content analysis of linguistic characteristics of foreign

Content Analysis of LinguisticCharacteristics of Foreign Language Use

in Korean Magazine Advertising

Wonmo Yang1 and Sangpil Han2

1,2Department of Advertising, Hanyang University,15588, Korea

[email protected]

Corresponding author:[email protected]∗2

Abstract

Background/Objectives: The purpose of this studyis to examine the linguistic and expressive characteristicsused in Korean magazine advertisements.

Methods/Statistical analysis: Use of foreign lan-guage is an important trend in advertising content. Rel-atively few studies have analyzed foreign language in adver-tising content. This study reviewed the content of Koreanmagazine advertising from 1995 to 2015 using the contentanalysis method.

Findings: The present article found that the numberof Korean magazine advertisements with a foreign languagewas not significantly different longitudinally from the 1990sto the 2010s. The results of the three research questionsshowed that there was not a significant change in the us-age of foreign languages in the studied years. However, theresults of this study showed that there was a significant dif-ference in the advertising appeal of using foreign languagesin general women’s magazines. The results also showed thatKorean magazine advertising used foreign language in anap-propriate way, which implies that using foreign language ismore effective than using domestic language for informingand persuading consumers in a market.

International Journal of Pure and Applied MathematicsVolume 120 No. 6 2018, 5263-5277ISSN: 1314-3395 (on-line version)url: http://www.acadpubl.eu/hub/Special Issue http://www.acadpubl.eu/hub/

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Improvements/Applications: The findings of the studyprovide a unique view of the field to researchers and adver-tisers, including directions for future research and practicalimplications for advertising creative research.

Key Words : Content analysis, Foreign language inadvertising, Advertising content, Advertising appeal, Ad-vertising copy

1 Introduction

Although using foreign language is an important characteristic ofKorean magazine advertising, relatively few studies have been con-ducted to analyze foreign language in advertising content. As socialand cultural communications, many different foreign languages areused in product and service advertising headlines and copy. Thepurpose of advertisements is to inform and persuade consumers toaccept a specific attitude or behavioral disposition [1].

Among many languages, English has been the most frequentlyused in print advertising headlines and body copy. Advertisingcopy writers use foreign languages in many ways, including lightphrasing morphologically and verifications of meaning.

In advertising communications, the practice of using foreign lan-guages is becoming increasingly widespread throughout the globe.Language used in advertising headlines, body copy and sub-headlinesis very important in advertising strategy because the effectivenessof persuasive messages in advertising depends on how words, graph-ics and other symbolic representations are included and perceivedby recipient[2].

Many previous studies have concluded that print advertisementsand commercials that use foreign languages are effective at gettingconsumers’ attention [3,4] and convincing them to buy the adver-tised products and services. The other study investigated the rela-tive effectiveness of using both foreign and local languages in printadvertising and concluded that using foreign language is a moreeffective way of persuading consumers [5].

Korean consumers are expected to recognize English words usedin advertisements and hold even more positive attitudes towardthe English language than the Korean language due to the globalprominence and status associated with the English language. Print

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advertisements and commercials typically consist of the followingelements in differing combinations: headline, sub-headline, illustra-tion (picture and music) and body copy.

The use of foreign language in Korean magazine advertisementsis an important longitudinal research topic. Despite the fact thatadvertising language research is well established, few studies havefocused on foreign language as a site of language contact [6].

The purpose of this study is to determine the linguistic andexpressive characteristics used in Korean magazine advertising lon-gitudinally.

Based on this reasoning, the present research set up the follow-ing three research questions:

1. To what degree does the number of Korean magazine adver-tisements using a foreign language differ longitudinally from 1995to 2015?

2. To what degree do linguistic characteristics in Korean mag-azine advertisements using a foreign language differ longitudinallyfrom 1995 to 2015?

3. To what degree do Korean magazine advertisements differlongitudinally from 1995 to 2015 according to product categories?

2 Materials and Methods

2.1 Literature Review

Using different languages is important to consider in an advertisingmessage because the effectiveness of advertising is decided basedon how properly words and other social and cultural narrativesare employed and received [2,5]. A number of previous studies haveinvestigated how the cognitive and affective processing of consumersdiffers between advertisements using a native language and a foreignlanguage [7].

In the process of advertising information acquisition, organi-zation, and utilization, the effect of an advertisement’s content isinfluenced by factors that affect consumers’ attention to an adver-tising appeal and comprehension of the advertising content [1]. For


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this reason, foreign language used in advertising has long been ofinterest to consumer researchers and linguists [6].

The origin of language (regional versus foreign language) is anelement that critically influences recipients’ attention and under-standing of persuasive communications and information. The wayconsumers input regional and foreign languages into their memoryhas been an important topic in bilingual academic studies and is of-ten interpreted by the revised hierarchical model [8]. The linguisticacademic opinion of foreign language display argues that congru-ence with the commodity is the key factor in its effectiveness [9].

