Internet-Zeitschrift für Kulturwissenschaften	17. Nr.	September 2010
Sektion 2.2.	Identity, Authenticity, Locality, Urbanity and Speech Community: A New Sociolinguistic Perspective | Identität, Authentizität, lokale- und städtische Veränderungen und Sprachgemeinschaften: Eine neue soziolinguistische Perspektive Sektionsleiter | Section Chairs: Meryem Şen (Kocaeli University, Turkey), İmran Karabağ Dokumentation | Documentation | Documentation

Attitudes towards the use of accents in TV advertisements:
A global perspective

Meryem Şen (Kocaeli University, Kocaeli, Turkey) [BIO]

Email address: meryem.sen@isbank.net.tr

Abstract

Globalisation is claimed to have positive effects on the rise and legitimisation of local linguistic and cultural resources in the commercial context. The advertising media appropriate them for stylisation and performance in advertisements. However, it seems to be questionable whether such appropriations and legitimacy have been perceived by the audience in the way they have been intended by marketing academics and practitioners. The present study has thus been designed to investigate audience attitude towards the use of accents in advertisements. The aim is to elicit the responses of the subjects depicting whether and to what extend they favour accents in advertisements, and evaluate their semantic and pragmatic capability of constructing meaningful relations with the product to be advertised and their linguistic capability of replacing the standart variety in advertisements. Focusing on the linguistic attitudes of marketing people (storekeepers) and customers in a global shopping center towards the use of  accented varieties of Turkish in TV advertisements, we discuss the linguistic manifestation of the advertising media from the perspective of audience evaluation, and display that the effect of globalisation on the rise and legitimisation of accents in the advertising context is relative to how they are perceived and evaluated by the audience.

1.Introduction

This study is concerned with the rise and legitimisation of local linguistic differences in the commercial context, which is depicted as the effect of globalisation. We take an audience perspective, and examine their (storekeeper and customer) perceptions on the use of such differences –accents presently-  in advertisements. It is a fact that globalisation promotes local linguistic and cultural diversity (Tomlinson 2003), and thereby, provides a process of normalisation for the perception and acceptance of linguistic and cultural differences (Fairclough 1999). Commercial advertisements are one of the domains where such differences are exploited by marketing academics and practitioners for commercial purpose to increase the selling rates of the advertised product, which means shifting linguistic and cultural differences into commodity as the outcome of economic calculation for success on markets (Lyotard 1986).

Advertising discourse has a long tradition of “language display”, i.e. the appropriation of out-group language “to attract potential customers by appealing to their sense of what is modern, sophisticated, elegant, etc.” (Eastman and Stein 1993: 198). Commercial appropriations of local linguistic variations in advertisements appear then as creative manipulations of linguistic resources, and sociolinguistic style is increasingly concerned with “the dense interpenetration of local performance with styles of speech that are reflexively designed, produced and disseminated through mass mediated institutional and/or electronic communication systems” (Rampton 1999: 423).

Heller (2003: 475) drawing the attention to the use of local linguistic variations in the commercial context, states that linguistic authenticity has been commercialised as central to many activities of the new economy. However, while in actual life the value of authenticity presupposes some ideology of essentialized ethnonationalism, the conditions of the market, which accords new value to formerly stigmatized identities and linguistic products, require inauthentic processes of standardization and commodification (Heller, 2003: 475). The new economy, according to Heller, is sociolinguistically characterized, and she describes the position of authenticity and its symbolic representation, language, in this new economic construction:

what we see is a shift from understanding language as being primarily a  marker of ethnonational identity, to understanding language as being a marketable commodity on its own distinct from identity. At the same time, we are seeing authenticity also becoming commodified (as opposed to being used as a marker for political struggle), sometimes in the form of cultural products (music, crafts, dance, for example), and often with no link to language. However, language often does play a role in the management of these shifting relations between commodity and authenticity, generally by being deployed as a means to control access to the newly valuable resources being developed. (2003: 475).

