Analysis of Doublespeak in The Advertisements of Health Products.

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Maranatha Christian University i

ABSTRACT

Dalam tugas akhir ini, saya membahas tentang penggunaan doublespeak yang acapkali ditemukan dalam kehidupan sehari-hari. Doublespeak dapat dijumpai dalam berbagai situasi publik, seperti dalam dunia politik dan dunia bisnis. Namun demikian, untuk penulisan tugas akhir ini, saya mengambil topik

doublespeak yang dikhususkan dalam dunia periklanan, terutama dalam iklan

produk kesehatan yang diperoleh dari majalah. Dalam tugas akhir ini, saya menganalisis doublespeak yang ditemukan dalam data serta membahas arti harafiah di balik kata-kata yang mengandung doublespeak. Dalam pembahasan ini, saya menemukan lima jenis doublespeak, yaitu weasel words, parity class,

unfinished word, up to claim dan jargon.

Pada dasarnya, tujuan doublespeak dalam periklanan adalah guna menarik

perhatian konsumen dan menjadikan produk yang ditawarkan tampak menarik dan menjanjikan.

Secara keseluruhan, dunia periklanan tidak terlepas dari penggunaan

doublespeak. Doublespeak merupakan suatu alat penting yang digunakan oleh

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Maranatha Christian University iii

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37 Maranatha Christian University

APPENDICES

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Data 5

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CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

In the world, there are a great number of products with different brands and functions. This happens because the needs of human always increase from time to time. To meet those needs, producers compete with one another to draw the consumer’s attention by applying various ways to promote their products.

The products that are developing in the market make it difficult for the consumer to choose the suitable product for their need because all products have their own benefits. Today, there are a lot of advertisements displayed in the electronic or printed media.

Nowadays, there are great numbers of products with the same function; for example, toothpastes. Toothpastes belong to parity class because there are lots of different brands of toothpastes in the market, such as Pepsodent, Close Up,

Darlie. Those products have the similar function. That is, to clean our teeth.

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make a change for their product, such as the advertiser gives their product a new packaging or even adds some new compositions to the product.

One of the ways to make the products seem perfect is by using words and sentences in their advertisement. It is known as Doublespeak. “Doublespeak is the language that pretends to communicate but really does not, it is language designed to mislead” (Lutz 1).

In doublespeak, if there is something accurate in the words, it is considered to be the reality. The existence of doublespeak makes the communication in public become obscure. In the advertising world, the advertisers’ purposes of using doublespeak are not to lie to the consumer, but it actually says the truth. Still, there is no clear result of what they have said. That is why, doublespeak in advertisements can make the reader have wrong interpretation on what the advertisers say. (Lutz 1)

Few people are aware of the use of doublespeak in advertisements. Often people are interested in the advantages that the product offers, but they do not exactly know that it is merely a technique that the advertiser uses to attract the consumer by using words and sentences in their advertisements. However, sometimes we regret having purchased such a product because it does not have the benefit as the advertiser claims.

Recognizing the use of doublespeak can be a tricky thing to do. The words in sentences that contain doublespeak are arranged so smartly that it often makes people misunderstand what those sentences really mean.

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often found in our daily life. Apart from kinds of doublespeak, there are rules of parity, weasel words, up to claim and unfinished words in the advertising area.

My topic is Doublespeak in advertisements, especially in health products. I find this topic to be interesting. That is why I want to dig it more deeply and know further about doublespeak. I am of the opinion that misleading information is caused by doublespeak in communication, particularly in the advertising area is challenging for research. I choose Doublespeak in advertisements, especially in health products, because people have to use that product in their daily life. Since I have learnt some theories concerning doublespeak, when I see advertisements on television, in magazines or some electronic media, I find that most advertisements use doublespeak in their ads.

The significance of my topic is that I want people to know and understand that doublespeak is always used in advertisements. I hope they can be more selective in choosing a certain product and not influenced by the slogans or promotion that the advertisements offer.

The area of linguistics concerned with doublespeak is pragmatics. Pragmatics is the study of speaker’s meaning. In particular, it is the study of the contextual meaning. “Pragmatics is the study of how more gets communicated than is said” (Yule 3). In this case, doublespeak is included in pragmatics because in doublespeak there is a hidden meaning.

