Running head: SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES IN ADVERTISING ENGLISH 1 Syntactic Structures in Advertising English: A Stylistic Analysis Comparing Print Ads from 1885, 1950, and 2000 T. Jordan Smith Weber State University SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES IN ADVERTISING ENGLISH 2 Abstract The present study provides a diachronic stylistic analysis of syntactic structures in advertisements from 1885, 1950, and 2000. I selected 10 advertisements from the May 1885, January 1950, and January 2000 issues of Good Housekeeping magazine and analyzed five stylistic areas, namely the use independent minor clauses, the use of the subjunctive and imperative moods, the use of focusing constructions, the use of personal pronouns, and the use of anaphoric reference. The analysis found variations in the use of these syntactic and stylistic structures over time with a general move toward informal structures. Some of the more important findings included the use of independent minor clauses shifting from heavy (1885) to moderate (1950, 2000), the use of imperative mood shifting from indirect (1885) to direct (1950, 2000), the use of extraposition shifting from none (1885) to frequent (1950, 2000), the use of you as a form of direct address shifting from none (1885) to subject position (1950) to object position (2000), and the use of anaphora shifting from heavy (1885) to moderate (1950) to light (2000). The findings of this study benefit advertisers and marketers by helping them determine what types of structures are easily relatable to a modern audience, how certain structures may influence others, and which structures may be seen as old-fashioned or outdated. Keywords: stylistics, syntax, advertising, English, linguistics, language, copywriting SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES IN ADVERTISING ENGLISH 3 Syntactic Structures in Advertising English: A Stylistic Analysis Comparing Print Ads from 1885, 1950, and 2000 Copywriting is often portrayed as the epitome of the creative process—a job in which people play, brainstorm, and write catchy headlines or jingles. But a copywriter’s job is not all fun and games; it involves a level of responsibility as well. If the text a copywriter produces fails to present a clear, easily understood message, the copywriter’s work has failed. Indeed, a copywriter’s primary task is to persuade, motivate, and build desire (Kranz, 2005). Ambiguous, complex, or generally hard-to-read advertisements are likely to fail, simply because they may not do an adequate job of motivating overburdened consumers to read the message in the first place (see Huhmann, Mothersbaugh & Franke, 2002). There is no paucity of research on the language of advertising. Some studies focus on the ways advertising accomplishes the task of persuasion through the use of rhetoric (e.g., Djafarova, 2008). Additional studies look at the way linguistic factors play into this persuasion (e.g., Lowery, 1998). Studies on reading and cognition (see Just & Carpenter, 1987) are also relevant to this topic, as copywriters must compose syntactic structures that can be understood with relative ease. Despite the amount of research done on advertising in the past, no research has looked specifically at stylistic and syntactic changes in ad copy that have occurred during the Present-Day English period. This study will provide a diachronic stylistic analysis of five syntactic structures used in print advertisements to investigate whether syntactic and stylistic changes have indeed occurred in advertising copy over a period of 115 years. The content used for this analysis is composed of ads that have appeared in a magazine nationally circulated from 1885 to 2000 to determine if the types of sentence structures used have changed in noteworthy ways from the late 1800s to the SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES IN ADVERTISING ENGLISH 4 beginning of the new millennium. The results of this thesis provide insight for professionals currently working in advertising, allowing them to see what types of constructions appeal to modern readers as well as those constructions that may be seen as old-fashioned or outdated. By comparing the syntax common to advertisements nearly 150 years old to those of the last decade, copywriters and other marketers will be able to better understand what stylistic elements are widely regarded to be easily relatable to a modern audience so that a particular message can be delivered in ways that modern readers will easily understand To determine whether stylistic change in advertising syntax has in fact taken place over a 115-year period, I conducted a content analysis of sample advertisements from a national U.S. magazine using methods common to stylistic analysis. My intent was to determine differences in and some possible explanations for the way advertising syntax has changed from 1885 to 2000. Literature Review Experts have conducted research to study the language of advertising (see Hemerén, 1999 for an overview); however, no studies of which I am aware have categorized stylistic and syntactic changes that have taken place over the last 100-plus years in print advertisements. To provide such a study, I begin by reviewing language change principles and a sampling of ways in which English syntax has changed over time to provide a historical perspective of some of the changes that may be occurring today. Also, I investigate the generally negative attitudes toward language change and explore how advertising copy has a tendency to embrace language change before other media traditionally do to help explain the motivation for some of this change. I then review the syntactic recommendations for effective advertising, as well as research that shows that syntax affects how messages are cognitively interpreted before introducing the discipline of stylistics. Finally, I present a stylistic analysis of five syntactic elements found in a sample of 30 SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES IN ADVERTISING ENGLISH 5 advertisements. I chose the five structures analyzed in this study after carefully reviewing the sample advertisements to determine which stylistic changes may yield the most interesting results. Language Change Even a preliminary study of the history of the English language makes apparent the drastic linguistic changes that have occurred over the course of the lifespan of the language (approximately 1,500 years) (Millward, 1996). The story of English is filled with wars, peace, cultural mixing, expansion, innovation, and imperialism. With such a colorful history it might seem inevitable that the English spoken by the Anglo-Saxons of the fifth century would change and morph and evolve. But is this a characteristic common among all languages? And does this characteristic of language change happen continuously or continually? In other words, is language undergoing constant change, or does it go through periods of stasis with bursts of transformations only occurring at certain times? It is a foundational principle of linguistics that all languages change over time. McWhorter (1998) calls language change an inevitable characteristic of any language being spoken. He says: Any language is always and forever on its way to changing into a new one, with many of the sounds, word meanings, and sentence patterns we process as “sloppy” and “incorrect” being the very things that will constitute the “proper language” of the future. (p. 3) McWhorter goes on to suggest that what many people typically refer to as degraded language or the devolution of language is not logically possible because every language comes about by the process of gradual, unstoppable change. It’s not change for the worse, despite the fact that so many consider it to be so; there is nothing inherently negative in the process. SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES IN ADVERTISING ENGLISH 6 While some forms of language, such as phonology and lexicology, change faster than others (Leech, Hundt, Mair, & Smith, 2009; Mair & Leech, 2006 unpublished), all forms of language undergo constant change over time. Bauer (1994) puts it this way: Tempting though it may appear to conclude that language is no longer changing, that change in English stopped two hundred years ago, this is wrong. All living languages change. This is as true of standard varieties as it is of non-standard varieties, though the rates of change may not be the same. Consequently, it seems likely that standard varieties are changing now as they have in the past. (p. 7) With the reality of language change established, we can begin to consider some of the specific changes that have happened in English syntax over time, focusing specifically on syntactic changes observed to be happening in the twentieth century. Twentieth-Century Syntactic Changes The history of the English language is commonly broken into four eras: Old English (AD 450–1100), Middle English (AD 1100–1500), Early Modern English (AD 1500–1800), and Present-Day English (AD 1800– ) (Millward, 1996). That syntactic and stylistic changes have taken place from the time of Old English to Present-Day English is obvious. Because Old English was a much more inflected variety of English, meaning it relied on morphological inflections to show various parts of speech and to indicate case, its word order was freer. Latin, German, and other languages share this characteristic (Millward, 1996). However, over the course of 1,000 years, many of those morphological inflections, or affixes (a term that includes both prefixes and suffixes), were lost largely due to phonological or sound changes taking place in standard varieties of English (Murray, 2001). This loss of inflection occurred primarily during the Middle English period, resulting in the establishment of the Subject–Verb–Object word order. At one point the sentences The dog bit Mary and Mary bit the dog could have had SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES IN ADVERTISING ENGLISH 7 identical meanings because of affixation. But with the loss of affixes and the standardization of word order, speakers of Present-Day English understand the first noun phrase in both sentences to be the subject of the each sentence (in this case, the agent or doer of the action) and the second noun phrase—the noun phrase following the verb—to be the object or the receiver of the action. Hence, the two sentences have come to have entirely different meanings. Changes in English usage and structure also occurred in the moods of English— particularly the subjunctive, discussed in the Analysis section of this paper. The English subjunctive has undergone significant change in the way it is expressed. This mood dates back to the earliest linguistic ancestor of English, Indo-European, and has carried through all the major time periods of English (Millward, 1996). During the Old English time period, use of the subjunctive mood was much more common than in Present-Day English, being formed largely with dedicated subjunctive verb forms and even in contexts where doubt or uncertainty are not expressed (Baker, 2003). The use of the subjunctive survived through the Middle English and Early Modern English periods, still filling its place as a part of the everyday speech of English speakers during these time periods. By the Early Modern English time period, however, its use had restricted, being indicated primarily with the be verbs and only second-person singular and the third-person singular present tense verbs (e.g., thou wast [indicative] vs. thou wert [subjunctive]) (Barber, 1997). Today, the subjunctive mood is still used to express a wish or a desire—something that does not actually exist or has not actually happened. But its use has restricted even further, being detectable only in be verbs (I desire that you be given a promotion) or third-person singular conjugations (If he go any farther, he’ll fall). Many of these constructions in Present-Day English sound stilted or overly formal. This is one reason why in SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES IN ADVERTISING ENGLISH 8 many cases, the subjunctive is often formed with the use of a modal auxiliary in Present-Day English (I would put the babies to bed if they were tired). Changes in the way the imperative mood is constructed also occurred, though the changes in the imperative appears to be less dramatic than those in the subjunctive. Imperative constructions are most often used to make a command or a request. In Present-Day English, they are made using a verb form identical to the infinitive and without an accompanying pronoun (Give the cat his food). In Old English, Middle English, and Present-Day English constructions, pronoun insertion before the verb was optional, often used to show emphasis (You give the cat his food puts emphasis on the request that you do it and not someone else). In Early Modern English, this pronoun + imperative verb construction disappeared, though a variant of it arose in which the pronoun was placed after the verb (Go thou into every corner of the Earth). This variant could be used for emphasis, but it did not always carry an emphatic tone (Barber, 1997). Experts have observed syntactic changes occurring within the Present-Day English time period (Barber, 1964; Foster, 1968; Bauer, 1994). These changes are affected by geography, socioeconomic class, medium, and other factors. (Wolfram & Schilling-Estes, 2006). Geography affects Present-Day English lexically, semantically, and syntactically. For example, the double modal construction (I might could take care of that if I had the right tools) is found more commonly in the southern United States than in other regions. Socioeconomic class also affects the syntax used by speakers of English. Speakers of a poorer social class may likely adopt nonstandard syntax as acceptable such as He goin’ to school vs. He’s going to school. But these types of variations are not limited to just one social class; they occur across many socioeconomic boundaries. For example, it’s common for some phrasal verb forms to be fused into a single word, as in the case of want to becoming wanna. This SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES IN ADVERTISING ENGLISH 9 particular change occurs in many socioeconomic classes. The fact that it appeared in written language (not dialogue) in 2003 (Davies, 2008) provides evidence of this. The medium in which a message is delivered also affects the way Present-Day English is used. Syntactic constructions that are appropriate in broadcast news may not be commonly found in a more formal medium such as academic writing. (A possible example may be broadcaster’s less-frequent use of whom in constructions where prescription calls for the object pronoun, or the use of singular is in a there existential when a plural subject is intended, e.g., There’s a lot of people at the train station today.) Likewise, the type of constructions used in text messages would be unlikely to be found in a work of fiction. As this study focuses on one medium—that of print advertisements—one might expect to observe some consistency among various samples. As language changes, the tendency is a move toward more informal structures. Leech (1966) comments on the colloquialization of many registers, including commerce, journalism, and government. Leech et al. (2009) put it this way: The latter part of the twentieth century . . . seems to have been a period shaped by a growing appreciation of the informal and colloquial in writing, by a pervasive and growing influence of American usage on all varieties of English (which, of course, does not preclude occasional counter-movements), and, certainly in the written language, by the effects of an “information explosion,” which forces writers to compress ever-increasing amounts of information in texts of limited length. (p. 22) The compression of text mentioned in the quote above is often attributed to the