IRENA SMETONIENĖ

ADVERTISING... ADVERTISING? ADVERTISING!

Vilnius: Tyto alba, 2009, 206 p.

Browsing the shelves of books devoted to Lithuanian-language research published in 2009, one’s attention is drawn to linguist Irena Smetonienė’s monograph. And how could it not be, when its title, assembled in capital letters in brightly colored squares, simply cries out: ADVERTISING... ADVERTISING? ADVERTISING! Such an expressive title seems justified simply because the word reklama (‘advertising’) derives from the Latin verb reclamo, which means precisely “I shout, I cry out.” Of course, we should also remember the conviction of creators of audio (especially television) advertisements that a quiet advertisement is essentially impossible: it is always made with the loudest possible sound so that it stands out as much as possible from the entire flow of information.

A review of the monograph’s contents suggests that the book is based on a dissertation (the author defended her doctoral dissertation at Vilnius University in 2001). The dissertation’s title, however, was formulated somewhat differently, in more scholarly terms—Garsinės reklamos stilius (“The Style of Audio Advertising”). Comparing the dissertation with the monograph, one can see that various changes have been made: some chapters have been shortened, others, conversely, expanded or edited somewhat; titles have been changed to simpler versions more readily understood by a wider readership; and some chapters have simply been moved to different places in the book, and so on.

Although the synopsis says that this is a book about advertising, it would nevertheless be fair to say that it focuses primarily on audio advertising, and therefore most of the examples cited and examined come from this type. As the author herself notes in the preface, this choice of research subject was prompted by the vitality of audio advertising and its richer forms of expression. The scholar sometimes compares audio advertising with print advertising, but such comparisons are mostly incidental. As the preface explains, “print advertising will be discussed here only insofar as it influences audio advertising or insofar as print-advertising texts are used to create audio and video clips” (p. 9). Thus, an in-depth analysis of other types of advertising (apart from audio) is not the aim of this book.

The monograph opens with the chapter “From the History of Advertising,” which briefly surveys the long course of advertising’s development—from its earliest beginnings

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in Egypt (third millennium BC) right up to the present day, when advertising creation has been taken over by advertising agencies. Given the very broad time span, the author distinguishes several stages, taking into account the development of social relations and advances in science and technology. The chapter clearly shows how advertising, long a form of communication whose purpose was to inform, became a means not only of conveying information but also of influencing its recipient. The chapter “From the History of Advertising” could, however, be supplemented with one more aspect: while emphasizing the importance of scientific and technological discoveries for advertising’s development, the linguist identifies the printing press, cinema, radio, and television as the most important, but does not single out another (so far the latest) equally significant invention—the internet. After all, it cannot be denied that the internet, created in the 1980s (in the sense in which we use the word today), opened up new possibilities for another form of advertising. What is more, one of the rapidly growing types of advertising is called internetinė reklama (“internet advertising”).

It is undoubtedly valuable that the author treats the history of Lithuanian advertising as part of the broader history of advertising. Several possibilities are offered as to what might be considered the beginnings of Lithuanian advertising: Gediminas’s letters, written in the fourteenth century to the rulers, citizens, merchants, and craftsmen of Western European cities; the symbols used by Lithuanian craftsmen and merchants in the fifteenth century; and the appeal to the reader in the preface to Martynas Mažvydas’s Katekizmo (“Catechism”). Readers can also explore examples of the oldest advertisements published in Lithuanian newspapers, and perhaps even be surprised that some advertisements created in the interwar period are not all that outdated compared with those of today.

The concept and definition of advertising are matters deserving separate discussion. In the absence of a single, universal definition of advertising, scholarly literature describes the phenomenon in quite different ways, depending on the researcher’s discipline (e.g., economics, management, marketing, law, psychology, sociology, etc.). The monograph’s author explains the concept of advertising on the basis of communication theory. As she herself puts it, advertising is a communicative act whose “purpose is not only to convey information, but also to influence the listener and elicit the desired emotional response” (p. 21). Moreover, advertising has the characteristics of mass communication, and is therefore “part of mass culture, intended for a mass (that is, broad) audience and transmitted through the means of mass communication (the media)” (p. 25).

On the basis of this definition, the recipient is acknowledged as one of the principal factors in advertising. This is precisely why a considerable part of the book is devoted to reviewing methods of influencing recipients and the types of recipients themselves. In the chapter “How

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“influence the addressee?” The author discusses such methods of persuasion as creating prestige, using exoticisms, emphasizing a product’s novelty, appealing to authority, offering various discounts and lotteries, showing a way out of a difficult situation, presenting compelling evidence, using euphemisms, creating an illusion of superiority, and so on. When and which of these methods to choose depends on various social and psychological circumstances. Naturally, identifying the target audience also helps in choosing specific means of expression. In the author’s view, “the addressees of advertisements broadcast on radio and television can be divided into two main groups: 1) konkretieji, 2) numanomieji addressees” (p. 49). The linguist further subdivides the first group of addressees according to criteria such as gender, age, income, and profession. However, some confusion becomes apparent when reading the monograph. Specifically, both the table of contents (p. 5) and the typeface used for the heading “Implied Addressees” (p. 66) may give the reader the impression that implied addressees are not a second group, but a subgroup of the first—that is, that they belong to the concrete addressees. Or is this simply a proofing error overlooked by the book’s editors?

