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Appreciation and the comprehension of French in advertisements

The frequent use of the English language in advertisements all over the world has been explained in a number of ways. These reasons are discussed in Section 1.1. Subsequently, we discuss the reasons for using foreign languages other than English (1.2). As we will see, one of the reasons is the symbolic meaning of foreign languages. In Section 1.3, we propose a model of how the process of symbolic meaning association could work. The first part of this paper will end with a discussion about this symbolic meaning (1.4). In fact, some researchers have claimed that the literal meaning of words or sentences in a foreign language is not important (e.g., Kelly-Holmes 2000), whereas others have shown that this literal meaning seems to matter (e.g., Cheshire/Moser 1994). In the second part of the article, we present an empirical study that was set up to examine whether the appreciation of the use of a foreign language is affected by its comprehension.

  • Hornikx, J., & Starren, M. (2006). The relationship between the appreciation and the comprehension of French in Dutch advertisements. In R. Crijns, & C. Burgers (Eds.),Werbestrategien in Theorie und Praxis: Sprachliche Aspekte von deutschen und niederländischen Unternehmensdarstellungen und Werbekampagnen (pp. 129-145). Tostedt: Attikon Verlag. [pdf]
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“Wat voor eikel ben jij?”

De hevige reacties op de jongerencampagne “Wat voor eikel ben jij?” voorspellen niet veel goeds voor de effectiviteit ervan. Is de campagne inderdaad te duur, beschamend en normvervagend of juist goed aangepast aan jongeren? Goed beschouwd is de eikelcampagne best goed doordacht, maar wel een tikkeltje gewaagd.

  • Hornikx, J. (2006). “Wat voor eikel ben jij?”, Gewaagde, maar doordachte boodschapaanpassing aan de doelgroep. Tekstblad, 12 (2), 14-18. [pdf]
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Review of “Advertising as multilingual communication”

‘Rouges à lèvres’ in a German advertisement for lipsticks, Italian accents in a voice-over in a Dutch television commercial, English links on a Japanese website. With the increase in the number of multilingual advertisements and studies relating to their use and effects, the need for an insightful account of this domain has also increased. Advertising as multilingual communication has been anticipated by researchers in the field, and will certainly not disappoint them. Helen Kelly-Holmes’ book explains in a very well-written way how advertising discourse uses foreign languages – on the one end of a continuum – as a means of communication with speakers of a minority language in a country or – on the other end – as a linguistic symbol that creates positive associations in the minds of the receivers of the advertisement. Advertising as multilingual communication is well structured around a few domains in which multilingual advertising occurs, and benefits from a rich collection of examples that the author has gathered from a variety of media and sources over a number of years.

  • Hornikx, J. (2006). Review of “Advertising as multilingual communication” by Helen Kelly-Holmes. Communications, The European Journal of Communication Research, 31 (2), 247-249. [pdf]
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Measuring the effect of culture in experimental persuasive effects research

Studies that investigate the influence of culture on the persuasion process need methods and instruments to measure the effect of culture. As cultural studies have most frequently used values as a starting point for cross-cultural differences and similarities (see Section 2), values have also been used to measure culture. Persuasive effects research involving different cultures inherently encounters a number of methodological problems. In Section 3, I will describe these problems and some solutions, and propose the inclusion of context variables other than values as an alternative way of measuring the ef-fect of culture in experimental persuasive effects research.

  • Hornikx, J. (2006). Measuring the effect of culture in experimental persuasive effects research. In R. Crijns, & J. Thalheim (Eds.), Kooperation und Effizienz in der Unternehmenskommunikation: inner und außerbetriebliche Kommunikationsaspekte von Corporate Identity und Interkulturalität (pp. 195-204). Wiesbaden: Deutscher Universitäts-Verlag. [pdf]
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De overtuigingskracht van normatief sterke en normatief zwakke expertevidentie

Hornikx en Hoeken (2005) lieten zien dat normatief sterke expertevidentie als ondersteuning voor standpunten in Frankrijk relatief overtuigender was dan in Nederland. Vanwege de grotere machtsafstand in de Franse cultuur (Hofstede, 2001) zouden experts met een expertisegebied dat irrelevant is voor het standpunt dat ze verdedigen (normatief zwak) voor Fransen overtuigender kunnen zijn dan voor Nederlanders. Studie 1 kon dit niet bevestigen, maar liet wel een cultuurverschil in de relatieve overtuigingskracht van normatief sterke en zwakke expertevidentie zien. Beide experts waren even overtuigend voor de Fransen, die maar een klein verschil zagen in de deskundigheid van beide experts. Om te bekijken of dit kleine verschil te verklaren is door de status van de experts (hoogleraren) werd in Studie 2 de ingeschatte deskundigheid onderzocht van hoogleraren en onderzoekers met een (ir)relevant expertisegebied. De bevindingen van Studie 1 werden gerepliceerd. Fransen dichten experts – of het nu hoogleraren of onderzoekers zijn – een bredere kennis over verschillende onderwerpen toe.

  • Hornikx, J. (2006). De overtuigingskracht van normatief sterke en normatief zwakke expertevidentie in Nederland en Frankrijk. In H. Hoeken, B. Hendriks, & P.J. Schellens (Eds.), Studies in Taalbeheersing, volume 2 (pp. 120-131). Assen: Van Gorcum. [pdf]