This lingualism serves as capital, as capital for notions of cultural and local authenticity. Mass media are one of the key sites in which this phenomenon is manifested and further perpetuated (Spitulnik, 1999). Schneider (2006:339) points out to the position of language in the media as a medium and its material aspects (sound, ink on paper etc.) used for performance and symbolizing, which provides legitimisation to both linguistic and cultural diversities / authenticities in the sense of commodification. This process could be seen as part of a more general application of instrumental or ‘means-end’ rationality to language. However, it is an open question whether such legitimisation is appreciated by the public. Thus, it seems to be essential to evaluate audience reaction in order to understand whether or not this phenomenon is a valid legitimacy (to be accounted as a sociolinguistic phenomenon) enabled by the media.

We also think that authentic linguistic forms have been promoted by marketing academics and practitioners for meeting economic objectives rather than audience expectations. It is ipso facto that cultural and linguistic characteristics are appreciated in a medial sense in the advertising context. Within this frame we attempt to develop a discussion on the audience evaluation of non-standard linguistic forms in advertisements. The specific instance we consider in this paper is the use of accented varieties of Turkish in TV advertisements and audience attitudes towards this linguistic process. It is our intention by measuring the linguistic attitudes of storekeepers and customers in a global shopping center to create a dialectic discussion about the following issues: whether and to what extend accents used in advertisements are perceived favourable by the audiences, whether they are found capable of constructing semantic and pragmatic relations with the product to be advertised, and whether they are perceived linguistically capable of replacing the standart variety in advertisements. We specifically ask whether the linguistic manifestation of the global media mirrors audience consent in employing accents as a medium in advertisements.

The paper is organized as follows: the next sections present a general account about globalisation and localisation in linguistic context, marketing linguistic resources and a review of  relevant literature successively. Subsequent sections describe the data used in our analysis and experiments, report the results of our analysis, compare and discuss the findings, and finally conclude by suggesting potential implications of the study.

2. Globalisation and Localisation

It is the general perception that globalisation has a homogenising power in cultural context, and the process is often regarded as something that occurs on the macro-level (Tomlinson 2003). That is because of this, it has been thought of the contraction of local cultures, and Beck (1999) even calls it a “clash of localities”.  However, when it is looked at closely, it is seen that almost all consequences of globalisation are localised.

Robertson (1995), therefore, postulates the use of the expression ‘glocalisation’ as a neologism for a new perspective instead of globalisation, derived from the combination of the words globalisationand localisation, to emphasize a balance between the global and the local dimensions in the sense that the globalisation of a product is more likely to succeed when the product or service is adapted specifically to each locality or culture in which it is marketed. The term was firstly introduced to the public in the late 1980s by Japanese economists, who began to use the term in their articles in the Harvard Business Review, but it was popularized by the sociologist Roland Robertson, to whom glocalization describes the tempering effects of local conditions on global pressures.

In the advertising context the rise of local linguistic varieties and vernaculars is an example of glocalisation, in which language shifts to a commodity from a pure (socio)linguistic entity resulting with cultural and linguistic hybridisation (e.g. Robertson 1995; Pieterse 1995). Local linguistic varieties replace the standard variety as the matrix language in commercials being reconfigured and embedded into the context of globalisation as a specific instance of glocalization, where their uses are legitimated by the advertising media for commercial purpose. The effect of media here is to provide a context for the representation of linguistic and cultural variations. This is an inauthenic process of standardising, commodifying (Heller 2003), and thereby, broadening the use of regional linguistic varieties (Meyerhoff  & Niedzielski 2003). Within this context we ask whether this is a legitimised change that could be accounted as a sociolinguistic change.

3. Marketing Linguistic Resources

Globalisation gives opportunity to the advertising media to make local linguistic practices appropriate for commercial context, in which ways of speaking assume value based on market conditions being commodified together with the advertised object in the market setting (Bourdieu 1982/1991). This valuation process indexes different ways of speaking with their prototypical speaker’s place in the social structure (Popp, 2006:6). The purpose in this process is to make use of the symbolic meaning of the language to create a new meaning rather than to use it for communicational intentions. The language with its new context becomes a “matter of fashionable style” (Haarmann, 1989:54), in which the connotative functions of language and the material characteristics of an accent are used in order to create a style of speaking rather than to emphasize linguistic authenticity. Here we are, as Cavanaugh (2005:128) points up, confronted with the two camps of studying accents: looking at accents as acoustical or phonological phenomena, or considering them as social markers. The first viewpoint materializes accent through phonetization, the second one dematerializes accent through an exclusive focus on the sociological.

