Lexical Features Linguistic Features in Advertisement
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has special automatic chronograph. Besides, audiences’ perception is the product is better from other products because the advertisement uses long phrase that is
not used in other product advertisements.
3 Ambiguity
A phrase or a sentence which has more than one cognitive meaning is called an ambiguous phrase or sentence. According to Leech 1972, there is
contradiction between lexical ambiguity and grammatical ambiguity. Lexical ambiguity consists of lexical homonymy and lexical polysemy, while grammatical
ambiguity consists of grammatical homonymy and grammatical polysemy. While according to Grey 2008, ambiguity maybe syntactic or semantic puns for
example. The use of ambiguity is to make a phrase memorable. The example of ambiguity is the Electrolux slogan, “Nothing sucks like an Electrolux” The word
sucks sounds negative but it is positive in this slogan because sucks is the primary function of vacuum cleaner. The use word sucks is to grab audiences’ attention.
4 Use of Imperative
Many advertisers use an imperative to make the audience act or do something, like buy or use the advertised product. The use of imperative is to
order something. For example, the imperative which is used in LA cigarettes slogan, talk less, do more. That imperative suggests the audience to buy the
product.
5 Simple and Colloquial Language
Grey 2008 defines that colloquial expressions do not bear the meaning normally have. Simple and colloquial is only used in informal sentence. For
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example, It ain’t half good. That sentence uses simple and colloquial language because the word ain’t is informal word.
6 Present Tense
Grey 2008 says that a present tense implies a universal timelessness. The use of present tense in advertisement is to make the advertisement looks real
whenever the audience sees or hears. Example of present tense is the slogan of Rossini, Time always follows me. From that slogan whenever the audience sees or
hear, they will feel like in the real time.
7 Syntactic Parallelism
The use of syntactic parallelism is to interest audience. Leech 1972 says that parallelism is a repetition of formal patterns of two or more similar ideas in
similar structural forms. Example, stay dry, stay happy. From the example people can see the repetition in similar pattern of word stay. The word stay makes the
phrase more interesting.
8 Association
Sometimes, an advertisement uses words like and as. It is because the advertisement should associate a positive side toward the product and other.
Example, fresh as a mountain stream. That example shows that freshness is associated with a mountain stream although they are two different things.
9 Ellipsis
Goddard 2002, p. 123 describes ellipsis as “the omission of part of a structure.” While according to Cook 1996, one of ellipsis purpose is to create the
sense of informality. An ellipsis is the omission of words which still can be PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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understood to make advertisement more interesting and simple, Grey, 2008. The example is the utterance Nespresso, what else? Actually, the grammatical rules
should be “You’ll take Nespresso. Then, what else would you like to drink?” If the slogan uses grammatical rules it will become long sentence and it looks too
formal so the advertiser uses ellipsis to make the slogan interesting and simple.
10 Incomplete Sentence
Sometimes, the audience does not pay attention carefully to the sentence of the advertisement. Grey 2008 says that an incomplete sentence is one kind of
the linguistic features of advertisements. The use of incomplete sentence is to make audience grasp the main point of the advertisement. An example of
incomplete sentence is in L’Oréal slogan, “Because you’re worth it”. The slogan is more interesting in an advertisement instead of the use of complete sentence
“We want you to use L’Oréal products as your make up products because you are worth it.”