VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN THỊ THU THẢO A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE REAL ESTATE ADVERTISING SLOGANS IN PRINTED ADVERTISEMENTS Phân tích đối chiếu hiệu quảng cáo bất động sản tiếng Anh tiếng Việt ấn phẩm quảng cáo M.A MINOR THESIS Field Code Hanoi, November 2015 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN THỊ THU THẢO A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE REAL ESTATE ADVERTISING SLOGANS IN PRINTED ADVERTISEMENTS Phân tích đối chiếu hiệu quảng cáo bất động sản tiếng Anh tiếng Việt ấn phẩm quảng cáo M.A MINOR THESIS Field Code Supervisor: TRẦN THỊ THU HIỀN, Ph.D Hanoi, November 2015 DECLARATION I hereby, certify the thesis entitled “A Contrastive Analysis of English and Vietnamese Real Estate Slogans in Printed Advertisements” is the result of my own research for the Minor Degree of Master of Arts at University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi The thesis has not been submitted for any degree at any other universities or institutions I agree that the origin of my paper deposited in the library can be accessible for the purposes of study and research October, 2015 Nguyễn Thị Thu Thảo i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This MA thesis was successfully completed with the supports of many people to whom I want to express my gratitude First of all, I would like to express my sincere thank to my supervisor, Dr Tran Thi Thu Hien, for her valuable instruction, support and encouragement throughout my research process Without her devoting guidance, I could not have finished this thesis Secondly, my thanks also go to all the lecturers, professors and doctors teaching at the post graduate faculty of ULIS for their lectures and supports during my course Last but not least, I would like to give thanks to my beloved family and friends, who have encouraged and supported for my study process to finish this MA thesis ii ABSTRACT Due to the high demand of current market, every product needs effective strategies to introduce its image to the potential customers, and a successful slogan seems to be an impressive way Among various types of products, real estate is gradually paid much attention for its significance in people‟s living condition However, there exist differences in terms of linguistic features between English and Vietnamese real estate slogans that need to be investigated Therefore, the study “A Contrastive Analysis of English and Vietnamese Real Estate Advertising Slogans in Printed Advertisements” is conducted to figure out some distinctive phonological, lexical and syntactic features among English and Vietnamese real estate slogans The total of 90 advertising slogans are collected from well-known English and Vietnamese real estate newspapers and magazines, and analyzed to support the aim of the study The finding of the research emphasizes the similarities and differences in terms of phonological, lexical and syntactic features between English and Vietnamese real estate advertising slogans The thesis was carried with the hope to implement some suggestions for teaching and learning business English, and some advice for advertisers iii TABLE OF CONT DECLARATION ACKNOWLEDGEMENT SUMMARY PART 1: INTRODUCTION Rationale Aims and objectives of the study 2.1 Aims 2.2 Objectives Research question and approaches Scope of the study Significance of the study Design of the study PART 2: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Review of previous studies 1.2 Discourse 1.3 Discourse analysis 1.3.1.Context 1.3.2 Role of context in discourse analysis 1.3.3.Components of 1.4 Advertising as a form of communication 1.4.1.Definition of adver 1.4.2.Functions of adver 1.4.3.Types of advertising 1.4.4.Structure of adverti 1.5 Advertising slogan as a part of an advertisement iv 1.5.1 Definition of a slogan 1.5.5 Criteria of a good advertising slogan 1.6 Features of advertising language 1.6.1 Phonological features 1.6.2 Lexical features 1.6.3 Syntactic features CHAPTER METHODOLOGY 2.1 Research approaches and methods 2.2 Research question 2.3 Data collection instruments 2.4 Research procedure 2.5 Chapter summary CHAPTER FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 3.1 Phonological features 3.1.1 Use of rhy 3.1.2 Use of alliteration and anaphora 3.2 Lexical features 3.2.1 Use of field words 3.2.2 Use of geographical names and brand names 3.3 Syntactic features 3.3.1 Use of short simple sentences 3.3.2 Use of imperative sentences 3.3.3 Use of que 3.3.4 Use of ph 3.3.5 Use of pa 3.3.6 Use of com 3.3.7 Use of per v 3.4 Chapter summary PART 3: CONCLUSION Recapitulations Implications 2.1 For teaching and learning business English and linguistics 2.2 For advertisers Suggestions for further studies REFERENCES APPENDIX vi LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES Name of fi Figure 1.1 A model of Figure 1.2 A taxonomy Table 2.1 Different te Table 3.1 Slogan lang Table 3.2 Slogan lang Table 3.3 Slogan lang Table 3.4 Slogan lang