Bourdieu (1982, 1991) explains that linguistic marketplace values arise out of scarce, desirable deviations from the norm. This price formation mechanism presupposes at least two ways of speaking—a norm and a deviation from that norm. The expected practice, or “widespread usage” (Bourdieu, 1991: 60) is always present and is conspicuous in cases where absent. This phenomenon may be most apparent when other languages, not the standard variety, are unexpectedly featured in a media text. In these cases, the use of non-standard languages represent a marked deviation from the norm. This marked usage projects an imagined and constructed framework, indexing the larger social world, onto the speech act. Basso (1979 in Popp 2006:9) explained that as “language alternations convey messages about what is ‘present’ in social situations, it is equally important to remember that they may convey messages about what is ‘absent’ from them as well”. In this case, while accents stand to be what is ‘present’, they also replace what is ‘absent’ in the context of advertising. They represent an attempt to authentically “re-create” an environment in which people feel they belong to. From an economic standpoint, this linguistic position is a financial reward as it tempts viewing audience to purchase the advertised product.

Popp (2006:17) points that the value of advertised products hinges on their perceived utility in terms of the prevailing language ideology, but that value also conveniently creates the appearance that mass media are working in the public’s interest—in this case providing avenues of uplift through language. This phenomenon shines a light on the power media institutions to have in choosing and using a linguistic variety (Goffman, 1981; Hall, 1990). From a language ideology standpoint, consumers’ ideas about what a language can be used to become a mode of leverage (Popp 2006:17). Additionally, they provide a means by which media producers can position their products as socially valuable as well as economically.

4. Literature review – Accent studies

Few studies focused on language ideologies have attended to how language sounds to speakers – in other words, on accents and their meanings. Treating accents as signs offers a way to trace what certain social categories mean and how they are used in different arenas of circulation, as well as make apparent the overlaps and differences across these contexts. It also presents an opportunity for considering the material forms of language – the way that speaking sound – as part of what speakers find meaningful.

Accents function on a number of levels – indexing speaking subjects, indexing concrete places, and representing iconically the qualities associated with these speakers and locales. Cavanaugh (2005:128), in her paper about material consequences of accents, claim that accents are used in the Italian masss media to cue people metapragmatically to certain dimensions of what they are consuming – for instance, that a certain television programme is focused on social differences or situated in a particular locality; that the setting is rural; or that the characters are uneducated. In this, accents are are similar to brands, which are signs that guide the consumption of an object, highlighting its distinctive properties (Moore 2003 in Cavanaugh 2005).

In his work on dialect stylisation in Welsh radio broadcasts, Coupland argues that the social analysis of accents in general needs to get away from considering accent in light of ‘cultural authenticity’ and to analyze accent instead as style and performance, linked to cultural belonging, but not reducible to it (2001). Similarly Woolard urges us to consider linguistic phenomena as “another form of bilingual hybridity or simultaneity that can be a resource for creating sociolinguistic meaning” (1999:16). Both Coupland (2001) and Woolard (1999) have stressed that the use of of accents or other types of hybrid uses of language in the mass media complexly interact with speakers’ everday practices. Further, Coupland has also pointed out that contemporary cultural production is often linked to mass-mediated representations and performances (2001).

In literary review of studies conducted in accent perception in commercials it is seen that the effect of local linguistic variations in advertisements has not been handled hitherto. What is studied effectively in this context is the perception of accents and the attitudes of listeners towards them. The relevant literature acknowledges that listeners’attitudes towards language variety constitute the driving force in the establishment of standards (Rahilly 2003). In her investigation of effects upon audiences of accent variation in the media she finds that listeners’ responses to broadcast advertisements in Northern Ireland are significantly affected by the accent used in the ads. NI listeners rate Southern Irish English accents negatively, and evinces that both Northern and Southern Engkish varieties have the potential either to be potentially hazardous and detrimental to the message of the advertisement or to enhance listener response significantly. 

