UNIVERSITY OF EASTERN FINLAND
PHILOSOPHICAL FACULTY
SCHOOL OF HUMANITIES
English Language and Translation
Miikka Petteri Hakkarainen
THEY SELL IT HOW? A study on adjective use in English and Finnish Ford adverts
MA Thesis
May 2016
ITÄ-SUOMEN YLIOPISTO – UNIVERSITY OF EASTERN FINLAND
Tiedekunta – Faculty
Philosophical Faculty
Osasto – School
School of Humanities
Tekijät – Author
Miikka Petteri Hakkarainen
Työn nimi – Title
THEY SELL IT HOW? A study on adjective use in English and Finnish Ford adverts
Pääaine
–
Main
subject
English Language and
Translation
Työn laji – Level
Pro gradu -tutkielma
Sivuainetutkielma
Kandidaatin tutkielma
Aineopintojen tutkielma
X
Päivämäärä
Date
8.6.2016
–
Sivumäärä – Number
of pages
60 pages +
Appendices
Tiivistelmä – Abstract
This study examines the use of adjectives in English (UK) and Finnish Ford car adverts. The analysis is based on
Dixon’s (2012) proposal of semantic sets and the adjectives are classified into 12 different sets based on their
semantic function. The adjectives in each semantic sets are analysed and shown based on which grade they
appear in, i.e. basic form, comparative or superlative.
The adverts are considered localized digital products that are catered to the target culture’s linguistic and
cultural expectations, as proposed by Schäler (2005). The focus of the study is to look at what type of
adjectives are prevalent in the material. The 6 English and 6 Finnish adverts in the material are PDF brochures
represent Ford’s 2013 line-up of six of their mid-range affordable cars. All the adjectives found in the adverts
are included in the material, and the focus is not limited to e.g. just the first pages of the adverts that feature
most of the advertising images.
The theoretical background consists of advertising and market segmentation, localization and adjectives. Also,
Huotila’s (1996) study on adjective use in food advertisements is also examined as background for this study.
The analysis suggests that when looking at the adverts as a whole, most of the adjectives either appeal to a
consumer’s value in various ways or describe the physical or technical features of the cars. Additionally,
whereas more adjectives were expected to describe the speed of each car, there was barely any evidence of
this. Speed does appear in the material, but it is more often referred to with a noun instead of adjectives. The
findings of this study correspond to those of Huotila’s (1996) since similar value appealing adjectives were
common in her material as well.
Both the English and the Finnish adverts had the majority of their adjectives in basic form and comparative
and superlative forms were comparatively rare.
Avainsanat – Keywords
Adjectives, advertising, market segmentation, semantics, adjective grade, localization
ITÄ-SUOMEN YLIOPISTO – UNIVERSITY OF EASTERN FINLAND
Tiedekunta – Faculty
Filosofinen tiedekunta
Osasto – School
Humanistinen osasto
Tekijät – Author
Miikka Petteri Hakkarainen
Työn nimi – Title
THEY SELL IT HOW? A study on adjective use in English and Finnish Ford adverts
Pääaine
–
Main
subject
Englannin
kieli
ja
kääntäminen
Työn laji – Level
Pro gradu -tutkielma
Sivuainetutkielma
Kandidaatin tutkielma
Aineopintojen tutkielma
X
Päivämäärä
Date
08.6.2016
–
Sivumäärä
Number of pages
60 sivua + liitteet
–
Tiivistelmä – Abstract
Tutkielmassa tarkastellaan adjektiivien käyttöä englantilaissa ja suomalaisissa Fordin automainoksissa.
Adjektiivit luokitellaan Dixonin (2012) esittämien semanttisten luokkien mukaan, ja kaikki materiaalista
löydetyt adjektiivit luokitellaan 12 luokkaan semanttisen funktionsa mukaan. Kaikki kahdentoista mainoksen
adjektiivisesiintymät jaotellaan semanttisten luokkien lisäksi taivutusmuotojen mukaan perusmuotoon,
komparatiiviin ja superlatiiviin.
Mainosten katsotaan olevan lokalisoituja, digitaalisia tekstejä, jotka on mukautettu kohdekulttuurin
viestintänormien mukaisiksi Schälerin (2005) määritelmän mukaan. Suomalaisten mainosten käännöksiä ei
arvioida kvalitatiivisesti, vaan tutkimuksen fokus on tutkia adjektiivien käyttöä yleisellä tasolla riippumatta
vastaavatko ne englanninkielisten mainosten sisältöä. Sekä kuusi suomalaista että kuusi englantilaista
automainosta edustavat Fordin vuoden 2013 mallistoa, ja mainoksissa esiintyvät autot ovat ns.
keskihintaluokan autoja. Tutkimuksessa ei keskitytty esim. mainosten alkupäässä runsaammin esiintyneisiin
mainoskuviin ja niiden yhteydessä esiintyneisiin adjektiiveihin, vaan kaikki aineistosta löydetyt adjektiivit
analysoitiin osana materiaalia.
Teoriaosassa käsitellään mainontaa ja markkinasegmentointia, lokalisointia sekä adjektiiveja. Teoriaosassa
käsitellään myös Huotilan (1996) tutkimusta adjektiivien käytöstä ruokamainoksissa osana teoriataustaa.
Kun mainoksissa esiintyneitä adjektiiveja tarkasteltiin kokonaisuutena ilman että adjektiiviesiintymiä olisi
luokiteltu esim. tiettyjen osioiden mukaan, tulokset antavat ymmärtää että arvoihin vetoavat ja fyysisistä ja
teknisistä ominaisuuksista kertovat adjektiivit olivat yleisimpiä kautta aineiston niin englantilaisissa kuin
suomalaisissa mainoksissa. Vaikka autojen nopeudesta kerrottiinkin useissa mainoksissa, sitä ei yritetty esim.
kehua käyttäen adjektiiveja. Nopeuteen viittaavia adjektiiveja ei löytynyt juuri lainkaan tutkimuksessa
käytetystä aineistosta. Tulokset ovat siltä osin yhteneviä Huotilan (1996) tutkimuksen tulosten kanssa, että
erinäisiä arvoihin viittaavia adjektiiveja aineistosta löytyi paljon.
