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Glocalization and English mixing in advertising in Taiwan: Its discourse domains, linguistic patterns, cultural constraints, localized creativity, and socio-psychological effects

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Journal of Creative Communications 3:2 (2008): 155–183 SAGE PUBLICATIONS Los Angeles z London z New Delhi z Singapore DOI: 10.1177/097325860800300203

Glocalization and English Mixing in Advertising in Taiwan

Its Discourse Domains, Linguistic Patterns, Cultural Constraints,

Localized Creativity, and Socio-psychological Effects

JIA-LING HSU This article intends to provide a socio-linguistic profi le of the role and impact of English in advertising in Taiwan in an era of globalization, by integrating results obtained from discourse analysis, readers’ attitudinal surveys and copywriters’ interviews. Results show that from copywriters’ advertising design to consumers’ underlying psychology, English has consistently cast its magic spell even on the English-illiterate public. Regardless of one’s profi ciency or literacy in English, English mixing mainly represents attention-getting, internationalism, premium quality and the trendy taste of the younger generation, and in addition, a graphic design for real estate advertisers. However, specifi c socio-psychological features of English correlate with the language ratios of code-mixing in advertising copy, product type and the public’s level of English profi ciency. Furthermore, the charm of English is culturally and linguistically constrained. Culturally, English does not agree with the advertising of traditional products. Linguistically, English mixing is best received with the bilingual advertising copy composed of easy-to-read vocabulary. Existing alongside the globalization of the local marketing discourse is the localization of English, which is mainly characterized by verbatim translation of Chinese grammatical structure into English. Participants’ evaluation of localized English patterns correlates with their English profi ciency. Overall, in spite of the public’s generally low profi ciency in English, it is predicted that English mixing will continue to fl ourish in advertising in Taiwan.

INTRODUCTION

Under the infl uence of ‘hyper-globalization’ and ‘diversity marketing’ in recent years, English has become the most favoured language of global advertising (Bhatia 2006: 601). In non-English-speaking countries, English is the most commonly used language in advertising messages, serving as the language of modernity, progress and globalization (Piller 2003: 170). Taiwan, a country in the Expanding Circle (Kachru 1985), where English is taught as a foreign language in school, is also engaged in this process of globalization. English is employed in

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advertising as a result of language contact and advertisers’ creativity. While the processes of globalization and Englishization (Anglicization) are ongoing ones in the marketing discourse in Taiwan, localization or nativization of English is concurrently taking place so that English can be used to implement both global and local functions in a way described by Bhatia and Ritchie as glocalization (2006: 543). To shed some light on the impact of English on advertising in Taiwan in the process of glocalization, this article intends to investigate the following issues, by integrating the fi ndings of studies conducted by Hsu (2000, 2002, 2005, 2006a, 2006b):

1. Copywriters’ motivations concerning why English mixing is employed; 2. Discourse domains of English mixing and the domains inaccessible to English; 3. Linguistic features of English mixing and localized (nativized) English patterns; 4. Socio-psychological effects of English mixing in advertising in Taiwan;

5. English-literate and illiterate readers’ attitudes towards various code-mixed patterns, nativized English devices and the general development of English mixing in advertising in Taiwan.

During the discussions in this article, since Bhatia (2006) and Bhatia and Ritchie (2006) have provided in-depth, thorough and comprehensive analyses and observations on multiple language mixing in global advertising in the context of globalization, their studies will be heavily cited. In addition, following Kachru’s defi nition (1986: 64), English mixing is broadly defi ned in this article as the transfer of English words, phrases and sentences into Chinese at inter-sentential and intra-sentential levels.

METHODOLOGY

Data Collection

The corpus of data of this study has been drawn from three sources: discourse analysis, sur-veys of readers’ attitudes and interviews conducted with local copywriters. All these data were collected from 1999 to 2007. The fi rst data source consists of 1,265 Chinese–English code-mixed advertisements: 144 TV commercials videotaped from fi ve networks and 1,121 print advertisements collected from 25 magazines and 240 issues of four newspapers from 9 October to 8 December 1999.

The second data source comes from two surveys. The fi rst was in the form of questionnaires administered to 425 English-literate participants: 189 males and 236 females, aged from

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Journal of Creative Communications 3:2 (2008): 155–183

Glocalization and English Mixing in Advertising in Taiwan 157 14 to 87, including people from 49 occupations, housewives and students. Their levels of education ranged from junior middle school to doctoral degrees. The second was in the form of questionnaires and interviews conducted with 94 English-illiterate participants: 44 males and 50 females, aged from 10 to 90 years, characterized by old age, lower level of education and lower socio-economic status.1

Concerning the questionnaires administered to English-literate readers, the following information was explored: (a) participants’ attitudes towards the ‘mystic factor’, namely, ‘the desired socio-psychological effects which only English is capable of transmitting’ (Bhatia and Ritchie 2006: 536) in global advertising, by following the postulation of threshold features and proximity zones provided by Bhatia (2001: 211) and Bhatia and Ritchie (2006: 536); (b) participants’ degree of acceptance of various Chinese–English code-mixed patterns and nativized English devices in the advertising discourse in Taiwan; (c) the effect of linguistic factors such as diffi cult English words and mistaken English in advertising copy, on readers’ acceptance of these advertisements; (d) the correlation between participants’ English pro-fi ciency and their degree of acceptance of nativized English patterns.2

As regards the questionnaires and interviews for English-illiterate participants, monolingual Chinese questions were designed to explore issues such as whether the participants’ English illiteracy affected their willingness to purchase products advertised in English mixing, the socio-psychological effects of English and the participants’ general attitudes towards English mixing in advertising.3

In the questionnaire design, other than the multiple-choice format of questions, open-ended questions were posed, in order to elicit participants’ underlying responses concerning their motivation for making certain choices in the multiple-choice questions to account for the participants’ underlying attitudes.

The third data source is drawn from interviews conducted with 15 copywriters, including 11 executive creative directors, from a variety of prestigious local and internationally-based advertising agencies, such as J. Walter Thompson, Ogilvy & Mather Advertising, Leo Burnett and LOWE. Six of the copywriters are from companies advertising residential real estate properties.4 These interviews were conducted from September 2002 to January 2007.

Data Analysis

Frequency counts were performed for the distribution of English-mixed domains and lin-guistic patterns in discourse analysis, and the multiple-choice format of questions in the questionnaires. Qualitative analysis was used to analyze the answers elicited from the open-ended questions and transcribed data of copywriters’ interviews. The underlying reasons

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elicited from answers for open-ended questions were categorized and a frequency count of these categories was carried out. Correlation analysis was conducted to determine the correlation between the participants’ English profi ciency and their degree of acceptance of localized English patterns.

WHY COPYWRITERS EMPLOY ENGLISH MIXING IN ADVERTISING

In this section, two types of strategies will be discerned, based on the product type advertised: general commodities (defi ned as possessions other than residential real estate properties) as opposed to residential real estate properties.

Advertisers of General Commodities

According to the interviews, for copywriters working with general commodities, what language to use is not their concern at the very beginning of the process of creating advertisements, unless the projects they are working on involve the promotion campaign of an international super brand, which requires the marketing strategy of ‘Think global, act global’. The idea of using English emerges during the process of brainstorming among the copywriters when they attempt to explore the concepts of advertised products.