The accent of the spokesperson is an aspect of source evaluation that has received limited attention in the marketing literature, and yet one that is particularly relevant within the context of international advertising (Tsalikis et al. 1991 in  Birch & McPhail 1997:94).          

The selection of a spokesperson who possesses the appropriate char­acteristics is important because researchers have found that the charac­teristics of the source or spokesperson influence the persuasive process (Petty and Cacioppo 1982 in Birch & McPhail 1997:94). Further, in the advertising context, the attitude of the target audience towards the spokesperson in the advertisement impacts on their attitude towards the advertisement itself, which in turn affects their overall brand attitude and purchase intentions for the advertised product (Mitchell and Olson 1981 in Birch & McPhail 1997:96).

The vocal characteristics of a speaker, his accent, have been found to provide the listener with salient information by which the source is evaluated, and to exert a powerful influence on those evaluations (Street and Hopper 1982). However, many of these studies have also revealed that the spokes­person with the regional accent of the audience is considered to be more humorous, friendly, reliable, generous, good natured, and more talkative than the spokesperson with the standard (RP) accent (Cheyne; Giles 1971). For example, Edwards (1977) and others ( Sen & Baykal 2004; Edwards and Ja­cobsen 1987; Giles 1973; Lambert 1967) found that while speakers with standard accents or dialects were rated more favorable along the dimensions of competence (intelligence, confidence, ambition, and industriousness) and status/prestige (professionalism), speakers with non-standard accents received higher evaluations on the dimensions of personal integrity (sincerity, reliability, and generosity) and social attractiveness (friendliness and warmth). Hence, these studies have revealed that speakers with a standard accent are rated more favorably in terms of their competence and status, but less favorably on the dimen­sions of social attractiveness and personal integrity.

DeShields (1995 in Birch & McPhail 1997:97) assessed the impact of a spokesperson’s accent on purchase intentions for high and low involvement products. The spokesperson’s accent was found to be a significant predictor of purchase intentions, and the spokesperson’s credibility was found to be a significant predictor of purchase intentions in both the low and high involvement situations.

In summary, a review of studies that have examined evaluative reac­tions to accent provides some useful insights into the role of the spokes­person’s accent in the persuasive communication process. However, interpreting the legitimacy of the use of local linguistic varieties in advertisements as the effect of globalisation has not been handled in the context of sociolinguistics. The present study is then intended for this purpose.

5. Design of the study

The data bed was one of the big shopping centers –Carrefour- located in Eskisehir. These centers are designed in such a way that consumers can spend all their time with different activities as shopping, having food and drink, watching films etc. They are the centers which reflect global trends to motivate and to increase consumption habits. In order to develop a comparative perspective we collected the data from two different groups of subjects, marketing people (storekeepers) and consumers (customers). Randomly chosen 50 storekeepers and 50 customers  participated in the study. 45 of the storekeepers and 30 of the customers were male. Respondents were paid attention to be self-selecting, i,e., they were not forced, but were allowed to participate in the study with their own wishes so that they could reveal their experiences and thoughts more willingly. The interviews with the subjects were made by a research assistant, who was trained for this purpose.

In order to measure the attitudinal reactions of both groups, a questionairre (Appendix A) was prepared, and the responses were collected through face-to-face interactions either in the stores or in the spaces where people have food, drink etc. in the shopping center. The questions were grouped into three parts to collect the evaluations of the groups in different categories (emotional, semantic and pragmatic, linguistic capacity), and the subjects were asked to respond each question on a scale of Yes/No and Unsure.

