17 semantic puns for example. The use of ambiguity may make a phrase
memorable and re-readable. For instance, the product which has the ambiguity features is the Apple‟s slogan “Think Different”. Apple‟s slogan avoids using the
word “differently”, even though the adverb might have been more grammatically correct, because its intended message is to make the audience think about
“different”.
4 Use of Imperative
An imperative can be used to make an order. Advertisers use an imperative to make the audience act or do something, including buy or use the
advertised product. For example, the imperative used in a poster of newly launched cassette album, Grab it now Buy it now That imperative suggests the
audience to buy the cassette album.
5 Simple and Colloquial Language
This kind of language is only used in informal expressions. Grey 2008 assumes that colloquial expressions do not bear the meaning they normally have.
For example, it ain’t half good. That sentence looks very informal because of the
use of ain’t which can indicate the presence of simple and colloquial language. In
fact, it is often complex and it is impressed ambiguous.
6 Present Tense
A present tense gives as if the condition is real whenever the audience sees or hears the advertisements. Grey 2008 says that a present tense implies a
universal timelessness. It makes the audience will see or hear that sentence like in the real time.
18
7 Syntactic Parallelism
Leech 1972 defines parallelism as a repetition of formal patterns of two or more similar ideas in similar structural forms. For example, stay dry, stay
happy. The word stay is repeated to make the sentence more interesting for the audience because the similar pattern.
8 Association
Advertisements should associate the positive side of the product to something else. It is sometimes indicated by the words like and as. For example
fresh as a mountain stream. The freshness is associated with a mountain stream although those are two different things.
9 Ellipsis
Goddard 2002, p. 123 defines ellipsis as “the omission of part of a
structure.” This definition also strengthened by Cook 1996 which says one of aims of the use ellipsis is to create the sense of informality. Automatically, the use
of ellipsis makes the complete sentence becomes to be an incomplete sentence. As long as it is used in the right track, for example it is used in advertising or in other
an informal language, it is helpful for the advertiser or the audiences.
10 Incomplete Sentence
Grey 2008 identifies an incomplete sentence as one of the linguistic features of advertisements. Using an incomplete sentence helps the audience to
catch the main point of advertisements. Incomplete sentence or more familiar called fragments totally help the advertiser to send the message because it can
save space and emphasize the points; it can be more conversational and a better
19 idea to call an action. For example, when there is a company gives a customer a
call of action like “Visit our Website” It is more effective instead of its complete sentence “We want you to visit our website for more information.”
4. Persuasion Techniques
Kleppner 1986 proposes an idea of the classification of persuasion techniques based on the marketing situation and human characteristics. The main
consideration of those three techniques is the product existence in the marketing area and how people‟s attitude towards the product. These are three techniques of
persuasion: pioneering stage, competitive stage, and retentive stage.
a. Pioneering Stage
This technique is used to introduce a product which has been just released. Typically, advertisers will show consumers that they can meet their
needs by using the advertised product. Besides, advertisers convince consumers that the product will give satisfaction in an efficient way. In 2011, Lane, King,
and Reichert conclude that pioneering advertising generally stresses what the product can do, offer, or provide that could not have been done, offered, or
provided by any product before. It is important for advertiser to remember what determines the stage of the advertising is consumer perception of the product p.
95.
b. Competitive Stage
The advertisers direct people to choose the products which have existed in the market. Lane, King, and Reichert 2011 state that once consumers accept a
pioneering product, there is going to be competition. At this point, the main
20 question the consumer asks is, “Which brand shall I buy?” p. 98. Many
advertisements need to compete with others to win people‟s interest towards the advertised products. It is usually done by showing the uniqueness of the product
which makes it different from other brands. Advertisers should emphasize why consumers should choose the advertised product instead of other similar products
from other brands. For examples, it can be seen from the slogan of some fast food brands which competing each other. The slogan of KFC, Kentucky Fried Chicken,
Jagonya Ayam, Texas Fried Chicken‟s slogan says, Texas Chicken, Renyahnya
Nomor Satu , and McDonald‟s slogan says, McDonald’s, I’m Lovin It Then, the
consumers can freely select the products which they consider best to consume.
c. Retentive Stage
The purpose of retentive stage is to maintain the existence of the advertised product. By using this technique, advertisers give reminder to
consumers that a product still exists in markets. Advertisers use this technique when the advertised product has been marketed for a long time. Retentive stage is
also known as reminder stage because it can be a reminder for the audience about the existence of the advertised product, Lane, King Reichert, 2011, p. 100.
B. Theoretical Frameworks
As described previously, it can be noticed that an advertisement is a form of communication that has a purpose to persuade. It is also directed to a
group of people and not a face to face communication. The source of communication is the advertiser, whereas the receiveraudience is the consumer.
21 Thus, most advertisements try to be persuasive, although some advertisements are
intended merely to inform, not to persuade. Therefore, the brief explanation of some related theories of this research have been mentioned in this chapter.
Based on the theoretical description, the researcher wraps up the appropriate theories to accomplish the objectives of this research. There are two
major theories which are used to answer the formulated research questions. Those are the language style of advertisements and the persuasion techniques.
To answer the first research question, related to the use of certain linguistic features of advertisements, the researcher analyzes the language style of
advertising based on Grey‟s theory 2008. There are two parts of language style in advertisements. The first part is the lexical features that deal with the lexical
items or the use of words. They consist of hyperbole, neologism, weasel word, familiar language, simple vocabulary, repetition, euphemism, humor,
glamorization, and potency. The other part is the syntactic features which deal with the grammatical properties. Those consist of short sentence, long noun
phrase, and ambiguity, use of imperative, simple and colloquial language, present tense, syntactic parallelism, association, ellipsis, and incomplete sentence. The
researcher analyzes the utterances of vitamin drink advertisements and then classifies them to the characteristics of advertisement linguistic features proposed
by Grey 2008. The main reason why researcher chooses the theory of Grey is because there is specific description on the characteristics of advertisement
language. Different from other theories of the advertising language, Grey‟s theory