Perusmuoto oli yleisin sekä englantilaisissa että suomalaisissa mainoksissa käytetyissä adjektiiveissa, ja
komparatiivin ja superlatiivin käyttö oli verrattain harvinaisempaa.
Avainsanat – Keywords
Adjektiivit, mainonta, segmentointi, semantiikka, adjektiivien taivutusmuodot, lokalisointi
Contents
1. Introduction......................................................................................................................................... 1
2. Marketing and advertising .................................................................................................................. 3
2.1. Advertising in general................................................................................................................... 3
2.1.1. Values in advertising ............................................................................................................. 4
2.2. Marketing and segmentation ....................................................................................................... 5
2.2.1. Aims of market segmentation ............................................................................................... 6
2.2.2. Conventional methods of segmentation............................................................................... 7
2.2.3. Lifestyle segmentation .......................................................................................................... 9
2.2.4. Problems with segmentation .............................................................................................. 10
3. Localization ........................................................................................................................................ 11
3.1. Defining localization ................................................................................................................... 11
3.2. Localization industry................................................................................................................... 12
3.3. Localizing websites ..................................................................................................................... 13
4. Adjectives .......................................................................................................................................... 15
4.1. Adjectives in general .................................................................................................................. 15
4.1.1. Grammatical classification of adjectives ............................................................................. 16
4.1.2. Semantic function of adjectives .......................................................................................... 17
4.2. Adjectives in English ................................................................................................................... 18
4.2.1. Basic functions of English adjectives ................................................................................... 18
4.2.2. English adjectives vs English adverbs .................................................................................. 20
4.3. Adjectives in Finnish ................................................................................................................... 21
4.3.1. Finnish adjectives in general ............................................................................................... 21
4.3.2. Adjective classes in Finnish ................................................................................................. 22
4.4. Adjective use in food advertisements ........................................................................................ 23
4.4.1. The methods of the study ................................................................................................... 24
4.4.2. Results ................................................................................................................................. 25
5. Research material and methods ....................................................................................................... 28
5.1. The Ford online adverts.............................................................................................................. 28
5.1.1. Layout and structure ........................................................................................................... 29
5.1.2. Adjectives in the adverts ..................................................................................................... 31
5.2. Methods ..................................................................................................................................... 31
5.2.1. The process of the analysis ................................................................................................. 32
5.2.2. Classifying the semantic sets ............................................................................................... 32
6. Analysis .............................................................................................................................................. 36
6.1. Adjective use in the English Ford adverts .................................................................................. 36
6.1.1. The largest semantic sets in the English adverts................................................................. 38
6.1.2. Less frequent semantic sets in the English adverts............................................................. 40
6.1.3. Adjective grade in the English adverts ................................................................................ 43
6.2. Adjective use in the Finnish Ford adverts .................................................................................. 45
6.2.1. The largest semantic sets in the Finnish adverts ................................................................ 47
6.2.2. Less frequent semantic sets in the Finnish adverts ............................................................ 48
6.2.3. Adjective grade in the Finnish adverts ................................................................................ 49
7. Discussion of results .......................................................................................................................... 53
7.1. Summary of the results .............................................................................................................. 53
7.2. Interpretation of the results....................................................................................................... 54
8. Conclusion ......................................................................................................................................... 57
References ............................................................................................................................................. 59
Literature ........................................................................................................................................... 59
Online sources ................................................................................................................................... 60
Appendix 1. Fiesta advert page 5
Appendix 2. Fiesta advert page20
Appendix 3. Fiesta advert page 34
Appendix 4. Adjective lists of the Fiesta adverts
1. Introduction
This study examines adjective use in English (UK) and Finnish Ford adverts. The aim is to classify all
adjectives found in the adverts into 12 different semantic sets. The semantic sets that were used in
the analysis were proposed by Dixon (2012) and their classifications were expanded to better
describe the material in the current study. In addition, the adjectives are classified based on their
grade. Hence, all adjectives found in the adverts are divided based on if they e.g. denote value or
describe technical and physical properties, and if they appear in basic form, comparative or
superlative. The findings will hopefully be of relevance when localizing or translating adverts into
Finnish or English, since adjectives are arguably a common method of emphasising the good or
premium features of a product in adverts. This study examines one aspect of how the adjectives are
used in advertising.
Most of us become subject to advertising on a daily basis. Adverts can appear in various contexts,
e.g. in newspapers, online, TV and radio or bus stops. It is safe to say that most people have an
opinion on advertising, and all people might not view it as a positive phenomenon. However, Kinturi
and Uusitalo (2000) discovered that as much as 74% of the Finnish population in 1999 considered
advertising a positive phenomenon. Whichever opinion each person has on advertising, adverts are
designed mainly with one goal in mind, as suggested by Sedivy and Carlson (2011): to make money
for the company and persuade a consumer into making a purchase. Companies often try to cater
their products and their adverts to suit the desired target audience further by segmenting the market
into smaller, more manageable segments based on e.g. geographic and demographic information
(e.g. place of living, sex, profession or socioeconomic status) as suggested by Brassington and Pettitt
(2013).
