The research question of this thesis is how sociodemographic variables affect the perception of English in German Advertising. "English seems to be surrounded by an aura that the German language is apparently missing". With regard to advertising in Germany, it becomes difficult to disagree with this statement by Schlüter. For several decades anglicisms and English expressions have been used for promotional purposes in television-, print-, and online-advertising. "Professional Hair Care for you", "Powered by Emotion" and "Driven by Instinct" are only a few of the many popular slogans in Germany.
The "aura" has been utilized by companies in multiple industries for many years resulting in a consistent growth in the number of anglicisms and English expressions used in the past. This quantitative increase has been exhibited by many researchers, most notably by Schütte. She concluded that from 1951 until 1991 the amount of anglicisms in the slogans, headlines and continuous texts of her corpus of print advertisements grew by over 400%. In her corpus Slogans featured an especially high increase of anglicisms, growing from 5 in 1951 to 153 in 1991. Meder came to similar realization, denoting a great increase of anglicisms used in selected German men’s and women’s magazines in the years 1983, 1993 and 2003. This trend of anglicisms and English expressions being incorporated into the German language – and also advertising – is presumed to continue with the number of expressions deriving from the English language increasing.
Hence, the quantitative presence of the English language in German advertising is virtually undeniable. However, advertising is a form of communication in which the advertiser’s objective is to generate a certain attitude within the recipient towards the advertising object. Thus, it is of substantial value to understand who perceives advertising containing English in the way the advertiser wishes it to be perceived. Past studies that have dealt with the perception of English and anglicisms in advertising oftentimes merely focused on the factor of comprehension. Researchers concluded that the positive perception of English correlated with the person’s command of English. Hence, the question remains who perceives the "aura" of the English language in advertising and which variables influence their respective perception.
At a glance
- Grade: 2.0 (1.0 is the best grade)
- Original online survey evaluated 136 completed responses
- Survey compared eight English and German slogans from four German companies
- 44 sources in the bibliography
- 3 tables
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
2. Advertising Language
2.1 The Aim of Advertising
2.2 The Importance of Advertising Language
2.3 The Slogan
3. Why is English popular among Advertisers?
3.1 Pragmatic Reasons
3.2 Sociocultural Factors
3.3 Corporate Motivation for using English Slogans
4. Varying Language Attitudes towards the Influence of English on the German Language
4.1. Adolescents
4.2 Criticism of Anglicisms and Purist Movement
4.3 Studies on the Perception of Anglicisms and English in Advertising
5. Online-Survey: Researching the associative and connotative value of English in Advertising
5.1 Methodology
5.2 Results
5.2.1 Sociodemographic Characteristics of the Participants
5.2.2 The associative values of English and German Slogans
5.2.3 The Connotation of Anglicisms and English in German Advertising
6. Discussion
7. Conclusion
Objectives and Topics
This thesis investigates how sociodemographic variables affect the perception of English and Anglicisms in German advertising. It combines a review of advertising language and existing research with an online survey comparing associations with English and German slogans and examining attitudes across demographic groups.
- The aims and linguistic techniques of advertising
- Pragmatic and sociocultural reasons for using English
- Language attitudes, youth culture and linguistic purism
- Associations with English and German advertising slogans
- Perceptions by age, education, gender and urban or rural upbringing
Excerpt from the Book
5.1 Methodology
The questionnaire was divided into three parts. The first part was needed to prove the validity of the first hypothesis. In order to gain a representative result on the varying associative perception of English and German in advertising, eight slogans by four German companies were presented to the participants. Each company had its most recent German and its most recent English slogan. The decision to use slogans was made due to the fact that slogans are coined by their significance to advertisers as well as their popularity and longevity which is meant for them to be memorable to consumers. Each slogan was accompanied by various opposite values expressed through adjectives. The majority of these values were determined in chapter four where the corporate motivation for using English in advertising was discussed. The participants’ task was to select how strongly they associated the respective adjectives with each slogan. A five-level Likert scale was set between the opposite adjectives. Each of the opposite adjectives could be rated as either “very”, “rather” or “neither” – if the participant did not associate one of the two opposite adjectives with the slogan.
The second and third part were conceived to gain an understanding for the connotative value of English in advertising depending on the sociodemographic variables of the respective participants. Furthermore, the other four hypotheses would either be validated or discredited. Here, the participants were confronted with seven statements dealing with the comprehensibility, effectivity and acceptance of anglicisms and English in advertising. Due to their effectiveness for this subject matter, three statements used in Schlüter’s survey were slightly paraphrased and used for this survey as well. A four level Likert scale was applied. Participants could select between the four answers “completely accurate”, “fairly accurate”, “rather inaccurate” and “completely inaccurate” depending of their subjective opinion of how applicable the statement was to them. Lastly, the third part identified each participant’s sociodemographic background by determining their gender, age, level of education and regional origin. The participants could optionally enter their name and email-address in order to compete in the drawing for one of two coupons. All of the other questions, however, were mandatory.
Chapter Summaries
1. Introduction: Introduces the research question, the five hypotheses and the structure of the thesis.
2. Advertising Language: Explains advertising objectives, the role of language and the functions of slogans.
3. Why is English popular among Advertisers?: Examines pragmatic and sociocultural motivations for using English and discusses research into advertisers’ reasons.
4. Varying Language Attitudes towards the Influence of English on the German Language: Explores youth language, criticism of Anglicisms and earlier studies of their reception.
5. Online-Survey: Researching the associative and connotative value of English in Advertising: Describes the survey design and presents participants’ demographic characteristics and responses to slogans and statements.
6. Discussion: Interprets the survey findings in relation to the hypotheses, demographic variables and previous research.
7. Conclusion: Brings the theoretical discussion and survey findings together to address the research question.
Keywords
English in advertising, German advertising, Anglicisms, sociodemographic variables, language attitudes, advertising slogans, consumer perception, associative meaning, connotative meaning, online survey, age, education, regional origin, gender
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the thesis about?
It examines how people perceive English and Anglicisms in German advertising and how perceptions vary across sociodemographic groups.
What are its main topics?
The thesis covers advertising language, reasons for using English, attitudes towards Anglicisms, prior research and an online survey of slogan perceptions.
What is the primary research question?
The central question is how sociodemographic variables affect the perception of English in German advertising.
What research method does the author use?
The author uses an online questionnaire with slogan ratings, statements about English in advertising and questions about participants’ demographic backgrounds.
What does the main body examine?
It discusses the functions of advertising language, motivations for using English, language attitudes and previous studies before presenting and discussing the survey.
Which keywords characterize the thesis?
Key terms include Anglicisms, German advertising, language attitudes, slogans, consumer perception and sociodemographic variables.
How were the slogans selected for the survey?
The questionnaire presented eight slogans from four German companies, pairing each company’s most recent English slogan with its most recent German slogan.
Which demographic characteristics does the survey consider?
It considers age, education, gender and whether participants grew up in an urban or rural area.
How many completed survey responses were evaluated?
The analysis draws on 136 completed questionnaires; incomplete responses were excluded.
- Quote paper
- Henry Quevedo (Author), 2018, An Analysis of How Socio-demographic Variables Affect the Perception of English in German Advertising, Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/457533
