Irena Smetonienė: „Reklama… Reklama? Reklama!“

I. SMETONIENĖ. Advertising... advertising? Advertising! 343 IRENA SMETONIENĖ Advertising... advertising? Advertising! Vilnius: Tyto alba, 2009, 206 p. Looking through the shelves of books published in 2009, devoted to Lithuanian language studies, attention is drawn to the monograph of the linguist Irena Smetoniene. And how can it not be attractive if the name in bright multi-colored squares of capital letters just shouts: ADVERTISING... ADVERTISING? Advertising! Such an expressive name seems to be justified simply because the word “advertising” is derived from the Latin verb “reclamo”, which means “to shout, to shout out”. Of course, here we should remember the provision of the creators of audio (especially television) advertising that silent advertising basically does not even exist – it is always created with the most intense sound to stand out from the entire flow of information. After reviewing the content of the monograph, it can be said that the book was prepared on the basis of the author’s dissertation (the author defended her doctoral dissertation at Vilnius University in 2001). However, the dissertation topic was formulated somewhat differently, more scientifically – Sound advertising style. When comparing the dissertation and the monograph, it is clear that various changes have been made: some chapters have been shortened, others have been added or slightly edited, titles have been changed, choosing simpler and more understandable for the wider public versions, some chapters have simply changed their place in the publication, etc. Although the annotation says that this is a book about advertising, it is not wrong to say that the main focus is on audio advertising, so most of the cited and examined examples are from it. As the author herself states in the preface, such a choice of research object was determined by the vitality and richer forms of expression of audio advertising. It is true that the researcher sometimes compares audio advertising with print advertising, but this comparison is more episodic. As the preamble states, “print advertising will be discussed here insofar as it influences audio or insofar as print advertising texts are used to create audio and video clips” (p. 9). Thus, a detailed analysis of other types of advertising (other than audio) is not the purpose of this book. The monograph begins with the chapter “From the History of Advertising”, which briefly reviews the long development path of advertising – from its first beginnings 344 LANGUAGE CULTURE | 82 Egypt (3rd millennium BC) to the present day, when advertising business agencies have taken over the creation of advertising. Since the time scale is very wide, the author, taking into account the development of social relations and the achievements of science and technology, distinguishes several stages. It is clearly shown how advertising, which for a long time was a form of communication aimed at informing, has become not only a means of information but also a means of affecting the addressee. It is true that the section “From the history of advertising” could be supplemented with another aspect: the linguist, emphasizing the importance of scientific and technical discoveries for the development of advertising, refers to the printing press, cinema, radio and television as the most important, but does not distinguish another (so far the most recent) discovery that is no less significant – the Internet. After all, it cannot be denied that the Internet (in the sense in which we now use this word) created in the 1980s opened up new possibilities for another form of advertising. Not only that, even one of the rapidly popularizing types of advertising is called online advertising. It is undoubtedly valuable that the author distinguishes the history of Lithuanian advertising as part of the general development of advertising. There are even several versions of what could be considered as Lithuanian advertising hints (letters of Gediminas written in the 14th century to the rulers of Western European cities, citizens, merchants and craftsmen; 15th century Lithuanian craftsmen and merchants symbolism; address to the reader in Martynas Mažvydas’s Catechism). It is also possible to get acquainted with examples of the oldest advertisements published in Lithuanian newspapers, and perhaps even be surprised that some of the advertisements created in the interwar period, compared to the current ones, are not so outdated. The concept and definition of advertising is an issue worthy of a separate discussion. In the absence of a single and universal definition of advertising, in the scientific literature this phenomenon is described quite differently, depending on the researcher's field of science (e.g., economics, management, marketing, law, psychology, sociology, etc.). The author of the monograph explains the concept of advertising based on communication theory. According to her, advertising is an act of communication, whose “aim is not only to convey information, but also to influence the listener and to obtain the desired emotional reaction” (p. 21). Furthermore, advertising is characterized by the characteristics of mass communication, and therefore it is “a part of mass culture intended for the mass (i.e. the general public) and transmitted through the means of mass communication (media)” (p. 25). This definition recognises that one of the main factors in advertising is the target. That is why a large part of the book is devoted to the methods of affecting the recipients and the types of recipients themselves. In the section entitled “How to I. SMETONIENĖ. Advertising... advertising? Advertising! 345 affect the addressee?” the author discusses such methods of influence as: prestige creation, use of exoticisms, emphasizing the novelty of the product, relying on authority, offering various discounts and lotteries, showing a way out of the situation, strong evidence, euphemisms, illusion of superiority, etc. When and which of the above methods to choose depends on various social and psychological circumstances. Of course, the identification of the target audience helps to choose the specific means of expression. According to the author, “the recipients of radio and television advertising can be divided into two main groups: 1) specific, 2) implied recipients” (p. 49). The first target group is further divided by gender, age, income, profession, etc. However, there is some confusion when reading the monograph. In fact, both from the contents (p. 5) and from the font of the title of the section “Implied recipients” (p. 66) the reader can get the impression that the implied recipients are not the second group, but a subgroup of the first group, i.e. they belong to specific recipients. Or is it just a proofreading error overlooked by the editors of the book? A considerable section is devoted to the composition of advertising texts. This is