffer, 1990; for Arabic: Kavoosi and