The material that was analysed in this study consisted of 6 English and 6 Finnish Ford online adverts
for the 2013 models of Ford C-MAX, Ford Focus, Ford Ranger, Ford Fiesta, Ford Transit and Ford
Mondeo. The adverts are considered localized products designed with the European market in mind,
and the Finnish adverts are, at least mainly, translations which can already be seen on the second
page of both the Finnish and the English Ford Focus advert in ‘Fordin kineettisen muotokielen
ansiosta automme näyttävät nyt jännittävämmiltä kuin koskaan’ ‘Ford kinetic Design is the reason
why our vehicles look more exciting than ever before’, respectively (italics by the author). All
adjectives found in the 12 adverts were included in the material. The focus was of this study was not
to assess whether or not the Finnish adverts are faithful or accurate translations, and they are
instead viewed as digital products that have been linguistically and culturally adapted to suit the
target market’s needs as a type of stand-alone product, as proposed by Schäler (2005).
The results of this study are hopefully relevant to researchers and also practicing translators, since
they provide more information on the language of adverts. The initial hypothesis is that the largest
semantic sets in both the English and the Finnish adverts are Value, Physical property, Age and
Speed. The first two are expected to be the largest since the advertisers will likely try to appeal to the
consumer’s values and complement the technical prowess and durability of the cars. Huotila’s (1996)
indicated similar results about the use of value appealing adjectives in advertising. Speed should also
be a common semantic set, since many consumers would likely value acceleration and speed in a car.
I expect that the adverts will be full of phrases that praise the new model and this is why Age should
be a common semantic set as well. The working assumption is that most adjectives will be in the
basic form, but superlatives would also be very common. Most consumers want the best, so the
advertisers might try to use superlatives to bring focus on the excellence of each of the cars.
The structure of this study is as follows. Chapter 2 will focus on advertising and marketing, and will
provide background on e.g. the methods advertisers and companies use when deciding which type of
product to sell to each consumer segment. Chapter 3 focuses on localization as a phenomenon.
Chapter 4 covers the theory on adjectives in English and Finnish, and it will also summarize the
findings of Huotila (1996), when she studied adjective use in food adverts. Chapter 5 examines the
adverts themselves and discussed their layout and nature. Additionally, chapter 5 will also discuss
the methods that were employed in analysing the material. Chapter 6 presents the results found in
the analyses. Chapter 7 will interpret the results and provide a discussion about the possible meaning
and scope of the findings. Chapter 7 will summarize the results. Finally, chapter 8 will conclude the
study.
2
2. Marketing and advertising
This chapter will cover features associated with advertising and marketing. Advertising is arguably an
activity and industry driven by a company’s marketing objectives. Hence, marketing covers additional
strategic activities in addition to advertising, so it is worth making a distinction between the two.
2.1. Advertising in general
Myers (1994: 5) has taken a linguistic approach to advertising language, saying:
If advertising is not a particular, predictable kind of language, if there is no discourse it
cannot incorporate, what makes it so distinctive?...we need to ask what the ads are doing.
That’s easy, you say, they’re selling something---their effect may be quite different from
that intended. They may entertain or annoy us, without causing us to buy anything--Some ads do not do this, but they gain their effectiveness by playing of our expectations.
Myers argues that adverts often try to construct positions for the ‘helpless’ audience. One of the
more effective ways of doing this is often taking advantage of the second person pronoun ‘you’. One
example of this is. He states that the idea is not to highlight the virtues of the product but to offer
new possible positions to the consumer. Consequently, such adverts make sense in a system where
consumerism leads people to define themselves through the things they buy. According to Myers
(1994), advertising sometimes replaces real human relations with relationships based on things.
Most of us are likely to have our various opinions on adverts and advertising, so this section
examines this phenomenon in more detail.
The most basic function of adverts is to sell. It is safe to say corporations would not include
advertising in their marketing strategies if it did not serve this purpose. According to Sedivy and
Carlson (2011), the advertising budgets of the largest multinational companies, such as Johnson &
Johnson or General Motors, go up to, or over, two billion dollars per year. Many people also consider
adverts to be, to a certain degree, unpleasant, since they often persuade us into buying things we
may not necessarily need. However, these same adverts turn out to be products by skilled
professionals, and their purpose is, among other things, to make the product or service survive
against its competitors. Adverts are also, for the most part, entertaining. Also, according to Kinturi
and Uusitalo (2000), in 1999 74% of the Finnish people considered advertising to be a positive
phenomenon.
Sedivy and Carlson (2011: 138) mention a Ford advert as an example of how an advert can take
information out of context and portray it in an unjustifiably positive light. In the advert, Ford
3
mentioned its new car to be 700% quieter. This assertion on its own sounds incredible, yet the advert
failed completely to mention: quieter than what? Quieter than the previous year’s model or quieter
than the competition? Eventually Ford had to clear this statement and it turned out that the noise
levels are 700% more quiet inside the car than outside of it. The current study does not focus on
defining whether or not the Ford adverts of today are honest about their marketing or not. However,
no company wants to mention negative features about their products and services even today, so a
consumer can benefit from a touch of criticism.
2.1.1. Values in advertising
Sedivy and Carlson (2011) claim that documentaries are by default informative and sometimes even
entertaining, but that they would not seek to persuade the viewer. They argue this is characteristic of
adverts. I have seen many documentaries where the creators were arguably pushing an agenda on
the viewer too, but by default Sedivy and Carlson do have valid point: the aim of creating the adverts
is to make money. They suggest that advertising is a communicative situation where the goals of the
speaker and hearer are out of sync. It is unlikely that a consumer feels a strong desire to buy a
relatively expensive dishwasher if they have already found a more affordable one. Hence, the
advertiser cannot settle for simply affecting the consumer’s actions, but also make an impact on their
choice and the internal state that leads to the action. The desired action is to buy this expensive
dishwasher.
According to Sedivy and Carlson, in the first half of the 20th century, advertising was mostly about
facts and appealing to the intellect. Today, most consumers can undoubtedly think of several radio,
TV or written adverts that shock, surprise or appeal to values yet not with facts. Sedivy and Carlson
mention perfumes as a product requiring less facts but more values. Trying to sell a premium
perfume with a tagline “Now, with 33% less alcohol!” would, according to them, not go a long way.