understandable, because the structure of the text has a direct influence on its understanding and impression. The author distinguishes three parts of the text characteristic of audio advertising: the introduction, the main text and the end (informational part or slogan), discusses them in detail, illustrates with examples. It emphasizes the importance of the slogan when creating the advertising text – it is like a business card of a specific advertisement. Advertising, as an object of language research, is related to the science of stylistics. One of the most important questions that is often raised by researchers of advertising language is the place of advertising in the system of functional styles. What is the opinion of the author of the monograph in this case? It seems that three essential points could be raised: The author finds that the traditional classification of functional styles is more suitable for the written form of advertising, while audio advertising is associated with the art of speech – rhetoric. According to the classification of public languages according to rhetorical functions, audio advertising is mentioned among appealing languages, the main purpose of which is to influence the mind, thinking, beliefs, opinions and appeal to feelings. The linguist, while acknowledging that “audio advertising is undoubtedly one of the types of public language” (p. 95), also points out that “public languages are not always pure, we are usually faced with intermediate variants containing elements of business, domestic and artistic speech” (p. 95). In fact, this can be agreed – after all, even the texts of the same audio advertisement can be very different (see informational television advertisement inviting to a music concert, 346 LANGUAGE CULTURE | 82 and obviously appealing language characteristics of a television clip advertising decorative cosmetics). By the way, regarding the diversity of opinions, it can still be mentioned that Regina Koženiauskienė calls advertising the laconic rhetoric (Retorika, 1999, p. 64), while Zita Nauckūnaitė classifies it among the public persuasion languages and calls it the commercial language (Iškalbos mokymas, 2000, p. 193). However, based on the traditional classification of five functional styles, the author associates the style of advertising texts with the journalistic style, while emphasizing its multilayeredness. In other words, depending on the specific product being advertised, the target audience chosen and the objective pursued, ‘its [advertising] texts may have features of all functional styles, and sometimes they are even deliberately mixed’ (p. 128). Although there are different opinions, the author leaves the discussion about the distinction of another (sixth) functional style for the future. In analysing and evaluating the phenomenon of advertising, I. Smetonienė also emphasizes that the term advertising style includes far more than just a linguistic text, which, according to its functional characteristics, could be assigned to one or another functional style. In the case of audio advertising, the text is complemented by images and sounds, and all these elements together form the general style of advertising, the examination of which is no longer solely the competence of the linguist. The monograph also discusses the use of specific means of language expression in advertising texts – various tropes, rhetorical figures; paralinguistic elements of speech are examined separately: voice, intonation, dialect; briefly highlights the importance of image in television advertising. The phraseology is different from the rhetoric. She explains this choice by the fact that “in the trophies one word, characteristic of a certain thing, is transferred to another, for which that word is not characteristic, and in the figures a certain statement is expressed not by a single word, but by a combination of words, a sentence or several sentences” (p. 129). It would be difficult to disagree with the conclusion that “advertisers are looking for the most attractive forms and the most impactful words” (pp. 154–155). I would just like to add that, in the context of competition to sell as many products as possible, the various means of linguistic expression can be not only attractive, but also deceptive in the literal sense of the word. A simple example: such metonymic epithets as German quality or Austrian quality assigned to the tropes in advertising do not necessarily mean that the product was made in that country, so the buyer tempted by that product may sometimes be unpleasantly surprised to find on the packaging that the product was made in Hong Kong or China. The chapter “The Syntax of Advertising Texts” of the monograph is particularly valuable for the research of advertising language. For language researchers, perhaps more important will seem I. SMETONIENĖ. Advertising... advertising? Advertising! 347 analysis of sentences of advertising texts both according to functions and according to structure, and for text creators more interesting discussion of the main functions of punctuation marks in advertising texts. The last chapter of the monograph “The Relationship of Advertising with Common Language” is devoted to discussing the problems of translating and adapting advertising into Lithuanian language. The author highlights three main things that negatively affect common language: the use of non-Lithuanian symbolic names that are not syllabled, the pronunciation of non-Lithuanian names, the use of advertising slogans that are not translated from the original language. Attention is also drawn to the fact that the client’s requirement that the translation of the advertisement must be identical to the original often eliminates one of the functions of the advertisement’s impact – expressiveness. In summary, it can be said that Irena Smetonienės monograph REKLAMA... REKLAMA? Advertising! – this is the first and so far the only linguistic work in Lithuania not only about audio advertising, but also about advertising in general. Basically, this is a monograph of a more descriptive-analytical nature, so in the future, having already a certain basis, it would be worthwhile to move to more detailed and more specialized linguistic advertising research. This would allow for more evaluative and recommendative generalisations in this area (i.e. not only what the advertisement actually is, but also what it is recommended to be). The author’s simple, laconic style of writing makes this book accessible and understandable not only to specialists, advertising creators, lecturers of the subject of advertising, but also to everyone who will find this field interesting. According to the author, “advertising affects the subconscious and affects even those who claim to be resistant to it” (p. 36), so it is likely that this monograph will help many readers to understand advertising better. Received 02/11/2009 DALIA BLAŽINSKAITĖ [email protected]