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4 Maranatha Christian University STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

In my thesis, I would like to analyze the following problems: 1. What kinds of doublespeak are used in the advertisement? 2. Why is the advertisement said to contain doublespeak?

PURPOSE OF THE STUDY

In the following of the statement of the problem, the purposes of this study are: 1. To classify the kind(s) of doublespeak found in the data.

2. To figure out why the advertisements contain doublespeak.

METHOD OF RESEARCH

The data are in the form of advertisements. The data are taken from magazines. The subsequent steps to gather the data are selecting, listing, analyzing the data and including the analysis. I use some theories from textbooks to analyze the data.

ORGANIZATION OF THE THESIS

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CHAPTER IV

CONCLUSION

In this chapter, I would like to present some concluding points based on the discussion on doublespeak in advertisements, especially in the health products taken from magazines.

I conclude that all of the advertisements contain doublespeak. Some kinds of doublespeak used in my analyses are jargon, weasel words, unfinished words, parity class and up to claim.

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In my analysis, the word help which contain a weasel word is found in data 7 and data 9. The word help seems to promise a lot because in the ad of data 7 and 9, this word appears to give solution to our skin problem. In fact, it actually can simply reduce, but not make us free from our skin problem. This word is such a tricky word which can trap you if you are not aware of it.

From my analysis, I find out that the word guarantee quite often occurs in my data. Guarantee is a weasel word. This word is found in data 3, data 9 and data 12. Advertisers like using such a word. It is because, in general, the word guarantee has a strong meaning although in fact it does not promise much. By using such a strong word like guarantee, consumer will automatically believe in what the ad claims.

The data that use word 100% is found in data 3 and data 8. The word 100% belongs to weasel word. 100% is such a perfect percentage that it is considered as a strong word. In data 8, the advertiser often uses this weasel word in the ad. This word is used four times in data 8.

From my analysis in data 5, the word smoothest contains a weasel word. If we see it from the surface, this word looks like parity class, but actually this word contains weasel word. The word smoothest is just an empty verb which in fact promises nothing. From my analysis, I conclude that such a word that has characteristic like parity class can also be considered as a weasel word. And yet, not all the words, but it is more of being dependent on the context.

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form of words but also in form of phrase. However, that phrase also has no meaning. It is just used to create something good in the product.

Apart from weasel word, there is also the rule of parity used in my analysis. In my data, only some of the advertisements use the rule of parity in their ad. The examples of parity class in my data are the use of such words like the smoothest in data 5, the first in data 11, and the only in data 3. The advertiser uses such a parity word in their ad simply to claim their product as the best one and not more than that.

Usually, we find parity class in the form of superlative words, yet in data 11, the words longest, thickest, biggest do not belong to parity class. Yet, it contains weasel word because the superlative words do not refer to the product itself. Instead, it refers to the result of the products. Therefore, I am of the opinion that not all superlative words are considered as a parity class.

The other kind of doublespeak in my analysis is an unfinished word. I conclude that most of the advertisers are fond of using this type of doublespeak in their advertisement because the advertiser does not give any specific comparisons in their ad. Unfinished words lead the consumer to construct their own interpretations. Some of the unfinished words in my data are clearer in data 2, healthier in data 3, stronger in data 3, whiter in data 4, and etcetera. The other unfinished word I find in data 1 and data 11 are the word extra. The word extra is different from the other unfinished words in my data because the comparative word is not found in the word itself, but through its meaning.

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situations like in the governmental world. Yet, in my analysis, there is the use of jargon in data 1 and data 12. The words that contain jargon are “phrithione zinc, merinox-c, halyoxyl and retinyl. I find out that the use of jargon is simply to make the product look great because most of the people are not familiar with those words. From the words themselves, they seem to be great words although we do not really know what those words really mean.

I also find up to claim in my analysis. Yet, the existence of up to claim in my data are not as often as the others like unfinished words or weasel words. The word that contain up to claim in my data is the word up to 6 shades in data 4, up to 16 hours in data 6 and up to 7 days in data 10.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Lutz, William. Doublespeak from “Revenue Enhancement” to “Terminal Living” How Government, Business, Advertiser, and Other Use Language to Deceive You. New York: Harper Perennial, 1990.

Yule, George. Pragmatics. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.

Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, Sixth Edition, 2000.

Magazines:

CLEO, February 2005 CLEO, November 2005 CLEO, February 2006