For example, take one of the TV commercials shot by a locally based Ford Motor Company. The prototype concept of this commercial originates from a blind man who cannot see but knows which brand of vehicle is the best due to his exquisite taste. However, in creating such a character, a Chinese blind man cannot serve as the prototype character since most blind people in Taiwan make a living as masseurs. Such a prototype image is too low-scale. Therefore, to highlight the good taste of the blind character, the copywriter who designed this commercial copied Al Pacino’s image from the Hollywood movie ‘Scent of a Woman’ in which Al Pacino starred as the refi ned Lieutenant Colonel Frank Slade. In this commercial, the audience witnesses a Western blind man with fl awless taste, who is able to tell the brand name of the perfume used by a passer-by as Chanel, and speaks English all the time. However, in the end, he still mistakes a Ford for a Benz. The copywriter interviewed remarked that the intention of this commercial was to suggest that English represents internationalism, premium quality and exquisite taste.

In fact, this commercial is only one in a series of TV commercials using English mixing produced by the local Ford Motor Company. Back in the 1990s, Chinese was the language used in the advertising of Ford Sedans. However, since the voice-overs of these commercials

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Journal of Creative Communications 3:2 (2008): 155–183

Glocalization and English Mixing in Advertising in Taiwan 159 were all Chinese, including the brand name Fute, the transliteration of Ford, the advertised products were deemed low-end by the market. Consequently, Ford Motor Company decided that its image needed to be internationalized and started to use English for promoting its brand name in commercials. After employing these new marketing tactics, the sales of Ford automobiles were boosted.

The use of English brand names versus Chinese brand names not only defi nes the status of the advertised products as high end versus low end, but also highlights differences between the urban and metropolitan lifestyle and the rural lifestyle. According to one of the copywriters interviewed, generally speaking, in the 2000s, in northern Taiwan, which is more cosmopolitan, English is extensively and directly used in automobile advertisements. By contrast, in southern Taiwan, where English is not as common, local car dealers use Chinese translation of English brand names or product names. For instance, Corona is transliterated as Kelena.

In general, for all the copywriters interviewed, English mixing conveys the following socio-psychological effects to the audience about the advertised products: internationalism, premium quality, authenticity, metropolitan orientation, urban experience, middle class lifestyle and the trendy taste of the younger generation. Such socio-psychological effects of English in advertising are also observed globally. In German advertising, ‘…English is portrayed as the language of…the young, cosmopolitan business elite’ (Piller 2003: 176), whereas in Japan, ‘English…indexes a modern, sophisticated, and cosmopolitan identity for the products and implicitly, the consumers with which it is associated’ (Takashi 1990b, 1992, quoted in Piller 2003: 175).

In addition to employing worldwide standardized campaigns and local customization strategies in advertising global brands, advertisers in Taiwan utilize various strategies of English mixing in print advertisements to convey a variety of socio-psychological effects, depending on product type, target audience and requests made by clients. Two examples follow.

When copywriters create brand names for local products that may be marketed inter-nationally, English names are created fi rst. For example, Acer (Personal computers) and Travel Fox (sports shoes) are local brands, both known internationally and locally by their English names. They were fi rst introduced into the local market with their English names, and then at a later stage, these names were translated into Chinese, so that domestic consumers would think that these brands were international.

When it comes to appealing to the local younger generation, at least two or more tactics of English mixing are capitalized on. First, take China Insurance Company for example. Since its brand name China conveys an image that is ancient and obsolescent to young people, a new monolingual English slogan ‘we share’ was created and used in print advertisements and TV commercials to remake the image of this old local corporation and to attract the attention of

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young consumers. Another tactic is to mix intra-sentential English vocabulary in the body copy of advertisements to create a sense of being trendy and having fun, to correspond to young people’s cultural trend of ‘mix and match’. For example, a private musical school uses the expression fun qingsong ‘take it easy’ in a print advertisement. Fun serves two meanings. It is a homophone of the Chinese word fang ‘take’ and fang qing song means to ‘take things easy’. Fun also suggests that learning music can be fun. This type of bilingual code-mixing is a common practice in Taiwan’s advertising.

In terms of the specifi c linguistic forms utilized in advertising high-end products, copy-writers employ monolingual English slogans, sentences or body copy to convey a sense of inter-nationalism, authenticity and top quality, a strategy mainly used by international companies. By contrast, the intra-sentential English-mixing type of body copy is primarily used to appeal to the younger generation, to stress the feeling of having fun. Since intra-sentential English-mixing type of body copy does not help to upgrade the brand image of advertised products, international companies do not prefer such style of advertising discourse.

Advertisers of Real Estate Business

When it comes to residential real estate advertising, English mixing is, in most cases, deliberately employed to campaign for the business.

Though the real estate property business is localized in nature, according to all the copywriters interviewed, it has become a trendy development in recent years to employ English mixing in residential real estate advertising in Taiwan, since Western concepts of architectural design dominate the fi eld. Western styles of architectural design are applied in local construction projects to create an image that the premium quality of construction in Western countries can also be offered by local companies. Accordingly, copywriters borrow and copy Western architectural terminology extensively in advertising copy in Taiwan. English, as the most powerful language of global marketing, is defi nitely employed in advertising for attention-getting and other socio-psychological effects.

In terms of English mixing in product names, English product names almost always accompany Chinese product names in the logo.5 Normally, English product names are spelled

out as direct translations of their Chinese counterparts, such as ‘Taipei garden’ (taibeihuayuan) or as phonetic transliterations or semantic translations of famous Western people or places such as ‘Camp David in Taipei’ (daweiing). In terms of the linguistic forms, the majority of English product names consist of nouns or noun phrases. Occasionally, verb phrases make up English product names such as ‘take it easy’ and ‘surpass everything’.

According to one of the copywriters interviewed, to create English product names has become a fashionable practice in real estate advertising. Using English product names and

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Journal of Creative Communications 3:2 (2008): 155–183

Glocalization and English Mixing in Advertising in Taiwan 161 some English graphic design, together with celebrity endorsements, facilitates upgrading the image of advertised products, connoting that these properties are fashionable and important. Conversely, a construction project without an English name seems to suggest that the advertised product is located in a rural, less developed area.

Other than using English in product names, based on product type, two tactics of English mixing are employed.

In print advertisements of high-end products, whose target audience is of a higher socio-economic status, English mixing is used to convey product description, such as the architectural design of the building, and to yield a sense of authenticity, supreme quality, professionalism and internationalism in the advertised properties. Copywriters, therefore, mix in the body copy, English professional jargon of architecture such as SRC, English brand names of imported home appliances installed on the properties, for example, ‘Bosch’ dishwashers imported from Germany and the English names of foreign architects designing the buildings, as guarantee of quality.6

When it comes to low-end products, English mixing is used to create an image of a dream house and a sense of familiarity with and accessibility to the advertised products. Since pur-chasing property is costly, copywriters attempt to convince the target audience that purpur-chasing property is like playing a fun game by using language familiar to the audience, that is, easy-to-read English product names and simple English vocabulary in advertisements. Instances of easy-to-read English product names include ‘magic’, ‘so beauty’ and ‘easy buy’ (a nativized English device meaning that one can buy a property easily) and noun phrases such as ‘forever rich family’.