This is arguably a generalisation and there are no doubt products and services that would not benefit
from purely relying on values in their adverts. The analysis of the Ford adverts suggests that whereas
values were prevalent in the material, the adverts also contained detailed information about the
cars. This included e.g. engine types, available equipment for different models and how much weight
each vehicle can tow. Section 5.1 will discuss the adverts in more detail, but it is safe to say that the
adverts both appeal to values, and feature a large amount of detailed information about the cars.
Sedivy and Carlson (2011) state that companies employ different marketing strategies for premium
products compared to standard, more affordable products. They further claim that the more
4
expensive the product sold is, the more it is sold by the way it makes the consumer feel instead of
emphasizing the properties and function of the product. The same would undoubtedly apply to
‘unnecessary’ premium services like tanning beds or, say, laser hair removal. Companies would no
doubt emphasize the gorgeous tan and smooth body you gain with such services instead of
describing which light spectrum is used in the tanning bed. According to Sedivy and Carlson, this is
one strategy a company can use for gaining an economic advantage, since the product itself remains
the same. Sedivy and Carlson describe this as increasing the perceived value, when the physical
properties of the service or product do not necessarily differ drastically compared to competitors.
Advertisers use various means for influencing us both subtly and overtly, yet these subtle ways might
be more common nowadays. As discussed above, the advertiser seeks to influence our inner state
and subsequently seeks to make us feel as if we arrived to the conclusion of buying a product or
service on our own. For instance, an ad may include ‘truthiness’ which, according to Sedivy and
Carlson, can create a sense of credibility for the ad. A commercial for a cough medicine can feature
an actor who most people know from some series as a respected doctor, or in case of car adverts,
the manufacturer can list how many stars the car got in the Euro NCAP safety test. According to this
practise, adverts often list studies as references to back up the advertised products or service employ
truthiness.
Sedivy and Carlson (2011) also mention how ads can take advantage of presuppositions. By doing this
the ad may gain more credibility since the consumer is given the idea that the ‘facts’ listed in the ad
are things that most people (supposedly) agree on. Sedivy and Carlson argue that presuppositions
are used by advertisers to dress information as something unchallenged that is ‘already known’, or at
least that is the intended effect of using presuppositions. According to them (Sedivy and Carlson,
2011: 120), some data has suggested that people would be more prone to agreeing with information
they feel most people agree with already.
2.2. Marketing and segmentation
This chapter discusses what it is that companies do to segment the markets and why. According to
Rope (1986), the intention of segmentation is to utilize a company’s resources to their full potential
by focusing on the most prospective and lucrative markets, determine their needs and realize the
company’s business plan according to these customer needs. The possible segmentation strategies
that Ford might have had in designing the online adverts are discussed throughout this study.
5
However, each of the 12 adverts have no doubt been designed with a specific audience in mind, and
possible localization decisions are likely tied to the marketing strategy behind the advert and the car.
2.2.1. Aims of market segmentation
Rope (1986) argues that there is a need for market segmentations since a heterogeneous market as a
whole is rarely the best approach to marketing. Instead, a company should focus on narrowing down
smaller, stable and relatively homogeneous groups that are more favourable to some marketing
methods. By doing this a company can manage to do business with more profit compared to trying to
achieve all potential customers. This ties to localization since the need to localize a website to the
needs of a target market are tied to what different markets expect and are used to.
Wind (1978, as quoted in Brassington & Pettitt, 2013) considers segmentation a sensible option since
focusing on few customer segments is more effective than trying to please all. He states that when a
company breaks the market down into more manageable, smaller parts with similar characteristics, it
is easier to concentrate on serving those segments well instead of hoping to offer something to
everyone.
Segmentation includes a lot more than just the features visible to the consumer, such as advertising.
Brassington and Pettitt (2013: 129) provide the following definition for segmentation:
Potential customers must, therefore, be defined in terms of what they want, or will
accept, in terms of price, what kind of distribution will be most convenient for them and
through what communication channels they can best be reached, as well as what they
want from the product itself.
Marketing includes strategic decisions that include the choice of suppliers, forums for advertising
(online, television, newspapers, metro stations etc.) and even choices in product or service qualities.
This is due to the fact that a company should prepare the service offering to cater for a certain
clientele instead of developing the offering in isolation without a customer focus. This happens when
a product or service is developed without doing enough market research on what people in different
age groups, countries, socioeconomical situations etc. actually look for in a product or service. Rope
(1986) describes marketing as an activity with a focus on the needs of the potential customers. Based
on these expected needs the company forms a customer focused business plan to provide products
expected to be desired by a particular clientele. These products are then brought to the consumers’
awareness using various forms of communication with the intent of making as large a profit as
possible.
6
Based on the above definitions proposed for market segmentation and marketing by Rope (1986)
and Brassington and Pettitt (2013), market segmentation is an act of planning how to dissect the
market into segments that might be most keen on paying for the company’s offering. Marketing in
itself is arguably the strategic planning of what to provide, to whom, for which price, seasonal
offering or throughout the year, where to sell it and so forth, but a company can, unfortunately, plan
marketing without segmentation. Hence, segmentation, in my view, should be an important part of
marketing, but this is not to say a company cannot market without segmentation. In the current
study segmentation will not be a part of the analysis, but the different cars chosen for the material
are clearly marketed to different customer segments. E.g. the adverts of Ford Transit and Ford
Ranger speak of how much cargo the consumer can transport with the cars, and the smallest car in
the adverts, Ford Fiesta, is marketed as a family car only once in both the Finnish and the English
adverts “Turvallisin paikka lapselle”“The safest place for children” (33 in Finnish Fiesta advert, 34 in
English Fiesta advert).
