"Proverbs also have nine lives": the use of proverbs in advertising

Proverbs and sayings are a social product and are part of the linguistic competence of the speakers of a language. They contain and transmit cultural elements of languages. Moreover, proverbs are firmly anchored in the languages’ historical heritage. Both the linguistic and cultural data contained i...

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Detalhes bibliográficos
Autor: Tejedor Martínez, Cristina|||0000-0003-1628-5904
Formato: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2024
País:España
Recursos:Universidad de Alcalá (UAH)
Repositorio:e_Buah Biblioteca Digital Universidad de Alcalá
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:ebuah.uah.es:10017/64157
Acesso em linha:http://hdl.handle.net/10017/64157
https://dx.doi.org/10.5565/rev/fraseolex.77
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palavra-chave:Paremiology
Proverbs
Culture
Spanish and English language of advertising
Paremiología
Refranes
Cultura
Lenguaje especializado de la publicidad en español e inglés
Filología
Philology
Descrição
Resumo:Proverbs and sayings are a social product and are part of the linguistic competence of the speakers of a language. They contain and transmit cultural elements of languages. Moreover, proverbs are firmly anchored in the languages’ historical heritage. Both the linguistic and cultural data contained in proverbs are shared by most speakers and link them to past speakers. Proverbs and sayings express and strengthen ideas. Thus, proverbs play a role in both general and specialized languages. However, several authors have attested to a significant decline in their use; others explain that their function has changed, but their popular currency has remained constant. Although the use of proverbs may have declined, this paper contributes to highlighting the long life of proverbs and proverbial phrases that remain in use even today in the specialized language of advertising in Spanish and English. A corpus of advertisements in both languages has been collected and analyzed. Most of the examples found were in Spanish, although some examples in English were also collected. It was found that proverbs are still used in advertising campaigns for products and services and, in most cases, the proverbs used have been adapted or modified. Since proverbs reflect the cultural elements of a language and convey these elements, the process of adapting or modifying proverbs is intended to relate the culture to the product or service. The use of proverbs may have declined in general language, but they still maintain a role in the specialized language of advertising.