A substantial chapter is devoted to the composition of advertising texts. This is understandable, since a text’s structure directly affects its comprehension and the impression it makes. The author distinguishes three parts characteristic of audio advertisements: the introduction, the main text, and the ending (the informational section or slogan); she discusses them in detail and illustrates them with examples. The importance of the slogan in creating an advertising text is emphasized—it is like the calling card of a particular advertisement.

Advertising, as an object of linguistic research, is associated with the study of stylistics. One of the most topical questions frequently raised by researchers of advertising language concerns advertising’s place in the system of functional styles. What is the monograph’s author’s position on this matter? It seems that three key points can be identified:

1. The author believes that the traditional classification of functional styles is more applicable to the written form of advertising, whereas audio advertising is associated with the art of public speaking—rhetoric. Based on the classification of public speeches according to rhetorical functions, audio advertising is listed among persuasive speeches, whose main purpose is to influence reason, thought, beliefs, and opinions, and to appeal to emotions. While acknowledging that “audio advertising is undoubtedly one of the types of public speech” (p. 95), the linguist also notes that “public speeches are not always pure; more often, we encounter intermediate forms containing elements of specialized, everyday, and artistic discourse” (p. 95). Indeed, this is a point one can agree with: even texts for audio advertisements can vary greatly (cf. an informative television advertisement inviting viewers to a music concert,

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and a television commercial advertising decorative cosmetics that clearly displays the features of persuasive speech). Incidentally, to illustrate the diversity of opinion, Regina Koženiauskienė calls advertising laconic rhetoric (Retorika, 1999, p. 64), while Zita Nauckūnaitė classifies it as a form of public persuasive speech and calls it commercial speech (Iškalbos mokymas, 2000, p. 193).

2. Nevertheless, drawing on the traditional classification of five functional styles, the author associates the style of advertising texts most closely with journalistic style, while emphasizing its multilayered nature. In other words, depending on the specific product being advertised, the chosen addressee, and the intended purpose, “its [advertising’s] texts can display features of all functional styles, and sometimes they are even deliberately mixed” (p. 128). Although other views exist, the author leaves discussion of whether to distinguish yet another (sixth) functional style for the future.

3. In analyzing and assessing the phenomenon of advertising, I. Smetonienė also emphasizes that the term advertising style encompasses far more than the linguistic text, which could be assigned to one functional style or another on the basis of its functional characteristics. In the case of audio advertising, the text is supplemented by images and sounds, and all these elements together constitute the overall style of advertising, whose analysis is no longer solely within the linguist’s remit.

The monograph also discusses the use of specific linguistic expressive devices in advertising texts—various tropes and rhetorical figures; it separately surveys paralinguistic elements of speech: voice, intonation, and pronunciation; and briefly highlights the importance of images in television advertisements. The linguist distinguishes tropes from rhetorical figures. She explains this choice by noting that “in tropes, a word characteristic of one thing is transferred to another, for which that word is not characteristic, whereas in figures a particular expression is conveyed not by a single word but by a phrase, a sentence, or several sentences” (p. 129). It would be difficult to disagree with the conclusion that “advertising creators seek the most attractive forms and the most effective words” (pp. 154–155). One might only wish to add that, in conditions of competition and with the aim of selling as many products as possible, various linguistic devices can be not only attractive but also deceptive in the literal sense of the word. A simple example: metonymic epithets often favored in advertisements and classified as tropes, such as German quality or Austrian quality, by no means necessarily mean that the product was made in that country. A buyer tempted by such a product may therefore sometimes be unpleasantly surprised to find a label on the packaging stating that it was made in Hong Kong or China.

With regard to research on the language of advertising, the monograph’s chapter “The Syntax of Advertising Texts” is particularly valuable. Language researchers may find more important

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an analysis of the sentences in advertising texts, both by function and by structure, while the discussion of the functions of the main punctuation marks in advertising texts is of greater interest to copywriters.

The final chapter of the monograph under review, “Advertising and Standard Language,” is devoted to discussing the problems of translating advertisements into Lithuanian and adapting them. The author identifies three main factors that adversely affect standard language: the use of indeclinable non-Lithuanian symbolic names, the pronunciation of non-Lithuanian names, and the use of advertising slogans left untranslated from the original language. Attention is also drawn to the fact that clients’ requirement that an advertisement’s translation be identical to the original often eliminates one of advertising’s functions—expressiveness.

In summary, Irena Smetonienė’s monograph REKLAMA... REKLAMA? REKLAMA! is the first and, so far, the only linguistic study in Lithuania not only of audio advertising but also of advertising in general. Essentially, it is a monograph that is more descriptive and analytical in nature; therefore, in the future, with a certain foundation already in place, it would be worthwhile to move on to more in-depth and specialized linguistic research on advertising. This would make it possible to offer more evaluative and prescriptive conclusions in this field (i.e., not only what advertising is actually like, but also what is recommended).

The author’s simple, concise writing style makes this book accessible and understandable not only to specialists, advertising creators, and teachers of advertising, but also to everyone interested in this field. As the author puts it, “advertising affects the subconscious and influences even those who claim to be immune to it” (p. 36); thus, it is likely that this monograph will help many readers gain a better understanding of advertising.

Received 2009 11 02

DALIA BLAŽINSKAITĖ

[email protected]

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