shortening attention spans of modern readers. A simple comparison of copy length in advertisements from the mid–twentieth century and those printed in recent times could be seen as evidence of this. The present study will look for evidence of colloquialization and other stylistic differences in a SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES IN ADVERTISING ENGLISH 10 sample of advertisements to further investigate what changes exist in the advertising language of the Present-Day English period. Attitudes Toward Language Change Despite the fact that languages change, there are still those who try to fight against this change. Trotta (2010), in his paper defending why popular culture provides a worthwhile lens from which to view language, provides a demonstrative example of this attitude in quoting a comment left by one Patrick B., a concerned English speaker, on the website of the Visual Thesaurus. The topic was whether funner and funnest could be seen as legitimate alternates to more fun and most fun, respectively. The argument was spurred by Apple’s 2008 ad campaign advertising the new iPod as “the funnest iPod ever.” Patrick B. writes: Sorry . . . I refuse to allow advertising to dictate the evolution of the language . . . Bad manners may become the norm, but they will always evidence rudeness and ignorance. The same can be said for grammar. (p. 53) Attitudes such as this provide marked evidence that exemplifies “how stubbornly entrenched the idea is that commercial/popular forces are responsible for corrupting the language” (p. 53). Though the use of funnest predates Apple’s ad campaign (a search in the Corpus of Historical American English (Davies, 2010) shows the first occurrence of funnest in a newscast in 1983), it’s clear that advertisers have the influence to ignite—or in some cases, reignite—discussions of grammar and usage. Many native English speakers grow up learning the grammatical rules of a “correct” English. While some notable English authorities remained positive toward language change (e.g., Joseph Priestly), most usage experts warned against it. Two books, Robert Lowth’s hugely successful A Short Introduction to English Grammar, printed in 1762, and Lindley Murray’s English Grammar, printed in 1794, are largely responsible for many of the attitudes that exist SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES IN ADVERTISING ENGLISH 11 today about what constitutes “correct” and “incorrect” English (McWhorter, 1998). McWhorter’s book Word on the Street: Debunking the Myth of a “Pure” Standard English refutes many of the ideas posed by these two highly influential eighteenth-century grammarians. The fact that attitudes toward language change are generally negative may have an effect on the way advertising copy is written. For the more conservative copywriter, understanding this generally negative attitude will encourage him or her to adhere to the prescriptive rules of grammar more strictly. However, many copywriters, as is discussed in the following section, take advantage of this fact to foreground, or draw more attention to, certain aspects of their advertisements. Advertising Copy and Language Change While it’s true that success in many facets of life requires a knowledge of standard English, McWhorter (1998) points out that “prescriptive grammar has spread linguistic insecurity like a plague among English speakers for centuries, numbs us to the aesthetic richness of nonstandard speech, and distracts us from attending to genuine issues of linguistic style in writing” (p. 62). While this is the case for many writers, copywriters often tweak the language in nonstandard ways to create a desired effect. Leech (1966) attributes this inclination to “the opposed tendencies of conformity and unorthodoxy: between following a prescribed path of advertising clichés and exercising the freedom to deviate from it, and even, on occasion, to deviate from the rules of the English language itself” (p. 4). Gladwell (2002) comments on the classically controversial 1954 ad slogan, “Winston tastes good like a cigarette should,” noting how its “ungrammatical and somehow provocative use of ‘like’ instead of ‘as’ created a minor sensation” (p. 25). The fact that Walter Cronkite famously refused to repeat the slogan on air as it was written provides evidence—though anecdotal—of how strongly entrenched some prescriptive rules of grammar are. SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES IN ADVERTISING ENGLISH 12 Certainly, there are many examples of copywriters taking liberty with language, though many are not as famously controversial as the Winston campaign. Noun phrases, for example, often behave differently in advertising copy than in other contexts, having the ability to operate as independent clauses (Rush, 1998; Cook, 1992) and become complex using unorthodox internal structures. This is seen in the number of premodifying comparative and superlative adjectives these noun phrases can take (e.g., “dramatically clearer, smoother, healthier skin,” see Rush, 1998, p. 162), the high frequency and variety of compound premodifiers used (e.g., “In one fragrance-free, oil-free, ophthalmologist-tested formula,” see Rush, 1998, p. 163), and the unusual word order that results from copywriters’ desire to place the product or brand name in or close to phrase-initial position (e.g., New Purina Dog Chow® Brand Dog Food Senior Formula, see Rush, 1998, p. 166). The likelihood of copywriters to embrace language change, or to use deviant or unorthodox forms of language, can be described as part of the copywriter’s style. For this reason, a stylistic analysis of syntactic structures used in advertising copy over time will help determine if certain stylistic choices have remained stable between 1885 and 2000, or if they have changed over time. Syntactic and Stylistic Recommendations for Effective Advertising Many observers have noted the differences between advertising English and standard English (Wyckham, Banting, & Wensley, 1984; Wyckham, 1986). Copywriters often take creative liberties with their words and sentences, allowing for nonstandard constructions, such as those that break from grammatical prescriptions (e.g., the Mercedes 2012 C-class coupe slogan, “More power. More style. More technology. Less doors.” breaks convention by using less with the countable noun doors), unusual word order for comparative adjectives modifying adjectival subject complements (as in CenturyLink’s “Be stronger connected” slogan), or the use of SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES IN ADVERTISING ENGLISH 13 adjectives as nouns (such as Lexus’ “Engineer amazing” tagline). Many people think linguistic irregularities are used in copy to convey a more powerful or interesting message; however, Wyckham et al. (1984) say that no studies show whether advertising messages that violate the prescriptive rules of grammar are perceived as more powerful than those that don’t, though their own research found that almost three-quarters of the commercials analyzed in their study contained some kind of syntactic or stylistic irregularity. This evidence would suggest that there is a commonly held belief among copywriters that syntactic or grammatical irregularity adds some sort of weight to the copy they write. The stylistic theory of foregrounding supports this assumption, as foregrounding techniques such as deviation create an emphasizing effect intended to grab and hold a reader’s attention (Verdonk, 2002). Cognitive studies have found that reading comprehension decreases the longer a sentence becomes and that grammatical structure does have an effect on how a reader will process an advertisement (see Percy, 1988 for an overview). This has caused a call for grammatical simplicity in advertising (Flesch, 1946; Percy, 1982; Higgins, 1987; Crompton, 1982; Bly 2005) and even in other areas of study (see Baker, 2012). Surprisingly, writers who use overly formal words have been found to be perceived as less intelligent than those whose language is plain and comprehensible (Oppenheimer, 2006). While Oppenheimer’s study dealt only with word length, implications for syntax can be seen as well. The study notes that high levels of fluency (a characteristic of plain syntax (Baker, 2012)) lead to a text being more likely to be judged positively in terms of truth, confidence, frequency, and liking, suggesting copywriters would be wise to use plain syntax in their writing. Oppenheimer’s (2006) findings provide evidence for what copywriting experts have suggested for years: write simply. In fact, the advice for copywriters to keep advertising copy SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES IN ADVERTISING ENGLISH 14 simple is overwhelming (e.g., Flesch, 1946; Percy, 1982; Higgins, 1987; Crompton, 1982; Bly 2005). In the May 2005 issue of Entrepreneur magazine, Jerry Fisher makes this recommendation, taking from the suggestions of Flesch (1946): Copywriters . . . must aim for the shortest possible sentences—ideally no more than 17 words, according to the late writing expert Rudolph Flesch in The Art of Plain Talk. The sales message should include a good sprinkling of five- to 10-word sentences as well. This makes reading a breeze. (Fisher, 2005, p. 89) This recommendation fits nicely with Chomsky’s theory of kernel sentences: sentences that have a simple-declarative-active structure with no complex phrases (Chomsky, 1957/1966). According to this theory, every sentence constructed has a kernel sentence from which it is derived. The closer a sentence can stay to its kernel form, the less cognitive processing a person must do to make sense of it; hence, we predict the sentence will be easier to comprehend. Keeping advertising sentences simple means people have to think about them less, and as a result, they get the message easier and faster. However, this issue tends to be far more complex than a recommendation to keep ad copy simple and the word count low. More recent research has examined the syntax used in advertising copy and found that simplicity does not always provide the desired results (Bradley & Meeds, 2002; Wyer 2002). When context is considered, and constituents such as the complexity of the information or the level of the reader’s engagement are brought into account, an argument could be made for using syntactically complex advertising copy. For example, Wyer (2002) argues that when a message is uncompelling and syntactically simple, readers are likely to have an overall negative perception of it because the uncompelling or uninteresting SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES IN ADVERTISING ENGLISH 15 nature of the message is easy to comprehend. In other words, they can see right through the content and interpret it as uncompelling. On the other hand, when an uncompelling message is syntactically complex, its overall communication impact, or the likelihood a person will be influenced by its message, is increased because the tendency to comprehend and counterargue the advertisement’s message (in other words, to offer reasons that explain why the ad is wrong in some way) is lower. Put another way, when a boring ad is complexly written, its complexity will obscure its boring nature enough that it prevents its communication impact from being as low as it would be if the ad were written so the reader could comprehend and counterargue its boring message. In contrast, when ad messages are strong, the tendency to counterargue is weak—regardless of the complexity of the syntax. Lowery (1998) suggests motivation or level of involvement as a key reason for the decreased tendency to comprehend and counterargue syntactically complex, uncompelling advertisements, saying: moderate levels of syntactic complexity can serve as an inhibitor of motivation to process information rather than as an inhibitor of ability to process . . . When levels of complexity are more moderate in nature, syntactic complexity interacts with motivation rather than with ability to process information in determining the persuasiveness of advertising. (pp. 201–2) As both Wyer’s (2002) and Lowery’s (1998) studies suggest, a reader’s motivation level plays a critical role in determining the effectiveness of an ad’s message. In addition to reader motivation, other variables exist outside the ad itself that contribute to how it will be received. Jae (2010) discovered that the order in which ads are presented has an effect on comprehension. Comprehension of an advertisement is enhanced when readers in a SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES IN ADVERTISING ENGLISH 16 low-involvement setting (i.e., where there is low motivation to devote the necessary cognitive effort to understand the message) encounter a complex ad before a simple ad because their level of working memory capacity is fresh and able to devote the necessary effort to process the complex syntax. The comprehension level of readers in a high-involvement setting (i.e., where there is high motivation to devote the necessary cognitive effort to understand the message), however, was unaffected by the order in which the ads were presented. Still other research attempts to find how the combined effect of the copy language, sentence structure, textual layout, and illustration affects readers’ perceptions of print advertisements. Motes, Hilton and Fielden (1992) argue that “copywriters may influence reader reactions through their control of the syntactical elements of a text” (p. 65) through the use of things like active vs. passive voice, and the use or avoidance of imperatives. In their research, the authors used active + imperative sentences to contrast with another group of ads that used passive + nonimperative constructions. They found, interestingly, that factors such as personalization and colorful language affected whether an ad would benefit more from using active vs. passive voice. This shows that there is no one standardized language–sentence structure combination of writing or textual/illustration format that will favorably influence each and every assessment dimension. Yet many advertising agencies continue to use words, sentences, and textual formats that over the years have been established as “standardized fare,” regardless of the very real possibility that other less-used and generally shunned combinations (e.g., impersonal-colorless-passive presentations) may interactively improve lower-order ad assessments among many readers. (Motes et al. 1992, p. 75) SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES IN ADVERTISING ENGLISH 17 The authors point to the fact that ads of all kinds, whether highly technical or emotional, use many of the same words and much of same syntactic structures. Their research shows that following the same set of rules for every ad, regardless of mood or content, may not always be the most effective way to write these ads. Syntax and Cognition With so many linguistic liberties taken in ad copy, it becomes easy for the copywriter to inadvertently add a level of complexity to an advertisement. Copywriters walk a fine line between inventively using the language to generate interest and taking such liberty with the language that their message is obscured in syntactic structures that are so nonstandard they become unintelligible. Scholars have created a variety of tests to measure the level of difficulty in cognitively processing texts (see Abruzzini, 2000 for a summary of those with particular application to advertising copy). While copywriters can be inventive with their language use, they must always strive for fluency in their writing. Research shows that statements that are easier to read are more likely to be perceived as true (Reber & Schwarz, 1999). Because fluency is related to perceptions of truth (Oppenheimer, 2006), copywriters should strive to write using plain syntax that aids in fluency if they want their ads to be perceived as true. Similar to the research of Bradley and Meeds (2002) and Wyer (2002) mentioned earlier, Lowery (1998) found that other factors in addition to syntax complexity affect the way an advertisement is perceived. When level of involvement is introduced as a variable, ads with simple syntax are more favorably viewed when they contain a strong claim, supporting the idea that simple grammar and cogent reasoning both are needed to make an argument persuasive. For ads with complex syntax where level of involvement was high, participants differentiated between strong and weak claims made by the ad. Those participants with low involvement did SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES IN ADVERTISING ENGLISH 18 not show a difference in attitude in relation to the strength of the ad’s claim, suggesting a relationship between motivation and syntactic complexity. In other words, when level of involvement is low enough, the motivation to parse difficult syntax to determine claim strength is not high enough. These results show that syntactic complexity plays a role not only in the comprehension of an ad, but in the persuasive powers of the ad as well. Schaffer (1998) demonstrated that the rhetoric and syntax of advertising varies from that of other forms of writing such as journalism or other writing styles meant primarily to inform. Where news writing contains more present tense, metaphors, and alliteration, ad copy contains more opening hooks, hyperbole, rhetorical questions, elliptical constructions, puns, imperatives, parallelism of structure and/or content, and exclamations. These findings provide evidence that advertising copy is goal-oriented, persuading an audience to take some sort of action. Such persuasion relies on an expected cognitive or volitional response, which, as Lowery (1998) has shown, can be affected by syntax complexity as well as other factors. Stylistics Now that a review of the relationship among language change, syntax, and cognition has been presented, a review of stylistic analysis is appropriate. A stylistic analysis of advertisements from different time periods can take these areas of study previously examined and use them as a lens through which to describe the style of syntactic structures used in any given advertisement. The discipline of stylistics is concerned with analyzing distinctive expression in language and describing its purpose and effect (Verdonk, 2002). Traditionally, stylistics has focused on analyzing literary works and poetry, although the principles of stylistics can effectively be applied to nonliterary works as well (Jeffries & McIntyre, 2010). Because careful attention must be paid to context, a close reading and deep interpretation of a text is necessary. For this reason, SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES IN ADVERTISING ENGLISH 19 most stylistic study is done using a small, homogeneous sample (Jeffries & McIntyre, 2010), which requires a qualitative approach in methodology. The present study follows this model. One of the key aspects of stylistics is the foregrounding theory. Foregrounding theory explains how certain elements of a text are emphasized or made to stand out from the rest of the text. It “suggests that in any text some sounds, words, phrases, and/or clauses may be so different from what surrounds them, or from some perceived ‘norm’ in the language generally, that they are set into relief by this difference and made more prominent as a result” (Jeffries & McIntyre, 2010, p. 31). This effect is most often achieved through the use of some kind of deviation (such as a modern ad campaign for Athleta, a women’s athletic clothing line, in which a subject pronoun is used as the object of the preposition in the ad slogan Power to the she) or through the use of parallelism (such as the uniformity of the repeated independent noun phrases in a Shopko ad campaign My life. My style. My store.). Both deviations and parallelism can help the reader more easily remember the message a particular advertisement conveys, or at least it can help the reader more easily recall the product being advertised. It is true that “an advertisement gains nothing unless the name of the product is remembered” (Leech, 1966, p. 29). Because foregrounding techniques rely on new, surprising ways of delivering information, it is necessary for foregrounding methods to evolve over time, as frequent exposure to a particular method diminishes its effect (Jeffries & McIntyre, 2010). For example, Apple’s famous “Think different” campaign from 1997 contains a foregrounded element in the deviant adverbial form of different. But because the tagline is so ubiquitous and has been repeated so many times since its inception, the foregrounding in the ungrammatical clause may be less noticeable and therefore, less significant. People become less and less likely to recognize the SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES IN ADVERTISING ENGLISH 20 adverb different as a deviation of the more prescriptively correct differently the more often they are exposed to it. Information structure. The principles of information structure can have an effect on the stylistic choices a copywriter makes, whether consciously or subconsciously. For a message to be considered grammatical and to be easily interpreted, it should follow the basic word order and information structure of English. During the period of Old English, new information in a sentence was presented clause initially, rather than clause finally, as is the case in Present-Day English. Present-Day English relies on a grammatical flow that necessitates given information be placed as the grammatical subject, while new information is presented clause finally (Komen, 2011). Komen suggests one reason for this could be due to the loss of V2 status (i.e., a construction where the verb is always the second constituent in a sentence) in Old English to SVO (subject–verb–object) word order in Present-Day English. V2 languages, such as modern German, require the finite verb to always stay in the second position in the sentence (i.e., *Before school played the kids with the ball vs. Before school the kids played with the ball), where SVO word order keeps the verb after the subject, even when adverbials or other subordinate clauses are placed sentence initially. This notion of new information being presented clause finally fits well with commonly held assumptions in information structure: namely that the clause-final position is the position which receives the most emphasis (Biber, Conrad & Leech, 2002 p. 399). Providing additional evidence of the relationship between syntactic style and information structure is a study by Brown, Savova, and Gibson (2011). Noting that the double-object structure (I gave Mary a cake) causes slower cognitive response when it contains new-before-given information structure, the researchers conducted two experiments to characterize how the dative alternation (I gave Mary a cake vs. I gave a cake to Mary) and information structure SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES IN ADVERTISING ENGLISH 21 interact in on-line comprehension. They also wanted to find a possible source of this interaction if it existed. Using two self-paced reading experiments in which they varied information structures in the texts, the researchers found that syntactic and information-structure constraints interact in on-line processing, and they found support for “the interaction of syntactic and discourse constraints at the level of structural representations” (p. 204). These results favor the hypothesis that information-structural constraints form part of the DO [double-object] representation. More generally, they are consistent with the idea that non-canonical syntactic structures like the DO structure may be more likely to serve specific functions in discourse than their canonical counterparts, and that these non-canonical structures are only licensed when constraints on their use in discourse are satisfied. (Brown et al. 2011, p. 205) Information structure accounts for the fact that the same idea can be expressed in more than one sentence structure and addresses the question of why so many variant sentence structures can exist. This is a critical assumption when determining syntactic style. If word order were so fixed in English that syntactic differences couldn’t grammatically occur, a study of stylistic differences in advertisements would be pointless. Common to both stylistics and information structure is the idea that the examples of structure or style that exist in a text are forms or variants of other possible alternatives. Verdonk (2002) expresses this thought by saying, “In identifying what is distinctive and effective, we therefore recognize implicitly what is absent from the text as well as what is actually there in black and white” (p. 6). Lambrecht (1994) shares a similar idea as it relates to information structure: “Differences in the information structure of sentences are always understood in terms SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES IN ADVERTISING ENGLISH 22 of the contrasts between allosentences, i.e., against the background of available but unused grammatical alternatives for expressing a given proposition” (p. 6). These thoughts from these two scholars can be shown in the following example. The sentence (1) I wrote my instructor an email could be analyzed in terms of information structure and style by comparing it to other semantically equivalent, though unused, syntactic variants, like (2) I wrote an email to my instructor. Comparing these sentences may bring out contrasts in topic (what is being talked about) or focus (what is being said about the topic) through the use of either an indirect object + direct object construction or a direct object + prepositional phrase construction. For example, (1) may be more likely to answer the wh- question, “What did you write (to) your instructor?” (I wrote my instructor an email), where (2) would be more likely to answer the wh- question, “To whom did you write an email?” (I wrote an email to my instructor). The usage of these sentences could also depend on the context of the discourse. For example, if the sentence preceding either (1) or (2) in a conversation were something to the effect of “I didn’t know whom I could ask about my topic . . .” it would make more sense to continue with (2) “. . . so I wrote an email to my instructor” because the focus of the utterance is on instructor. Conversely, if the preceding sentence were “I didn’t know the best way to explain my absence . . .” the more appropriate choice would be (1) “. . . so I wrote my instructor an email” because the focus is on email, or the way in which the explanation would be delivered. Information structure is not something unique to a select group of sentences (Lambrecht, 1994). The same is true for style. While some sentences may possess an information structure or a stylistic element that appears more interesting or more specified, it does not negate the fact that all sentences have an information structure and all sentences display certain elements of stylistic SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES IN ADVERTISING ENGLISH 23 choice. This is important to note because it supports the idea that any sentence can be analyzed in terms of information structure and stylistics. Current research provides ample evidence to support the ways language is used in advertising. Scholars have looked at the way it is used to persuade, how it is cognitively processed, and how the complexity of the syntax affects comprehension. With all that is known about advertising language, there is still need for a content analysis (Mayring, 2000; Hsieh & Shannon, 2005) of syntactic stylistic changes in advertising copy using qualitative methods. This study contributes to such a line of research. Research Question Considering the relevant literature and its application to advertising, the following research question can be posited: Has the syntactic style used in the language of print ads changed within the time period spanning 1885–2000? If so, in what ways? Many of the earlier writings on syntactic or grammatical change in Present-Day English were most often lists of changes observed by a particular linguist. Before the widespread use of computers, linguists like Barber (1964) and Foster (1968) who wrote on grammatical change in Present-Day English were unable to easily compare large bodies of text to analyze changing structures. Instead, they were left to posit their own observations as best they could based on a small set of grammatical structures and usage items they deemed noteworthy. Determining statistical changes in grammar, however, (which, to be fair, was not the stated intent of these mid-century linguists) requires corpus-based research. Late-century researchers like Bauer (1994) conducted early corpus-based research. Bauer created corpora from daily newspapers to research language change with the intent to discover whether the observations of grammatical change made by earlier linguists were actually taking SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES IN ADVERTISING ENGLISH 24 place in a broad sense. For example, he investigated whether there actually does exist a move toward the periphrastic comparative form vs. the suffixed form (e.g., more common vs. commoner, respectively). In Bauer’s early research, he found only a slight shift to the periphrastic construction, but his evidence is far from conclusive. Leech et al. (2009) continue the corpus-based methodologies of Bauer, using larger corpora to determine changes in grammatical structures such as passive voice, subjunctive mood, and nonfinite clauses. While corpus-based methods are certainly best for discovering true linguistic change, there are limitations that come with strictly corpus-based research. One limitation of performing research this way is that it pulls the language out of its context. Because advertising is a persuasive act, it is often emotionally backed, making context an important factor in interpreting its language. Stylistic analysis is dependent on situational context, i.e., “the particular context in which both the writer and the reader . . . play their distinctive roles” (Verdonk, 2002, p. 6). Because they’re often quantitative in nature, corpus-based methods are often unable to provide the level of insight into context that traditional stylistic analysis—a typically qualitative method—can. And as Jeffries and McIntyre (2010) point out, “many of the most interesting aspects of style are not searchable automatically by a computer” (p. 177). Another shortcoming of corpus-based research is its lack of ability to account for the gray area that exists in syntactic study. For example, it is sometimes unclear what exactly makes a sentence. Must a sentence include a closing punctuation mark, or could a strategic line break show the end of a sentence? By pulling a text out of its context, strict corpus-based research is unable to observe this type of treatment. Looking syntactically at the language of advertising through a qualitative analysis, rather than in a corpus, allows the researcher to investigate the text in its context and to provide insight into how the context affects the text. SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES IN ADVERTISING ENGLISH 25 Method To answer the research question I posit above, I performed a qualitative content analysis of the first 10 advertisements in the May 1885, January 1950, and January 2000 issues of Good Housekeeping magazine. I selected these three years to provide a sample from around the beginning of the century, the middle of the century, and the end of the century. It may seem logical to have selected ads from the January 1900 issue, rather than the May 1885 issue, to provide even, 50-year intervals between the publication dates of each set of ads. However, after reviewing the first several issues of Good Housekeeping from 1900, I discovered that the issues contained no advertisements. So I selected ads from the earliest issue of the magazine instead. To qualify for inclusion in the study, each ad had to contain at least 25 words. I set this limit to ensure that each ad could provide enough grammatical content to yield observable style and syntactic structure. Beginning with the May (1885) or January (1950, 2000) issues from each of the three years represented, I reviewed each page until I found an advertisement that contained at least 25 words. Because determining what is considered a word could potentially be unclear, I upheld the following standards: 1) Words that represent company and product names were counted when they appeared in running text because their placement in the text gives them qualities similar to the words that make up the more traditional syntactic structures. 