Analysis of Doublespeak in 'Maybelline' Mascara Advertisements.

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Maranatha Christian University

ABSTRACT

Dalam tugas akhir ini saya membahas doublespeak dalam berbagai iklan maskara yang diproduksi oleh Maybelline. Dalam dunia bisnis, iklan mempunyai peran yang sangat penting untuk mengenalkan suatu produk kepada para konsumen. Dalam setiap iklan, kita akan menemukan slogan dan tagline yang mengandung

doublespeak, namun kita tidak akan menyadarinya karena kita tidak mengerti apa sebenarnya doublespeak itu.

Saya mengambil delapan iklan maskara bermerek Maybelline dari Internet untuk saya analisis, dan saya dapat menemukan semua jenis doublespeak dalam dunia periklanan seperti puffing, weasel word, unfinished word, parity claim, dan up to claim.

Para pembuat iklan bersaing membuat iklan yang dapat menarik minat para konsumen untuk membeli barang mereka. Maka dari itu, mereka menggunakan

doublespeak pada iklan yang mereka buat untuk menjaring pembeli dan membuat produk mereka terlihat memiliki lebih banyak keunggulan dibandingkan dengan produk merek lain.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS……….i

TABLE OF CONTENTS...ii

ABSTRACT………....iii

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION Background of the Study…………...………1

Statement of the Problem………...4

Purpose of the Study………..4

Method of Research………...4

Organization of the Thesis……….5

CHAPTER TWO: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK………...……6

CHAPTER THREE: ANALYSIS OF DOUBLESPEAK IN MAYBELLINE MASCARA ADVERTISEMENTS……… ….10

CHAPTER FOUR: CONCLUSION………37

BIBLIOGRAPHY………..42

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APPENDICES

Data 1

Expression Kind of Doublespeak

New Explosive Rocket 8x Bigger Smoother

Weasel Word Puffing Puffing Puffing

Unfinished Word Unfinished Word

Data 2

Expression Kind of Doublespeak

New Colossal Enriched Claw Thick Extend

Weasel Word Puffing Weasel Word Weasel Word Weasel Word Puffing Weasel Word

45 Fierce

Up to 7x

Weasel Word Up to Claim

Data 3

Expression Kind of Doublespeak

Bigger Flirtier Bold De-clump Unfinished Word Unfinished Word Weasel Word Weasel Word Data 4

Expression Kind of Doublespeak

The first 24 hr Magnum Instant Warm Weasel Word Weasel Word Weasel Word Weasel Word Weasel Word Data 5

Expression Kind of Doublespeak

Dramatic Up to 45° angle Up to 12 hrs New

Weasel Word Up to Claim Up to Claim Weasel Word

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Data 6

Expression Kind of Doublespeak

Blackest Colossal The #1 Blacker More volume Up to 7x New Parity Claim Weasel Word Weasel Word Unfinished Word Unfinished Word Up to Claim Weasel Word

Data 7

Expression Kind of Doublespeak

Longer Thicker Super Separated New Unfinished Word Unfinished Word Weasel Word Weasel Word Weasel Word Data 8

Expression Kind of Doublespeak

Sexier Refined Redefined New Unfinished Word Weasel Word Weasel Word Weasel Word

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CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1Background of the Study

The topic of my thesis is Doublespeak in Maybelline Advertisements, and the linguistic area of my thesis is pragmatics. I have chosen to discuss Doublespeak because I want to know how the advertisers use words to grab the customers’ attention and make them want to buy their products. It is interesting to know how such words can manipulate someone’s mind. Advertisements have an important role in the advertising world since they help companies to introduce and promote their products. Advertisements appear on the radio, television, magazines, newspaper, the Internet, and other media. Thus, from dawn to dusk people will see a lot of advertisements. Many companies spend a lot of money on making advertisements for their products. “According to Advertising Age, the top ten advertisers for 1987 spent over $8.3 billion” (Lutz 71). The main reason for them to be willing to pay a lot for making advertisements is that they want people to

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Maranatha Christian University know their products. According to Doublespeak, “64 percent of teenagers said that they get information about new products from television, while 36 percent said they often buy the products after seeing the commercials for them” (Lutz 75). As I have mentioned before, advertisers use television as one of the media to promote their products, and that 36 percent of the teenagers buy the products after seeing the advertisements. Advertisements obviously have a great impact on the consumers.

Advertisements use Doublespeak to promote, attract, and persuade people to buy their products. Doublespeak is very effective to deceive people because it can make something harsh seem or sound soft; it claims something that is not the same in reality. It really helps the advertisers to show to the consumers that their product is good or is the best among other products. In general, there are four kinds of Doublespeak, namely euphemism, jargon, gobbledygook, and inflated language. Besides, there are four other kinds of Doublespeak which are often used in the world of advertising, namely parity claim, weasel word, unfinished word, and up to claim.