2.2.2. Conventional methods of segmentation
Companies can segment markets based on various criteria. According to Brassington and Pettitt
(2013), companies have readily usable information for segmentation in their CRM databases
(Customer Resource Management), if such systems are used. CRM databases usually include
customer service history, their dates of birth, names and addresses. In essence, if a company has the
expertise to analyse this information, they already have access to demographic and geographic
information on their existing, and sometimes past, customers. Information gathering, or existing
databases, can also be purchased from companies that gather relevant date to be further sold to
other companies.
According to Brassington and Pettitt (2013), it is common to start by segmenting a potential market
within reach of the company, which is a type of geographic segmentation: selling to consumers in
your immediate vicinity. The factors to take into account are, among others, available resources,
personnel and the logistic network used for providing the services or products. Cahill (2006)
complements geographic segmentation on the basis that it is simple to understand, perform and
implement. Therefore, geographic segmentation is arguably one of the first steps companies should
do when segmenting. In the case of online stores this is reflected in language options: how many
localized versions the store wishes to provide to different geographic regions. English is arguably
enough for most stores, yet translating (and preferably localizing) the webpage and opening a
regional logistics centre is a marketing choice. Whereas geographic segmentation is no doubt a good
7
starting point, Cahill (2006) does criticize it by arguing that it is not a customer driven form of
segmentation. By definition, it does not yet include segmentation criteria for age, language, sex,
interests etc. Hence, companies should not leave segmentation just to geographics, and instead carry
on to demographics as well.
According to Brassington and Pettitt (2013: 136), successful market segmentation has to include
demographic segmentation as well. Demographic features of interest can include e.g. age, sex, race,
income, occupation, socioeconomic status and family structure. Demographic features are largely
measurable and descriptive, and they can be implemented into the marketing strategy with relative
ease. As discussed earlier in this section, this type of information can already by easily accessible in
the existing CRM systems. This is very useful to a larger company who already has a large number of
existing customers and they wish to segment them further. Cahill (2006) feels demographic
segmentation has the potential for reaching the desired target audiences at relatively low cost and
without much difficulty, and this applies to age groups in particular. For instance, adverts showing
toys are directed at the children themselves, who in turn likely influence their parents to actually
purchase the products.
Cahill (2006) does, however, warn about the chance of over segmenting in regards to demographics.
In his view, segmenting is not about discovering how different groups differ from each other, but
finding as many common features from as large a segment as possible. This allows marketers to
cluster people into one or more groups that might be more, or most, susceptible to buying the
product or service. He continues that e.g. segmenting women into as many groups as
“Twentysomethings”, “Thirtysomethings”, Mature Market, Hispanic women, affluent women,
mothers or singles is over segmenting (Cahill, 2006: 11). Instead, this type of segmenting would
include the risk of overlooking common features between these niche segments. Even though
segmentation is essentially dissecting the whole market into smaller segments, companies should
avoid dissecting it into several unnecessarily small separate segments even when the product could
be advertised exactly the same way to e.g. ‘Thirtysomethings’, singles and affluent women.
According to Brassington and Pettitt (2013), the logical extension of demographic and geographic
segmentation is to simply combine the two, making this approach geodemographic segmentation.
Again, the company must try to avoid over segmentation as suggested by Cahill (2006). Hence,
geodemographic segmentation is about finding the demographic information of people living in a
certain area. Sleight (1997, in Brassington & Pettitt, 2013) defines this method ‘the analysis of people
and where they live. This method allows a company to make regional models of what type of
8
demographics are found in given areas. This could, for instance, impact the decisions of where to
open a shop outlet or regional distribution centre.
2.2.3. Lifestyle segmentation
The segmentation methods covered so far have use features about consumers that are measured
and obtained with relative ease. For instance, the zip code of one’s residence and their age are
absolutes and easily applied to marketing. However, companies move away from the comfort of
convenience and analyse, or assume, information about consumers based on abstract ideas and
opinions as well. This is where psychographic, or lifestyle, segmentation comes in. According to
Cahill (2006), psychographics is rarely used in isolation and some demographic information is used to
supplement and support the hypothesis of the desired segment’s lifestyle, which is of course used to
cater a market offering to the desires of the sought out segment.
According to Brassington and Pettitt (2013), psychographics look at e.g. a consumer’s beliefs,
attitudes and opinions. They state that this approach to segmenting was developed since the
previous marketing methods alone were not considered enough to grasp the true wants of the
consumers. Companies could supply the needs, of course, but until a person’s attitudes were used in
segmentation, selling extra value was difficult. For instance, if two digital cameras are next to each
other with the same manufacturer’s lenses, yet there is a price difference due to some additional
features like Wifi and GPS, some consumers might not see added value by such features in a camera.
Psychographic segmentation can help the marketing staff to sell such cameras directly to a segment
that does benefit from such properties.
Plummer (1974, as quoted in Brassington & Pettitt, 2013: 140) was one of the first to explore
psychographic segmentation and he broke it down to four categories of activities, interest, opinions
and demographics. Activities, to put simply, would include all the activities the consumer does during
their life. Shopping, work, social life, hobbies etc. is of interest to the marketer so they know what to
provide. Interest can overlap in regards to work, but mostly this is about the person’s priorities.
These priorities included e.g. family, home, community involvement, fashion or media. With opinions
Plummer refers to the consumer’s inner feelings and attitudes about themselves, social/cultural
issues and politics. Plummer includes also education, economy and business here. He states that
opinions are closer to the marketer since these features might indicate how the wants and needs
might change in the future as well. Demographics is included as well.
9
2.2.4. Problems with segmentation
In spite of the available options for using existing CRM information or doing new research, many
companies neglect market research and segmentation. Rope (1986) uses a Swedish made Itera
bicycle developed by Volvo designers in the 1970s as an example of this. Volvo’s idea was that the
market was ready for a plastic bike that would be marketed to both sexes with an identical model.
