LINGUOCULTURAL CHARACTERISTICS OF SLOGANS OF AMERICAN COMPANIES

ЛИНГВОКУЛЬТУРОЛОГИЧЕСКИЕ ОСОБЕННОСТИ СЛОГАНОВ АМЕРИКАНСКИХ КОМПАНИЙ

Тилвалдиева Нигара Ерланжановна

магистрант 2-го курса, Казахский университет международных отношений и мировых языков имени Абылай хана,

Республика Казахстан, г. Алматы

ABSTRACT

In this article the concept of "slogan" is defined and there are given the major features of advertising slogans. The main aim of article is to determine the linguocultural characteristics of slogans of American companies and the main concepts that are used in them. To achieve the main aim examples of different advertising slogans of American companies are given in this article. Despite numerous works devoted to the linguistic analysis of an advertising slogan, the study of their linguistic-cultural, conceptual-cognitive characteristics remains relevant. Because slogans tend to change, old slogans change to new ones, and slogans of new products appear.

 АННОТАЦИЯ

В данной статье дается определение понятия “слоган” и даются основные характеристики рекламных слоганов. Основной целью статьи является определение лингвокультурологических особенностей слоганов американских компаний и основных концептов, которые в них используются. Для достижения основной цели в данной статье приведены примеры различных рекламных слоганов американских компаний. Несмотря на многочисленные работы, посвященные лингвистическому анализу рекламного слогана, изучение их лингвокультурных, концептуально-когнитивных характеристик остается актуальным. Поскольку слоганы имеют тенденцию меняться, старые слоганы меняются на новые, и появляются слоганы новых продуктов.

Keywords: advertising, advertising slogans, culture, linguocultural characteristics, concepts.

Ключевые слова: реклама, рекламные слоганы, культура, лингвокультурологические особенности, концепт.

Today, advertising plays an important role in every society, and without this social phenomenon it is difficult to imagine the sphere of human relations. Advertising not only organizes and regulates certain processes of people's interaction, but also directly or indirectly affects their psychological and socio-cultural state, way of thinking. Therefore, the relevance of this work is currently manifested in the increasing role of advertising, the expansion of fields of activity and the emergence of new types of advertising. Since one of the most important structural elements of the advertising text is the slogan, it has been actively studied and continues to be studied.

An advertising slogan can be considered as the central element of an advertising message, as the main signal that arouses the attention and interest of consumers directly related to the advertising language. In the modern world, many scientists and researchers consider the slogan of advertising as a separate genre of advertising text. For instance, according to Babrov, an advertising slogan is the essence of an advertising concept accumulated in a formula, an idea that has reached linguistic perfection, memorable. And Serikova considers that a strong association associated with the advertised product or service should be with the slogan or vice versa: the company and its product should differ from others by the slogan.

In addition, the slogan is considered as a "mirror" of culture. On the one hand, the communication environment of society can be objectively expressed through slogans. Thanks to this, the slogan can demonstrate its uniqueness as a social phenomenon. This statement is appropriate, since the main purpose of slogans is to "communicate" with consumers in the same language. They should also be as clear, understandable as possible, and close to the audience to which it is directed. So, the main features of advertising slogans are:

1. its accuracy;

2. its brevity;

3. its simplicity;

4. its originality;

5. rhyme;

6. easy to remember.

As it is mentioned before, slogans can also represent a certain culture. For the reason that, forming a "sense of language" can be allowed by advertising texts. It means the skills of analytical perception of text and speech in foreign language with the most complete and accurate extraction of the information that are contained in advertising texts. And also they can allow you to perceive their critical interpretation within the framework of the dialogue of cultures. Knowing English language is not enough in order to understand English-language advertising text. To do it you need to develop the knowledge about the culture and also the skills of identifying culturally specific information in the text. Each country focuses on their own citizens. For this reason advertising texts or slogans are targeted to residents of a certain country or culture. Obviously, the products, services that are consumed in different countries can be same. However, the advertisements of each country have their own unique features or specifics. That’s why every advertising text can influence on a certain language culture. For instance, in the USA it is considered that the advertisements should open new horizons to consumers and obviously to promote a certain type of products. It means the products should be advertised without hesitating to tell about the product in advertising texts and slogans. Both in its general orientation and in the choice of artistic appeals American advertisements or slogans are straightforward and also pragmatic. So American people are not outraged by these advertising texts or slogans. Vice verse they can be noticed by people and can be remained in their mind for a long time.