Additionally, by using simple English words such as ‘VIP’, ‘lobby’, ‘lounge’, and ‘spa’ repeatedly in the body copy, copywriters imply that low-end products can offer amenities like their high-end counterparts, and potential customers are entitled to the same privileges as real VIPs.

Although English mixing is used to yield a variety of socio-psychological impacts mentioned above, for all the copywriters in real estate advertising, the foremost function of English mix-ing is to serve as a decorative graphic design in the advertismix-ing text and layout. First, English words function as punctuation marks in a series of square-shaped Chinese characters in the body copy, which helps create some variety in the visual input for readers. Second, for artistic purposes, in the position of the logo, where bilingual product names appear, an English prod-uct description usually appears in very small or even minuscule print size. In the following advertisement, which targets well-educated young DINK (Double Income, No Kids) and single people working in high-tech professions, the copywriter uses in the logo a long string of English words in such minuscule print that they cannot be processed with the naked eye. The wording reads as follows.

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Section of east district, you will fi nd the meanings of real life and architecture. A wonderful concept to architecture will be come true in this district. Limitless. Welcome 6 outstanding and brilliant persons to enter this bonourable gate…fi nd the meanings of real life and architecture. A wonderful concept to architecture will be come true in this district. The English wording is obviously fragmentary, ungrammatical and full of misspellings. This copywriter asserts that it is the English form rather than the English content that communicates to the target audience, and thereby, English grammatical accuracy lies outside the concern of copywriters. Another copywriter notes that using English mixing as graphic design facilitates the creation of an international atmosphere in advertised products, hence raising the unit price of advertised properties. Such a socio-psychological effect of English mixing is witnessed by the underlying psychology of a Mexican salesperson who replied that English sells when asked why an advertisement was half English and half Spanish (Bhatia and Ritchie 2006: 517).

For many copywriters in the real estate advertising business, English accuracy is not expected in their graphic usage because English mixing is used primarily for attention-grabbing and creating the desired atmosphere. Since the local audience is targeted, as long as the English wording is easy to read and write, the purpose of attention-grabbing suffi ces.7 Due to this

spe-cial role of English functioning ‘not only as an attention-getter but also…mood enhancer…’ (Martin 1998: 336) and as a graphic design, English deviations, often constituted by verbatim translation of Chinese grammatical structure and misspellings, abound in advertising text promoting low-end products. In addition, the work type involved in the real estate advertising business and the generally low English profi ciency of copywriters also contribute to the prevalent deviations of English usage in real estate advertising copy.8 Such disregard for English

accuracy by copywriters is also witnessed in advertising discourse in Japan, where copywriters use deviant innovative English expressions to provide a modern and cosmopolitan touch (Takashi 1990: 336).

In sum, as in Japan, English is used in real estate advertising in Taiwan mainly for ‘cosmetic’ effects (Bhatia and Ritchie 2006: 542).

THE DISCOURSE DOMAINS OF ENGLISH MIXING IN ADVERTISING

Based on the discourse analysis of 1,265 advertisements, Table 1 indicates that among the ten leading domains in which English mixing occurs most frequently, products are either imported from abroad or marked by internationalism, fashion and advanced technology. The only exception is the residential real estate property, which is localized in nature.

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Table 1

Frequency of Discourse Domains in which P

roducts and

Services are Advertised most F

requently in English Mixing

P ro duct Domains F reque ncy P er ce n tage (%)

Clothing (fashion special,

men ’s, w o men ’s and c hildr en ’s w ear , under w ear , leather) 129 10.2 C o mput ers 118 9.3 C osmetics (lotion, perfume) 102 8.1 R esidential r eal estat e business 98 7.8 A u to mobiles 91 7.2 W at ches, jew eller y and boutiques 65 5.1 F

ood (including adult milk po

w der , non-alc oholic be ve ra ges, c o okies and A m er

ican fast food)

54 4.3 H o me applianc es 53 4.2 W eb ser vic es 49 3.9 M o bile phones 43 3.4 Banking ser vic es (cr edit car d business) 41 3.2 Infants ’ car e (milk po w der , diapers, st ro llers) 41 3.2 T ra vel and t our ism (cr

uises and hot

els) 40 3.2 Go ve rnment pr opaganda 5 0.004 Theme par ks 3 0.002 T

raditional Chinese medicine

3 0.002 P ost-bir th n u rsing homes 1 0.0008 T

raditional Chinese food

1 0 T raditional Chinese dr inks 0 0 T raditional gar m ents 0 0 No te : Ther e ar e 39 domains c o

ntained in the data.

Due t

o

the spac

e limitation,

only disc

ourse domains in whic

h Eng

lish mixing oc

curs

w

ith the hig

hest and lo w est fr equency ar e list ed in the table. Sour ce : A u thor’ s calculation

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THE CULTURAL CONSTRAINTS OF ENGLISH MIXING IN ADVERTISING

A statistical survey shows that as opposed to the domains where English mixing occurs fre-quently, traditional types of products and services such as Chinese medicine and medical practices, for example, feng-shiu, ‘Chinese geomancy’, seem to be largely unaffected by the infl uence of English. Usage of English in these domains occurs with very low frequency: three advertisements promoting traditional Chinese medicine, one advertisement of traditional food and one advertisement for a post-delivery nursing home.9

The very low incidence of English mixing in the above types of advertisements seems to validate Jain’s observation that English as a language symbolizing internationalism, modern-ization and industrial and technological innovations is not consistent with locally and culturally sensitive products (1989, quoted in Bhatia 1992: 204). This fi nding is also in agreement with the observations of many other scholars. For example, product domains of fabrics in India, cheese in France and kimonos in Japan are inaccessible to English (Bhatia and Ritchie 2006: 542; Martin 1998: 320; Takashi 1990: 331).

Table 2

Percentage of English-Literate Participants’ Degree of Acceptance of Using English in Advertising Traditional Products

Degree of acceptability Frequency Percentage (%) Frequency Percentage (%)

Completely unacceptable 32 7.53 195 45.88 Unacceptable 163 38.4 Neutral 121 28.5 121 28.5 Acceptable 96 22.6 108 25.41 Completely acceptable 12 2.8 Total 424 100 424 100

Source: Author’s calculations.

Table 3

Percentage of English-Illiterate Participants’ Attitudinal Choices Concerning whether Traditional Domain Products can be Advertised in English

Attitudinal choices Frequency Percentage (%)

No 40 42.6

No comments 29 30.9

Yes 25 26.6

Total 94 100

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Journal of Creative Communications 3:2 (2008): 155–183

Glocalization and English Mixing in Advertising in Taiwan 165 This result of cultural constraint is further confi rmed by the attitudinal studies conducted by Hsu (2002, 2005) as shown in Tables 2 and 3. Whether English-literate or not, participants disapproving the use of English to advertise traditional Chinese products outnumbered those holding favourable attitudes, with roughly the same ratio in both studies. The cultural incompatibility and the stylistic incongruity between the advertising language and the product type mainly account for the negative attitudes of the participants.