They conducted a market survey before beginning development, and through this research they
estimated 115,000 Swedish people to buy the bike. This did not include the international sales, which
were expected to be even higher. Eventually, when the first bikes were introduced into the market in
1982, both the consumers and the press considered the product a failure. It was deemed to be ugly,
heavily built, weakly designed and far from effortless to drive. Rope goes on listing errors made in
the marketing that include, for instance, the failure to recognize the potential market and lack of
expertize in international marketing. Rope notes that bicycle market has separate models for men,
children, women and purpose-built bikes for e.g. trekking. Volvo expected to sell a single model for
all markets and failed.
Brassington and Pettitt (2013) use an instant hot chocolate drink as an example of how the adverts
themselves would need to differ between French and UK markets. Whereas most English people
have kettles for quickly boiling water required for the drink, French may not. Hence, if the product
would be marketed in both countries, speed, convenience and versatility would not be the best catch
phrases on the French market. The latter market might require, at best, a different marketing
strategy, or, at worst, a completely different product. At such point the company must also explore if
they have the know-how for launching a product meeting the expectations of the market in question.
Market segmentation is not without its uncertainties, but according to Cahill (2006) the overall
consensus in the scientific community is that it has its benefits. It is ultimately up to the company and
the marketing team to find the desired segment, cater well to its needs and avoid over segmenting.
For example, all the Ford adverts examined in this study feature different types of visual
enhancements to the cars that range from different sized alloy wheels to leather-trimmed seats and
stainless steel scuff plates. In my view, this means that Ford has not taken out style options out of
any of their cars, and each consumer has the option to make their car just as standard or fancy as
they see fit; the choice of car does not limit aesthetic options.
10
3. Localization
This chapter focuses on localization industry and its characteristics. Whereas the PDF adverts are not
web pages per say, Ford publishes their new car adverts annually on their localized home pages. This
study focused on the adverts found on the UK and Finnish home pages. As was stated in the
introduction, the adverts are viewed as localized products and not just as traditional translations
such as e.g. a pharmaceutical product description, a user manual or a novel.
3.1. Defining localization
According to Schäler (2005: 2) different groups and organizations do not always agree on a specific
definition for localization. However, he feels that the overall consensus about localization is that it is
the “linguistic and cultural adaptation of products to the requirements of foreign markets”. He
continues that the definitions being used do not mention the translation of digital material in
particular. This should arguably be at the core of localization, whether the material being localized is
a video advert, text or software. On the other hand, Maroto and de Bortoli (2001: 4) argue that
localization specifically means adapting technical media products into a form that is linguistically,
functionally and culturally acceptable in countries outside of their original market.
Schäler (2005) defines internationalization, localization and globalization as separate industry
phenomena. Internationalization is the process of designing or modifying digital content and services
and to identify the linguistically and culturally dependent parts of applications. The knowledge
gathered is used to develop a system that allows linguistic and cultural adaptation of applications
across languages and cultures. Pym (2009) defines internationalization as the process of creating the
original sites localization-friendly from the start. This means using as few culture-specific elements in
the original site’s creation, and this helps future localization teams in creating the market specific
websites.
Localization is the linguistic and cultural adaptation of digital products and services to the
requirements of the foreign market area and the management of multilinguality across the global,
digital information flow. Pym (2009) defines localization as a market segmentation method in which
the product or service is adapted to suit a particular locale. The criteria for defining the segment can
include e.g. language, currency and income level.
Globalization is a business strategy addressing the issues associated with marketing a product or
service in the global market. Globalization includes world-wide sales, marketing and support.
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According to Schäler (2005), industry experts consider it important to produce a localized product or
service that is consumed by the target market without awareness about its true origin. I.e. the
localized website or advert should feel local to the consumer. Based on this information he extends
his definition of localization, and states that ‘localisation is the linguistic and cultural adaptation with
the aim to produce digital products and services for which the country of origin can no longer be
traced’ (Schäler, 2005: 3). This definition was considered suitable for the Ford online adverts, and
whenever localization is discussed in this paper, it will refer to this type of professional activity.
3.2. Localization industry
Schäler (2010) proposes that the localization industry offers “the provision of services and
technologies for the management of multilingualism across the digital global information flow”. He
lists videogames, websites and user assistance as examples for the types of media to be localized,
when needed. Maroto and de Bortoli (2001) consider the localization of websites challenging in
terms of technical, linguistic and cultural features, since a website is interactive and highly technical.
They also add that companies are often judged by their websites since many consumers rely on the
web pages when wanting to interact with the company. Maroto and de Bortoli also state that
whether a company is expanding overseas for the first time or is already international, wellcoordinated localization should be an integral part of the marketing campaign in order to achieve
success.
Schäler (2010) praises translators working in localizing to be among the most innovative in the field,
and credits them for first employing computer assisted translation tools in their assignments in the
early 1990s. These included electronic terminology databases and translation memories. Localization
industry was ideal for trying out these software due to the highly computerized work environment
and the possibly repetitive assignments of translating large volumes of online content. If Ford intends
to launch a new Transit in, for example, 57 countries within a tight frame, this would require a largescale localization project to ensure all national Ford websites are up-to-date with retailer contact
information, well produced adverts and all in all appealing webpages tailored to the liking of all
relevant target markets.
Maroto and de Bortoli (2001) also state that translators working in localizing should possess the
necessary skills in addition to their translation training. If a person or team is translating a technical
manual, they must know how to translate e.g. commands and descriptions and have a firm
understanding of the industry’s terminology. If a person or a team must translate a marketing text, it
12
is important to dissect the meaning of the original and translate or adapt it to the target market in a
way that considers the target audience, their culture, their linguistic background etc.