A study in this field found that English occurred in 49%, Frenchin 6%, and Italian in 4% of German television commercials. Theauthor explained the usage of foreign language, especially English,in advertising as a general symbol of modernity, globalization, pres-tige, and progress. English occurring in advertisements is not usedto connect advertised products or services with an ethno-culturalpreconception, but a social preconception. The high frequency ofEnglish in many countries’ advertisements does not signify Ameri-canization or Westernization, but rather a modern and cosmopoli-tan identity for the advertised products or services [6].

English generally arouses new ideas, such as development, mod-ernization, activity, youthfulness, and globalization [6]. This inter-pretation indicates that the English language could not only be usedfor American products or services, but also for a range of productsor services that do not originate in English-speaking countries. Theother study also found that more than half of Greek print adver-tisements used foreign languages. Among 1,265 Greek newspaperand magazine advertisements analyzed, only 43% used exclusivelydomestic language. Greek print advertisements included English,French, Italian, and Russian. The foreign language used was En-glish in the majority of cases.

Reference of [10] stated that in present advertising of globalcompanies in European countries, foreign languages are includednot for their persuasive purpose (this is the main objective of utilityvalue). Instead, the usage of foreign language in advertising is for ananiconic purpose. Despite the general thought in advertising theorythat congruence between the advertised products and country oforigin is a critical factor for the effective use of foreign languages(other than English) in advertising [9], in international persuasive


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communications, a foreign language now seems to be used mainlyfor its symbolic worth in promoting products or services.

The advertising appeal is commonly categorized into the ratio-nal appeal and the emotional appeal. For example, the rationalappeal pertains to economics, health, quality, reliability, and effi-ciency in advertising content. In contrast, the emotional appealfocuses on adventure, fear, humor, romance, sex, and emotionalties in advertising content [11,12]. The results of previous researchindicate that in both rational and emotional appeals, the usage offoreign language is widespread in many countries.

2.2 Materials

This study analyzed the appeal of Korean news and women’s mag-azine advertisements from 1995 to 2015. The final samples of ad-vertising content were collected from May and October issues ofgeneral women’s and news magazines from those years. A total of560 magazine advertisements were included in the content analysis.

These advertisements were sampled from issues published everyten years (sample years: 1995, 2005, and 2015). For each sampleyear, May and October issues were chosen in the sample to verifythat the print advertisements selected for content analysis wereequivalent across the study years in terms of the types of productsand services that appeared in the advertisements. [Table 1] showscategories of Korean magazines with the number of advertisementssampled in the study.


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2.3 Methods

2.3.1 Coding

A manual for coding the sampled magazine advertisements was de-veloped on the basis of the theoretical and practical backgroundsexplained in previous advertising and language research. Codingwas conducted independently by two graduate students whose na-tive language is Korean. Coders were ignorant of the purposes ofthe research topics. Both coders were extensively trained over twoweeks to improve their coding agreements (inter-coder and test-retest reliability).

Two independent coders were trained to analyze the advertisingcontent of the general women’s and news magazine advertisementsfollowing the procedures below:

First, they counted the number of foreign languages in theads. Second, they distinguished the elements of advertising con-tent (headline, sub-headline, and body copy). Third, they countedthe morphological elements (abbreviation, new word, original lan-guage, and original text). Fourth, they distinguished the 8 parts ofspeech. Fifth, they differentiated the types of advertising appeal.Finally, they classified the product categories of sampled advertise-ments.

2.3.2 Operational definition of dependent variables

1. Foreign language: a language originally from another country.

2. Advertising elements (advertisements and commercials typi-cally consist of the following elements): headline, sub-headline,illustration (picture and music) and body copy.

3. Morphological elements: constructing words such as abbrevi-ations, new words, original language, and original text.

4. Eight parts of speech: Noun, pronoun, verb, adjective, ad-verb, preposition, conjunction, and interjection.

5. Advertising appeal:

1) Rational appeal: the reasonable, practical and functionaldesirability of a product or service to a potential consumer.


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2) Emotional appeal: the type of advertising in which thecopy is designed to stimulate one’s emotions rather than one’ssense of the practical or impractical.

3) Mixed appeal: the advertising appeal that contains bothrational and emotional appeal.

6. Product categories (products were categorized into 24 groups):1) food/beverage, 2) liquor/tobacco, 3) fashion/accessories,4) cosmetics, 5) cars, 6) travel, 7) computers, 8) insurance/finance,9) real estate, 10) accommodations/restaurants, 11) movies/culture,12) furniture, 13) medicine, 14) housewares, 15) electronics,16) chemical industry, 17) office equipment, 18) publications,19) public office, 20) corporations, 21) education/welfare, 22)construction, 23) hospitals, 24) other

3 Results

3.1 Reliability

Of the 560 sampled advertisements, the reliability was calculatedfor each category. These figures can be interpreted as measures ofagreement between the two independent coders. The agreement be-tween the two judges was quite high, between 90% and 100%, whichis quite acceptable for content analysis. In the cases where therewere disagreements between coders, they discussed and adjustedthe differences between them.