Table 3.5 Slogan lang Table 3.6 Slogan lang Table 3.7 Slogan lang Table 3.8 Slogan lang Table 3.9 Slogan lang Table 3.10 Slogan lang vii PART 1: INTRODUCTION Rationale Together with the development of the world, thousands of new products and services are introduced everyday, which are in need to find an effective way to reach customers Most of products including food, beverages, medicines, airlines services, are presented to the public via mass media namely television, newspapers, magazines, the Internet, radio, etc Consequently, manufacturers take advertisements into consideration as a key tool to spread their goods worldwide Advertisements play a crucial role in economic, sociological and psychological viewpoints Using advertisements is considered the solution of seeking a channel for organizations or companies to reach out the world with their messages Slogans are taken as the heart of advertisements and cover the most focusing points sent to customers by the advertisers However, the question to create a good and successful slogan to bring in customers‟ mind the image of the product and encourage them to buy is not always at ease Therefore, with advertisers, the art of using some valuable words in slogans requires a deep understanding of phonology, lexicology, syntax and other elements As concerning much about advertisements which appear in high frequency on newspapers and magazines, the researcher realizes that real estate advertisements seem to take much room among other kinds of advertisements Due to theirs stereotype, real estate advertisements focus on the facility of living and they employ language as a presenting tool to emphasize that However, in Vietnamese, the real estate advertisers seem not to pay much attention to their slogans as there is no focusing point for customers to memorize about the product or service In this field, the numbers of slogans which can carve an unforgettable impression on customers‟ mind are rare Whereas in English, real estate advertisers try their best to create a sharp and smart slogan to attract their potential customers and there exist many outstanding slogans worldwide Thus, the situation is to put advertisers to questions about what is a good slogan, and which linguistic features should be included in the slogan to make it a successful one Therefore, “A Contrastive Analysis of English despite the less frequency of these elements It is explainable that the presence of these two elements may make slogans not rhyming Particularly, the vocabulary used in both languages are distinctive; while English slogans focus on the convenience for individual, Vietnamese slogans try to draw people‟s attention to the harmony between life and natural elements  In terms of syntactic features, the use of phrases, parallelism, comparison and use of addressees are well created in real estate slogans of both languages However, English seems to apply more addressees and comparison to shorten the distance between the advertisers and customers, as well as gain their product‟s value The use of parallel structure is also employed to create rhyming and memorable slogans in Vietnamese; while this feature seems not outstanding in English slogans Short simple sentences, imperative sentences and questions are mostly used by real estate advertisers in English, probably due to the requirement of conciseness in slogans In contrast, Vietnamese real estate advertising slogans tend to use more phrases to present their unique message toward customers Implications In Vietnam nowadays, real estate sector is growing fast due to the need of people and therefore, a large number of real estate companies and projects are born Among real estate advertisers, an issue raised is how to introduce and attract customers to the real estate products in competition with other companies It seems that the advertising campaigns and especially the slogans of Vietnamese real estate are not paid enough attention Only a few of them are impressed and memorized by customers This study is beneficial for the following targets: 2.1 For teaching and learning business English and linguistics The findings of the study may be beneficial to learners of both languages The contrastive analysis will offer them a good insight to get involved in linguistic features of advertising slogans and also the similarities and differences in the two 37 languages The finding of the study will probably be a useful reference resource for anyone who has passion for study language It not only helps them to appreciate the beauty of advertising language but also provide them with some necessary strategies and techniques in writing advertising slogans, especially in wring real estate advertising slogans In fact, there have been quite lots of studies on the language of advertising in general, but the studies on real estate advertising language are still very few Therefore, this research hopefully will have some help for students majoring the English language when they conduct a piece of