Although Jain’s hypothesis seems to hold for now, Bhatia and Ritchie observe that ‘English is constantly retooling itself to acquire those psychological features and thematic domains which seem distant at the moment’ (2006: 543). Thus, it is expected that though for the time being cultural constraints may play an infl uential role in determining the use of English in advertising culturally sensitive products, in the long run, the dynamic discourse functions of English mixing (Bhatia 1992: 204) will override these cultural barriers.

THE LINGUISTIC FEATURES OF ENGLISH MIXING IN ADVERTISING

An analysis of the English–Chinese code-mixed patterns of the 1,265 advertisements, points to a cline of code-mixed patterns similar to the cline of code-mixed advertising observed in France (Martin 2002: 385). In the advertising copy in Taiwan, English–Chinese mixed patterns range from monolingual English copy to Chinese copy mixed with single English sentences and slogans, English phrases, English terminology, such as CD and non-jargon English lexis such as ‘happy’, occurring respectively as adjectives, verbs, adverbs, nouns, prepositions and conjunctions.

In terms of the distribution of the linguistic forms of all the code-mixed elements, single content words, especially nouns, constitute 91 per cent of all the forms found in the data, whereas phrases make up for 6 per cent and sentences, only 3 per cent (Table 4). As regards phrases, noun phrases hold the fi rst place whereas phrases of verbs and adverbs occur in-frequently. Adding up the frequency of all the noun forms, they compose 92 per cent of all the patterns in the data.

Among the single-word forms, technical terms such as PC as well as company names and product names, including the repeated mention of product names being advertised and other brand names used for comparison by the advertisers in the body copy, comprise 81 per cent of all English usage in the data.

An analysis of the remaining data composed of single words, phrases, and sentences shows that plain vocabulary of one to two syllables characterizes the usage. Words of this type are rudimentary in nature, easy to read and remember. Lexical items such as ‘high’, ‘easy’, ‘party’,

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‘happy’, ‘No. 1’, ‘shopping’ and ‘VIP’ occur most frequently in advertisements. Phrases are also marked by simple vocabulary, for example, ‘morning call’, ‘check in’, ‘say hello’ and ‘shopping mall’. As demonstrated earlier in the interviews of copywriters, in order to correspond to the generally low command of English of the general public in Taiwan, a strategy commonly adopted by copywriters is using simple English words to capture the attention of advertisement readers.

Among the rhetorical devices of mixing English, puns and rhyming, common literary functions performed in global advertising (Bhatia 2006: 610), are also popular with copywriters in Taiwan. Two instances follow. In advertising the opening of a new mall, taimao, copywriters use the English transliterated name of the mall so that it rhymes with the rest of the sentence: ‘Taimall give you mall and more’. Though the usage induces grammatical inaccuracy, the rhyming effect makes the pattern sound smooth and easy to read. In ‘Give me high’ in a real estate advertisement, ‘high’ serves two meanings: to provide a high ceiling in the advertised property and to make consumers feel excited by the purchase.

Table 4

Percentage of the Linguistic Forms Used in Advertisements where English Occurs Number of

advertisements

Percentage of occurrences against the total number of advertisements (%)

Percentage of occurrences against the total forms in the advertisements (%) Total advertisements 1265 Total (SW + PH + ST)∗ 5185 SW-term 2071 164 40 Company/product name 2111 167 41 Common noun 350 28 7 Total SW-noun 4532 358 88 SW-verb 61 5 1 SW-adverb 14 1 0 SW-adjective 89 7 2 Total SW 4696 371 91 PH-noun 255 20 5 PH-verb 44 3 1 PH-adverb 2 0 0 PH-adjective 13 13 0 Total PH 314 25 6 SENTENCES 175 14 3

Note: Due to rounding errors, the percentage for very low occurrences in the right-hand column becomes zero.

KEY: ∗SW = single word; PH = phrase; ST = sentence. Source: Author’s calculations.

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Journal of Creative Communications 3:2 (2008): 155–183

Glocalization and English Mixing in Advertising in Taiwan 167 Among all the tactics of mixing English, the most distinguishing one is that local copywriters borrow and insert any English words or phrases into Chinese text as long as the corresponding translated meaning of these English words fi ts the Chinese context. The result is a combination of English lexis and Chinese structure. See Figure 1, an example of typical English-mixed ad-vertising copy, taken from a real estate advertisement, which is glossed below.

Figure 1

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tongqin zui easy xiangshou zui happy

commuting most enjoyment most

‘Commuting is the easiest and the enjoyment is the greatest.’

Another example follows, which is taken from a shampoo advertisement. Xinshiji come topixue go

New century dandruff

‘New century comes and dandruff goes.’

THE NATIVIZED PATTERNS OF ENGLISH MIXING IN ADVERTISING

As demonstrated earlier, copywriters can use English in any way they want, as long as the translated meaning of these words fi ts the Chinese context and these words are easy to read and write. In addition, in employing English in such a way, some copywriters are not aware that they have low English competence. For these reasons, systematic deviations from standard English usage based on the direct transfer from Chinese grammar arise during the process of creating advertisements. Those localized deviations are termed nativized English devices based on Kachru’s defi nition (1986: 21). Listed below are the major types of patterns, which serve as survey patterns in questionnaires. See Table 5 for reference.

The fi rst category of these devices such as ‘e-colour’, ‘e-go’, ‘e-people’ and ‘e-match’ derives from the current usage of English compound words such as e-commerce.

The second category, for example, ‘easy select’, ‘easy go’, ‘easy touch’ and ‘easy play’, consists of phrases conjoining the English adjective ‘easy’ with an English verb where ‘easy’ is used for the sake of its translated meaning in Chinese, rongyi ‘effortless and easily’. Hence, the phrase ‘easy select’ means ‘select something easily’.

In the third category, English words are freely mixed in an English sentence or with Chinese text, without observing the original parts of speech of these words. In the instance of ‘Give me high’, ‘high’ is used as a noun. Concerning the example of bangzhu ninde aixin kuaisu online ‘to help you to quickly contribute your charity online’, ‘online’, is borrowed due to its Chinese translation, meaning shangwang, a verb in Chinese, and thereby the word ‘online’ functions as a verb.