3.2 Results

Research Question 1 asks how the number of foreign languages inKorean magazine advertisements changes longitudinally from 1995to 2015. [Table 2] summarizes the results of the statistical anal-ysis of Research Question 1. The proportion of Korean magazineadvertisements that had a foreign language over the 20-year pe-riod of study differed depending on the type of magazine adver-tisements. The results of news magazine advertisements indicatedthat the proportion decreased over time. The proportion of newsmagazine advertisements that used a foreign language was 41.7% in1995, 40.2% in 2005, and 18.1% in 2015. However, the percentage


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of advertisements using a foreign language in women’s magazinesshowed an increasing pattern over the 20-year period of study. Theresults showed that the percentage of advertisements using a for-eign language in women’s magazines was 27.16% in 1995, 33.25% in2005, and 39.59% in 2015. On the other hand, when combining thetwo types of magazine advertisements, the results revealed that theproportions of Korean magazine advertisements that used a foreignlanguage over the 20-year period of study did not change over time.The percentage of Korean magazine advertisements using a foreignlanguage was 33.07% in 1995, 36.07% in 2005, and 30.86% in 2015(chi-square = 5.3, ρ = n.s.).

Research Question 2 asks about the degree to which linguisticcharacteristics in Korean magazine advertisements using a foreignlanguage differ longitudinally from 1995 to 2015. [Table 3] revealsthat in using 8 parts of speech, most Korean magazine advertise-ments used nouns across time (chi-square = 5.4, p = n.s.). The re-sults clearly showed that nouns prevailed over other parts of speechthroughout the entire period. The percentage of advertisementsusing nouns was 100.0% in 1995, 98.4% in 2005, and 100.0% in2015. To achieve an emphatic effect, nouns were used frequently inadvertisements compared to other parts of speech.


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As shown in [Table 4], when using a foreign language in adver-tising elements, the Korean magazine advertisements used a foreignlanguage predominantly in the headline and body copy (chi-square= 28.6, ρ = 0.004).

Research Question 3 asks about differences in product categoriesof advertisements using a foreign language. As shown in [Table 5],the percentage of Korean magazine advertisements using a foreign


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language varied among product categories. The proportion usinga foreign language for fashion, cosmetics and food/beverage adver-tisements was 16.1%, 15.2%, and 13.4% respectively. In contrast,in other product categories the proportionusing a foreign languagewas less than 10.0%. The results of this analysis show substantialdifferences among product categories in using a foreign language(chi-square = 149.4, ρ = 0.000) as shown in table 6.


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4 Conclusion

The present article found that the number of Korean magazine ad-vertisements with a foreign language was not significantly differentlongitudinally from the 1990s to the 2010s. The results of the threeresearch questions showed that there was not a significant changein the usage of foreign languages in the studied years. However,the results of this study showed that there was a significant differ-ence in the advertising appeal of using foreign languages in generalwomen’s magazines. This finding partially demonstrates the phe-


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nomenon of changing patterns of advertising content in the use ofa foreign language in print advertisements.

To achieve an emphatic effect, nouns were used frequently in ad-vertisements compared to other parts of speech. Foreign languagewas used in print advertisements for simple expression morpho-logically and for clarification of meaning to draw the attention ofrecipients semantically. These linguistic devices were strategicallyused to influence and persuade consumers to adopt the objective ofprint advertisements.

There are some reasons for using foreign language in print ad-vertisements. It seems to be effective in enhancing the advertisedproduct image. As shown in the present study, there were tenden-cies to use more foreign language in the headline and body copy.This study shows that advertising language is an interesting re-search topic to both advertising researchers and linguists.

The results found in this research illustrate a wide diversity ofways in which linguistic features in advertising content can exert aninfluence on the use of a foreign language in Korean magazine ad-vertisements. The findings of the study give researchers and adver-tisers a unique view of this field, some directions for future researchand practical implications for important avenues of advertising cre-ative research.

The results of this study should be interpreted considering cer-tain limitations. First, this study examined only two types of mag-azines with a limited sample of general interest, general women’sand news magazines. Future research should include other types ofmagazines such as health, travel and sports magazines to increasethe generalizability of the findings. Second, this study covered atime period of only 20 years. Future studies should cover a longertime period to explore longitudinal effects and seasonal variations.Third, this study only examined print advertising. Unlike printadvertisements, television commercials and online advertisementsmight be especially likely to feature foreign languages in Korea.Future studies should include other types of media such as televi-sion and online advertising in their content analysis.


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[10] Kelly-Holmes, H. (2000). Bier, Parfum, Kaas: Language fetishin European advertising. European Journal of CulturalStudies , 3(1), 67-82.

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