영어 광고 헤드라인의 표현에 관한 연구

Abstract

The purpose of advertisements is not only to call consumers’ greater attention but also to persuade. Rhetorical devices/figures that can be defined as an artful deviation are frequently found in advertisements and prove their effectiveness in attention (McQuarrien and Mick 1992), preference (Dingena 1994), memorability (Warlaumont 1995), and persuasion (Tom and Eves 1999). Several researchers have referred to an increase in the use of rhetorical figures, particularly those that require closure by their readers such as puns and metaphors. The main purpose of this study is to investigate various features of advertising English in print ad headlines that use rhetorical figures in terms of deviation. Two studies of 1,785 advertisements selected from four English magazines from 2002 to 2006 are reported. A qualitative content analysis suggests that the features of rhetorical headlines can be discussed according to the gradient of deviation and complexity and classified into two major categories: ‘schemes’ and ‘tropes’. In addition, the findings of this study indicate that the use of tropic figures is widespread and these figures may be considered as a possible indication for openness in ads: i.e., providing less guidance towards a certain message and consequently, allowing readers more freedom to interpret the message. This trend is supported by the quantitative content analysis. The results show that 33.2% (593 of the 1,785) of the ad headlines in this data use rhetorical figures and the incidence of tropes (66%) is nearly double that of schemes (34%). Closer examination of the trope data shows that metaphor tops the list with the incidence rate of 33.4% (141 of the 422) and hyperboles, rhetorical questions, and puns follow next with the incidence rates of 18.2%, 16.8%, and 13.7%, respectively.