Using British and American аdvertising texts in teaching English to students of a technical University

Vasilieva Yuliya Sergeevna ORCID: 0000-0002-9929-9377 PhD in History Associate professor; Department of Linguistics, Cross-cultural Communication, and Russian as Foreign Language; Samara State Technical University 443100, Russia, Samara region, Samara, Molodogvardeyskaya str., 194, office 507b v-julia@mail.ru Other publications by this author

Ostashevskaya Elizaveta Yur'evna ORCID: 0000-0003-1068-1818 Senior Lecturer; Department of Pedagogy, Intercultural Communication and Russian as a Foreign Language; Samara State Technical University 443001, Russia, Samara region, Samara, Molodogvardeyskaya str., 194, office 507 in s-elizaveta@list.ru

Introduction

The phenomenon of advertising has been studied in the framework of a wide variety of social sciences and humanities: sociology, economics, psychology, philosophy, cultural studies and linguistics. Economists consider advertising as an informational, emotionally colored message designed to increase sales ^{[1, p. 472]}. A large number of linguistic studies are devoted to the advertising text and the lexical units that make up this text. The use of advertising in the process of teaching foreign languages has been studied by domestic (for example, Rosenthal D., Kohtev N. ^[2]) and foreign specialists (for example, Myers J.^[3]) since the early 2000s. Functional and stylistic features were studied (Gorlatov A.M. ^[4]), semantic, grammatical and morphological characteristics of advertising texts (Morozov A.Yu. ^[5]).

Advertising texts contain a wealth of material about cultural realities, reflect the value system of a foreign-speaking society, thus providing access to information about traditions, customs, historical facts and much more. Due to this, they can be used as one of the most effective resources in teaching foreign languages. Such texts can be used in a variety of educational situations for various purposes. Advertising texts are suitable for solving a wide range of methodological problems.

The subject of this article is to study the use of advertising texts in foreign language classes and determine their effectiveness in teaching English.

The following methods were used in this study: descriptive, contextual analysis, elements of component and logical-semantic analysis, and pedagogical methods such as problem-based and research methods.

The use of advertising texts in foreign language classes

The Latin word "advertere" means "to turn to", therefore, attracting the reader's attention is crucial for the advertising text ^{[6, p. 1]}. Advertising texts contain, in explicit or implicit form, a certain set of ideas about the advertised object, which is embedded in the consumer's consciousness and aimed at preparing future sales ^{[7, pp. 15-21]}. The impact on the addressee occurs through the use of verbal and non-verbal communication tools in the advertising text ^[8]. In this regard, the advertising text is essentially a "creolized text or polycode" ^[9]. All known means of creating creolized text are present in advertising: "font, color, background, means of spelling, punctuation, word formation, graphic design, etc." ^{[10, p. 92]}. In speech communication, "a creolized text appears as a complex textual formation in which verbal and iconic elements form one visual, structural, semantic and functional whole aimed at a complex pragmatic impact on the addressee" ^{[11, p. 78]}.

When presenting the facts directly, the advertisement describes the advertised product and its characteristics from the most significant to the least significant. The effectiveness of an advertising text depends on its content. The main elements of the advertising text are the title and subtitle, the main text, the company logo, the illustration and the slogan. In addition to the above, if necessary, advertising texts may contain information prescribed by law, as well as additional information about the company or product ^[12].

The most important component of the advertising text is the title, since it is "read five times more often than the text" ^{[13, p. 27]}. First of all, the reader pays attention to the title. The title fully reflects the commercial idea ^{[14, pp. 265-266]}. The peculiarity of the advertising text is its brevity and capacity. The text part usually makes up no more than 20% of all advertising ^{[15, p. 48]}. The brevity of advertising texts is related not only to the limited advertising space, but also to considerations of the effectiveness of the impact on the reader.

The authors of the advertisement strive to make the perception of the advertising text as easy as possible. To do this, various techniques are used: dividing the text into short passages, italicizing; asterisks, margin markings; clear font, contrasting background. It should be noted that advertising texts meet the general requirements of written speech, such as correctness, relevance, accuracy, logic, expressiveness ^{[16, p. 107]}.

