Analysis of The Use of Doublespeak in Burger King's Advertisements.

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ii Maranatha Christian University

ABSTRACT

Dalam tugas akhir ini, saya menganalisis penggunaan doublespeak, sebuah fenomena bahasa yang menyatakan bahwa penggunaan bahasa acap kali hanya bersifat meyakinkan pembaca, padahal sebenarnya hanya merupakan klaim kosong atau dapat dikatakan tanpa pertanggungjawaban. Doublespeak termasuk kajian pragmatik.

Saya hanya akan memfokuskan studi saya pada satu merek dagang, yakni Burger King, yang menawarkan berbagai makanan dan minuman cepat saji. Saya mengambil data iklan dari berbagai website. Pada umumnya, iklan Burger King terdiri atas gambar produk yang dipasarkan dan juga disertai dengan tagline dan deskripsi produk yang menarik perhatian pembaca. Kata-kata menarik pada iklan inilah yang sering mengandung doublespeak.

Dalam penulisan tugas akhir ini, saya mengaplikasikan teori doublespeak in advertising dari William Lutz yang terdiri atas the rule of parity, weasel word, “up to” claim, dan unfinished word. Salah satu hasil temuan yang saya peroleh

ialah penggunaan weasel words yang merupakan salah satu kajian studi dalam doublespeak dan yang paling sering digunakan oleh Burger King. Untuk

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i Maranatha Christian University

APPENDICES

1. Table Data

No. Taglines/Slogan/Descriptions Data Type of Doublespeak

1. It just tastes better. better Unfinished word

2. Fill your desire for something long; juicy and flame-grilled with the NEW BK SUPER SEVEN INCHER.

long Weasel word

3. juicy Weasel word

4. new Weasel word

5. super Weasel word

6. Thick & hearty Steak Sauce thick Weasel word

7. hearty Weasel word

8. New soft serve at Burger King soft Weasel word

9. Pretty please with sweetness on top sweetness Weasel word

10. A rich mixture of caramel and chocolate fudge sauces, shortcake crumbs and real dairy ice cream

rich Weasel word

11. real Weasel word

12. Bigger. Better. Burger King. bigger Unfinished word

13. Well stress no more, we’ve just made your lives much easier (and more delicious) by combining them into our newest creation: the PIZZA BURGER

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14. more

delicious

Unfinished word

15. delicious Weasel word

16. newest Rule of parity

17. It’s a huge treat that’s totally worth sharing

totally worth

Weasel word

18. New. Frozen lemonades. Refreshingly tart.

refreshingly Weasel word

19. Freshly prepared and made for you since 1954. Great taste.

freshly Weasel word

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37

2. Advertisement data

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38 2.

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39 4.

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40 6.

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1 Maranatha Christian University

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Study

Advertising is one of the ways for a company to promote its products. It is also a form of communication for marketing. It is used to persuade people (viewers, readers, listeners or customers) to buy the products being promoted.

Advertising means the business or occupation of preparing and issuing advertisements (“Advertising”). The act of advertising is called advertisement. Advertisement means a public notice or announcement usually paid for, as of things for sale, needs, etc (“Advertisement”).

The main purpose of advertisement is to attract the attention of readers, viewers or customers. There are a number of strategies that can be used to achieve that purpose. Sometimes the advertisers need to exaggerate and sometimes give misleading information in the advertisements to attract people to buy the product.

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2 Maranatha Christian University entrenched” (Gibson 64). According to William Lutz, “doublespeak is a deliberate,

calculated misuse of language.” He also states that doublespeak is misleading information. It also “pretends to communicate, makes the bad thing seem good, and avoids responsibility.” (Lutz)

I am interested in studying doublespeak because it is interesting to see how doublespeak can mislead or deceive the customers. We can see how doublespeak can make bad thing(s) look good and negative thing(s) look positive. The purpose of using doublespeak is to mislead the customers. The advertisers try to mislead the customers by applying doublespeak in their advertisement language. In advertisement, there are three components that can be applied by doublespeak. There are taglines, slogans, and descriptions of the product.

When the customers are misled, they cannot complain because advertisement language contains doublespeak. Doublespeak is also a kind of business strategy through advertisement taglines, slogans even pictures. Doublespeak is applied in many aspects, such as speech (example: President’s

speech), food and drink advertisements, healthy products advertisements, and also commercials on television.

Most advertisements have taglines to introduce the product. Sometimes differences between tagline and slogan can be confusing. Tagline is “a short phrase that communicates the highest priority message about your brand identity, in an evocative manner” (Bekhor). One example of a tagline is an LG

advertisement which says “the better LG’s technology gets, the smarter life

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3 Maranatha Christian University or to suggest an idea quickly” (“Slogan”). For instance, the slogan of LG is “life is

good”.

