LINGUIST List 13.3356

Wed Dec 18 2002

Disc: Linguists and Advertising

Editor for this issue: Karen Milligan <karenlinguistlist.org>

Directory

  • Rich Alderson, Re: 13.3309, Disc: New: Linguists and Advertising
  • Charley Rowe, Re: linguists and advertising
  • Annie Ferreira, linguists and advertising
  • Martha McGinnis, Re: Lingusts and Advertising

    Message 1: Re: 13.3309, Disc: New: Linguists and Advertising

    Date: Tue, 17 Dec 2002 21:33:41 -0500 (EST)
    From: Rich Alderson <linguistalderson.users.panix.com>
    Subject: Re: 13.3309, Disc: New: Linguists and Advertising


    In forwarding notes from Elgin and Tauber regarding a distasteful commercial, our colleagues at the LinguistList asked two questions, which I will address in reverse order.

    > Do people take what they see in commercials as truth, or do they > expect a certain amount of 'manipulation of the facts' in all > advertising and therefore take such commercials with a grain of > salt?

    While people generally take the claims made for particular products or classes of products in commercials with the proverbial grain of salt, it appears that they accept any background information imparted in those same commercials as unvarnished truth. I think that this is because the background information is not seen as relevant to their purchasing decision, and therefore is not subject to critical thought; this leads to a dichotomy of acceptance: If the background information happens to mesh with their preconceptions, it reinforces them, while if it disagrees in some way with those preconceptions, it is ignored (if mildly contravening) or rejectly more or less firmly (if more directly contradictory).

    > Is it our responsibilty as memebers [sic] of the linguistic > community to 'educate' companies when they do something like this?

    Given the difficulty of convincing the general public of the need to preserve endangered languages, anything which makes them appear less valuable as objects of study (and of wonder) is to be fought in all arenas. Thus, I think we must accept a responsibility to educate any individual or body who, however inadvertently, makes less of any language, and to educate them in a public as well as a private forum so that the public is once again made aware of the issues.

    Rich Alderson

    Message 2: Re: linguists and advertising

     Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 13:15:42 -0000
    From: Charley Rowe <Charley.Rowenewcastle.ac.uk>
    Subject: Re: linguists and advertising


    To the recent discussion on the commercial with phonemic clicks, LINGUIST posed the question of whether people accept advertising content as truth or whether manipulation of the facts is seen as part and parcel of advertising (i.e., the wilder the better to promote the product). I believe that when an advertisement is not of a humorous nature, people do place stock in the message of the ad. This is precisely the reason why political campaign ads can be quite effective, regardless to what extent many of them may distort the truth.

    Charley Rowe

    Message 3: linguists and advertising

     Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 10:50:57 -0500
    From: Annie Ferreira <aferreirahtivs.com>
    Subject: linguists and advertising


    Dear Listers - Thank goodness I am not the only person who noticed and was offended by this television ad! My first thought was "Where are the vowels?" Having studied Zulu and Xhosa clicks as an undergrad, as well as American English speakers' perception of those clicks, I know that Zulu and Xhosa contain clicks, stops, fricatives, vowels - you name it! This commercial seems to perpetrate a language which is all clicks! No other consonants and no vowels. I'd love for a native speaker to tell us what the heck the "chieftan" is saying. Furthermore, "simple" clicks?!? Has anyone out there tried to make a click? Such as an alveolar click? Well, I can sort of approximate lateral clicks, but the rest of them are completely lost to me! I am in awe of people who can produce them. And, in agreement with the earlier notes, I feel that this ad is portraying this language as primative and simple. We (the linguistic community) all know that there is no such thing as a primative and simple language. I bet these ad makers think ASL and creoles are primative and simple too. Far from being cute, I thought the ad was offensive and portrayed an ignorant company. Should we draft a letter to Ricoh stating our impressions, and recommending they apologize or risk a boycott of Ricoh products? This is a good arena, let's take some action.

    Thanks for your time!

    Annie C. Ferreira Project Manager/Linguist HTI Voice Solutions, Inc. www.htivs.com

    Message 4: Re: Lingusts and Advertising

     Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 09:24:51 -0700
    From: Martha McGinnis <mcginnisucalgary.ca>
    Subject: Re: Lingusts and Advertising


    >What can or should linguists do about such distortions and >misrepresentations?

    I suggest that individual linguists who want to respond should send letters of complaint to the company (http://www.ricoh-usa.com/contact/index.pl?eform). Perhaps the Linguist List editors, the Linguistic Society of America, and other organizations could send letters as well.

    >Is it our responsibilty as memebers of the linguistic community to >'educate' companies when they do something like this?

    If we don't, who will?

    >Do people take what they see in commercials as truth, or do they >expect a certain amount of 'manipulation of the facts' in all >advertising and therefore take such commercials with a grain of salt?

    I think people are skeptical about companies' claims about their own products, but they're not necessarily skeptical about the background assumptions that advertisements make about the world, especially if they have no personal knowledge that contradicts those assumptions. Obviously, a world in which elves dance around the teapot is not going to be taken seriously, since people have enough experience of teapots to know this is highly improbable. But a world in which there are primitive languages is already taken seriously by many people -- the Ricoh ad only reinforces their ignorance.

    Best regards, Martha - _____________________________________________ Dr. Martha McGinnis, Assistant Professor Linguistics Department, University of Calgary 2500 University Drive NW, Calgary AB T2N 1N4 http://www.ling.ucalgary.ca/~mcginnis/ _____________________________________________