In this thesis, I use Maybelline advertisements for the data because as a woman, I find that make up such as lipstick, mascara, and eyeliner are important things to improve women’s look or make them look more beautiful. There are many kinds of brands of make up, but Maybelline, which was established in 1915, is still popular until now. One of the reasons for Maybelline to exist until now is its constant advertisements. “80 percent of the women agreed that women in general were more affected by advertising” (Lutz 78). This shows that advertisements really help the company to sell their products by using Doublespeak.

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Maranatha Christian University I have chosen the Internet as the source of my data. In this global era, the Internet is very important, since almost everything can be found in this medium. That is why many companies nowadays use the Internet to introduce and promote their products to the public. Besides, the Internet is the most effective medium of communication. What happened one hour ago can be checked in the Internet. Most people nowadays use the Internet to find anything they need. Small children, teenagers, adults of all ages mostly have the Internet access every day. Thus, many companies use the Internet to promote their products through advertisements in the Internet.

Companies also make official websites for their own brands to make it easier for people to find anything about the brands such as new products, current events, or explanation and information about their products. In this case, Maybelline has its own official web, in which people can find out about its new products and explanation about them.

The general benefit of being able to identify Doublespeak is of course to know the real meaning about the products. Besides, the use of jargon in the advertisements will give us knowledge about special language in the world of cosmetics; thus, for example, we can know the meaning of the acronym SPF 15 and what it is for. Being able to identify Doublespeak will give us a lot of benefit, and the most important thing is that advertisements will not be able to mislead us anymore.

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1.1Statement of the Problem

In the analysis, there are three problems that I would like to solve: 1. Which words or phrases in the advertisements contain Doublespeak? 2. What kind of Doublespeak do those words or phrases belong to? 3. How does Doublespeak mislead the consumers?

1.2Purpose of the Study

By answering the questions above, I would like to accomplish these purposes: 1. To identify which words or phrases in the advertisements contain Doublespeak 2. To identify what kind of Doublespeak those words or phrases belong to

3. To show how Doublespeak misleads the consumers

1.3Method of Research

The first step in conducting the analysis is to understand what Doublespeak is, and the theory that I use is William Lutz’ Doublespeak. The next step is looking for the data; I use Maybelline advertisements as the data and get the data from the Internet. The final step is writing the report of the analysis.

1.4Organization of the Thesis

This thesis is divided into four chapters. Chapter One is Introduction; it consists of Background of the Study, Statement of the Problem, Purpose of the Study, Method of Research, and Organization of the Thesis. Chapter Two contains Theoretical Framework,

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Maranatha Christian University which consists of the theories of Doublespeak in the advertising world. The analysis is in Chapter Three. Chapter Four contains Conclusion, which is followed by Bibliography.

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CHAPTER FOUR

CONCLUSION

In this chapter, I would like to present the concluding remarks and comments from the discussion on Doublespeak in the advertising world. From the analysis, it is evident that the advertisements use all types of Doublespeak in the advertising world, which are puffing, weasel word, unfinished word, and up to claim. The most common type of Doublespeak which is used in the data is weasel word. We can find that type of Doublespeak in every data.

The word new is the word which is most frequently used in the advertisements. It is found in data 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, and 8. The word new is very popular because it can help the advertisers to make their products sound outstanding although in fact it may not be like that. For example, by only changing the package or colour of the product, the producer can claim that the product is new. At the same time, however, the readers will think that there is a really significant change.

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Maranatha Christian University Besides the word new, there are other words which are considered weasel words that can make the product seem magnificent. In data 4, for example, the advertiser uses the words 24 hour that make people amazed because if they use this mascara, they think they need not re-apply the mascara more than once in 24 hours. In data 6, the word colossal is used. The readers will be interested in knowing more about the product because they want to have that type of lashes. Those words can attract the readers to see the advertisement and buy the product because they think that the product is amazing.

In the advertisements, the advertiser also uses subjective words, such as thick, bold, instant, and warm. Different people have different interpretations about those adjectives because each person has different standards. Thus, the product will sound amazing, but in reality it is not like that.

Unfinished word is the next commonly used Doublespeak in the Maybelline mascara advertisements. The words such as bigger, flirtier, blacker, longer, and

sexier can be found in data 1, 3, 6, 7, and 8. By using this type of Doublespeak, the advertiser wants to compare their products with their other products or with products of other brands. However, because the claims in the advertisements are not complete, the readers will finish the claims using their own ideas which make the products seem better than other products. From my analysis, it can be concluded that the advertiser uses unfinished words to let the readers finish the claims by themselves so that their products seem impressive because the readers will think that the products are better than other products.