In this thesis, I will analyze some food and drink advertisements that contain doublespeak. The data is taken from one brand to make it more specific. I am going to analyze all the words in the advertisement from the slogan till the taglines and also the description that is considered to have doublespeak.

From the analysis, we can know what type of doublespeak is often used by the company itself to promote its product. I choose one of the most famous burger restaurants in America, Burger King. I will analyze Burger King’s advertisements.

Through advertisements, Burger King offers their variant fast food menu, such as burgers, sandwiches, snacks,desserts, beverages, and many more.

The reason why I choose Burger King’s advertisements is because Burger

King often applies doublespeak in their advertisements. In their advertisements, Burger King uses some taglines and slogans to promote their products. By using doublespeak, their advertising team uses attractive and promising words in making the advertisements attractive as well as making the products worth buying.

Burger King was founded in 1954 by James McLamore and David Edgerton (“Our History”). Now, it has become the second largest fast food

hamburger in the world (“Great Food Comes First”). Their advertisements

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4 Maranatha Christian University sometimes it can be misleading. Thus, understanding doublespeak from my thesis can help the readers or consumers to prevent themselves from being misled. Moreover, the readers are expected to be smart buyers and not easily be cheated by misleading information implied in a number of advertisements.

(753 words)

2. How does the use of doublespeak mislead the customers and readers?

1.3 Purpose of the Study

1. To identify the expressions in the advertisement considered to be doublespeak.

2. To classify the identified doublespeak expressions into different types. 3. To explain how the use of doublespeak misleads the customers and readers.

1.4 Method of the Research

In this thesis, I took the following steps: The first step is collecting food advertisements and choosing a brand to make it specific. I decided to focus on Burger King’s advertisements only and investigating the taglines to observe if

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5 Maranatha Christian University from various websites. The second step is selecting any expressions in all aspects (taglines, slogans, descriptions) of the advertisement that contain doublespeak and classify them into several types of doublespeak. The third step is explaining how doublespeak can mislead the readers. The fourth step is finding out the purpose of the advertisers in using doublespeak. Finally, I wrote my thesis.

1.5 Organization of the Thesis

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CHAPTER FOUR

CONCLUSION

In this chapter, I will present the conclusion from the analysis of the use of doublespeak in the Burger King’s advertisements. Most of us probably are familiar with Burger King’s name. Burger King is one of the famous fast food

restaurants in the world. Burger King applies doublespeak in their advertising. Doublespeak can be categorized into four types: weasel word, unfinished word, the rule of parity, and “up to” claim.

I find fifteen data categorized as weasel word, four data as unfinished word and only one data as rule of parity, however, I cannot find any data classified as “up to” claim.

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28 Maranatha Christian University attract reader’s attentions. Therefore, the readers or customers will be interested to

buy the products after reading the advertisements. On the other hand, the advertisers can escape from their responsibilities by using weasel words. For instance, in my data I find many weasel words, such as: juicy, super, real, thick, soft, fresh, great, delicious, etc. The advertisers use these various adjective words in order to get customers attention. I can see the tendency of the advertisers to

Secondly, I find out that unfinished words are mostly used to highlight the size and taste quality of their products. It can be seen obviously in data 1, the slogan “it just tastes better” and in data 14, more delicious. Besides using weasel

words, they use unfinished words strategy to show the taste quality of their products. However, the advertisers also use unfinished words to highlight the size of their products. It can be seen from data 12, bigger. I observe that the purpose of using unfinished words is to give an impression that the products they promote have something more special than other products. Likewise, unfinished words are also used in order to tickle the reader’s curiosity of the products by applying the

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29 Maranatha Christian University Burger King just puts a few unfinished words since the claims depend on the customers to finish the comparison, which usually brings the customers to realize the doublespeak impact in advertisements. By using some unfinished words, the advertisers hope that the products can have high selling power in the market.

Thirdly, I notice that Burger King also uses the rule of parity type in their advertisements. It can be seen in data 15, the newest. This strategy is trying to convince the readers that the products are the newest among other competitors. Burger King is known as famous fast food restaurants in the world. As we know, fast food business definitely has many competitors. Therefore, the advertisers rarely use this type because there is nothing special that can be found in this parity claim as there are too many other competitors using this strategy. The claim is too vast to prove for the general readers. Thus, from all my data, I can only find one parity claim.