2) Words included in company and product logos were not counted because these elements are often interpreted as more graphical in nature, rather than as words, and as a result, they don’t play significantly into syntactic structure. 3) Words inset in any kind of image (photograph or illustration) were counted because despite overlapping an image, the text is still clearly recognizable as text that should be read. In taking the first 10 ads from each of the issues studied, only one ad (a stained glass and cabinet ad from 1885) had to be thrown out because it did not SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES IN ADVERTISING ENGLISH 26 meet the 25-word requirement. In other words, I found 10 qualifying ads within the first 11 advertisements from the 1885 issue, and I found 10 qualifying ads within the first 10 advertisements from the 1950 and 2000 issues. There were four primary reasons for selecting ads from Good Housekeeping: 1) Its history covers over 100 years, the period of time this study is concerned with. The first issue was published in 1885, and it has been published monthly since. 2) Its content has remained largely homogenous over its lifespan—in other words, its focus on issues dealing with the home has remained largely consistent from its beginning. This is important because it means any syntactic and stylistic changes noted in the ads printed in the magazine will more likely be the result of stylistic and syntactic changes that have occurred in the language rather than changes that exist due to differences in the syntax and style used to advertise very different types of products. 3) Good Housekeeping is distributed nationally with a current average circulation of 4.3 million according to Echo Media, so its advertisements today reach a wide audience. 4) Selecting Good Housekeeping was convenient: I had online access to its earliest issues through the Harold B. Lee Library at Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah. After I selected the advertisements, I transcribed and carefully reviewed each one. In particular, I noted interesting syntactic and stylistic variants. As is common in stylistic analysis, determining what constitutes “interesting” is a subjective exercise—a practice in which a researcher is “not so much focused on every form and structure in a text, as on those which stand out in it. Such conspicuous elements hold a promise of stylistic relevance and thereby rouse the reader’s interests or emotions” (Verdonk, 2002 p. 6). Jeffries and McIntyre (2010) corroborate Verdonk’s statement by describing the process of stylistic analysis as reflecting “the preferences of the researcher, who may find some tools of analysis more enlightening than others” (p. 172). SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES IN ADVERTISING ENGLISH 27 Often it is the syntactic deviations that stand out; however, syntactic deviations are not the primary object of inquiry in this study. Because it would have been impossible to determine which elements would be considered interesting enough to include in the study before reviewing the advertisements, I selected the grammatical and stylistic elements to analyze only after performing a thorough review of the advertising copy. The following structures appeared to be most interesting in terms of showing some stylistic and syntactic variation over time. a. The use independent minor clauses b. The use of the subjunctive and imperative moods c. The use of focusing constructions d. The use of personal pronouns e. The use of anaphoric reference A content analysis of the above structures follows in the next section. Data conference. To control for accuracy in the analysis, a data conference was conducted. Data conferencing involves peer debriefing (Baxter & Babbie, 2003) and is an accepted form of data validation in qualitative communications research. It allows a researcher to share findings and methodology with other scholars to ensure the research methods and analysis have been done appropriately. The data conference conducted for this study included five people, all with educational backgrounds in various disciplines including business (MBA), pharmacy (Pharm.D), art history (MA), American studies (MA), and theater (MFA). While not communications researchers, the participants in the data conference all held graduate degrees and were qualified to offer opinions and advice in terms of research method and validity of analysis. The conference lasted 90 minutes, during which time the analysis conducted for this study was SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES IN ADVERTISING ENGLISH 28 reviewed and checked against analytical best practices. The main purpose of the data conference was to ensure that the findings and analysis used in this study were logical, thorough, and conclusive. Analysis Independent minor clauses The first syntactic area with interesting variation among the ads was the use of independent minor clauses. Many scholars have distinguished major clauses from minor clauses using different sets of criteria. For example, Leech (1966) defines minor clauses as those that have no predicator. Crystal and Davy (1969) identify minor sentences as any structure that does not fulfill the definition of a major clause but that still shows characteristics of a sentence—both orthographically and semantically (p. 49). Biber et al. (2002) call independent minor clauses “syntactic non-clausal units,” saying they encompass “‘fragmentary’ units [that] do not have the structure of an independent clause, nor are they part of an independent clause” (p. 440). In investigating independent minor clauses in this study, I will adhere to Leech’s (1966) definition, namely that an independent minor clause is one that does not contain a predicator. I will also adhere to the definition of predicator given by Bache and Davidsen-Nielsen (1997): “a sentence predicator is always finite, containing a finite verb, showing formal present/past marking” (p. 40). The use of independent minor clauses is common in speech, but less common in written discourse (Biber et al., 2002). The following examples, however, demonstrate that the language of advertising is an exception. Sample ads from 1885, 1950, and 2000 contain independent minor clauses, though the use of independent minor clauses is more common in the 1885 ads as well as in certain positions of the advertisements from 1950 and 2000 (the signature, for example). SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES IN ADVERTISING ENGLISH 29 From a stylistic perspective, Jeffries and McIntyre (2010) describe the role independent minor clauses play in foregrounding by saying, “The loss of the verbal element of a clause has the effect of placing the remaining words outside of any normal time-frame and results in a kind of timelessness which can be exploited in a range of ways” (pp. 51–52). This is so because the verb is the constituent in the clause that contains tense and time marking. Removing it removes the sense of time. In advertising, this effect could broaden an ad’s message by not restricting it to a certain time and place and giving the message a sense of permanent relevance. Using independent minor clauses in an ad could also engage the reader by providing an association with informal conversational language, a register known for its frequent use of independent minor clauses (Biber et al., 2002). Independent minor clauses are common in advertising copy, which is one way that advertising language resembles conversational, informal, and casual speech. While the use of independent minor clauses is not common in all written registers, it has been a long-established tradition in some—even outside of advertising copy. Newspaper headlines are often written using independent minor clauses (Verdonk, 2002), and most style experts agree that a well-used “sentence fragment” used in body copy is appropriate and even effective (Garner, 2009; Kessler & McDonald, 2012). A close analysis of advertisements from 1885, 1950, and 2000 revealed the use of independent minor clauses in the ads from all three years, though there appears to be some noteworthy differences in the way they’re used. In the ads from 1885, the kinds of independent minor clauses are varied. Some are noun phrases standing as independent sentences (JAMES PYLE’S PEARLINE, Appendix A). Others are stand-alone prepositional phrases (For use in office, counting-room, school or home, Appendix B). Some are non-finite verb phrases (Published by G. & C. Merriam & Co., SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES IN ADVERTISING ENGLISH 30 Springfield, Mass., Appendix B) Other possible minor sentences are missing certain elements necessary for definitive grammatical analysis. For example, Sample by mail on receipt of price, with gold pen in one 1885 ad (Appendix B) could be interpreted as a minor indicative clause if sample is interpreted as a noun (You can get a sample by mail on receipt of price). If sample is interpreted as verb, the clause is not an independent minor clause, but rather a major imperative clause. The grammatical structure of the sentence as it’s written leaves its status ambiguous. One particular ad (Appendix B) from 1885 is composed of nearly all independent minor clauses, containing only two major clauses (11 and 12 in the transcription below). (All sentences were indicated with either a line break or a line break and period in the original ad. The transcription here indicates sentences with a period and no line break.): (1) WARMING AND VENTILATION. (2) A PERFECT SUCCESS BY OUR APPARATUS. (3) 24 Sizes, Low Pressure Generators. (4) PRETTIEST DIRECT RADIATION. (5) Largest Manufacturers of Indirect and Window Radiation. (6) LIGHT’S PATENTS. (7) The Most Popular with the Trade. (8) Descriptive and Trade Circulars on application. (9) PLANS AND ESTIMATES/ BY A SKILLED ENGINEER. (10) Eureka Steam-Heating Company,/ 302 State Street, Rochester, N.Y. (11) Our sales from year to year have doubled with good satisfaction everywhere. (12) Send for Circulars. Not only are all but two clauses minor, but it is interesting to note that all the independent minor clauses are independent noun phrases. This limitation to one type of independent minor clause may indicate that noun phrases were more commonly used as independent minor clauses than other types of constructions. Corpus-based research would be needed to determine if this is actually the case. SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES IN ADVERTISING ENGLISH 31 It may be tempting to suppose that an advertisement from 1885 would likely contain less discursive language than advertisements from the current time. With such classic literature as Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island and Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles published around this time, it’s easy for a modern audience to assume a similar style of writing prevailed in advertising copy. But this is not the case. One explanation for the number of independent minor clauses in 1885 advertisements could have to do with the amount of space each ad takes up on the physical page. None of the ads is larger than a quarter page—many are smaller than that (see Appendices A–C). This limited space for text can in some cases force a writer to use shorter, more disjunctive language in order to get a point across. Leech (1966) points to the use of this type of language in outdoor advertising where the primary “skeleton” of the message must be given largely and clearly, with the fine print available only to those who may be interested. According to Leech (1966), this practice began in advertising as early as 1750 (p. 171), which would provide ample time for the practice to become common by 1885, the year these sample advertisements were published. The advertisements from 1950 contain significantly fewer independent minor clauses than the 1885 ads. Even in some positions where independent minor clauses are common—even expected—the ads from 1950 use major clauses. For example, an Ipana toothpaste ad (Appendix E) contained eight different clauses set off in a way visually different enough that it is clear they are acting as some type of headline (one main headline, two subheadlines connected to the main headline, three section headlines, one image caption, and one signature line.) Headlines composed of independent minor clauses are very common, but of all eight headlines in the Ipana ad, only the signature line is an independent minor clause (HEALTHIER TEETH, HEALTHIER GUMS / IPANA for Both!). SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES IN ADVERTISING ENGLISH 32 As previously mentioned, the use of independent minor clauses often conveys a friendly, familiar tone. However, if the headlines in the Ipana ad were replaced with independent minor clauses, the tone would—ironically—likely become more sterile sounding and less personal. For example, the primary image in the ad is coupled with the caption, THIS MARYLAND FAMILY GUARDS TEETH AND GUMS BOTH—WITH IPANA CARE! Though this sentence is a traditionally independent clause, containing a subject and a predicate, there are devices being used that convey a sense of informality. The deictic determiner this ties the caption to the image, which portrays a friendly looking husband and wife with two young sons in a modest-looking home. The family is engaged in eating what appears to be a bowl of popcorn, which by many accounts is a relatively informal snack, as it’s normally eaten with the hands. In addition to the casual nature of the image, the style of punctuation used for the sentence is somewhat informal. The use of an em dash before a prepositional phrase is not called for in any style guides of which I am aware; however, it does serve to emphasize the product name in the caption. Additionally, the use of an exclamation point is often a marker of casual discourse as well. Despite the fact that this caption is indeed a major clause, the stylistic elements used preserve its casual tone. Had an independent minor clause been used, such as simply Maryland family or Ipana care for this Maryland family, it ironically would have destroyed the colloquial, conversational feel of the current caption. Also, a minor clause would not have been able to express the same message as the current caption without sacrificing some informational constituent. Other examples of major clauses taking the place of independent minor clauses can be found in the 1950s ads. An ad for Puss ’n Boots cat food (Appendix J) uses the independent sentence, Sold under a money-back guarantee, rather than what might be a more preferred SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES IN ADVERTISING ENGLISH 33 alternative, simply, Money-back guarantee. This particular example does not fit the standard definition of a complete sentence because it does not contain a subject. However, according to Leech’s (1966) definition, subject deletion does not qualify a clause as an independent minor clause; only the deletion of the predicator does so. (The elimination of the subject from an independent clause is a type of ellipsis known as prosiopesis.) The