The slogan - the most important element of the advertising text - is usually located at the end of the advertising text, next to the name of the company or trademark. The slogan conveys the meaning of the advertising offer as succinctly and clearly as possible ^{[17, p. 5]}. As the analysis of hierarchical communication models has shown, all models of advertising texts are based on a sequential logical process that includes a perceptual component: the hierarchy of "think–feel - do" is taken as a basis. The consumer, based on his consumer experience, guided by his feelings, evaluates products, and then makes a rational choice. The introductory part of the advertising text is aimed at arousing interest and attracting the reader's attention. A description of the advertised object and an explanation of its advantages hold the reader's attention and help to form an image of the product. The argumentation and ending of the text should arouse a desire to purchase the advertised product ^{[18, p. 25]}.

Advertising texts, reflecting the value system of a foreign-speaking society, modern rules and norms of a foreign language, are an effective and accessible resource in the process of learning a foreign language. Such texts are suitable for solving a wide range of methodological problems. The texts of British and American advertising represent a rich and informative material that can be used in teaching English to students of non-linguistic specialties, in particular in technical universities. According to the study, advertisements, videos and posts are saturated with basic grammatical constructions, stable expressions and stylistic techniques. Advertising texts differ in fairly simple grammatical structures: short sentences or general and dividing questions ^{[19, p. 51]}. Moreover, in advertising you can see lexical examples of all technical areas – from engineering and economics to architecture.

In the text of British and American advertising, there are sentences using adjectives in comparative and superlative degrees, which can be used when teaching this grammatical rule: Smart ideas for smarter cities (American corporation IBM); Now much drier (Panasonic washing machines); America's challenge to Europe's finest (Mustang cars); Touch the screen to see a younger looking you…(Neutrogena face cream); Closer to nature (potato chips Lays); MacBook - The most interesting book in the world (Apple technology). Using these language examples and visual material, an English teacher can clearly demonstrate the rules for using degrees of comparison of adjectives in English.

Articles are also often used in the advertising text: Have a break, have a...KitKat. (KitKat chocolate bar); Anybody ordered a bank? (Bank Aljazira Bank); Introducing a friendlier Coke (carbonated Coca-Cola drink); A dishwashing miracle! (Tide washing powder). In these examples, the indefinite article is used with countable nouns in the singular. It is used when talking about an object, without focusing on a specific subject. That is, it realizes its main meaning of the indefinite article: The new skinny can (Pepsi carbonated drink); The McDonald's breakfast shift (breakfast at McDonald's restaurant); The world is calling (American Tourister suitcases); The can bag (Campbell's soups); We're for the real thing (alcoholic drink Kalnapilis). The above advertising slogans emphasize the uniqueness of the advertised item by means of the definite article "the". Thus, students will be able to understand the context of the use of this article in English. Such examples make it easier for students of technical universities to study such complex material as articles.

With the help of an advertising text, you can study not only grammar, but also such an important phenomenon for learning English as word formation. For example, the suffix "y" forms adjectives based on nouns with the meaning of quality, similarity, character: Creamy. Dreamy. Icy. Chocolatey (drinks at the McCafe cafe); Be happy – go lucky! (Lucky Strike tobacco products); Juicy! (BIG pancake mix); Gum with juicy fruity filling (Orbit chewing gum). By paying attention to the way these adjectives are formed in the advertising text, the teacher can help students master the suffix method of adjective formation.

When creating advertising texts, copywriters often resort to the help of stylistics to create an attractive image of the positioning product. Alliteration is an important element in advertising in both British and American cultures. It is a repetition of the initial sounds in words and is used to create a memorable and melodic sound, "emphasizing the rhythm and sound fastening of the line, and also establishes additional calls between words, correlating them in meaning" ^{[20, p. 28]}. According to the study, such a stylistic device as alliteration in advertising is a powerful tool that helps to form the sound structure of the text and enhance its emotional impact. That is, texts with alliteration are easy to remember and catch the eye, and, therefore, can be used when teaching students of non-linguistic universities English: Let's live the luxury (Toyota Camry cars); Picture perfect pearls (Coco Chanel jewelry); Definitely very Dior (Dior perfumes); Smile with strength (Colgate toothpaste); Colour culture (MAC cosmetics); Stop and sip (Lipton tea).