Lastly, “up to” claim is the fourth strategy of doublespeak to make

promising advertisements. However, I cannot find any “up to claim” in those data. In my opinion, this strategy is usually related to price but not always. There is some example like in mascara advertisement that said, “Make your eyelashes

longer up to 80%”. From all my data, I rarely find advertisements that mention

prices obviously. There is only one advertisement that mentions price, so it is not considered to have any doublespeak.

Most Burger King’s advertisements apply doublespeak to highlight the

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30 Maranatha Christian University advertising has both advantages and disadvantages. Doublespeak can make many advertisements become interesting because of these four strategies. It can be said that the pictures in the advertisement are attractive enough, but if it is not supported by many attractive words, the advertisement can become boring and unattractive. On the other hand, the bad impact is on the readers or customers who receive the disadvantages of doublespeak in advertising. With all those misleading words, the customers tend to be consumptive as they are easily tempted after reading the advertisements. That negative impact can be avoided by becoming a smart buyer who always thinks twice before buying anything. Expectedly, it can help reduce the bad impact of doublespeak in advertisements.

Finally, I conclude that doublespeak cannot be banned. Basically, the advertisers use doublespeak to cover the weakness of their products. As readers, we should try to minimize the impact of doublespeak. In other words, the readers should be aware of doublespeak and being critical when reading advertisements, because advertisement language is considered to contain many doublespeak behind those slogans, taglines and descriptions.

My suggestion for other writers who want to take a similar topic is they can take any kinds of advertisements, such as cosmetic products, apparel products, health products, and many more. Many advertisers often apply doublespeak in their advertisements. Mostly of those advertisements have taglines, slogans and descriptions that can be analyzed by William Lutz’s theories.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Sources

Burger King. Advertisement. BK Fusions® Millionaires Shortbread. Burger King

Corporation. Aug. 2009. Web. 19 Aug. 2012.

Burger King. Advertisement. Burger King 'it'll blow your mind away' sexist or silly?. N.p., 2 July 2009. Web. 19 Aug. 2012.

Burger King. Advertisement. Burger King. Behance. 1 Nov. 2011. Web. 19 Aug. 2012.

Burger King. Advertisement. Burger King Ad by pedrosampaio.N.p. 26 April 2013. Web. 15 May 2013.

Burger King. Advertisement. Design Your Way. Jan. 2012. Web. 15 May 2013. Burger King. Advertisement. Pizza Burger de Burger King.N.p. 12 Jan. 2012.

Web. 15 May 2013.

Burger King. Advertisement. Senile Saturday — TW's Taste Test at BK. 28 July 2012. Web. 15 May 2013.

References

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32 Maranatha Christian University “Advertising.” Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language. 3rd

ed. 1984. Print.

“Better.” Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language. 3rd ed. 1984. Print.

“Bigger.” Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language. 3rd ed. 1984. Print.

“Delicious.” Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language. 3rd ed. 1984. Print.

“Doublespeak.” Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language. 3rd ed. 1984. Print.

“Easy.” Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language. 3rd ed. 1984. Print.

“Examples of Doublespeak.” Your Dictionary Examples. n.p. n.d. Web. 20 Nov 2012.

“Fresh.” Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language. 3rd ed. 1984. Print.

“Frozen.” Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language. 3rd ed. 1984. Print.

“Great.” Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language. 3rd ed. 1984. Print.

“Great Food Comes First.” About BK. Burger King Worldwide, n.d. Web. 21 Nov 2012.

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33 Maranatha Christian University “Huge.” Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language. 3rd ed.

1984. Print.

“Juicy.” Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language. 3rd ed. 1984. Print.

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34 Maranatha Christian University “Refresh.” Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language. 3rd ed.

1984. Print.

“Refreshing.” Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language. 3rd ed. 1984. Print.

“Rich.” Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language. 3rd ed. 1984. Print.

“Slogan.” Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language. 3rd ed. 1984. Print.

“Soft.” Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language. 3rd ed. 1984. Print.

“Super.” Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language. 3rd ed. 1984. Print.

“Sweetness.” Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language. 3rd ed. 1984. Print.

“Thick.” Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language. 3rd ed. 1984. Print.

“Top.” Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language. 3rd ed. 1984. Print.

“Totally.” Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language. 3rd ed. 1984. Print.

“Worth.” Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language. 3rd ed. 1984. Print.

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35 Maranatha Christian University Alejandra. “Doublespeak in Advertising.” Global English ESL Studio. 11 January

2012. Web. 20 Nov. 2012.

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Analysis of The Use of Doublespeak in Burger King's Advertisements.

ABSTRACT

TABLE OF CONTENTS

APPENDICES

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER FOUR

CONCLUSION

BIBLIOGRAPHY