more frequent use of major clauses in the 1950s advertisements is noteworthy, but it does not mean independent minor clauses were never used. Examples of independent minor clauses from the following Franco-American ad (Appendix K) include (2), (4), (5), (7), (8), (9), and (15). (1) MY HUSBAND’S STILL RAVING ABOUT YOUR GRAVY LAST NIGHT! (2) NO SECRET POLLY! (3) IT WAS FRANCO-AMERICAN BEEF GRAVY! (4) Now! (5) Real Beef Gravy ready to serve! (6) Yes, now you can have real, old-fashioned brown beef gravy any time you want it. (7) Franco-American Beef Gravy—as delicious as you ever made in your own roasting pan. (8) No mixing . . . no stirring. (9) Nothing to add. (10) Just open a can, heat, and serve! (11) It’s grand poured over all kinds of meats, hot biscuits, potatoes, rice, leftovers. (12) Try it! (13) Your family will love it—and it’s thrifty. (14) Keep several cans always handy. (15) Franco-American BEEF GRAVY. The content of this ad is evenly divided between major clauses and independent minor clauses. Of particular interest is the use of an independent minor clause in (2), which is housed in a comic-style bubble to indicate conversation. As mentioned earlier, independent minor clauses are common in conversation (Biber et al., 2002), and, as the only ad in the sample that contains a conversation between two people who are both characters in the ad (the discourse of the other ads is between the author of the ad and the reader), this Franco-American ad appropriately uses SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES IN ADVERTISING ENGLISH 34 independent minor clauses to make the style of the character’s speech more authentic and believable. While the ads of 1885 and 1950 contrasted sharply in the frequency and use of independent minor clauses, the ads from 2000 show still a different way of using independent minor clauses. Most independent minor clauses in the 2000 ads are found in the signature lines or lines that mention just the product name. Examples include the following: Retinol Actif Pure from RoC (Appendix N), The year 2000 Corolla (Appendix P), and two noun phrases from a Celebrex ad (Appendix Q) in which one noun phrase describes the product while the other names it: The #1 selling brand of prescription arthritis pain medicine. Celebrex. One particular 2000 ad (Appendix T) deviated from the rest by using independent minor sentences outside of headlines or taglines/subheads. (1) INDULGE YOURSELF IN THE FEELING OF SHEER MOISTURE. (2) New from Nivea Body. (3) The feeling of liquid silk. (4) The lightness of chiffon. (5) They barely describe the experience of new Nivea Sheer Moisture Lotion. (6) As it goes on. (7) And as it moisturizes. (8) Maybe it’s the skin compatible provitamin B5 formula. (9) Maybe it’s magic. (10) Whatever it is, it’s sheer heaven for your skin. (11) NIVEA BRINGS YOUR SKIN TO LIFE. In this Nivea ad, independent minor clauses occupy a medial position in the body copy as (2), (3), and (4). Placing independent minor clauses in this position is an effective way for the copywriter to give emphasis to the clauses while still being able to use major clauses to discuss them further in later parts of the ad. The feeling of liquid silk, and The lightness of chiffon are both emphasized as independent minor clauses, and they’re referred to later in the copy with the use of the deictic determiner they in (5). Through the stylistic use of independent minor SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES IN ADVERTISING ENGLISH 35 clauses—which do not contain verb phrases marked for tense—as part of the body copy, the copywriter is able to pull important or impactful elements outside the time and place of the ad, making these elements seem permanently relevant. Also both of these independent minor clauses are highly sensuous. Separating them in this way seems reasonable, as it gives each element the impact the writer desires. The use of independent minor clauses varies among the ads in the three years covered in this analysis. The 1885 ads utilized independent minor clauses often, likely because the amount of space devoted to many of the ads was small and not able to accommodate longer clauses. The 1950 ads utilized independent minor clauses less frequently than the 1885 ads, which is not surprising, as the amount of text used in the 1950 ads is far greater than that used in the 1885 ads. The 2000 ads used minor clauses primarily in signature lines, though, as has been shown, their use was not limited to only those areas. Interestingly, most of the headlines of the ads from 1950 and 2000 use major clauses, where the headlines from the 1885 ads use primarily independent minor clauses. Mood Because declarative clauses are the default clauses used in writing (Biber et al., 2002) it’s unsurprising that the vast majority of the clauses used in the advertisements this study investigated, regardless of the year, are declarative. As such, further investigation into the declarative structure would likely yield uninteresting results. So in referencing mood, more interesting observations can be made by looking diachronically at the use of the subjunctive and the imperative. Observations on the subjunctive mood will focus on how it is formed, e.g., through verb conjugation (If I were a carpenter . . .) or modality (If I could finish what I’ve started . . .). SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES IN ADVERTISING ENGLISH 36 Observations on imperatives will focus on what types appear to be most common and how they are used. Subjunctive. As noted in the literature review, detecting the subjunctive mood by looking at verb inflections in Present-Day English can often be a fruitless endeavor, as the contexts in which the inflections are used have become so limited (be verbs and third-person present-tense verbs). In the advertisements that I surveyed for this paper, only one ad, a 1950 ad for the Book of Knowledge (Appendix H), contained a subjunctive detectable by verb inflection (Suppose a boy of ten were to spend fifteen minutes a day reading these pages . . .). By contrast, another sentence, this time in an ad from 1885 (Appendix B), demonstrates that even in situations where the subjunctive mood is shown, writers used elements other than verb inflection to convey the subjunctive mood. In the following subjunctive sentence, the declarative inflection of the verb fails is used instead of the more traditional subjunctive conjugation, fail: If the Agent, after a thirty day's trial, fails to make at least $100 clear above all expenses, we will take back all goods unsold and return the money paid us. The two examples noted above demonstrate that even though the use of subjunctive through verb inflection has been in linear decline over time, its use is still in flux in the advertising language of Present-Day English. Other sentences in ads from 1950 and 2000 indicated the subjunctive mood using markers other than verb inflection, such as if or the use of modals: • (1950) Listerine Antiseptic, if used frequently during the 12 to 36-hour period of "incubation" when a cold may be developing, can often help forestall the mass invasion of these germs and so head off trouble (Appendix F). This sentence contains the elliptical construction of the verb phrase, if used. Subjunctive is indicated with the use SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES IN ADVERTISING ENGLISH 37 of if, but because the verb phrase is shortened to simply used, we are unable to tell if the author would have used the traditional subjunctive construction, if it be used . . . or the declarative conjugation, if it is used . . . • (2000) But we suggest you don’t rub it in with the price (Appendix P). The subjunctive here is a mandative subjunctive, indicated by the use of suggest as the main verb. However, the subjunctive is not recognizable in the verb form because the subject is a second-person pronoun, rather than a third-person pronoun. In mandative constructions using third-person subjects (We suggest she come with us), the verb form can be seen in the suppression of the –s suffix; in constructions with second-person subjects, such as this example, the verb form is invisible. • (2000) Only your doctor can assess the benefits and risks to decide if Celebrex is right for you (Appendix Q). The more traditional subjunctive form, . . . if Celebrex be right for you, is replaced with the indicative form, . . . if Celebrex is right for you. The above examples provide an analysis of the subjunctive mood as it is seen on a lexical level. The subjunctive also appears as a function of a sentence, not necessarily as inflection of the verb. The following examples provide an analysis of this type of sentence-level subjunctive. The 1950 advertisement for the Book of Knowledge (Appendix H) includes a product endorsement from “a great statesman”: Had I to choose between a college education for my children and having them grow up daily companions with THE BOOK OF KNOWLEDGE, I would, without the least hesitation, decide in favor of THE BOOK OF KNOWLEDGE. The type of subjunctive marking in this passage is interesting because the common subjunctive marker if is missing from the construction, and instead, the subjunctive mood is indicated on a sentence level by subject–verb inversion (Had I to choose . . . vs. If I had to SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES IN ADVERTISING ENGLISH 38 choose . . . ) using the semi-modal “have to.” It is unclear from the verb form whether the subjunctive is indicated because the form would be the same in a declarative sentence as well as in a subjunctive sentence. As have to is a semi-modal of obligation, this sentence could be rephrased If I were obligated to choose . . . which would show subjunctive marking through the verb form were rather than the declarative was. However, the use of an if-clause, denoting a condition that may be contrary to fact, and the use of the modal would leaves no question about the mood of the sentence. The Celebrex ad from 2000 (Appendix Q) also shows subjunctive mood on the sentence level, but in a much less formal way than the Book of Knowledge ad described earlier. It may be important to note that the content of the information presented in the Celebrex ad is arguably more important than that presented in the Book of Knowledge ad from 1950. This is because the information in the Celebrex ad is more technical, as it warns users of potential health risks— potentially very serious ones: You should not take this product if you have had asthma or allergic-type reactions to aspirin, arthritis medications or certain sulfa drugs, called sulfonamides. It is highly unlikely that the subjunctive nature of this expression would be formed without the use of should. If it were, the subjunctive nature of the sentence would be undetectable in the verb form because the subjunctive form can be recognized only with singular third-person subjects. The use of a modal auxiliary should with the conjunction if is arguably the only way to detect the subjunctive in this example. A more formal style may have favored the repetition of should as in You should not take this product should you have had asthma or allergic-type reactions to aspirin . . . In this alternative construction, we again see subject–verb inversion with the modal should and the subject you, which provides an elevated sense of SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES IN ADVERTISING ENGLISH 39 formality. That the subjunctive mood was shown using the more formal subject–verb inversion in 1950 and not in 2000 may provide evidence to suggest the copy of 1950—as far as the subjunctive mood is concerned—is more formal in its style. Imperative. In today’s business world, every ad should contain some kind of call to action. Otherwise, it just takes up space (Bly, 2005; Kranz, 2005). In advertising, the call to action is commonly written using the imperative mood. The imperative mood is used when a writer urges a reader to do something. It’s also used to express an invitation or offer some sort of benefit, as will be seen. The imperative mood is used more commonly in speech than in fiction, news, or academic writings (Biber et al., 2002). Just like the use of independent minor clauses discussed in the previous section, the use of imperatives shows a tendency for advertising language to mimic the casual, informal nature of conversation, though the use of imperatives may have less to do with issues of formality and more to do with the characteristic of making requests often found in conversation. Half of the ads from 1885 have no imperative at all. By contrast, every ad in the 1950 sample contains at least one imperative, and all but one ad from 2000 contain imperative constructions. There are many different types of imperatives used in this study’s sample of ads: standard imperatives, imperatives with reflexives, negative imperatives, quasi-imperatives, and politeness marking in imperatives. I will review each type. Standard imperatives. The majority of the imperatives in the advertisements follow traditional construction guidelines for forming the imperative, namely, an understood and (often) unnamed subject + a command verb—one that is identical in form to the infinitive, with no suffix (which contrasts with the way imperatives were historically formed in earlier varieties of SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES IN ADVERTISING ENGLISH 40 English). While the syntactic structure for these imperatives is uniform across all three years, the type of call to action used in each year varies. In the 1885 advertisements, the most common calls to action are to send for a catalog (Send for our large, new catalog), send for a circular (Send for circular) or to mention a particular ad when writing to the company for more information on their products (When writing about this pen, mention this paper). The use of standard imperative constructions in the 1885 ads provides an interesting insight into the role of advertising at the time. The majority of imperatives in the ads reviewed did not describe a benefit nor did they ask the consumer to try the product. Rather, they simply asked the consumer to inquire about the product. It’s as if advertisers in 1885 did not see the role of advertising as a sales method, but instead as a way to pique the interest of consumers. This results in a lack of general information in the ads themselves, which could also be a result of the limited space available to advertisers in this time period. Perhaps they felt their products could not be adequately explained in a single ad and that reading more about the product in a circular or catalog was a necessary step in the buying cycle. By the 1950s, the imperatives in the ads were far more direct, even showing up as the main headline of one particular ad (Give your child this chance, Appendix H). This abundance of standard imperative forms makes direct requests of the consumers to interact with the products themselves, rather than to request more information about the products. Such blunt directives as Try this dentist-approved Ipana care—for healthier teeth and healthier gums both (Appendix E) and Prove it by making the easy test described above (Appendix G) make it very clear to the consumer that the intent of the advertisement is to entice them to purchase a product and put it to the test. SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES IN ADVERTISING ENGLISH 41 In the 2000 ads, the imperatives are often less blunt than those found in the 1950 ads, though there are some ads that make a direct, blunt request of the consumer (Ask for us at your favorite retail store, Appendix U). One example showing the softer imperative comes from a Toyota ad (Appendix P): But we suggest you don’t rub it in with the price. A more blunt imperative would have removed the hedging contained in the word suggest and made a direct demand of the customer: Don’t rub it in with the price. The imperative