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Maranatha Christian University Parity claim is the most rarely used Doublespeak in the advertisements. There is only one data which contains parity claim, namely data 6 and the word is blackest. In my opinion, parity claim is rarely used because the advertiser only wants to emphasize that the product is better than other brands. The producer lets the readers compare the greatness of Maybelline’s mascara with mascaras of other brands by themselves. The advertiser does not claim that Maybelline mascara is the best among other brands because it is too risky to do so. Parity claim is actually rarely used in Maybelline mascara advertisements.

From the analysis, it can be concluded that the advertiser uses Doublespeak not to lie or make fake claims to the readers. Actually, the advertiser only plays with words to make something ordinary seem extraordinary. By using and playing with such words, the advertiser successfully makes the product look extraordinary. What the readers will see and think is only the good side of the product because the advertiser has minimized the weakness of the product through Doublespeak. For example, when a flue medicine claims that it can help to relieve cold symptoms, it does not mean that this medicine can cure the flu because the advertiser only claims that the medicine can relieve flu instead of curing it. In addition, the advertiser says that it can relieve cold symptoms, which are a headache, a runny nose, and watery eyes instead of curing the flu itself. This example reveals how the advertiser uses Doublespeak to minimize the weakness of the product. The readers will not realize the real meaning of the words in the advertisements because, as I have already said, the advertiser uses subjective words.

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Maranatha Christian University In my opinion, studying Doublespeak gives us many advantages, especially if we are shopaholics and always tend to believe anything that the advertiser states in advertisements. Doublespeak tells and shows us that something may not be as good as what it seems. The advertiser of Maybelline uses advertisements to promote and sell their products to the public and increase their sales. Thus, they will try to create an advertisement which can minimize the weakness of their products to make people buy them. We are blinded by the words in the advertisements. However, if we know about Doublespeak, we will be more careful whenever we read an advertisement and will think twice before we buy the product. As a consumer, we will be more aware of the real meaning of the words in the advertisements.

Since I use the Internet as the source of my data, I find some difficulties during the process of writing this thesis. Sometimes it is very hard to read the words because the picture is not clear and the resolution of the picture is too small. If other researchers want to use the Internet as the source, they have to make sure that they get clear pictures with high resolution so that they will be able to read all the words. Another difficulty lies in the language which is not the English language, so that I have to look for other advertisements for my data. I believe that it is safer to use magazines or newspapers as the sources because the pictures are usually clearer than those downloaded from the Internet.

Finally, I hope this thesis may be beneficial and give the readers new knowledge, especially about Doublespeak, since having such knowledge will give us many advantages. After studying Doublespeak, we will be more critical before we buy something. In other words, we will not be easily misled or cheated.

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Maranatha Christian University Word count: 1043 words

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Data Source

Maybelline The Rocket Volum’ Express Advertisement. p, n.d. Web. 20 May 2013.

Maybelline Volum’ Express The Colossal Cat Eyes. p, n.d. Web. 20 May 2013.

Maybelline Volum’ Express One by One. p, n.d. Web. 28 September 2013.

Maybelline Volum’ Express The Magnum Super Film. p, n.d. Web. 28 September 2013.

Maybelline Volum’ Express XXL Curl Power. p, n.d. Web. 28 September 2013.

Maybelline the Colossal 100% Black Volum’ Express. p, n.d. Web 13 February 2014.

Maybelline Lash Expansion Mascara. p, n.d. Web. 11 March 2014.

Maybelline Define a Lash. p, n.d. Web. 11 March 2014.

References

Lutz, William. Doublespeak: From “Revenue Enhancement” to “Terminal Living”: How Government, Business, Advertisers, and Other Use Language to Deceive You.

New York: Harper & Row, 1989. Print.

“Explosive”. Def 1. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. 8th ed. 2010. Print. “Colossal”. Def 1. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. 8th ed. 2010. Print.

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Maranatha Christian University “Thick”. Def 1. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. 8th ed. 2010. Print.

“Clump”. Def 1. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. 8th ed. 2010. Print. “Magnum”. Def 1. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. 8th ed. 2010. Print. “Dramatic”. Def 2. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. 8th ed. 2010. Print. “Super”. Def 1. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. 8th ed. 2010. Print. “Refine”. Def 2. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. 8th ed. 2010. Print. “Redefine”. Def 2. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. 8th ed. 2010. Print.

Besides the word new, there are other words which are considered weasel words that can make the product seem magnificent. In data 4, for example, the advertiser uses the words 24 hour that make people amazed because if they use this mascara, they think they need not re-apply the mascara more than once in 24 hours. In data 6, the word colossal is used. The readers will be interested in knowing more about the product because they want to have that type of lashes. Those words can attract the readers to see the advertisement and buy the product because they think that the product is amazing.

In the advertisements, the advertiser also uses subjective words, such as thick, bold, instant, and warm. Different people have different interpretations about those adjectives because each person has different standards. Thus, the product will sound amazing, but in reality it is not like that.