Another interesting stylistic technique used in the advertising text is rhyme. Rhyme is "repetition (usually at certain intervals) of identical or similar sound combinations at the end of words" ^{[21, p. 277]}: Once you pop, you can't stop (potato chips Pringles); A Mars a day helps you work, rest and play (Mars chocolate bar); The shoe works if you do (Nike athletic shoes). Rhyme is used to semantically highlight a word, since a word with a sound repetition becomes noticeable and attracts special attention, facilitating the perception of the text. This is especially important when teaching students of non-linguistic specialties.

The text of the advertisement mainly uses simple sentences with verbs in the imperative mood. In this regard, teaching syntax through advertising will be simple and accessible material for students of non-linguistic universities: Wear green, drink Redd's (Redd's drink); Wash tough and delicacies together (LG Twin Wash washing machine); Eat fresh (Subway fast food restaurant); Don't let your Audi fall into the wrong hands (Audi service center); Feel on top of your day (Just Right cornflakes, Kellogg's).

Advertising texts are characterized by the absence of complex sentences and temporary structures: most often simple, uncommon sentences are used that are easy to perceive, understand and remember. Students of technical universities often have difficulties learning the 12 English tenses of active and passive voices. The text of the advertisement can help improve the development of this grammatical category, since the main English tenses are vividly represented in the ads and slogans.

Present SimpleActive:Life comes at you fast. (Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company); Cleans pores. Fights pimples.(Pond's facial scrub); Makes your horses purr. (Avia Turbo engine oil); Every woman alive loves Chanel N5. (Chanel N5 eau de toilette).

Present Continuous Active:I’mlovin’ it. (McDonald's fast food restaurant);You only have one body. That’s why we are offering a 20% discount on all fruit and vegetables. (Coop Konsum grocery stores).

Present Perfect Passive:An Audi R8 GT has been sold in your town. (Audi cars)

Past Simple Active:Arrived to more places in Ecuador. (Tame Fly Ecuador Airlines);For he loved his little olives so much he gave them this to drown them in Martini. (Martini alcoholic beverage).

Past Continuous Active:The species you were looking for doesn’t exist anymore. (The World Wildlife Fund WWF - the activities of this organization in Russia are considered undesirable).

Future Simple Active:You’ll never see your car the same way. (Mercedes cars).

Such examples add clarity and facilitate the process of understanding the difference in English tenses.

Conclusions

The scientific novelty of the research results is determined by an integrated approach to the study of vocabulary in an advertising text, taking into account its phonetic, semantic, grammatical, morphological and functional-stylistic characteristics. This study defines the role of advertising and advertising texts for society at the present time, lists and describes the main components of an effective advertising text, as well as the linguistic means used by advertisers to increase the effectiveness of advertising texts. The article presents examples of lexical, stylistic and grammatical techniques based on the material of American and English advertising texts of popular brands.

As our research has shown, advertising allows you to diversify and update didactic materials on the English language and expand the range of pedagogical methods of a teacher's work in a practical lesson. This material can be used at all stages of students' work: for the presentation of new language material, at the stage of consolidation and development of a linguistic phenomenon. In addition, it has proven itself well for various forms of work: both group and individual.

The brevity, accessibility and linguistic diversity of modern advertising opens up wide didactic opportunities for its application within the framework of a general practical English course at all stages of training students of a technical university. Advertising texts contain a wealth of material about the linguistic realities and linguistic and cultural values of American and English society, representing a unique resource for teaching English. In addition, these texts provide a lot of material for studying in practice the stylistic, lexical and syntactic techniques of the English language.

The practical significance of this work lies in the possibility of using the results obtained in lexical practice, as an educational material in English classes. These materials will help the teacher to diversify and modernize the content of practical English classes at a technical university.