asking the consumer to learn more about the product (Call 1-888-326- 8469 or visit www.celebrex.com for more information, Appendix Q), common in the 1885 ads, becomes common again in the 2000 ads, likely because the ads of 2000 have a common goal with the 1885 ads: to pique the interest of the consumer and direct those who are interested to a wealth of information. Of course the consumer in 2000 is not sending for a circular like he or she did in 1885, but rather calling a representative or visiting a website to find out about the product being advertised. Imperatives with reflexives. Many imperative constructions are formed using only a verb and a complement. But others are formed with an added reflexive pronoun, which has an emphasizing effect. Some languages, such as German, contain a large class of reflexive verbs, or verbs that require the use of a reflexive pronoun. In German, the phrase ich freue mich translates roughly to I’m glad. The verb, freuen, must take both a subject pronoun (ich) and a reflexive pronoun (mich) to be considered grammatical. The English translation does not. English does have a small set of verbs that require a reflexive pronoun (e.g., perjure in the sentence I perjured myself), but their frequency is small enough that they are not likely to appear in advertising language. SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES IN ADVERTISING ENGLISH 42 There are two examples of imperative constructions with reflexive pronouns in the ads examined in this study. One from 1950 (Appendix H) uses the reflexive with a prepositional phrase, perhaps a sort of quasi-reflexive, but a reflexive nonetheless: See for yourself how the Book of Knowledge captures your child’s imagination and makes learning a delight. The second token appears in an ad from 2000 (Appendix T): Indulge yourself in the feeling of sheer moisture. Neither of these two ads contains reflexive verbs. In other words, the verbs see and indulge do not require the use of a reflexive pronoun. The two constructions could easily take the form of See how the Book of Knowledge captures . . . and Indulge in the feeling of sheer moisture, respectively, without losing any grammaticality or even meaning. Thus, it appears these two uses of the reflexive pronoun are indeed intended to emphasize the impact or benefit these products have on you, the consumer—to explicitly point out that the benefits of these two products are for the consumer. Negative imperatives. The call to action of an ad is used to tell the consumer what to do (Felton, 2004; Sullivan, 2012). It logically follows, then, that telling people what not to do would be less effective than telling people what to do. But this guideline is not always followed as shown in the following examples. • (1885) Buy no organ until you have seen our new catalog (Appendix B) rather than the possible alternative, Buy one of our organs after you’ve seen our new catalog. • (1950) Don’t let blackened pans drive you frantic (Appendix I) rather than the possible alternative, Conquer blackened pans. • (1950) Quit scraping and sloshing! (Appendix I) rather than the possible alternative, Find the solution that lets you clean with ease. SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES IN ADVERTISING ENGLISH 43 A good argument could be made that a negative imperative in the second and third examples is appropriate because both describe situations that a consumer would find unpleasant. Therefore, avoiding the situations or eliminating them from a daily routine would actually be a good thing. But the use of a negative imperative in the first example is particularly interesting because it relies wholly upon the reader making it to the end of the sentence before understanding what the ad is actually requesting. If the reader stops after reading the first three words of the sentence in the first example, he or she walks away from the ad understanding a request exactly opposite of what the ad intends, i.e., to buy no organ. Though successful ad campaigns since 1885 have employed this same construction (e.g., Paul Masson wine’s 1970s tagline, “We will sell no wine before its time”), that this type of negative imperative remains uncommon may be indicative of its risky nature. Quasi-imperatives. Searching the ad copy of all three years, I discovered a few clauses that seemed to function as an imperative by issuing a command or a directive, but by doing so in a way unlike most imperatives. The definition of imperatives offered by Biber et al. (2002) suggests that they do not include modals or any form of tense marking. By this definition, these quasi-imperatives, as I’ll call them, are not true imperatives, but because a tone of request or command is apparent in these constructions, they still carry some elements of the imperative. Interestingly, three of the four noted uses of quasi-imperatives are from the 1885 sample. I’ve previously noted that there is a significant lack of imperatives in the ads from 1885 compared to the ads from 1950 and 2000. This relatively frequent use of a quasi-imperative in the 1885 ads appears to be an available substitute for the standard imperative, a more direct construction by nature. SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES IN ADVERTISING ENGLISH 44 In this first example of the quasi-imperative, the modal should is used to request that the consumer purchase the product: EVERY LADY Married or single, housekeeping or not, should be acquainted with the utility of PEARLINE in the LAUNDRY, and for HOUSE-CLEANING, Dishwashing, Cleaning Jewelry, Silver, Marble, Milk Cans, removing Blood-stains, Grease spots, etc. (Appendix A). It’s true that the sentence is a simple declarative, but its context in an ad for a product promising to clean everything from the laundry to milk cans makes it apparent that someone is very interested in selling this product. It’s interesting, and by today’s standards perhaps a little odd, that the advertiser does not directly command the consumer to purchase or try the product. Rather, a polite suggestion is made that the consumer should keep this product on hand. A Celebrex ad from 2000 (Appendix Q) uses this same form of the quasi-imperative with the modal should: You should not take this product if you have had asthma or allergic-type reactions to aspirin, arthritis medications or certain sulfa drugs, called sulfonamides. The text here clearly describes important precautions each patient should take. It seems that Pfizer, the maker of Celebrex, would be safer to use a stronger imperative form here—something like, Do not take this product if you have had asthma. . . A direct imperative here offers a stronger command, which may be more easily understood for patients taking Celebrex, and possibly reducing Pfizer’s liability. While imperatives clearly function to make a demand or a request of a consumer, the use of quasi-imperatives, particularly in the 1885 ads, shows that an advertiser can indicate a similar request using a modal (in these cases should) to soften the request. Politeness marking. Like the quasi-imperatives discussed in the previous section, imperatives that use politeness markers have a tendency to soften the direct nature of a command SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES IN ADVERTISING ENGLISH 45 (Biber et al., 2002). The two types of politeness markers most commonly observed in the sample of advertisements are the use of the word please in the imperative construction and the use of a stance adverb such as simply or just to indicate that the request being asked is not difficult. An example from a 2000 ad (Appendix R) illustrates this: For full details on the donation program, please go to firstyears.excite.com/about/donation. The simple addition of please in the construction enhances the polite tone, appropriate in cases such as this where a donation is requested. The same effect is accomplished with the inclusion of simply in the following example from 1950: Simply mail the coupon (Appendix H). In both of these instances, the reader is asked to learn more about the product, service, or organization, rather than try it directly or purchase it. Using please with an imperative that asks a consumer to purchase a product may come off sounding desperate (Please buy our product), and in a similar way, using a sentence adverb such as simply may come off sounding condescending to the consumer, immediately raising the question, what’s the catch? (Simply buy this product for a cleaner house). Using please or a stance adverb is not the only way to show politeness in an imperative construction. The following example from a 1950 ad (Appendix D) uses an imperative to explain one of the benefits of a certain product: bath towels. The imperative isn’t necessarily asking the person to take any action, but rather it’s explaining a benefit the consumer will enjoy after he or she purchases the bath towels. Save on the bill, too, because Cannon’s built real value into these smart stripe ensembles! It’s interesting to note that this type of polite imperative in which the consumer is shown a benefit of using a particular product does not exist in any of the 1885 ads. It is commonly used in the 1950 and 2000 ads, however. When viewed diachronically from a stylistic perspective, the simplicity of the imperative structure becomes slightly more complex. In the sample advertisements used for this study, the SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES IN ADVERTISING ENGLISH 46 differences in the use and distribution of the imperative are observed depending on what type of imperative is used: imperative with a reflexive pronoun, imperative with a negative structure, imperative with a quasi-imperative structure, and imperative with politeness markers. Focusing constructions One characteristic of English is a tendency to arrive at the verb phrase in a relatively quick manner. Very long sentence-initial adverbials, overly verbose nominalizations, or subjects with many embedded structures can become confusing for readers. These types of constructions also limit a writer’s ability to focus on a particular part or aspect of the sentence. In this section, I discuss three constructions observed in the sample of ads that writers use to focus certain elements of information: extraposition, clefting, and there-insertion. Extraposition. The extraposed subject requires the use of a dummy or placeholder subject, often it, to precede the verb phrase, which allows for a longer clause (usually a subject noun clause) to follow. Compare the following two sentences: (1) It is strange that the only flight leaving Salt Lake City tomorrow takes off at 4:00 p.m. (2) That the only flight leaving Salt Lake City tomorrow takes off at 4:00 p.m. is strange. The use of the extraposed subject in (1) allows the reader to more easily process the complex that-clause that describes the event the writer finds strange. Sentence (2) becomes hard to process because the reader encounters two verb phrases (leaving and takes off) before reaching the main verb in the sentence, is. Placing longer phrases in the predicate rather than in the subject provides a more comfortable reading experience. For this reason, the use of extraposition is very common among all registers—from conversation to academic writing (Biber et al., 2002). SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES IN ADVERTISING ENGLISH 47 The extraposed that-clause in (1) provides an example in which the adjective strange is modified. Extraposed that-clauses can also modify verbs, as will be shown in the examples taken from the sample advertisements. Despite the fact that the 1885 ads contained many full sentences (in addition to the many independent minor clauses noted earlier), none of the ads used an extraposed that-clause. The first examples of this type of extraposition appear in a 1950 Listerine ad (Appendix F): (3) It’s all too easy for a cold, once it starts, to spread from one member of the family to another . . . with troublesome results and (4) That’s why it’s so sensible to enlist the aid of the Listerine Antiseptic gargle early and often! Sentence (3) shows the use of an extraposed to-clause as an adjective complement. Compare this sentence with the alternative without extraposition: For a cold to spread from one member of the family to another with troublesome results once it start is all too easy. The length of the subject in this alternative makes comprehension challenging. Extraposition allows the reader to arrive at the verb quickly, which, as I’ve noted previously, eases reading. Both of these samples show the classic use of extraposition in which the sentential subjects (for a cold to spread from one member of the family to another in (3) and to enlist the aid of the Listerine Antiseptic gargle early and often in (4)) follow the adjectives (easy in (3) and sensible in (4)) in a linear order. This not only aids in readability, but it also emphasizes the sentential subjects by placing them at the end of the sentences, giving the readers the appropriate cue that what they’re reading is new and important information. Extraposition also occurs—albeit infrequently—in the ads from 2000. Two examples include It’s simple to make furniture that goes with your room from a La-Z-Boy ad (Appendix O). (Contrast To make furniture that goes with your room is simple.) And from a Toyota ad: It’s SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES IN ADVERTISING ENGLISH 48 one thing to brag to your neighbors about all the features, but we suggest you don’t rub it in with the price (Appendix P). (Contrast To brag to your neighbors about all the features is one thing, but we suggest you don’t rub it in with the price.) Both of these examples follow the same rules of extraposition that those noted from the 1950 ad do. The same analysis applies to both. Clefting. I’ve noted that extraposition affects both the readability and the information structure of an ad. Another construction that works in a way similar to extraposition is clefting. Clefting involves taking information that could be given in a simple clause and breaking it up into two clauses (Biber et al., 2002). An example of clefting appears in the same Listerine ad from 1950: Although many colds may be started by a virus, it is these “secondary invaders,” say many authorities, that are responsible for much of the misery you know so well (Appendix F). In describing a family of bacteria that causes illness, the writer of the ad uses clefting to create focus. Quirk & Greenbaum (1978) explain how this focus is achieved through contrast, saying, “The highlighted element has the full implication of contrastive focus: the rest of the clause is taken as given, and a contrast is inferred with other items which might have filled the focal position in the sentence” (p. 415). By using a dummy it, this clefted construction highlights the “secondary invaders” by contrasting them with any other possible thing—organism or otherwise—that could cause illness. The alternative single-clause sentence expresses the same idea but without this contrastive emphasis on “secondary invaders”: Although many colds may be started by a virus, these “secondary invaders,” say many authorities, are responsible for much of the misery you know so well. The clefted sentence uses a dummy it to rename secondary invaders, which requires a relative that-clause to make the sentence grammatically complete. By placing the notional subject as the head of a relative clause, its role as the “cause of misery” is made clearer than it is in the alternative single-clause sentence where the reader must connect it SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES IN ADVERTISING ENGLISH 49 as the subject with its predicate. This rightward movement also adds emphasis to the “cause of misery” idea, which is a powerful image for a reader to maintain. While clefting and extraposition have many characteristics in common, they also differ in important ways. For