English words and phrases in Dutch job advertisements

Abstract

For Marinel Gerritsen, who has pioneered research into the effects of English in advertising and who has always been a pleasure and inspiration to work with.It has been suggested that differences in mental processing affect the persuasiveness of language use. Within the Elaboration Likelihood Model framework, we examined if there were differences in the persuasiveness of English versus Dutch words in job ads depending on the way the job ads were processed, either by the central or the peripheral route. In an experiment, 144 participants evaluated ads for lower level jobs. Persuasiveness was measured in terms of text, job, and company evaluation, and application intention. There were no differences in persuasiveness for job ads containing English words depending on whether they were processed via the peripheral or the central route. However, under peripheral processing the jobs in the ads with English words were seen as being more attractive and as having a lower salary than the jobs in the all-Dutch ads, providing some limited evidence that English words may function as peripheral cues.

Non-nativeness in communication

“…In this special interest section, we bring together original, empirical work on non-nativeness in advertising for jobs (Van Meurs, Korzilius, & Bergevoet, 2015;Zenner, Speelman, & Geeraerts, 2015) and for products (Hornikx & Mulder, 2015;Raedts & Dupré, 2015). In the first paper, Zenner et al (2015) investigate factors that determine the likelihood that job advertisements published in a Belgian and a Dutch job ad magazine targeted at Dutch-speaking readers are entirely in English.…”

“…According to the three main determinants, jobs ads are more likely to be written entirely in English when organizations are located outside Belgium and the Netherlands, when the organizational website communication is in English, and when organizations advertise jobs in IT and the technical domain. In the second paper, Van Meurs et al (2015) focus on the effects that such use of English in the domain of job advertisements may have on readers. Earlier research has demonstrated hardly any positive effects of English compared to job ads in the receivers' own language.…”

“…Earlier research has demonstrated hardly any positive effects of English compared to job ads in the receivers' own language. In their experiment, Van Meurs et al (2015) examine a potential moderator that may have played a role in these effects, namely the mental processing engaged in by the readers of the job ad. Following theoretical considerations, it was examined whether the English language was particularly successful under conditions of peripheral processing, in which participants do not scrutinize the message but follow easy-to-process cues such as the language used.…”