According to Pym (2009), governmental websites are often translated in-house, since the process is
regulated by law and policy. In addition, security issues are taken into consideration when choosing
either an in-house team or outsourcing. The translation of such sites tends to follow the norms of
printed media and the features that usually guide localization are overlooked. To compare, the Ford
adverts examined in this study are available online, and no doubt the adverts follow a very similar
structure in most market areas, but ultimately they are non-interactive PDF brochures. For example,
the translators, or localizers, would not need to worry about tool bars or ease of navigation across
the web page.
In addition, Pym (2009) mentions crowd sourcing as a phenomenon in which non-professional
translators perform smaller, more isolated translation tasks usually without any commission.
Facebook is one example of this type of activity where users rate each other’s translations and the
site operates in over sixty languages. Several websites also distribute ‘fan translations’ for videogames, cartoons and films. Such translations have become wide-spread due to the extent of machine
translations. According to Pym, this does enable a small community to ‘speak’ globally, but such
translations do violate most copyright agreements and codes of ethics in regards to the faithfulness
to the ST.
3.3. Localizing websites
As mentioned in 3.2, the Ford adverts analysed in this study are not considered websites. Hence, this
section will provide only a brief overview on website localization. According to Tong and Hayward
(2001, as quoted in Maroto & de Bortoli, 2001: 3), consumers see those companies in a positive light
that make the effort of providing a website in the local language, and this makes the consumers trust
the company more. Schäler (2005), however, claims that sometimes adapting content can also create
a false sense of security, which lowers the consumer’s criticism about the content. Neither party
takes into account that international online shopping is nowadays commonplace, but if a company
seeks to expand abroad, and establish e.g. distribution centres, localizing their websites will become
a necessity. Regardless, Maroto and de Bortoli point out that since a large number of people without
adequate English skills use the Internet regularly, it is necessary to localize the websites into the local
language if the company intends to do business abroad.
13
According to Pym (2009), some websites lack the necessary segmentation and they can be all too
often be designed for ‘everyone’, which can lead to a situation in which the site serves no one.
According to Limon (2008, as quoted in Pym, 2009: 11), translators into a major language e.g. English
do not necessarily know enough about the desired website users so they must assume the site is for
‘everyone who knows English’ Pym states that thankfully many websites do fall to a specific genre
e.g. company promotion, games for kids, lifestyle or social networking. In addition, companies can
further segment their websites based on who visits the site, although simply from the IP address the
company cannot decipher more than the visitor’s country. Additional useful information can include
where the consumers browse on the company’s site and for how long, and which websites they visit
next. Based on such information the localized websites often tend to be re-translated later. This way,
the contents can be re-adapted based on who actually visits the site and how often.
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4. Adjectives
The main focus in this study is to examine how adjectives are used in the English and the Finnish Ford
online adverts. This chapter will provide an overview of the grammatical theory and discussion
behind English and Finnish adjective use. Firstly, this chapter will cover adjective theory in general,
and then theory and research specifically on English and Finnish adjectives.
4.1. Adjectives in general
According to Dixon (2012b), grammatical theory did not always clearly distinguish adjectives from
e.g. nouns and verbs. However, over the past thirty years and after more thorough research, he and
many other researchers agree that as long as “all relevant facts are taken into account an adjective
class can be (and should be) recognized for every language” (Dixon, 2012b: 62). Dixon (2004) argues
that all languages have an adjective class, even if it is significantly smaller than the noun or verb class
in that language. He feels adjectives are not always so easily distinguishable from other word classes
depending on the language in question, so he feels that making generalizations about the adjective
class is difficult.
According to Dixon (2012b), linguistics as a field has mainly centred on analysing European languages
and as a result, the criteria for classifying adjectives have mainly been driven by western standards:
adjectives function as a modifier of a noun in an NP, act as a copula complement and have more
morphological similarities with noun than with verbs. Copula is term used for a word or element that
connects a subject and a predicative. In English it is often verb to be.
According to Dixon (2012b), languages can have a large and open class of adjectives or a small closed
one. In the case of a large class, new items can be added to the class from within the language by
derivations or by borrowing from other languages. Usually, such a language has hundreds of
adjectives. If a language has a closed adjective group, no new members can be added to the class,
and the number of adjectives in such a language is usually very small. Dixon states that these
languages usually have only a few dozen confirmed adjectives, but in some cases less than ten, e.g. a
language called Yimas from the Lower Sepik family in New Guinea. This language has just three
adjectives for ‘big’ (kpa), ‘good’ (yua) and ‘other’ (ma) (Foley, 1991: 93 as quoted in Dixon, 2012: 63).
15
4.1.1. Grammatical classification of adjectives
Dixon (2004: 44) proposes that in order to classify an adjective class in a language the word class has
to fulfil the following requirements:
–
the word class is grammatically distinct from nouns and verbs,
–
the semantic function of the word class has to denote some of the prototypical semantic
types associated with adjectives (covered later in ‘Semantic function of adjectives’) e.g.
colour, age, dimension and
–
the word class has to be able to function as intransitive predicates or copula complements
and/or modify an NP.
Dixon (2012b) says that adjectives can roughly be divided into four different grammatical categories
based on whether they have similar properties with 1) verbs or 2) nouns, 3) whether the adjectives
combine some of the grammatical features of nouns and verbs or 4) whether they clearly differ from
both nouns and verbs.
Some languages can share features with nouns e.g. Finnish, Spanish, Latin or Hungarian. Typically,
both noun and adjective may be restricted to appear in a noun phrase (NP). In such a case these
classes cannot be used in a predicate. The NP may consist of a noun, an adjective or both. The
adjectives can inflect according to e.g. gender and number.
Some languages have adjectives that have different features compared to both verbs and nouns in
that language. Such languages include English and Mam and Teribe from Central America. An
adjective cannot be the sole component in an NP and it cannot function as intransitive predicate. In
this group of languages adjectives usually have grammatical properties peculiar to that word class
alone.