For the flow of the study and to make something more vivid and concrete two samples of advertisements shown frequently on Turkish TV channels were used for exemplification. One of them is the advertisement of a tea brand, Doğuş  çay (Doğuş tea) (Appendix B), and the other is the advertisement of a brand of potatoe cips, Lays (Appendix C). In both advertisements regional speaking style is a sign for the notion of regional authenticity, which is a valued capital. The samples are indicative of how the advertising media highlights and normalises local linguistic and cultural varieties via advertisements. They also show how sociolinguistic variation turns to be a deeply functional expression of symbolic capital suited to the shifting conditions of the late modern society (Propp 2006). It is not, however, the focus of the present paper to conduct a comparative study on accents used in advertisements, but the audience evaluation of accented lingualism in general. Thus, respondents were not required to make comparative comments on the statuses and linguistic capacities of each variety of Turkish accents used in the sample advertisements.

6. Results

Table 1 displays the subjects’ general attitudes to the advertisements in which accented varieties of Turkish are effectively used. Both storekeepers (84%) and customers (82%) like such advertisements, find them successful (70%, 68%), and state that accents are used in advertisements for commercial purpose (98%, 90%).

Table 1. Audience attitude to accented ads.
             (1. Likeability, 2. Success, 3. Function)

6.1. Storekeepers

Table 2. Percentage values of the storekeepers’ responses

Table (2) displays the percentages of the storekeepers’ evaluations of the use of accents in advertisements. The ratings in the emotional category show their positive approach: accents are found attractive(1 - 88%), likeable (2 - 80%), entertaining (3 - 68%) and appropriate (4 - 72%). The mean percentage of the raitings in the emotional category is 77%.

In the second column of Table 2 accents are evaluated in the semantic and pragmatic category. The results show that storekeepers rate accents positively in terms of their semantic relations with the advertised product (64%), their capability of conveying the message of the advertisement (56%) and of promoting the rate of selling (70%). However, they do not find them persuasive in tempting the consumer to purchase the product (26%). The mean percentage of this category is 54%.

The third column of Table 2 displays the results of the subjects’comparative evaluations of accents with the standard variety in terms of their linguistic capability. They are not rated as capable of doing what the standard variety accomplishes in the context of advertisements, and not evaluated as alternatives to the standard variety (storekeepers - 42% and customers - 34%). The use of the standard variety in advertisements is rated positively (70%). The mean percentage of the given responses for this category is 48.07%.

6.2. Customers

The results of the customers’ evaluations of the use of accents in advertisements are displayed in Table 3. In the emotional category customers’ ratings are positive: they find accents attractive (98%), likeable (74%), entertaining (64%) and appropriate (58%). The mean percentage of their evaluation is 73.5%.

Table 3. Percentage values of the customers’ responses

The mean percentage value of the customers’ evaluation of accents in  the semantic and pragmatic category is below the average (Table 2. mean percentage 45.5%); subjects admit that there is a semantic relationship between the accented variety and the advertised product (66%); they find that accents contibute to the promotion of selling (66%); but they do not admit that they convey the message of the advertisement (40%); they also do not find them persuasive in increasing the purchasing intention of customers (10%). However, their ratings of accents on the dimension of promoting sales are positive (66%).

The results of the comparisons of accents with the standard variety in the category of linguistic capability are displayed in Table 3. Respondents do not approve that accents are capable of performing what the standard variety accomplishes in advertisements (44%), and that they could be alternatives to the standard variety 16%). Respondents’ preference is on the behalf of using the standard variety (80%).

8. Discussion

The results show that both storekeepers’ and customers’ evaluations of the use of accents in advertisement seems to be positive in the emotional category. They find them attractive (1), likeable (2), entertaining (3) and appropriate (4). While storekeepers rate accents less favourable on the dimension of entertaining, customers rate them less favourable on the dimension of appropriateness (Fig.1), where the difference between storekeepers and customers is significant. Storekeepers’ high ratings for the contextual appropriateness of accents are meaningful as they reflect their professional perspective and attitude to accents: they perceive them as linguistic medium employed for commercial purpose.