The fourth category consists of monolingual English sentences, composed by a verbatim translation of Chinese grammatical structure into English. Unintelligibility of text arises in

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Table 5

Percentage of Acceptability of Nativized English P

atterns Su rv ey ed patter ns En ti re ly acce ptable A cce ptable N eut ra l U nacce ptable En ti re ly unacce ptable Eng lish-only phr ases: ‘easy pla y’ , ‘ easy select ’ 11.5 57.9 24.5 4.7 1.2 69.4 5.89 Eng lish-only sent enc es: ‘G iv e me hig h ’‘G re en y our hear t’ 11 47 28 12.2 1.2 58.1 13.4 Chinese–Eng lish mixing:

bangzhu ninde aix

in kuaisu online ‘t o help y ou t o quickly c o nt ri but e y our c har it y online ’ 8.7 43.9 32.8 13 0.9 52.6 13.9 Eng lish-only co mpound w o rds: ‘e-c olour’ , ‘ e-go ’, ‘ e-people ’ 6.1 42.4 31.8 17 2.8 48.5 19.8 Eng lish–M andar in–Souther n M in mixing: ‘Y ou happ y, he happ y, ev er ybod y long happ y’ 8.5 37.2 30.1 22.4 1.9 45.7 24.3 Chinese–Eng lish mix ed phr ases: ‘e asy’ cho u ‘d ra w ,’ ‘ easy’ fu ‘c o ver’ 7.8 33.7 31.8 24.7 2.1 41.5 26.8 ve rbatim st yle of Eng lish sent enc e: ‘A long the r o ad, y ou w ill fi nd the w oods ar ound us. Season o

ver the lea

ves that lo ve us. W h er e can g iv e us so fr esh so m u ch as her e?’ 4.2 32.5 28.7 29.2 5.4 36.7 34.6 Sour ce : A u thor’ s calculations.

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some cases, particularly in the advertising copy of real estate businesses. In Figure 2, the text drawn from an advertisement for residential real estate property shows that all the English wording consists of a word-for-word translation from the meaning of its Chinese structural counterparts.

The last category is made up of sentences mixed with English and two dialects of Chinese, Mandarin and Southern Min. One instance follows where long ‘all’ is borrowed from the Southern Min dialect.

Figure 2

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Journal of Creative Communications 3:2 (2008): 155–183

Glocalization and English Mixing in Advertising in Taiwan 171

xiwang fangjia di deren maidao baozheng

hope price of real estate low people buy our property we guarantee ‘You happy, he happy, everybody long happy’

‘For those who want to buy residential real estate properties at the lowest cost, we guarantee that your purchase with us will make everyone happy’.

In sum, a direct verbatim translation of Chinese grammatical structure into English wording mainly characterizes nativized English usage in advertising discourse in Taiwan.

THE SOCIAL EVALUATION OF ENGLISH MIXING IN ADVERTISING

English-literate Readers’ Attitudes towards Surveyed Patterns

A total of 425 participants were investigated concerning their degree of acceptance of, and general attitudes towards, the Chinese–English code-mixed cline of patterns and nativized English patterns, in advertising in Taiwan.

Table 6 shows that English mixing in advertising in Taiwan is very popular with the general public since all the surveyed patterns were well received. However, code-mixed copy is far more acceptable than English monolingual copy owing to the psychological barrier induced by the low competence in English on the part of readers. Among code-mixed patterns, copy mixed with English terminology was most acceptable since for many participants, English terms convey a sense of authority. Patterns mixed with simple English words and phrases are regarded as creative, cute and attention-getting, representing a trendy fashion that appeals to the younger generation.

As to monolingual English copy, it is least acceptable among all the surveyed patterns. Par-ticipants favouring such usage consider it yielding a sense of internationalism and an effect of attention-getting. Based on the observations of the participants, the most notable feature of mixing English in advertising copy was its attention-getting attribute.

Concerning nativized English patterns, as shown in Table 5, devices mixed with simple English are also more acceptable than monolingual English sentences where ‘easy go’ is most popular while the verbatim style of English sentences is least acceptable. Underlying factors elicited from participants’ responses that determine the acceptability of these patterns will be addressed in the following section.

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Table 6

Percentage of Acceptability of the Cline of Chinese–English Code-Mixed Advertising P

atterns Su rv ey ed patter ns En ti re ly acce ptable A cce ptable N eut ra l U nacce ptable En ti re unacce ptable Chinese t ext c o de-mix ed w ith Eng lish t er minolog y 31.1 56.8 7.8 4.3 0 87.9 4.3 Chinese t ext c o de-mix ed w ith Eng lish slogans 24 56.5 14.8 3.8 0.9 80.5 4.7 Chinese t ext c o de-mix ed w ith Eng lish w o rds or phr ases 20.8 57.1 15.6 4.7 0.5 77.9 5.2 P repositions 26.6 51.1 18.6 3.1 0.7 77.7 3.8 A djecti ves 18.8 51.1 22.8 6.4 0.7 69.9 7.1 V er b s 15.8 52.7 23.8 7.3 0.5 68.5 7.8 C o njunctions 21.4 43.3 22.8 10.8 1.7 64.7 12.5 A d ve rb s 17.4 46.4 28 7.1 0.7 63.8 7.8 N ouns 13.4 47.8 25.4 11.8 1.4 61.2 13.2 Chinese t ext c o de-mix ed w ith Eng lish sent enc es 15.3 57.7 21 5.4 0.5 73 5.9 M o nolingual Eng lish t ext 13.21 51.9 22.2 11.1 1.4 65.1 12.5 Sour ce : A u thor’ s calculations.

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Journal of Creative Communications 3:2 (2008): 155–183

Glocalization and English Mixing in Advertising in Taiwan 173 The Socio-psychological Effects of English in Advertising in Taiwan

English-literate Readers

For English-literate readers, the following factors interplay in influencing the socio-psychological effects that English is capable of developing in advertising in Taiwan: the specifi c threshold features postulated by Bhatia (2001: 211) and Bhatia and Ritchie (2006: 536), the type of code-mixed language, product type and certain linguistic factors. Concerning the threshold socio-psychological characteristics that English has acquired in Taiwan, Table 7 indicates that ‘internationalism and standardization’ and ‘American or English culture’ are the most prominent features noted while ‘rationality and objectivity and physical fi tness’ are least recognized. This fi nding confi rms Bhatia and Ritchie’s comment that English is best suited to convey American or British culture (2006: 538), but it disagrees with Takashi’s observation that English does not index Americanization or Westernization in Japanese advertising (1990b, 1992, quoted in Piller 2003: 175).

Regarding the subsets of the threshold features, ‘standards of measure’, ‘Westernization’ and ‘quality’ are the most pronounced, whereas ‘independence and freedom’, ‘self-improvement’ and ‘Christianity’ are the least noticed. What is noteworthy is that the latter types of features, especially the legacy of Christianity, which was rated with only two occurrences, pertain to essentially Western cultural values. The low frequency of these features suggests that though the threshold feature, ‘American’ and ‘British’ culture, is recognized as the second most dis-tinguished feature, its subset of features, representing the pure cultural themes and roots of Western civilization, are those which English has failed to acquire in Taiwan. This fi nding contradicts Bhatia and Ritchie’s prediction (2006: 537) that once certain threshold features are acquired, their subsets of features will become automatically accessible. This result is also contrary to Martins’ observation (1998: 321) that in French advertising, American English functions to convey concepts such as freedom and adventure.

Concerning infl uences from other factors, the specifi c socio-psychological effects English is capable of developing vary with different degrees of code-mixing in advertising copy and product types. Although ‘internationalism’ is the most conspicuous feature transmitted in English mixed advertising, English monolingual copy yields a greater extent of internationalism than code-mixed copy involving simple English vocabulary does, which is rather a trendy fashion favoured by young people, accompanied by a sense of cuteness, which is a fi nding that agrees with copywriters’ advertising designs. Code-mixed copy using English terminology renders a feeling of authority.