scientific research on the advertising language related to real estate The thesis maybe a good assistance for English teachers in transferring the knowledge of advertising in general and advertising slogans in particular to their own students They will have a deeper insight into the contrastive analysis between English and Vietnamese real estate advertising slogans with respect to linguistic features Moreover, the teachers can make the study their additional resources in teaching which may meet the studying demands of their students The study provides them with necessary knowledge that teachers could master to help students It is the fact that phonology, lexicology and syntax are not easy for students Therefore, teachers should be patient with their students in order to help them clearly understand and distinctively distinguish English and Vietnamese these linguistic features when they study them The thesis provides linguistic researchers and translators with the useful knowledge about advertising slogans‟ linguistic features They will know how lexical choices works and how syntactic structures used affects the customers‟ attitude And also they can benefit from the differences between slogans in the two languages With such cognition, to some extent, linguists may find this study helpful in the field of language research, and translators can better their translation works in slogans in English and Vietnamese 2.2 For advertisers For advertisers and businesses, we clearly knew the most important purpose of advertisers is selling their products and services Advertising is an effective tool for 38 advertisers to achieve their goals This study is carried out, hopefully to provide some knowledge of linguistic features which may benefit the advertisers and businesses in writing advertising in general The advertisers can have important information and significant knowledge on advertising slogans in conformity with language techniques It can be concluded that Vietnamese real estate slogans should bear more striking phonological, lexical and syntactic features to be more effective The slogans should:  Apply more use of rhyme and alliteration to create an easy-reading and etched slogan in customers‟ mind  Insert more words related to the trend of green living, so that customers may feel relaxing and close to nature  Refer to their brand name with advertised products so that their brand name can ring a bell to customers in this competitive sector  Be short and condensed to create the memorable effect They should employ more simple sentences, phrases or parallelism  Focus to the target customers and shorten the distance with them by using direct addressees like you to bring customers the feeling of being taken care in individual  Employ the use of imperative and questions as these two types are rarely used This will raise customers‟ curiosity, as well as encourage and urge customers to the act of purchasing products  In addition, take the use of another tense like future tense to guarantee customers about the quality and stability of the product The use of comparison should also be considered as an effective way to impress customers; by doing so, the quality and outstanding characteristics of the product are emphasized Therefore, the advertisers can apply the techniques into creating better and more efficient slogans to lead to the customers‟ interest and need to purchase the product They can also benefit from the understanding of distinctive features of each language in advertising so that they can write a suitable slogan which fully matches 39 the customers‟ value in each country As a whole, the research will enable them to write a successful advertising Limitations and Suggestions for further studies 3.1 Limitations Beside the findings, due to the limitation of time and scale, the current study also possesses the following limitations:  First, the study is conducted with a relatively small number of slogans in both English and Vietnamese  Second, there are also some other outstanding linguistic features that need to be covered, such as semantic or cultural features 3.2 Suggestions for further studies This study has attempted to compare and contrast some linguistic features of English and Vietnamese real estate slogans However, due to the limitations of time and knowledge, this study has only investigated 45 slogans in each language, which makes the results less generalized Therefore, suggestions for further research may include:  A larger population of data in both English and Vietnamese could be employed so that a more general and exact view could be obtained  The semantic features of real estate English and Vietnamese slogans should be included to cover an insight into the similarities and differences between two languages  The cultural respect, which can make a great effect on the differences of images and the words employed in English and Vietnamese advertising slogans, can be investigated 40 REFERENCES ENGLISH Anderson, E M (1998) The use of