Figure 1. Emotional category

In the second category (Fig. 2) storekeepers think that the linguistic features of accents match with those of the advertised product (1). Additionally, they believe that accents are capable of conveying the message of the advertisement to the audience (2), persuading the audience to purchase the product (3), and promoting sales (4). However, it is interesting and significant that their ratings of accents  on the capability of persuading customers to purchase the product (3) are not as high as on the other dimensions (1, 2, 4). This evaluation has also been in confirmity with the evaluation of customers (10%). It seems that accents are not found linguistically capable and semantically meaningful whereas they are not, though positive, evaluated as high as on the dimension of conveying the message of the advertisement. The mean percentage (54%) of this linguistic category confirms this case.

Customers seem to be more strict than storekeepers in their evaluation of accents in the semantic and pragmatic category (Fig. 2). Both storekeepers’ and customers’ ratings are negative on the dimension that whether accents are effective in persuading people to purchase the product, and the difference between two groups is found significant (x²=7.10, p=7.88). This finding is contradictive to the global thinking, which sees promoting cultural and linguistic authenticity advantageous for economic concerns. In addition to this, customers, unlike storekeepers, do not think that accents can convey the message of the advertisement (2). On the other hand, customers, like storekeepers, preserve their confidence that accents can promoto selling (4).

Figure 2. Semantic and pragmatic category

Both storekeepers’ and customers’ linguistic evaluations of accents in comparison to the standard variety are on the behalf of the standard variety (Fig. 3). It is thought that accents cannot fulfill what is expected functionally in the advertising context (1), and thus they cannot be an alternative to the standard variety. The results are significant from the point of linguistics, as they are the indicative of linguistic stigma, which is the belief that accents are not linguistically capable enough to be the medium of advertisements. This finding is also meaningful, which shows that global trends in the contemporary media applications are not accorded with the linguistic expectations of  the audience.

Figure 3. Linguistic category

9. Conclusion

The present study has aimed to investigate the audience attitude towards the use of accented varieties of Turkish in TV advertisements and to discuss the legitimisation of local linguistic practices, which globalisation is claimed to provide (cf. Introduction). Results indicate that emotional evaluations of both storekeepers and customers confirm that accents in  advertisements are favoured and not stigmatized. On the other hand, although subjects approve that the illocutionary power of accents enables to construct a genuine semantic relationship with the advertised product, which matches the main symbolic value of that language, they do not find accents effective in conveying the message to the audience, and not persuasive in tempting people to purchase the product, which is contradictive from the point of the commercial strategies of globalisation.

On the other hand, it is the case that the modality of accented sounds in monolingual setting is exploited by the advertising media to attract potential customers by appealing to their linguistic senses, which is the marketing appeal of hybridity and bricolage as the default case in the globalising world (Androutsopoulos 2006). However, results of the study do not confirm the linguistic commitments of the advertising media as subjects differ in their attitudes towards the use of accents, and the differences between emotional category and the others are important from the point of view that respondents perform conscious evaluations: emotionally they like accents, find them attractive, entertaining and appealing, but cognitively do not find them capable enough in the semantic and linguistic contexts. The ratings of respondents also display that accents cannot replace the standard variety in advertising.

The use of accents in advertisements is evident to show the shifting status of sociolinguistic phenomenon from territory-depended localisation to the fictional environment, which is the effect of the global western economy with an attempt of commercialising everything (Bourdieu 1982/1991). In the fictional world (world of advertising here) an advertisement is temporary and does not stay in the memory longer due to the invasion of newly appearing a great number of advertisements on TV screens, whose effects are like soap operas. Thus, results of the study are significant to negotiate that the linguistic legitimacy accents gain via advertisements is restricted with the self commitments of the advertising media and with the duration of the display of the advertisement on TV. Therefore, we are not able to speak of a  consensus between the audience evaluation  and the linguistic strategies and tactics of the advertising media.

However, the effect of advertising media cannot be neglected on disseminating accents via advertisements, which is called by Meyerhoff and Niedzielski (2003:550) as broadening of the vernacular base: this process serves to expand the forms, thereby makes the audiences acquainted with them. The emotional evaluations are also noticeable to show the familiarity of the audience to accent varieties in advertisements, which improves audience tolerance to such linguistic presentations. On the other hand, as this process is a commercial application rather than an authentic linguistic representation, it is not a real linguistic change effecting the status of local linguistic varieties, but a popular trend, to use them with the purpose of instrumentality or ‘means-end’ rationality, which is the reflection of critical evaluation of linguistic phenomena in post-modern times due to the effect of globalisation.