As regards product type, English enhances participants’ confi dence in imported products or products of technological innovation than it does with domestic products.

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Ta

ble 7

Frequency of the Threshold Socio

-psychological Effects English has T

ransmitted in Advertising in T aiwan to English-literate R ea Thr eshold featur es F requency P er centage (%) Subsets of thr eshold effects F re quency P er centage (%) In te rnationalism and standar dization 274 27.1 Standar ds of measur e 151 Cer tifi cation 128 R eliabilit y and secur it y 106 A m er ican or B ritish cultur e 190 18.8 W est er nization 124 M o der nization 85 V alues suc h as independenc e and fr eedom 25 Chr istianit y 2 Sophistication 160 15.8 T ast e 107 St yle 104 Eleganc e 8 4 Rar it y 24 C o mpet enc e 144 14.2 Qualit y 115 Safet y 54 Effi

ciency and organization

3 5 F unctionalit y and pr ag matism 35 F u tur e and inno vation 135 13.4 A d vanc

ement and bett

er m ent 8 0 V

ision and for

esig h te dness 72 Ph ysical fi t ness 55 5.4 H ealth y life qualit y 3 7 C o nnotation of ha ving a se xy bod y 2 1 Self-impr o ve ment 7 Rationalit y and objecti vit y 5 3 5.2 Scientifi c appeal 44 P roblem sol ving 13 T otal 1,011 100 1,453 Sour ce : A u thor’ s calculations.

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Journal of Creative Communications 3:2 (2008): 155–183

Glocalization and English Mixing in Advertising in Taiwan 175 However, regardless of product type, most readers do not accept extensive use of English or diffi cult English vocabulary such as ‘the unassailable beauty’ in advertisements. In contrast, English grammatical or spelling errors such as ‘enabling the disabled’ do not cast a negative effect on 60 per cent of the readers since two-fi fths of the participants claim that they were unable to identify any English mistakes in advertisements.

In terms of the types of advertising language preferred by participants, for products manufactured abroad, almost 90 per cent of the participant responses prefer copy containing English mixing, with Chinese text mixed with English terminology as the single most preferred form. For local products, monolingual Chinese copy is the most preferred type, followed by Chinese copy mixed with simple English vocabulary.

On the effects of English mixing on readers’ attitudes towards nativized patterns, the fol-lowing major underlying factors repeatedly cast their infl uence on the determination of whether a nativized pattern is acceptable: (a) whether a pattern is semantically interpretable; (b) whether a pattern is considered appropriate, essential as advertising language, and compatible with Chinese grammar; (c) whether the English usage is grammatical and (d) what are the stylistic and advertising effects induced by the language. Lesser factors include whether a device is linguistically seminal or trendy.

In contributing to positive attitudes, semantic interpretability has cast its effect throughout all the survey patterns for participants without a language barrier (please refer to Table 5 for the specifi c patterns under discussion). Positive advertising effects and stylistic effects of language usage come second in equally contributing to favourable attitudes towards all the patterns except ‘e-colour’ and ‘Give me high’. Both of the latter patterns are noted by their innovative language usage whereas ‘e-colour’ is additionally marked by its being trendy.

Concerning the positive advertising effects induced by language usage, the pattern ‘easy play’ renders readers with a feeling of user-friendliness concerning the utility of the advertised products, for example, an advertised DVD can be played effortlessly by consumers. In the case of the verbatim style of English sentence, English monolingual copy seems to stimulate more of the participants’ imagination than does its Chinese equivalent, creating for the readers a sense of being abroad. Stylistically, almost all the devices are regarded as lively, dynamic and full of fun.

There are three main factors accounting for participants’ negative attitudes. Inappropriateness or incompatibility in using English in advertising to the Chinese target audience has a negative impact on all the seven survey patterns. The style of fi ve of the patterns was criticized as ludicrous and vulgar. Semantic incomprehensibility due to participants’ low profi ciency in English negatively affects their attitudes toward fi ve of the patterns, particularly the verbatim style of English sentence in Figure 2, which is most disapproved. Participants’ responses reveal

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their generally low profi ciency in English; they regard lengthy monolingual English usage as standard and attribute the lack of interpretability of this pattern to their own low competence in English without realizing that the serious ungrammaticality involved in the usage solely accounts for the incomprehensibility of such a pattern.

Since the semantic interpretability of a mixed pattern depends on one’s knowledge of English, the correlation analysis shows that those whose English profi ciency is either very good or very bad are most critical about the nativized patterns because readers with good English profi ciency are judgmental about the deviations of nativized patterns from standard English grammar, while those with low profi ciency have diffi culty in understanding the patterns. Conversely, those who posses a medium level of English competence have a higher degree of acceptance of these nativized patterns.

Cross-referencing all the above findings reveals a picture of the underlying socio-psychological effects that English has acquired in Taiwan. For a majority of the general public whose English profi ciency is very low, advertisements, including nativized devices, using monolingual English, lengthy English or diffi cult English may pose language and psychological barriers. However, consumers feel secure with and attracted to advertisements, in which English mixing is confi ned to simple vocabulary such as ‘easy’ or professional terminology, a level of English competence they feel familiar and comfortable with. In such advertisements, they have less diffi culty and fewer inhibitions in processing the information and can enjoy the positive socio-psychological effects of English mixing, for example, a sense of internationalism or a sense of authority in products advertised with English terminology. Such consumers’ psychology is fully understood by copywriters as is evidenced by the latter’s abundant use of professional terminology and simple English vocabulary in advertising copy, as discussed earlier concerning the distribution of English mixed elements.

In brief, the cross-referenced discussions presented above indicate that though English mainly symbolizes attention-getting and internationalism, the specifi c socio-psychological effects it is capable of developing interplay intrinsically with the degree of English mixing in advertising copy, advertised product type and the level of readers’ English profi ciency.

English-illiterate Readers

The survey indicates that participants’ illiteracy in English does cast a negative effect on their interest in paying attention to the content of advertisements involving English mixing and learning the meaning of mixed English words in advertisements. However, the difference of percentage between uninterested participants and interested ones is very small, only 6 per cent. For interested participants, their intellectual curiosity to explore the message of adver-tisements primarily contributes to their positive motivation, with their family members,

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Journal of Creative Communications 3:2 (2008): 155–183

Glocalization and English Mixing in Advertising in Taiwan 177 neighbours and friends serving as the major sources of inquiry. Others guess the meaning of advertisements by looking at pictures or listening to the oral presentation in the Chinese part of TV commercials.

In addition, due to the English-illiteracy of survey participants’, and their awareness of the irrelevance between advertising language and advertised products, using English in advertisements does not enhance the majority of the surveyed participants’ confi dence in advertised products. However, two-thirds of the participants are still willing to purchase products advertised in English based on two grounds. First, advertisements and advertised products are unrelated. Second, participants have their own access to understanding the message of the advertisements by, for example, reading the Chinese part of the product de-scription, or they can have others purchase advertised products for them.