example, a sentence that includes an extraposed that-clause can be rearranged, moving the that-clause into subject position, as has been shown in the examples above. In cases of clefting, such rearranging is impossible, as it creates an ungrammatical sentence: *Although many colds may be started by a virus, that are responsible for much of the misery you know so well, it is these “secondary invaders,” say many authorities. There-insertion. Along with extraposition and clefting, there-insertion applies focus to a particular element in a sentence. In an existential there-clause, the syntactic role of the word there is that of subject; however, because it contains no lexical meaning, existential there-clauses also must contain a notional subject—the noun phrase that appears directly after the be verb. By shifting the focus rightward toward the end of the clause, this notional subject receives more emphasis, and often the sentence can be read more easily as well. An example from the Book of Knowledge ad from 1950 (Appendix H) illustrates this point: There are some things in life that cannot be bought—one of them is devotion . . . to a child. A simpler syntactic construction could have easily been used (Some things in life cannot be bought), but the use of there-insertion emphasizes the notional subject of the sentence: some things in life that cannot be bought. Two additional 1950 ads contain examples of similar there-insertion: There’s jeweler’s polish in Brillo! (Appendix I) and THERE’S NOTHING LIKE PROCTER & GAMBLE’S TIDE (Appendix M). In both of these sentences, the instance of there can be removed without altering the be verb. Simpler constructions may call for Jeweler’s polish is in Brillo! and Nothing is like SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES IN ADVERTISING ENGLISH 50 Procter & Gamble’s Tide. However, as previously noted, using these alternate constructions deemphasizes the jeweler’s polish and the “nothing like it” idea in the two ads. An 1885 fountain pen ad (Appendix B) also contains there-insertion: The construction of the Fountain Pen is so simple that there is nothing to get out of order. Unlike the examples of there-insertion previously discussed, however, the effect in this example doesn’t appear to be for emphasis, but rather for ease of reading. The reason for this conjecture is that the sentence cannot be rearranged to avoid there-insertion without changing the main verb. For example, an alternate sentence that eliminated the there-insertion might read The construction of the fountain pen is so simple that nothing can get out of order. In order to make this alternative grammatical, the be verb must be changed (in this case, to the modal auxiliary can), and what once was an infinitive to get must now become a finite verb (in this case, can). Extraposition, clefting, and there-insertion are used in the advertising copy analyzed in this study. However, the frequency of each is relatively sparse, and the usage in these examples appears to be scattered. Extraposition is found in copy from 1950 and 2000, but not in 1885. Its primary purpose appears to be for ease of cognitive processing when a subject is composed of a complex network of phrases, as well as for emphasis. Clefting appears in the 1950 ads, but none of the others. Its primary purpose is to emphasize elements of the clause by creating contrast with all other plausible alternatives that might be used in the construction. Interestingly, none of the 2000 ads contained there-insertion. Its use can, however, be seen in ads from 1885 and 1950. Formal corpus-based research would need to be performed to determine if such scattering of focusing constructions is actually significant. SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES IN ADVERTISING ENGLISH 51 Personal pronouns While a discussion on the use of pronouns in advertisements may on the surface appear more suitable for inclusion in a paper focused on semantics or discourse analysis, there are syntactic consequences tied to the use of pronouns—or the lack thereof—as will be demonstrated below. Leech (1966) comments on the nature of the second-person pronoun in advertising by saying: A type of proper name, a brand-name, is used to refer to the product; and a type of deictic name, the second person pronoun, is used to refer to the consumer. Without these two naming operations, advertising copy would scarcely be recognizable as advertising copy. (p. 156) Leech’s statement refers specifically to television advertisements; however, the same principle could also be applied to print advertisements, as the two share many characteristics and often have the same purpose: to sell a product. The current study found Leech’s statement to be true so far as the use of the second-person pronoun is concerned for the ads from 1950 and 2000, but the same was not true for the ads from 1885. The use of first- and second-person pronouns are more limited in this study’s sample of 1885 advertisements, but they became more common in the advertisements from 1950 and 2000. A full corpus-based study would be required to determine if this pattern is general and actually significant. An 1885 ad selling a gold fountain pen (Appendix B) provides an excellent example of what appears to be a purposeful avoidance of the second person pronoun: This pen can be carried in the pocket in any position without leaking, and will write 15,000 words without SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES IN ADVERTISING ENGLISH 52 refilling. A look at the next sentence in the ad lends evidence to the supposition that the writer is purposely avoiding the second-person pronoun: Any ordinary pen can be used by attaching to the fountain-holder if desirable. Both sentences use the passive construction to carefully avoid naming the agent of the actions, you in both cases. A possibly more desirable alternative for the two sentences, according to many copywriting experts, would have been to speak directly to the consumer using the personal pronoun you, as in You can carry this pen in your pocket in any position without it leaking, and you can write 15,000 words without refilling it and You can use any ordinary pen by attaching to the fountain-holder if you desire. Restructuring the sentences in this way engages the consumer more directly and increases the amount of you-attitude (Rodman, 2001) found in the ad. The idea of you-attitude is to focus communication on the receiver, explicitly tying the benefits a product provides to him or her. In this fountain pen ad, the you-attitude is hidden in the passive constructions, placing pen as the subject of both sentences. An argument could be made that having pen as the subject of both sentences adds to the continuity of the text, creating more cohesion from one sentence to the next. It also puts more focus on the product the ad is selling, rather than on the benefit to the consumer, which appears anecdotally to be common among ads from 1885. Deciding between an emphasis on pen or greater reader engagement through the use of you as the subject is a matter of stylistic choice with unavoidable consequences on the syntactic structure. Considering specifically the first sample sentence above, the active alternative (You can carry this pen . . . ) restructures the sentence in a way that allows a renaming of the pen at the end of the sentence, the part of the sentence with the greatest amount of emphasis. This renaming could be shown through the repetition of the word pen ( . . . and you can write 15,000 words SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES IN ADVERTISING ENGLISH 53 without refilling the pen), through the use of a pronoun ( . . . you can write 15,000 words without refilling it), or with zero anaphora ( . . . you can write 15,000 words without refilling). Any of these constructions would be appropriate, grammatical, and, in the case of the first two, emphatic. The fact that the writer chose to use the passive construction instead of the active, even when a loss of emphasis was not at risk, provides more evidence of an 1885 style in which the second-person pronoun is avoided. A final issue of the sentence-initial placement of pen in this particular example is that it causes a lack of parallelism in the construction of the sentence as a whole. As the sentence stands currently, the dependent clause is a passive construction, while the independent clause is an active construction. This switch from passive to active in a single sentence is discouraged by style experts such as Kessler and McDonald (2012). Grammatically, both the passive/active and active/active options are valid and acceptable. But as has been shown, from a stylistic point of view, they are very different. This careful avoidance of the second-person pronoun in the two sentences discussed above is underscored further in the sentence that follows: The construction of the Fountain Pen is so simple that there is nothing to get out of order, and this simplicity of construction enables us to sell it at a low price. While the second-person pronoun is being carefully avoided, the first-person plural us is still used. That the writer of the ad is unwilling to directly address the consumer with the pronoun you but is willing to make direct reference to the seller of the product is further evidence of the lack of you-attitude in the ad. Leech (1966) describes the differences between direct address and indirect address in advertising. He notes that direct-address advertising occurs when the copywriter speaks directly to the consumer, making both parties primary participants in the text. Indirect address, on the SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES IN ADVERTISING ENGLISH 54 other hand, occurs when the reader of the ad is not a participant but rather an outside observer. The lack of the second-person pronoun in many of the 1885 ads suggests a form of indirect address because the reader is never addressed directly. The use of the first-person singular pronoun, I, is never used in the ads from 1885, and in the ads from 1950 and 2000, it’s used only in quoted matter and in a release form (I understand it’s free without obligation whatsoever, Appendix H). This lack of the first-person pronoun is to be expected, as Cook (1992) notes in his discussion of the different uses of pronouns in advertising, “The tendency to project the self into the ‘I’ and address somebody else as ‘you’ is hampered by the frequent absence of ‘I’ and the clear address to the receiver” (p. 156). In other words, an advertiser may not have much use to speak in terms of I because the tone of advertising is often so heavily directed toward the receiver. Cook goes on to describe the way the second person pronoun you is used in advertising, saying, “Ads are more intrusive. Their ‘you’ is part of a high-involvement strategy which attempts to win us over by very direct address; they step uninvited into our world, expressing interest in our most intimate concerns” (p. 157). While Cook’s statement holds true for the ads sampled from 1950 and 2000, it does not hold true for those ads sampled from 1885. In fact, explicit use of the second-person pronoun is found only once in all 10 of the 1885 advertisements (Buy no Organ until you have seen our new catalog, Appendix B). But even though the word you is not used elsewhere in the 1885 ads, the unspoken use of you is indicated through the use of the imperative mood. (See the discussion of imperative mood for a more complete analysis.) This lack of expressed second-person pronouns offers an air of formality to the 1885 ads, similar to the formal tone many of today’s academic styles promote through discouraging the use of first- and second-person pronouns. SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES IN ADVERTISING ENGLISH 55 In the 1950 ads, this practice of avoiding second-person pronouns seems to have been entirely done away with. You is used throughout the ads of 1950 and 2000, but a close inspection of this use of you reveals an interesting difference between the two time periods. In the 1950 ads, you is always used as the subject of a clause with just three exceptions (dentists warn you, Appendix E; it costs you nothing, Appendix H; and Don’t let blackened pans drive you frantic, Appendix I). Such an exclusive use of nominative you is not as common in the 2000 ads. In the following sentences from four of the 2000 ads, you is used as an object—either as a direct object, an indirect object, or as the object of a preposition. (1) By effectively reducing pain, inflammation and stiffness, Celebrex can help you through the day with activities like standing, walking or climbing stairs, and through the night while resting in bed. (Appendix Q) (2) Just one Sleepinal Softgel helps you fall asleep quickly, safely, and effectively. (Appendix S) (3) Mohawk Rug & Textiles unique piece of mind designs assures you that our products will not stain, shrink or fade. (Appendix U) (4) Now the #1 anti-wrinkle cream in France* is available to you. (Appendix N) (5) Better yet, the low online prices save you 20% over traditional drugstores. (Appendix V) These examples show a tendency for ads from 2000 to place the product as the subject of the sentence and to place the consumer as the object or beneficiary. In the 1950 ads, this was not the case. The consumer was the subject of the sentence, putting the consumer in control of the situation as shown in the following example: Now, the toothpaste you use to clean your breath while you clean your teeth, offers a proved way to help stop tooth decay before it starts! SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES IN ADVERTISING ENGLISH 56 (Appendx L). The writer is not explicitly stating that the toothpaste cleans the breath, but rather that a person cleans his or breath using the toothpaste. The use of you as a subject in 1950 and as an object in 2000 shows an interesting shift in the relationship between product and consumer and what is considered the appropriate place for both. An investigation of the use of pronouns in the sample advertisements has provided interesting insight into the frequency and use of primarily the first- and second-person pronouns. The following section will further this discussion of pronouns by investigating the way the third-person pronouns are used in constructions that use anaphoric reference. Anaphora Anaphora refers to the practice of referencing a previously stated entity using a substitute grammatical form—normally a pronoun (as a substitute for noun phrases), a pro-verb (as a substitute for verb phrases), and a deictic determiner (such as this, that, and which). In comparing the types and amount of anaphora used in certain ads from the three time periods this study investigates, we see several differences in the types of anaphora used. The 1885 ad for the Webster’s unabridged dictionary (Appendix B) uses anaphoric reference for the product itself throughout the entire ad: (1) WEBSTER’S UNABRIDGED DICTIONARY. (2) The Family Educator. (3) A Library in Itself. (4) NEW EDITION WITH SUPPLEMENT. (5) In Sheep, Russia and Turkey Bindings. (6) It will answer thousands of questions to the wide-awake child. (7) It is an ever-present and reliable School-Master to the whole family. –S.S. Herald. (8) In the quantity of matter it contains, is believed to be the largest volume published, being sufficient to make 75 12mo volumes that usually sell for $1.25 each. (9) The LATEST EDITION has 118,000 Words, Four Pages Colored Plates, 3000 Engravings, (being SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES IN ADVERTISING ENGLISH 57 3000 more Words and nearly three times the number of Engravings found in any other American Dictionary.) (10) It also contains a Biographical Dictionary, giving brief important facts concerning 9700 Noted Persons. (11) Webster is Standard Authority with the U.S. Supreme Court and in the Government Printing Office, and is recommend by the State Superintendents