Metaphors in online advertising, 5(2009) Florida: University of Florida, 18-24 Brown G and Yule, G 1993 Discourse Analysis, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Courland, L B and William, F A (1989) Contemporary advertising Homewood: Irwin Cook, G (1992) The discourse of Advertising Oxford: Oxford University Press Crystal, D (1992) Introducing Linguistics London: Penguin Fairclough, N (2003) Analyzing discourse: Textual analysis for social research London: Routledge Fletcher, A D (2010) Advertising: very short introduction Hampshire: Oxford University Press Goddard, A (1998) The language of Advertising London: Routledge Goddard, A (2002) The language of advertising 2nd Ed London: Routledge 10 Halliday, M.A.K., & Hasan, R (1985) Language, context, and text: aspects of language in a social-semiotic perspective 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Publishing, pp 189-99 21 Strong E K., Jr (1925) The Psychology of Selling and Advertising New York, p 349 and p 22 Tanaka K (1999) Advertising Language: A Pragmatic Approach to Advertisements in Britain and Japan London: Routledge VIETNAMESE 23 Bùi Thị Bích Thủy 2010 An investigation into the style of the English language used in advertising slogans issued by some world-famous airlines 24 Hoàng Trọng, Nguyễn Văn Thi 2000 Quảng cáo NXB Đại học Quốc gia Tp Hồ Chí Minh 25 Mai Xuân Huy 2001 Các đặc điểm ngôn ngữ quảng cáo ánh sáng lý thuyết giao tiếp 26 Nguyễn Đình Quế 1993 Một vài nhận xét bước đầu ngôn ngữ quảng cáo 27 Phùng Nghị 1992 Vấn đề quảng cáo 28 Tôn Nữ Nhật Lệ 2005 A discourse analysis of travel advertisements in English and Vietnamese 29 Trần Đình Vinh Nguyễn Đức Tồn 1993 Về đặc điểm ngôn ngữ quảng cáo 30 Trần Thiên Tứ, 2007 Presupposition and Implicature in English and Vietnamese Advertising Slogans WEBSITES 31 Paul, S 2013 10 requirements for a good advertising slogan http://businessdevelopmentadvice.com/blog/10-requirements-for-a-goodadvertising-slogan 32 http://www.merriam-webster.com 33 http://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com 34 https://www.ama.org/topics/Advertising 35 Jeremy Bullmore What is advertising? http://www.ipa.co.uk/Page/What-is- advertising#.VjM-cNIrLMw 42 PRINTED SOURCES English 36.Lexington apartment guide, volume 31, issue 11, April 2015 37 Apartment finder, volume 24, issue 38 Apartment finder, volume 24, issue 39 Apartment finder, volume 24, issue 40 Advertising age, 1/ 2012 41 Bloomberg Businessweek, 7/2013 42 Bloomberg Businessweek, 8/2013 43 Bloomberg Businessweek, 9/2014 44 Bloomberg Businessweek, 10/2014 45 Business week, 6/2011 46 Business week, 9/2013 47 The Economist, 11/2014 48 US Weekly, 10/2012 49 US Weekly, 12/2013 50 US Weekly, 1/2014 Vietnamese 51 Tạp chí Bất động sản Việt Nam, 4/2015 52 Tạp chí Bất động sản Việt Nam, 5/2015 53 Thanh niên, số 360/ 2010 54 Thanh niên, số 15/ 2011 55 Thanh niên, số 17/ 2011 56 Thanh niên, số 18/2011 57 Thời báo kinh tế Việt Nam, 5/2012 58 Thời báo kinh tế Việt Nam, 6/2012 59 Thời báo kinh tế Việt Nam, 9/2013 60 Thời báo kinh tế Việt Nam, 11/2013 61 Thời báo kinh tế Việt Nam, 2/2014 43 62 Thời báo kinh tế Việt Nam, 3/2014 63 Tiền phong, 7/2012 64 Tiền phong, 11/ 2013 65 Tiếp thị gia đình, 12/ 2013 44 APPENDIX No English A place you can call HOME Close to you want to be! Legendary excellence Redefined living Looking PERFECT nesting place? How you with where you live A refreshing awaits you Luxury you can afford A location you will love Quality living passion 10 Quiet, community 11 Where you can live at once and play at all! 12 Fall in love with your NEW home 13 A new lifestyle awaits 14 A great place to call home 15 Creating community 16 Ultimate student living 17 Quality passion 18 You life You Your home 19 Because how you live is as where you live! 20 Quality affordable price 21 The closest paradise 22 YOU ROYAL treatment 23 A designed & convenience 24 Light up your life …at Lighthouse Square! 25 There‟s still Time to make your home! 26 Close from ordinary 27 Where live 28 Your “Home” 29 Above the crowd 30 Your Estate 31 Live choose 32 Call Real Estate chat! 33 Smarter Faster 34 Dream‟s here 35 Going beyond next home! 36 Where home happens 37 People about property 38 Ì you can‟t sell your home…”I KEN” IV 39 Nobody does it better 40 Where dreams home 41 Selling you deserve 42 Outstanding Outstanding results 43 Helping home sweet home 44 Building a home 45 Your guide to living in Paradise V ... phonological, lexical and syntactic features of English and Vietnamese real estate slogans are investigated Rhymes, alliteration and anaphora are commonly used to create memorable sounding slogans in. .. characteristics They have to be acceptable and appealing to customers This study aims at investigating, comparing and contrasting the real estate slogans in English and Vietnamese in terms of. .. taken from the printed advertisements of popular real estate companies and groups in English and Vietnamese language  In this study, phonological, lexical and syntactic features of real estate