Analysis of Doublespeak in Computer Product Advertisements.

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i Maranatha Christian University

ABSTRACT

Skripsi ini membahas tentang penggunaan doublespeak dalam iklan-iklan yang mempromosikan komputer portabel, atau yang disebut juga dengan laptop. Dalam skripsi ini saya menganalisa iklan yang diambil dari majalah PCMedia, sebuah majalah yang membahas tentang perkembangan teknologi informasi masa kini dan produk-produk yang dihasilkan sebagai hasil dari perkembangan tersebut. Sebagai basis teori, saya menggunakan karya Willian Lutz yang berjudul Doublespeak dalam menganalisa iklan-iklan tersebut.

Doublespeak adalah suatu teknik bahasa di mana arti dari sebuah kata

atau frase dibelokkan. Teknik ini bertujuan untuk membuat pembaca menangkap arti seperti yang dimaksud oleh pengguna teknik ini, sehingga arti kata atau frase yang sebenarnya diabaikan. Berdasarkan buku Doublespeak, ada berbagai macam doublespeak, tetapi dalam skripsi ini, penggunaan weasel word dan

jargon adalah yang paling sering, dan dapat ditemukan di hampir setiap iklan

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44 Maranatha Christian University

APPENDIX

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51 Maranatha Christian University Table of Words/Phrases Containing Doublespeak

Data Word/Phrase Type of Doublespeak

1. 1. X-tra 2. Power 3. New

4. Up to Seven Hours Twenty Minutes Long Life Battery

5. Chipset, LED, SATA, DDR2, GHz, and GB

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53 Maranatha Christian University 15. DVD-RW, USB, Gigabit LAN,

Kensington Lock, Analog Monitor Port, HDMI Port and e-SATA Port

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CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1. Background of the Study

The topic of my thesis is Analysis of Doublespeak in Computer Product Advertisements, in which I will discuss the elements of doublespeak in some advertisements of the computer products. Before moving on, I will first state the background of the study, which will contribute to the significance of the thesis.

I choose to discuss this topic mainly because of my interest in advertising, which presents skilful use of words to attract people, and in the advances in information technology, which plays a significant role in the world of advertising itself. These two aspects benefit from each other; technology is helped by being promoted by advertisements, and advertising, in return, gains more medium in which to publish it. This makes it interesting for me to study the relation between advertising and technological advances.

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2 Maranatha Christian University exists, and accordingly, no one would buy it. Yet, the function of advertisement is not restricted only to letting everyone know that a product exists. By informing people of a product, it also persuades them to buy the product being advertised.

Advertisement is very old, and has been known to exist for as long as there is trade and the medium in which to publish it. In ancient Greece, Rome, Babylonia, and Egypt, there were signs on walls, along roads, and over shops as a form of advertisement for promoting wares, services, circuses, and gladiatorial combats (Lusk 79). Moreover, walls or rock paintings as a form of ancient commercial advertising can be found in many parts of Asia, Africa, and South America (Taylor). These findings show just how prominent the role of advertising in civilization is, and this role is further heightened in this age of globalization.

The effectiveness of advertisement is due to the very nature of the consumers themselves. Logically speaking, rather than trying to find the information about a product themselves, consumers tend to like it better if the information is fed to them, in this case, through the advertisements. This fact enables advertisers to post any information about a product as they see fit. This liberty of information is, of course, regulated by law governing the place where the product is being advertised (Lusk). Yet, even the law cannot outwit the more subtle trick that advertisers use to promote their products.

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3 Maranatha Christian University alone, we can find its multiple uses in the various kinds of doublespeak such as

jargon, parity claim, weasel words, and up to claim that make the advertisement

even more convincing (Lutz 2-7).

As I have stated before, we are now in the state of globalization which almost entirely eliminates the boundaries between many people from across the globe. This elimination of boundaries occurs because of the invention of a medium that makes such feat possible: the Internet. The Internet is now so advanced that we can even connect with other people without physical presence, by means of a device called computer. Such capability inevitably leads computer to its popularity as we see nowadays, and this popularity causes the emergence of the many brands of computer products that compete with one another to sell their products the most. This, of course, inevitably leads them to use doublespeak in their advertisements in order to achieve this goal. This use of doublespeak, coupled together with people’s enthusiasm over information technology and computer products, makes this data source interesting for me to work on. Moreover, with the inventions of technology, along with the products that use them, occurring literally in days, the supply of data that can be found and analysed is virtually limitless.

