English in product advertisements in Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain

Abstract

This paper reports on a quantitative investigation into the occurrence of English in product advertisements in Dutch-speaking Belgium, French-speaking Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain. For each country six issues of Elle in 2004 were collected and all ads of half a page or larger were analyzed, for a total of 2,384 different ads. More than two-thirds of those ads contained one or more English words. The actual occurrence of English was low, since 90 per cent of the ads with English were partly in English and partly in the local language, and only 13 per cent of the total amount of the text in those ads was in English. English was especially used for advertising products that can be associated with modernity. Our results regarding the amount of English used and the position of English in the ad do not completely corroborate those of other studies. This could indicate an increase in the use of English in product ads, but it could also be due to the fact that we applied a different research method than had been previously used. The countries we investigated differ considerably in the amount of English used. These differences shed new light on earlier theoretical studies that have compared European countries on the use and status of English.

The Use of Anglicisms in Spanish Television Commercials of Cosmetics, Hygiene and Personal Care Products

“…Our results also coincide with those published in previous studies on Anglicisms in print media (Durán 2002, Van Hooft 2006, Gerritsen et al 2007, Varey 2008, Rodríguez Díaz 2011, Valozic 2015. The reasons why Anglicisms are so frequently used in Spanish commercials were examined as well, and they were found to be rather complex and varied.…”

“…In 2006, Van Hooft also studied the use of Anglicisms in the Spanish edition of the fashion magazine Elle. Gerritsen et al (2007) published the results of their research on the use of English in different European fashion magazines (Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain). In 2011 Rodríguez Díaz analysed the presence of English and German words in advertisements appearing in Spanish newspapers over a ten-year period (1998)(1999)(2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007).…”

La presencia del inglés en la red de Internet en lengua española: Las ofertas de empleo en www.monster.es

“…Observación válida también para la prensa escrita en seis variantes geolectales del español tal y como han demostrado Gerding et al (2012) en su extenso análisis de corpus. Mientras que otros estudios (para Europa, Kelly-Holmes, 2000;Piller, 2003;Ustinova, 2006;Gerritsen et al, 2007;para Asia, Haarmann, 1989;Bhatia, 2001;para Hispanoamérica, Friedrich, 2002;Alm, 2003;Baumgardner, 2006) han determinado que la lengua inglesa en tanto que lengua extranjera, se usa a menudo en campañas publicitarias del sector de la moda, cuidado personal y lujo. Sin embargo y por lo que a evidencia empírica y cuantitativa se refiere, los resultados de los análisis de corpus dedicados a la ofertas de empleo son contradictorios.…”

“…Incluso en los estudios de corpus de enfoque cuantitativo que han estudiado textos escritos en lengua española, no todos los géneros textuales han recibido la misma atención, lo que dificulta sacar conclusiones generalizables. Así y mientras la presencia de inglés en la prensa (Mighetto, 1991(Mighetto, , 1992Rodríguez González, 2002a;Gerding, Fuentes, Gómez & Kotz, 2012) y la publicidad (Durán Martínez, 2000;van Hooft, 2006;Cruz, Tejedor Díez & Cerdá, 2007;Gerritsen, Nickerson, Crijns, van Hooft, …”

Exposição, Atitudes e Nível de Proficiência de Inglês entre jovens estudantes na Espanha

“…Newspapers from all over the globe are accessible to most people on the Internet. In (Gerritsen et al 2007). Most of these magazines are published in Spanish, but they contain many anglicisms.…”