In terms of the socio-psychological features English transmits to English-illiterate par-ticipants, as it does to English-literate parpar-ticipants, ‘internationalism and standardization’ and ‘American and English culture’ are the top two threshold features marked in the same order, whereas ‘Westernization’, ‘reliability’ and ‘quality’ are the most prominent subsets of features observed (Table 8). Christianity is the least noted by all participants, probably due to the fact that in Taiwan, Buddhism is the most visible and infl uential religion, while Christianity keeps a relatively low profi le. Such consistency in readers’ attitudes shows that English transmits basically the same prominent types of features to all sectors of the general public in Taiwan, regardless of their English literacy or profi ciency.

Readers’ Attitudes towards the Development of Using English Mixing and Nativization of English in Advertising in Taiwan

On the general trend of using English mixing in advertising, as shown in Tables 9 and 10, whether English-literate or not, the overwhelming majority of participants take neutral or positive attitudes, with roughly parallel percentages in both studies. For those remaining neutral, using English in advertising is merely a way of marketing, whereas participants with positive attitudes regard English mixing as an international trend and believe that it helps to internationalize Taiwan’s market.

However, when it comes to negative attitudes, illiterate participants’ percentage is six times more than that of literate participants, suggesting that illiterate readers tend to be more antagonistic towards using English in advertising than literate readers. Such antagonism is especially echoed by the older generation, for example, ‘There is no way for me to understand English…’ and ‘By using English, advertisers discriminate against English-illiterate readers, such as the older generation’. Such feedback points out some illiterate participants’ frustration

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Table 8

Frequency of the Threshold Socio

-psychological Effects English has T

ransmitted in Advertising in T aiwan to English-illiterate R eaders eshold featur es F reque ncy P er ce ntage (%) Subs ets o f thr esho ld e ffects F reque ncy P er ce te

rnationalism and standar

dization 3 8 21.8 R eliabilit y and secur it y 27 Cer tifi cation 1 4 Standar ds of measur e 5 m er ican or Eng lish cultur e 3 5 20.1 W est er nization 27 M o der nization 2 0 V alues suc h as independenc e and fr eed om 1 Chr istianit y 1 u tur e and inno vation 30 17.2 A d vanc

ement and bett

er m ent 2 6 V

ision and for

esig ht edness 13 o mpet enc e 25 14.4 Qualit y 22 Safet y 10 F unctionalit y and pr ag matism 5 Effi

ciency and organization

3 2 4 13.8 T ast e 1 9 Eleganc e 1 5 St yle 12 Rar it y 4 y and objecti vit y 1 2 6.9 Scientifi c appeal 10 P roblem sol ving 5 ysical fi t ness 10 5.7 H ealth y life qualit y 12 Self-impr o ve ment 1 C o nnotation of ha ving a se xy bod y 0 otal 174 100 252 ce : A u thor’ s calculations.

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Journal of Creative Communications 3:2 (2008): 155–183

Glocalization and English Mixing in Advertising in Taiwan 179

Table 9

Percentage of English-literate Participants’ Attitudinal Choices Concerning the General Development of using English in Advertising in Taiwan

Attitudinal choices Frequency Percentage (%)

It’s an international trend and should be allowed to take its own course 257 32 49.3 It is a way to internationalize Taiwan’s advertising 139 17.3 It’s simply an advertising strategy; it is not a big deal 272 33.9 46.7

It doesn’t matter 103 12.8

It represents idolatry of foreign things; the use of English should be forbidden 9 1.1 1.1

Others 22 2.7 2.7

Total 802 100 100

Table 10

Percentage of English-illiterate Participants’ Attitudinal Choices Concerning the General Development of using English in Advertising in Taiwan

Attitudinal choices Frequency Percentage (%) Percentage (%) It’s an international trend and should be allowed to take

its own course 35 25.2 51.1

It’s a way to internationalize Taiwan’s marketing 25 18

Others 11 7.9

It doesn’t matter 27 19.4 42.4

It’s simply an advertising strategy; it is not a big deal 25 18

Others 7 5

It represents idolatry of foreign things; the use of English

should be forbidden 2 1.4 6.5

Others 7 5

Total 139 100 100

Source: Author’s calculations.

with their inability to understand English and their lack of access to advertisements mixed in English, in an era of globalization. As Bhatia rightly observes, English mixing in advertising refl ects advertisers’ underlying expectations that their readers ‘…be somewhat bilingual in English…in order to be a global citizen, some knowledge of English is a prerequisite’ (2006: 609). Despite these complaints, English mixing in advertising in Taiwan has become so popular that even the overwhelming majority of English-illiterate participants are positive or neutral about this development.

Concerning the development of nativized English usage in advertising in Taiwan, Table 11 shows that more than three-fourths of the subject responses regard such devices as demon-strating copywriters’ unique linguistic creativity for attention-getting and consequently, strict observance of standard English grammar should not be demanded.

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In sum, in spite of the majority of participants’ low English profi ciency and the prescriptive attitudes held by a small number of participants against nativized English patterns, English mixing in advertising in Taiwan is very popular and the processes of globalization and naztivization of English will continue and develop into the major components of advertising discourse in Taiwan.

CONCLUSION

As witnessed by the fi ndings of this study, English, as the unprecedented global marketing language, is overwhelmingly popular in Taiwan with even English-illiterate, monolingual Chinese speakers. This result contrasts sharply with the observation made by Gerritsen et al. that Dutch participants show a negative attitude towards the English used in TV commercials (2000: 17).

Consistent fi ndings obtained from copywriters’ advertising designs to consumers’ underlying psychology show that regardless of one’s English literacy or profi ciency, English conveys basic-ally the same socio-psychological effects to the general public in Taiwan: attention-getting, internationalism, premium quality, authenticity and the trendy taste of the younger generation. However, specifi c socio-psychological effects of English mixing correlate with different degrees of English mixing in advertising copy and advertised product type. In addition, the attractions of English are limited by cultural and linguistic constraints.

While English is homogenizing advertising discourse globally, it is also diversifying itself. As evidenced by the localized English patterns in Taiwan, analogical patterning such as ‘e-words’

Table 11

Percentage of Participants’ Attitudinal Choices towards the Trend of Development of Nativization of English Usage in Advertising in Taiwan

Attitudinal choices Percentage (%)

Such devices are merely copywriters’ creativity for the purpose of attention-getting;

readers do not need to be too demanding about grammar and standard English usage 62.5 76.6 Such devices demonstrate the unique characteristics of creativity in the nativization

of English usage 14.1

Such devices violate the standard English grammar and should not be promoted 8.6 16.3 The copywriters’ English profi ciency needs to be improved 7.7

Others 7.1 7.1

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Journal of Creative Communications 3:2 (2008): 155–183

Glocalization and English Mixing in Advertising in Taiwan 181 and verbatim translation of Chinese grammatical structure into English wording, characterize such devices owing to copywriters’ innovations and their limited ability in English.