Also, the linguistic units such as stylistic devices, expressive means and also concepts that are used in advertising slogans can demonstrate their culture, too. I would like to show them in examples.

1. First of all, let's pay attention to the most frequently used concept of "LIFE”.

I consider that this concept does not need a description. This is due to the fact that this concept is a basic concept, semantic and lexical universals, and is a notion that exists in the minds of almost all people of the world and has lexical expression in their languages. This concept is widely used in the slogans of various products in the USA.

• Touching lives, improving life - Procter & Gamble(P&G);
• You have met Life Today? - Metropolitan Life;
• “We bring good things to life”- General Electric

In these slogans you can see that thay can have a psychological impact on the consciousness of consumers by promising to improve the quality of this being (life), fill it with good impressions, pleasant tastes or smells, feelings.

• “Share moments. Share life”- Kodak

In fact, this advertising slogan is very simple. However this company tries to show that every moment of life and life itself is precious with this product.

• “Life takes VISA” - Visa

Most American people love travelling, and this slogans conveys the message that in order to travel you need a visa and VISA makes travelling easier.

• “Life’s more fun when you live in the moment” - Snapchat

According to this slogan, we can understand that this app helps us to capture every wonderful moment of our life. Also, it conveys very important idea: to live with fun or living fun. As we know, American people know how to enjoy, relax and live life with fun. It is not like in our culture. Most of us think that we should at first do this one, then that one and so on.

Life is an important value for every person, so it is quite understandable that this concept is often used in advertising slogans.

2. The usage of the concept of "MAGIC":

The reason why this word can be considered as a concept is that in the culture of American people this word occupies a special place. In their films, cartoons, fairy tales, concepts such as magic, miracle (elves, characters with different magic, worlds full of magic, etc.) are very often used. Therefore, this concept can be called a cultural concept. This concept is verbalized in semantic units with the semes " magic" and " miracle". In many slogans of American companies, we can see the use of this concept in the examples below:

• Real magic (“Магия момаента”; “Нағыз ғажайып”)-Coca Cola;
• The beginning of something magical («Новый волшебный аромат»,- Lovestruck by Vera Wang;
• Creating sweet magic - Darrell Lea.

3. The next most commonly used concept is the concept of “TIME”. For each person, time is also valuable and has a special meaning. Each nation perceives this concept differently. In advertising slogans, this concept is expressed in terms of “forever, everyday, all the time,” etc. For example:

• It’s Bo Time! - Bojangles;
• It’s Free and Always Will Be! - FaceBook*.
• “Then Now Forever”- WWE
• “Feel good and pure every day” - Tropicana

According to this article and the examples that are given above, we can conclude that the main features or characteristics of advertising slogans of American companies are their straightforwardness, brevity, simplicity and also logic. American advertising can be a way of contacting different cultures. Since they not only advertise and promote a certain type product, but also they are closely connected with intercultural interaction. According to this we can say that, advertisements or advertising slogans is a socio-cultural phenomena. For the reason that, they can also be considered as a mirror of a certain culture.

*(социальная сеть, запрещенная на территории РФ, как продукт организации Meta, признанной экстремистской – прим.ред.)

References:

1. Shido, K.V. Reklamnyy slogan kak osobyy zhanr angliyskikh reklamnykh tekstov [Advertising slogan as a special genre of English advertising texts]. Saratov, 2002. -22 p.
2. Сердобинцева Е.Н. «Структура и язык рекламных текстов: учебное пособие. М.: Флинта: Наука, 2010
3. Kutsai, Tamara. Influence of slogans on human behavior as the method of manipulation by consciousness. Integrated communications, 2017. - 28-31 pp.
4. Filkuková, P. & Klempe, S. H. (2013). Rhyme as reason in commercial and social advertising. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 54, 423–431 pp. URL:https://doi.org/10.1111/sjop.12069
5. Маткаримов, А. В. Влияние рекламы на эмоции человека / А. В. Маткаримов. — Текст : непосредственный // Молодой ученый. — 2018. — № 36 (222). — С. 97-100. — URL: https://moluch.ru/archive/222/52555/
6. Безлатный Д. В. Психология в рекламе: искусство манипуляции общественным сознанием // Ваш полиграфический партнёр, М., 2011. — с. 30–34.
7. The examples of slogans: https://benextbrand.com/influential-brand-slogans/