An investigation into the linguistic features of s Essays - Culture

An investigation into the linguistic features of supermarket advertising and its relationship with social class Introduction and Literature Review This study will consider the grammatical and phonological features of supermarket advertising, using adverts from a range of supermarkets, each with a different target consumer range of a different social class group. Prior to gathering information, I consulted a plethora of literature. I shall begin this analysis by referring to a statement from Sean Brierley; consumers self-identify with products, and buy when they can see a match with their own personality.(2002:124)' This implies that the linguistic features advert should correlate with the linguistics of its target social class in terms of the level of standard of the grammar and the phonology. With this in mind, consider Trudgill's findings in his Norwich Study (2000:97); investigating the use of non-standard third person singular -s variable, he found that the middle- middle class used the standard form 100% of the time, the lower-middle class 98% of the time, the upper-working class 30% of the time, and the lower class just 3% of the time. With these figures established, I decided to investigate whether the correlation between standard grammar variations and social class groups was consistent with super market advertising and social class groups. Specifically, this study will investigate the instances of abbreviations and non-standard omission of prepositions and inflections. Furthermore, analysis of dialectal features will occur, along with consideration for the supermarkets choice of accent for each advert. Methodology In order to gain a list of UK supermarkets ranked in order of perceived social class, I conducted an internet survey of 70 people, asking them to rank 5 supermarkets in relation to the class of the customer likely to buy from them. In descending order, beginning with the highest social class, the scale read; Marks and Spencers, Waitrose, Morrisons, ALDI and LIDL. Considering the sample size, the results are fairly representative. However, the high subjectivity of the questionnaire must be considered, and the fact that the results are entirely societal perception, and are not factual has to be taken into account. Following this, I set about acquiring my information for analysis. I decided to choose four adverts per supermarket, one from each of the past four years; this allows scope to measure change in the linguistic features used by each supermarket, to display possible changes in the target social groups. I then proceeded to transcribe the adverts, and annotate them, looking specifically for the features of discourse mentioned in the introduction to this analysis. I also noted down the accent of the speaker in each advert, and also noted any interesting phonological features present. With regards to the presentation of the data, ideally, the graphs would represent an average of each lingu istic element, as opposed to the combined total. However, for the WC supermarkets, there are limited resources available, and an average taken from such a small sample would not be representative. Results and analysis Non-standard utterances Non-standard utterances per supermarket (all four adverts combined) In this instance, the term non-standard utterances' acts as a blanket term for any example of abbreviation, omission of phoneme, or regional dialectology. From the graph above, there is a clear relationship between the class of supermarket, and the occurrence of non-standard utterances; in the two supermarkets that are deemed to be of the highest two classes, there are no examples of non-standard grammar or phonology. The frequency of non-standard grammar falls as the social class rises, starting with LIDL - the supermarket considered to be of the lowest social class. The types of non-standard grammar range from the elision of concrete nouns and the omissio n of' in cuppa tea,' to the use of regional dialectology from Scotland, with give it ALDI' translating to go to ALDI. This investigation will now consider possible reasons for this correlation. Myers (2000:203) talks of the importance of some sellers to create ordinariness' in advertising. It is important to conjure a sense of everyday conversation' within an advert, in order for a company to identify with a target consumer group. With reference to Myers work, and its relationship to this investigation, the non-standard utterances may exist to lower the register of the advert, thus rendering