In conclusion, via interviews with copywriters, this paper demonstrates why advertisers in Taiwan promote bilingualism based in English, including why English is the most favoured language for product naming and company naming in the non-English-speaking world (Bhatia 2006: 606). It answers the question posited by Martin (2002: 399) concerning how the proportion of English in code-mixed advertising copy may determine consumers’ attitudes towards code-mixing by presenting fi ndings from readers’ attitudinal surveys. It validates Bhatia and Ritchie’s observation of the unduplicated role of English in generating the socio-psychological functions and allocation of domains unique to English in global advertising (2006: 518). It also provides evidence of the glocalization process in which English is not only changing in itself but is also coexisting with other languages from which it derives its mixed character as a result of language contact (Bhatia and Ritchie 2006: 519).

Finally, it is suggested that more copywriters’ interviews and surveys of consumers’ attitudes towards English mixing in various parts of the world be conducted to arrive at a universal understanding concerning the underlying process of the impact of English on the creation of advertising copy, and whether the socio-psychological effects English is capable of conveying may vary with different language speakers in different cultures.

Jia-Ling Hsu is at Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, National Taiwan University, 1 Roosevelt Road, Sec. 4, Taipei, Taiwan. E-mail: jlhsu@ntu.edu.tw.

NOTES

1. A total of 71.3 per cent of these English-illiterate participants were more than 50 years old, and 74.5 per cent of them had received an education no higher than junior middle school. Occupationally, they include newspaper vendors, waitresses, labourers and bus and taxi drivers.

2. For more detailed methodology, refer to Hsu (2002).

3. Questionnaires were designed for Chinese-literate readers who could fi ll out the questionnaires by them-selves. Interviews were intended for Chinese-illiterate readers who could not read the questionnaires. The details of methodology are available in Hsu (2005).

4. As will be demonstrated in the following discussion, in the discourse analysis of 1,265 Chinese–English code-mixed advertisements (Hsu 2000), among the ten discourse domains in which products are advertised most frequently in English mixing, residential real estate business is the only one localized in nature while all the others are featured by imports, fashion or advanced technology. Therefore, real estate copywriters were particularly singled out for interviews to probe their motivation in using English mixing in a localized business.

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5. Logo is the position in the layout where Chinese and English product names are usually placed together. 6. SRC is an acronym for steel element composited with reinforced concrete to increase the strength of the

concrete.

7. All the copywriters interviewed maintain that simple vocabulary is used in advertisements due to the limita-tion of the general public’s command of English. If the English used is diffi cult or lengthy, consumers will fail to understand the meaning of the words and the message conveyed. This observation is confi rmed and cross-referred by Hsu (2002) in the survey of readers’ attitudes in the section under the sub-heading ‘English-literate Readers’.

8. Due to time and budget limitations, many copywriters in low-scale real estate advertising companies need to create the English mixing body copy and graphic design by themselves, without the assistance of competent English speakers to proofread their English wording.

9. For Chinese women, after they deliver babies, they need to take a rest for a whole month to recover from the loss of energy during pregnancy and delivery. Such care used to be provided by families. Nowadays, such care and services are available from commercialized nursing homes.

REFERENCES

Bhatia, T.K. (1992). Discourse Functions and Pragmatics of Mixing: Advertising across Cultures. World Englishes, 11(2): 195–215.

———. (2001). Language Mixing in Global Advertising. In E. Thumboo (ed.), The Three Circles of English, pp. 241–56. Singapore: Unipress.

———. (2006). World Englishes in Global Advertising. In B.B. Kachru, Y. Kachru and C. Nelson (eds), The Handbook of World Englishes, pp. 601–19. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.

Bhatia, T.K. and W.C. Ritchie (2006). Bilingualism in the Global Media and Advertising. In T.K. Bhatia and W.C. Ritchie (eds), The Handbook of Bilingualism, pp. 512–46. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing. Gerritsen, M., H. Korzilius, F. Van Meurs and I. Gijsbers. (2000). English in Dutch Commercials: Not

Under-stood and Not Appreciated. Journal of Advertising Research, 40(4): 17–31.

Hsu, J.L. (2000). English Mixing in Advertising in Taiwan: Its Discourse Domains, Linguistic Patterns, Cultural Constraints and Linguistic Creativity. Paper presented at the Seventh International Conference on World Englishes, Portland State University, 14–16 December.

———. (2002). English Mixing in Advertising in Taiwan: A Study of Readers’ Attitudes. Paper presented at the Thirteenth World Congress of Applied Linguistics, National University of Singapore, 16–21 December. ———. (2005). Readers’ Attitudes toward English Mixing in Advertising in Taiwan: Readers illiterate in

English. Paper presented at the Eleventh Annual Conference of the International Association for World Englishes, Purdue University, West Lafayette, 21–23 July.

———. (2006a). Nativization of English Usage in Advertising in Taiwan: A Study of Readers’ Attitudes. In R.F. Chung, H.C. Liou, J.L. Hsu and D.A. Ho (eds), On and Off Work: Festschrift in Honor of Professor Chin-Chuan Cheng on His 70th Birthday, pp. 181–214. Language and Linguistics Monograph Series Number W-7. Taipei: Institute of Linguistics, Academia Sinica.

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Hsu, J.L. (2006b). The Socio-psychological Effects of English Mixing in Advertising in Taiwan: Copywriters’ Interviews. Paper presented at the Twelfth Annual Conference of the International Association for World Englishes, Chukyo University, Nagoya, 7–9 October.

Kachru, B.B. (1985). Standards, Codifi cation, and Sociolinguistic Realism: The English Language in the Outer Circle. In R. Quirk and H.G. Widdowson (eds), English in the World: Teaching and Learning in Languages and Literatures, pp. 11–30. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

———. (1986). The Alchemy of English: The Spread, Function, and Models of Non-Native Englishes. Oxford: Pergamon Press.

Martin, E. (1998). Code-Mixing and Imaging of America in France: The Genre of Advertising. Ph.D. dis-sertation, Univrsity of Illinois, Urbana, IL.

———. (2002). Mixing English in French Advertising. World Englishes, 21(3): 375–401.

Piller, I. (2003). Advertising as a Site of Language Contact. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 23: 170–83. Takashi, Kyoko. (1990). A Sociolinguistic Analysis of English Borrowings in Japanese Advertising Texts. World

數據

Table 1 Frequency of Discourse Domains in which Products and  Services are Advertised most Frequently in English Mixing Product Domains Frequency Percentage (%) Clothing (fashion special, men’s, women’s and children’s wear, underwear, leather) 129 10.2 Com
Table 5  Percentage of Acceptability of Nativized English Patterns Surveyed patternsEntirelyacceptableAcceptableNeutralUnacceptableEntirelyunacceptable English-only phrases: ‘easy play’, ‘easy select’11.557.924.54.71.2 69.45.89 English-only sentences: ‘Giv
Table 6 Percentage of Acceptability of the Cline of Chinese–English Code-Mixed Advertising Patterns Surveyed patternsEntirelyacceptableAcceptableNeutralUnacceptableEntireunacceptable Chinese text code-mixed with English terminology31.156.87.84.30 87.94.3 C
Table 7 Frequency of the Threshold Socio-psychological Effects English has Transmitted in Advertising in Taiwan to English-literate Rea Threshold featuresFrequencyPercentage (%)Subsets ofthreshold effectsFrequencyPercentage (%) Internationalism and  standa
+2

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