Unfinished word is the next commonly used Doublespeak in the Maybelline mascara advertisements. The words such as bigger, flirtier, blacker, longer, and sexier can be found in data 1, 3, 6, 7, and 8. By using this type of Doublespeak, the advertiser wants to compare their products with their other products or with products of other brands. However, because the claims in the advertisements are not complete, the readers will finish the claims using their own ideas which make the products seem better than other products. From my analysis, it can be concluded that the advertiser uses unfinished words to let the readers finish the claims by themselves so that their products seem impressive because the readers will think that the products are better than other products.

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Parity claim is the most rarely used Doublespeak in the advertisements. There is only one data which contains parity claim, namely data 6 and the word is blackest. In my opinion, parity claim is rarely used because the advertiser only wants to emphasize that the product is better than other brands. The producer lets the readers compare the greatness of Maybelline’s mascara with mascaras of other brands by themselves. The advertiser does not claim that Maybelline mascara is the best among other brands because it is too risky to do so. Parity claim is actually rarely used in Maybelline mascara advertisements.

From the analysis, it can be concluded that the advertiser uses Doublespeak not to lie or make fake claims to the readers. Actually, the advertiser only plays with words to make something ordinary seem extraordinary. By using and playing with such words, the advertiser successfully makes the product look extraordinary. What the readers will see and think is only the good side of the product because the advertiser has minimized the weakness of the product through Doublespeak. For example, when a flue medicine claims that it can help to relieve cold symptoms, it does not mean that this medicine can cure the flu because the advertiser only claims that the medicine can relieve flu instead of curing it. In addition, the advertiser says that it can relieve cold symptoms, which are a headache, a runny nose, and watery eyes instead of curing the flu itself. This example reveals how the advertiser uses Doublespeak to minimize the weakness of the product. The readers will not realize the real meaning of the words in the advertisements because, as I have already said, the advertiser uses subjective words.

In my opinion, studying Doublespeak gives us many advantages, especially if we are shopaholics and always tend to believe anything that the advertiser states in advertisements. Doublespeak tells and shows us that something may not be as good as what it seems. The advertiser of Maybelline uses advertisements to promote and sell their products to the public and increase their sales. Thus, they will try to create an advertisement which can minimize the weakness of their products to make people buy them. We are blinded by the words in the advertisements. However, if we know about Doublespeak, we will be more careful whenever we read an advertisement and will think twice before we buy the product. As a consumer, we will be more aware of the real meaning of the words in the advertisements.

Since I use the Internet as the source of my data, I find some difficulties during the process of writing this thesis. Sometimes it is very hard to read the words because the picture is not clear and the resolution of the picture is too small. If other researchers want to use the Internet as the source, they have to make sure that they get clear pictures with high resolution so that they will be able to read all the words. Another difficulty lies in the language which is not the English language, so that I have to look for other advertisements for my data. I believe that it is safer to use magazines or newspapers as the sources because the pictures are usually clearer than those downloaded from the Internet.

Finally, I hope this thesis may be beneficial and give the readers new knowledge, especially about Doublespeak, since having such knowledge will give us many advantages. After studying Doublespeak, we will be more critical before we

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Data Source

Maybelline The Rocket Volum’ Express Advertisement. p, n.d. Web. 20 May 2013. Maybelline Volum’ Express The Colossal Cat Eyes.p, n.d. Web. 20 May 2013. Maybelline Volum’ Express One by One. p, n.d. Web. 28 September 2013.

Maybelline Volum’ Express The Magnum Super Film. p, n.d. Web. 28 September 2013.

Maybelline Volum’ Express XXL Curl Power. p, n.d. Web. 28 September 2013. Maybelline the Colossal 100% Black Volum’ Express. p, n.d. Web 13 February 2014. Maybelline Lash Expansion Mascara. p, n.d. Web. 11 March 2014.

Maybelline Define a Lash. p, n.d. Web. 11 March 2014. References

Lutz, William. Doublespeak: From “Revenue Enhancement” to “Terminal Living”: How Government, Business, Advertisers, and Other Use Language to Deceive You. New York: Harper & Row, 1989. Print.

“Explosive”. Def 1. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. 8th ed. 2010. Print. “Colossal”. Def 1. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. 8th ed. 2010. Print.

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“Thick”. Def 1. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. 8th ed. 2010. Print. “Clump”. Def 1. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. 8th ed. 2010. Print. “Magnum”. Def 1. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. 8th ed. 2010. Print. “Dramatic”. Def 2. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. 8th ed. 2010. Print. “Super”. Def 1. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. 8th ed. 2010. Print. “Refine”. Def 2. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. 8th ed. 2010. Print. “Redefine”. Def 2. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. 8th ed. 2010. Print.