Moreover, the Internet is, in my opinion, the most effective medium that publishes advertisements. The Internet is very versatile and accessible; it can be used for many purposes, and can be accessed virtually by anyone at any time. The Internet is also future-proof; many devices, such as laptop computers and cellular phones, support the use of the Internet access, and the number of people who can afford one is increasing with each passing time (Wahyudi and Wahono).

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4 Maranatha Christian University not computer literate. With the bombardment of many computer brands which employ doublespeak in almost all of their advertisements, the people of Indonesia are prone to being misled. Thus, this thesis can help them to identify doublespeak in advertisements and understand what doublespeak is.

The general benefit of being able to identify doublespeak remains the same among similar researches. By identifying the doublespeak in computer product advertisements, we can also gain knowledge about the development of the computer technology itself, and the market it is targeted for. For example, by identifying jargon in the technical specification of a computer product, we will know the state of technological development that a product has if compared to other products that are also being analysed. It is also important to note that despite the numerous kinds of laptops out there in the market, based on my observation, there are roughly only two segmentations of laptop market; the general use and the enthusiast laptops. The general use laptops, which I will be discussing, are what we call “average” laptops, the use of which is mostly limited to everyday computing such as typing, browsing, watching videos, and so on. The enthusiast laptops, on the other hand, are high-performance machine with the capability of doing heavy tasks such as media editing and processing, transcoding (converting one kind of media into another), playing high-end games, and other tasks with high requirements.

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5 Maranatha Christian University processing power and battery life, between portability and features, or between any of them. Because of this, doublespeak will have to come to play to divert the reader’s attention from the product’s demerits.

Word count: 1.182 words

1.2. Statement of the Problem

In doing the analysis there are three problems that I would like to solve: 1. Which words or phrases in the advertisements contain doublespeak? 2. What kind of doublespeak do those words or phrases use?

3. How does doublespeak mislead the readers?

1.3. Purpose of the Study

By solving the problems above, I would like to accomplish these purposes:

1. to identify which words or phrases in the advertisements contain doublespeak.

2. to identify what kind of doublespeak those words or phrases use. 3. to show how doublespeak misleads the readers.

1.4. Method of Research

The first step in doing this research was to understand the meaning of doublespeak itself. The theory that I used was derived from William Lutz’

Doublespeak as the most comprehensive source that I could find. Next, I looked

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6 Maranatha Christian University 1.5. Organisation of the Thesis

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CHAPTER FOUR

CONCLUSION

Looking back at the analysis that I have done so far, we could see that every advertisement that I have used as data contains various kinds of doublespeak. There we could find unfinished word, weasel word, up to claim, could claim, puffing, and jargon, and among these kinds of doublespeak, the

use of weasel word is the most frequent. Every single advertisement uses various kinds of this doublespeak. The examples are the word new and its variations, which are now, latest, and revolutionary. This weasel word is found in every advertisement that I use except in the last data for a reason: this weasel word gives the illusion that a product has a new feature.

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37 Maranatha Christian University “latest” simply because the manufacturer have just released the features on their own product.

Another frequently-used weasel word in these advertisements is the one that employs the use of subjective words. This works by using words that normally have different effects among readers, that is, the reader may have different opinion regarding the word. The word stylish in “Stay connected to my friends with my stylish notebook” in data 6 is an example of subjective word. What people consider stylish varies according to their tastes. Thus, using this word to describe a product would not be representative of its overall quality. Yet, this word is used anyway in the hope that regardless of people’s standards on being stylish, they would think that the product is stylish because the advertisement says so. A similar effect could be found in the fashion world; by showing certain kinds of clothing and advertising those as stylish, people are expected to also regard it as such and follow the trend.

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38 Maranatha Christian University (Gigabyte). These words, as far as my observation on people is concerned, are not readily understood by people who do not mingle in an information technology community, especially here in Indonesia, where technological product penetration is not very deep and widespread. It is also interesting to note that most, if not all, of these words are presented in abbreviated forms, further decreasing their intelligibility. Thus, by including these words in advertisements which are intended to be given to public, who are mostly not tech-savvy, we could presume that the advertisers hope that the public would think that the products being advertised are rich in features.

