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Linguists who have studied simplified varieties of a given language, such as pidgins or the language of care-givers, have tended to explain similarities in their structure by the fact that they use the same mechanisms of simplification. Bruthiaux tests this idea by looking at the structure of classified ads in American English, using a body of 800 ads from four categories: automobile sales, apartments for rent, help wanted, and personal ads. Bruthiaux's thesis is that strict, uniform constraints on space should result in uniformly simple texts, no matter which category they are in, and that any variation would be due to the particular needs of each category. To prove this he describes the linguistic structure of classified ads, and shows that they are characterized by a minimal degree of morphosyntactic elaboration. He then examines aspects of their conventions to highlight the role of pre-patterned and prefabricated segments whose collocational rigidity may force the inclusion of otherwise dispensable items. He finds that there is indeed significant variation across ad categories in terms of morphosyntactic elaboration, and concludes that this is due to a greater or lesser need to be explicit, as well as a greater or lesser anticipation of interaction. Finally, he examines the implications of these findings for the study of linguistic simplification and register variation.
E-Book Content
The Discourse of Classified Advertising
OXFORD STUDIES IN SOCIOLINGUISTICS Edward Finegan, General Editor Editorial Advisory Board Douglas Biber Alessandro Duranti John R. Rickford Suzanne Romaine Deborah Tannen Locating Dialect in Discourse The Language of Honest Men and Bonnie Lassies in Ayr RONALD K.S. MACAULAY
English in Its Social Contexts Essays in Historical Sociolinguistics EDITED BY TIM W. MACHAN AND CHARLES T. SCOTT
Coherence in Psychotic Discourse BRANCA TELLES RIBEIRO
Sociolinguistic Perspectives on Register EDITED BY DOUGLAS BIBER AND EDWARD FINEGAN
Gender and Conversational Interaction EDITED BY DEBORAH TANNEN
Therapeutic Ways with Words KATHLEEN WARDEN FERRARA
The Linguistic Individual Self-Expression in Language and Linguistics BARBARA JOHNSTONE
The Discourse of Classified Advertising Exploring the Nature of Linguistic Simplicity PAUL BRUTHIAUX
The Discourse of Classified Advertising Exploring the Nature of Linguistic Simplicity
PAUL BRUTHIAUX
New York
Oxford
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 1996
Oxford University Press Oxford New York Athens Auckland Bangkok Calcutta Cape Town Dar es Salaam Delhi Florence Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madras Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi Paris Singapore Taipei Tokyo Toronto and associated companies in Berlin Ibadan
Copyright © 1996 by Paul Bruthiaux Published by Oxford University Press, Inc. 198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016 Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Bruthiaux, Paul. The discourse of classified advertising : exploring the nature of linguistic simplicity / Paul Bruthiaux. p. cm.—(Oxford studies in socioHnguistics) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-19-510032-8 1. Advertising—Language. 2. Advertising, Classified. 3. English language—Usage. I. Title. II. Series. HF5827.B75 1996 659.13'2—dc20 95-41493
987654321 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
SERIES FOREWORD
Simply put, sociolinguistics is the study of language in use. With special