Consequently, although the advertisement samples used in the present study may be in conformity with the concepts of global connectivity and networks, results show that the effect of globalisation on the rise of accents in the advertising context is relative to how audiences perceive and evaluate them. The negative attitudes of the audiences towards the use of accents in linguistic categories show that the linguistic legitimacy provided by the advertising media to accents is restricted with its own commitments, and not approved by the audiences. This finding has important implications for the effectiveness of the advertising media, advertising practitioners and consumers because it reflects a marketer and a consumer-perceived value in globalness. Hence, it should be an important consideration for the development of future advertising campaigns. It would also be rewarding in future studies to employ audience ethnographies, educational and gender statuses in exploring how audiences evaluate the use of local linguistic forms in advertisements.

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Appendıx A

Questionaire

Part 1

1. Do you like TV advertisements such as Doğuş Çay and Lays, which are accented voiced?
2. Do you find such TV advertisements (accented voiced) successful?
3. Do you think that accents in advertisements are used for (a) commercial purpose, or (b)  cultural and linguistic representation?

Part 2

1. Emotional context:
   Do you find accents in advertisements
   

   1a. attractive? 
   1b. likeable?
   1c. entertaining?
   1d. appealing?

2. Semantic and pragmatic context:

2a. Do you think there is a semantic relationship between the advertised product and the choice of  the accented variety in the advertisements mentioned above ?
2b. Do you think that accents are capable of conveying the commercial message to the audience?
2c. Do you think that accents are persuasive in tempting the audience to purchase the product?
2d. Do you think that accents are capable of promoting the selling rates?

3. Linguistic context:

   4a. Do you think that accents can perform the same  functions the standard accented Turkish does in TV ads?
   4b. Do you think that accents can be used as an alternative to the standard accented Turkish in TV ads?
   4c. Do you think that the standard accented Turkish should be used instead of accents in TV ads?

Appendıx B

In the advertisement of Doğuş  çay (tea), geographical and cultural signification along with the specific accent of the Black Sea region are emphasized. The region is where tea is grown. The product is introduced by a young lady in regional costumes and singing a regional folk song whose words are specially chosen for the introduction of the product. During the  scene there is an evergoing debate between the director and the young lady, who insists on speaking in her regional accent, in which [g] is pronounced as /c/ and a non-meaning particle ‘da’ is used as backchanneling. In the advertisement she tries to say “The most beautiful (best) tea is Doğuş  çay (tea). Despite the director‘s warning her to pronounce the target word ‘güzel’ (beautiful)  in the standard Turkish, she claims that she pronounces the word like the director’s pronounciation. Getting bored of this never ending discussion, the director asks for a glass of tea from the set workers. After having a sip from Doğuş  çay, the director suddenly starts to speak with the accent of the Black Sea region, which causes laughter.

Appendıx C

Lays is a well-known brand of potatoe cips. The producing firm is of Canadian origin, whose locale factory is in Turkey. Potatoes for Lays are grown in a town of Turkey, Ödemiş, placed in the west and is famous for its potatoes. In the advertisement a middle-aged, rural-costumed woman from that town introduces the product speaking in her regional accent, in which words are not finalized, and  intra-word and word-final /r/ are absent. She is strolling in the bazaar with her two friends from the same town and complaining to the market controllers about a sales man who, she claims, is a liar as he attempts to deceive customers saying that his potatoes are from Ödemiş, where Lays  potatoes are produced.

2.2. Identity, Authenticity, Locality, Urbanity and Speech Community: A New Sociolinguistic Perspective | Identität, Authentizität, lokale- und städtische Veränderungen und Sprachgemeinschaften: Eine neue soziolinguistische Perspektive

Sektionsgruppen | Section Groups | Groupes de sections

Inhalt | Table of Contents | Contenu  17 Nr.

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