of Schools in 36 states, and by over 50 College Presidents. (12) Published by G. & C. Merriam & Co., Springfield, Mass. Note how the name of the product is mentioned just once: in (1), the headline. Sentence (2), the first subheading, uses the definite article, the, in the appositional phrase the family educator as an anaphoric reference to the already-named dictionary. Sentence (3), the second subheading, uses the reflexive pronoun itself to refer back to the product. The following five sentences (6–10) of body copy all contain anaphoric—rather than direct—reference to the product: It will answer thousands of questions, It is an ever-present and reliable school-master, it contains, The latest edition (of the dictionary), It also contains. In (11), the product is not referenced directly, but rather alluded to through the mention of the publisher of the book. Where the Webster’s ad from 1885 used anaphora exclusively to refer to the product, a Chevy Impala car ad from 2000 (Appendix W) uses anaphora in a different way, namely as a sentence coordinator. (Marginal information such as asterisks has been removed from this transcription.) (1) WE DIDN’T JUST STOP AT CAPTURING THE SHEER JOY OF DRIVING. (2) Chevy Impala has earned a five-star government front crash test rating. (3) It’s the highest possible government rating for a frontal impact and the all-new Chevy Impala has just earned it. (4) That’s something Toyota Camry, Honda Accord and Dodge Intrepid have yet to accomplish. (5) Rediscover the joy of driving in a car designed, SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES IN ADVERTISING ENGLISH 58 engineered and built to be carefree. (6) Call 1-877-IMPALA or visit Chevrolet.com for more information. (7) THE NEW CHEVY IMPALA. (8) Let’s go for a drive. The use of it’s in (3) is not a reference to the product being advertised. Rather, it’s a reference to the idea expressed in the sentence preceding it. In other words, the five-star government crash test rating the car earned, mentioned in (2), is the antecedent of the pronoun it in (3). Similarly, the determiner that used in (4) references the idea expressed in (3), namely that Chevy Impala has earned such a high crash test rating. Throughout the entire ad, whenever the Chevy Impala is referenced, it is mentioned explicitly—in (2), (3), and (7). Sentence (5) uses the reduced restrictive relative clause “designed, engineered, and built to be carefree” to narrow the reference to point back to the Impala, but the use of the indefinite article a in the phrase a car weakens the reference. Using the indefinite article does not refer to a specific item, rather it refers to one member of a specific class of items (Biber et al., 2002). The two ads discussed above provide two extreme examples of the use of anaphoric reference: the 1885 ad, which uses anaphora in every instance, and the 2000 ad, which hardly uses it at all. An ad from 1950 (Appendix E) appears to use anaphoric reference in moderation. (1) DENTAL SCIENCE EXPLAINS HOW IPANA FIGHTS TOOTH DECAY! (2) No other dentifrice—paste or powder—has been proved more effective than Ipana for fighting tooth decay. (3) For dental science says that tooth decay starts with acid-forming bacteria trapped in a sticky coating on your teeth. (4) Every time, any time you use Ipana, it fights tooth decay by helping remove this bacteria-trapping coating. (5) DENTISTS SAY THAT IPANA CARE PROMOTES HEALTHIER GUMS (6) In thousands of recent reports from all over the country, 8 out of 10 dentists say the Ipana way SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES IN ADVERTISING ENGLISH 59 promotes healthier gums. (7) That’s just as important as fighting decay, for dentists warn that you can’t have healthy teeth without healthy gums! (8) Try this dentist-approved Ipana care—for healthier teeth and healthier gums both. This excerpt from a 459-word toothpaste ad includes the first two sections of the ad. Sentences (1–4) comprise the first section; (5–9) comprise the second section. Like the 1885 dictionary ad, the headlines (1) and (5) name the product—in this case, Ipana. Unlike the 1885 ad, however, the Ipana ad renames the product in (2), rather than relying on anaphoric reference or the reader’s ability to cognitively combine the headline and the body copy together as one. The above examples show how anaphora is used differently across a range of contexts. The examples even show variation in the frequency of anaphora used over time. In 1885, anaphoric reference through the use of the third-person pronoun is abundant, possibly owing to a lack of space for the repetition of the product name. In 1950, anaphora is moderate with product names appearing to be repeated more frequently, though not always. In 2000, anaphora is used much less often. It appears that given the opportunity, the 2000 copywriter repeats the name of the product being sold as often as possible. Discussion The analysis presented in this study provides ample evidence to support the idea that the style and syntax used in the language of print ads has indeed changed within the time period spanning 1885–2000. From this evidence, two important themes can be found that are relevant to the modern advertiser. Namely, 1) some constructions in ad copy common in a certain period may be influenced by factors outside the actual content of the ad (for example, the space constraints of an ad could encourage the use of some particular constructions), and 2) despite the SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES IN ADVERTISING ENGLISH 60 call for simplicity in ad copy by many experts, some syntactically complex constructions might actually ease readability. When one thinks of advertisements, among the first things that come to mind is short, punchy, memorable language. Indeed, advertisements are meant to be remembered. It seems reasonable that heavy use of independent minor clauses would satisfy this requirement of memorability. Independent minor clauses often employ a disjunctive style that stylistically stands out from more discursive language, and independent minor clauses are often shorter than their discursive counterparts, making them easier to remember. Because they’re often so short, the syntactic structure of independent minor clauses is often quite simple, following in line with the advice advertising and marketing experts traditionally offer: to keep ad copy simple (Flesch, 1946; Percy, 1982; Higgins, 1987; Crompton, 1982; Bly 2005). With these modern assumptions in mind, it is interesting that the use of independent minor clauses declined from 1885 to 2000. Ads from 1885 made frequent use of independent minor clauses—some even being almost wholly composed of this type of structure. Ads from 1950, on the other hand, avoided frequent use of independent minor clauses—even though the call to keep copy simple was alive and well at this time (see Flesch, 1946). Ads from 2000—a time period in which news stories often point out that consumers with shorter and shorter attention spans are being bombarded more and more with advertisements—employed many fewer independent minor clauses than might be expected. In fact in the 2000 ads, independent minor clauses were used almost exclusively in signature lines (The 2000 Corolla, Appendix P and More than a drug store. Just a click away. Appendix V). One possible explanation for this trend in the use of independent minor clauses may be due to the amount of space each ad occupied. Ads from 1885 most often appeared on the same SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES IN ADVERTISING ENGLISH 61 page with seven other ads, giving each one approximately one-eighth of a page. When space is so limited, sentence structure must be altered or type size must become smaller. Ads from 1885 provided examples of both. The smallest ads in the 1950 and 2000 samples were one-third of a page. The largest were a full spread in 2000 and a full page in 1950. The ads from 1950 were far more text heavy than the ads from 1885, with many containing word counts far exceeding even the most prolix ads from 1885 or 2000. This amount of space dedicated to text allowed the copywriters of 1950 to write in fuller, wordier sentences. As a result, the number of independent minor clauses found in these ads is fewer than in the 1885 ads. The wordiness of the 1950s ads also allowed for more focusing constructions like extraposition, clefting, and there-insertion. All three of these constructions require that additional words be added to a clause, thus having a cumulative effect of increasing the word count of the ad. Incorporating this type of wordy construction is something the copywriters of 1885 did not always have the luxury of doing. Because of these space constrictions, it logically follows that fewer instances of focusing constructions appeared in the 1885 ads. It’s important to note the way the imperative mood fits in with these constructions. In analyzing the advertisements from all three years, I found that the imperatives in the 1885 ads and the 2000 ads had something in common: they often invited the reader to learn more about the product in some way. In the 1885 ads, the imperative often encouraged a reader to send for a circular or to request a catalog; in the 2000 ads, it was often to call a phone number to speak to sales representative or to visit a website. The 1950 ads, however, did not contain nearly as many of these kinds of “learn more” imperatives. The imperatives included in the 1950s ads were most often urging the reader to try the product, not learn more about it. When this type of imperative is SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES IN ADVERTISING ENGLISH 62 used, the ad must provide enough information for the consumer to make a purchasing decision. Hence, we see text-heavy advertisements from 1950 and lighter-copy advertisements from 1885 and 2000. Anaphoric reference appears to be affected by the amount of space an ad occupies as well. Logically, long product names cannot be repeated over and over in a limited amount of space. However, when space is ample, the copywriter is free to repeat the name of a product as many times as he or she feels is necessary. Because the size of the 1950 and 2000 ads were nearly identical (only one ad in 2000 was a full spread), it may be tempting to suppose that the use of anaphoric reference would be nearly identical in both years. However, it was not. The reason for this is likely also related to the types of imperatives employed in ads from the different years. The 1950 ads had to use the available space to sell a product. By contrast, the 2000 ads had to use the available space to make the name of their product memorable so people would remember to search for them online or to call the toll free number to learn more. In this way, imperatives and anaphoric reference appear to be related to one another. What implications do the findings of this study have on the modern advertiser? First, the results of this study corroborate the findings of Bradley and Meeds (2002), Wyer (2002), and Lowery (1998), namely, that the most syntactically simple copy is not always the best option. Many examples have been discussed in which a slightly more complex syntactic structure was used for stylistic effect. For example, a clause in which clefting is at play applies focus to a desired constituent. Clefted sentences are always more syntactically complex than their nonclefted counterparts; however, as this study has shown, they—and other constructions like them—are able to provide a stylistic effect that aids in readability and likely memorability as well. SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES IN ADVERTISING ENGLISH 63 Second, the results of this study encourage the copywriter to be aware of external factors that may affect the copy. I’ve heavily addressed the effect the amount of space an ad occupies can have on the syntactic style it employs. Certainly copywriters working today are required to write ads of all different sizes. Knowing what types of stylistic effects have been previously employed in different eras can provide at least a starting point from which to determine the syntactic structures that will be most impactful in the ads a copywriter writes. Third, this study shows that ad copy has become less formal over time. The stylistic structures of 1885 ads gave the ads more of a formal-sounding tone through such practices as replacing constructions that require the second-person pronoun with a passive, marking the subjunctive with subject–verb inversion rather than with a modal auxiliary, or completely avoiding embedded that-clauses and dummy subjects in ad copy. The copywriter who is aware that such historical practices added to the formality of the ad is better able to determine if similar constructions may be called for in a particular ad being written today. And finally, the historical perspective this study provides can benefit the modern copywriter by simply making him or her aware of stylistic changes that have occurred in this genre. A good example is the use of the personal pronoun you shifting from none in 1885 to subject position in 1950 to object position in 2000. It’s important for copywriters of today to know that directly addressing the consumer is a preferred practice by today’s standards, and that such has not always been the case. In addition, it’s important for copywriters to understand that placing the consumer as the syntactic object in the sentence has the effect of showing the consumer as the beneficiary of a particular product, rather than as the operator of a particular product. Knowing this type of information can give copywriters greater insight into their SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES IN ADVERTISING ENGLISH 64 audiences: namely that consumers prefer to be told what a product can do for them rather than what they can do with a product. One of the most interesting findings of this study is the fact that each construction analyzed has not moved in a liner fashion from 1885 to 2000. Rather, in many constructions, like anaphoric reference and imperatives, the ads from 1885 and 2000 share more commonalities. As such, copywriters who use a particular syntactic construction are not necessarily using a construction associated with one and only one time period. In this way, syntactic style in advertising copy appears to be similar to clothing fashions in that both seem to be involved in cyclical rather than linear change. While the methodology employed in this study does not allow these finding to be universally generalized, it does provide an in-depth view of specific examples of stylistic differences in advertising copy. Of the five syntactic and stylistic areas considered in this study, the diachronic content analysis presented here has found variation in the use of each one. Although the five areas analyzed in this study constitute only a small sampling of the stylistic differences employed in advertising copy, the findings are important. First, as far as I am aware, this is the first diachronic study of ad copy style. Because the study of stylistics requires such a focused, involved reading of a text, a diachronic study is often not possible. However, rather than looking a sample of ads and evaluating their style, this study is unique in that it looks for evidence of certain syntactic structures and discusses only those found in the diachronic sample. Narrowing the syntactic structures in this way allowed for an in-depth analysis of these structures over time. This type of approach to stylistics is new, and it provides valuable findings and discussions that can be further investigated through corpus-based research on these and other stylistic differences in advertising copy. Additional research would be needed to determine what SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES IN ADVERTISING ENGLISH 65 other stylistic elements—syntactic or otherwise—are at play in the obviously di