It is also worth noting that while we could find jargon throughout data 1 to data 6, in data 7 we could find no jargon. The reason for this is uncertain, but based on my observation on various brands of laptop computers, this is so because the source for data 7 is from a more established manufacturer, in this case, Dell. If we look at the sources for data 1 to data 6, we could see that the manufacturers of the products which are Advan, Byon, and Axioo are marginally less known. By using jargon in their specification, in my opinion, they are trying to be more competitive. This is done because less people know about their brand, thus, they need to show what their product could do and have to gain people’s trust. By contrast, Dell is a better known brand even outside Indonesia, and in my data they do not use jargon, nor do they show any effort of presenting the details of the specification like other manufacturers do. This phenomenon, in my opinion, shows us the effect of brand image on the use of doublespeak in advertisements.

In the end, I could conclude that the use of doublespeak, particularly weasel word and jargon, is overall very important in computer advertisement. In

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39 Maranatha Christian University supposedly present new features for the product, which are something that the public wants in general. On the other hand, the use of jargon is surprisingly brand-dependent. In advertisements made by lesser-known brands, jargon is heavily used to the point that they include extremely common things such as LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) in their specification. By contrast, bigger manufacturer like Dell utilises no jargon to present their product. This, as I have stated before, shows us just how influential brand image is in relation to the use of doublespeak in advertisements.

I hope that this study will be beneficial to the future researchers hoping to indulge in doublespeak topics, especially those who would be discussing about information technology. As we know, today the penetration of information technology in Indonesia is not very high (Makitan), and knowing this, the manufacturers are bending the truth to lead people into believing what the manufacturers say. By writing this thesis, I have gained much knowledge regarding what advertisers are doing to win customers, which, in this case, is by the many inclusions of doublespeak. This, I hope, will also enlighten people to thoroughly research the computer products that they are going to purchase, because it is not exactly a thing that just anybody is able to buy.

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40 Maranatha Christian University based on information technology such as smart phones and tablets, which seems to be gaining more and more popularity these days. Besides, it is also important to point out that the line which differentiates laptop computers and smart phones and tablets is blurring; laptop computers are becoming more portable, while conversely, smart phones and tablets are becoming more computer-like. Thus, this phenomenon will make the study of doublespeak in information technology products more interesting.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Data Source

PCMedia August 2010: 1. Print.

PCMedia September 2010: 33. Print.

PCMedia October 2010: 13. Print.

PCMedia February 2011: 1. Print.

PCMedia November 2011: 25. Print.

Reference

“Exclusive”. Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. 3rd ed. Cambridge University Press, 2008.

“Extra”. Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. 3rd ed. Cambridge University Press, 2008.

“Fast”. Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. 3rd ed. Cambridge University Press, 2008.

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42 Maranatha Christian University Lusk, Robert E. “Advertising”. Encyclopedia International. New York: Grolier Inc.,

1975. 79-85. Print.

Lutz, William D. Doublespeak: From "Revenue Enhancement" to "Terminal

Living": How Government, Business, Advertisers, and Others Use

Language to Deceive You. New York: Harper & Row, 1989. Print.

Makitan, Gadi. “Penetrasi Komputer Indonesia Terendah di ASEAN.” TEMPO

Bisnis. N.p. Web. 14 December 2011.

“More”. Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. 3rd ed. Cambridge University Press, 2008.

“Power”. Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. 3rd ed. Cambridge University Press, 2008.

“Revolutionary”. Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. 3rd ed. Cambridge University Press, 2008.

“Sleek”. Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. 3rd ed. Cambridge University Press, 2008.

“Smart”. Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. 3rd ed. Cambridge University Press, 2008.

Strouse, Norman H. “Advertising”. The New Book of Knowledge. New York: Grolier Inc., 1976. 27-34. Print.

“Stylish”. Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. 3rd ed. Cambridge University Press, 2008.

Taylor, Carl. “Advertising is Dead. Long Live Advertising”. Jonathan MacDonald. N.p. Web. 10 October 2008.

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43 Maranatha Christian University “Up to”. Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. 3rd ed. Cambridge University

Press, 2008.