Huddleston and Pullum (2005: 114) note how cold can function both as an adjective denoting low
temperature and as a noun denoting a minor illness. This phenomenon is called homonymia. When
coming across such words, it is the grammatical features that will tell whether or not the word is
functioning as a noun or adjective, for instance by whether the word accepts comparative and
superlative inflections (an adjective) or plural (noun). Another example could be fly. Whereas it is a
common verb referring literally to taking off in flight or more colloquially to hurrying (We have to fly
if we’re to make it there), it can be a spoken language adjective meaning ‘cool’ in some social groups
(You’re so fly with those new shades).
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4.1.2. Semantic function of adjectives
The focus of this study is on the semantic use of adjectives in the Ford adverts. Dixon (2012b: 73)
classifies three different semantic sets which relate to small, medium or large adjective classes.
According to Dixon (2012a: 53), small and closed adjective classes in languages mainly have only the
first four semantic types, and “slightly larger” adjective classes can also feature such semantic types
as human propensity. In the proposal for twelve semantic types he also refers to “medium adjective
class” but he does not explicitly state what he means by this. He claims that the major adjective
semantic types are dimension, age, colour, value, physical property and human propensity. Givon
(1970: 816, as quoted in Dixon, 2012b: 63) further explains that the large adjective classes are open,
and new adjectives can be by deriving them from existing adjectives or as loans from other
languages.
The adjective classes and their sizes were not considered relevant to this study and the Ford adverts,
but Dixon’s (2012b: 73) proposal for semantic sets was chosen as the framework for classifying the
adjectives found in the adverts. The proposed sets covered most adjectives found in the material
well, so the semantic sets are listed here as proposed by Dixon. He lists them as sets A, B and C:
Set A features four semantic types usually associated with both large and small adjective classes:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Dimension – deep, vast, tall etc.
Age – Ancient, old, young etc.
Value – Excellent, horrible, good (also e.g. crucial, curious, lucky)
Colour – lime, orange, black etc.
Set B includes types that are usually associated with medium and large adjective classes:
5.
6.
7.
Physical property – strong, resilient, transparent etc.
Human propensity – generous, loving, cruel etc.
Speed – fast, slow, quick etc.
Set C includes semantic types usually seen in large adjective classes in some languages:
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
Difficulty – impossible, easy, hard etc.
Similarity – identical, different, unlike etc.
Qualification – likely, wrong, true etc.
Quantification – several, only, many etc.
Position – eastern, low, near etc.
Section 5.2 will discuss the methods used in the analysis, and it will also present the specifics what
type of adjectives each semantic set was seen to cover in this study. Dixon’s (2012b) model was seen
17
as a good framework for the analysis, yet 5.2 will cover how the model was expanded and adapted to
cover the adjectives found in the Ford adverts.
4.2. Adjectives in English
This section provides a brief overview into English adjectives and their grammar. It will also cover
how adjectives differ from adverbials. The analysis focuses purely on the adjectives used in the
adverts, so it is worthwhile to discuss some differences these word classes have.
4.2.1. Basic functions of English adjectives
According to Huddleston and Pullum (2005: 112), the prototypical English adjectives e.g. good, tall
and brave have three properties in the English language. They function as attributive adjectives or
predicative complements (Function), they are gradable (Grade) and they can be modified by adverbs
(Modification). In this study the analysis focused on the semantic sets and grade. In addition, possible
participial constructions, which can sometimes be classified as adjectives instead of verbs, were not
included in the analysis in this study.
A) Function
For example, in English the attributive function is formed in a following way:
(1) What happened next, was a big surprise.
The NP in bold consists of the noun surprise and the adjective big is the attributive modifier.
According to Baker (2003), adjectives are most easily distinguishable when they are directly
modifying adjectives: this is called the attributive construction.
The predicative function in English involves ‘to be’, as discussed prior in ‘Adjectives in general’. For
example:
(2) The financial trouble we are in is irreversible, so the team feels this is the end.
Here‘irreversible is a predicative complement to financial trouble. Dixon (2004) states that in most
languages, including in English, adjectives have two canonical functions:
–
in a statement signalling property, and the adjective is functioning either as intransitive
predicate or as copula complement and
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–
to place emphasis and focus on the referent of the head noun in an NP, where the adjective
functions as modifier to the head.
B) Grade
In English, adjective grade is expressed in two ways. For some adjective the grammatically correct
way is to add the comparative suffix –er or the superlative suffix –est. The other method is to form
the comparative construction with more and the superlative construction with most, which are
placed before the adjective.
PLAIN
COMPARATIVE
SUPERLATIVE
1) It was wise.
They were wiser.
She was the wisest of them all.
2) That was not helpful.
He is more helpful.
They were most helpful.
There are also plenty of non-gradable adjectives. According to Huddleston and Pullum (2005), this is
exemplified in an alphabetical list. They claim that the property of being alphabetical is absolute – a
list is either alphabetical or it is not. Comparative or superlative forms might be grammatically
correct e.g. the most alphabetical list ever made, yet it would likely be uncommon to state something
like that. Some adjectives are always non-gradable and some can be used either way. According to
Huddleston and Pullum, examples of always non-gradable adjectives include e.g. left, tenth, pubic,
medical. Table 1 illustrates some adjectives that can be used either way, and their context
determines if the adjectives are gradable or non-gradable:
Table 1. Adjectives with both gradable and non-gradable use
1.
2.
3.
a)
a)
a)
NON-GRADABLE USE
the public response
the British government
The gates are now open.
b)
b)
b)
GRADABLE USE
a devastatingly public outburst
a very British car
You should be more open with your wife.
C) Modification
English adjectives are most commonly modified by adverbs. This is seen in the following examples:
(3) absurdly large
surprisingly young
unnecessarily wilful
In this study adjectives are highlighted with italics, and if an example shows several adjectives but the
focus is narrowed to certain types of adjectives, such adjectives would be both in italics and
19
underlined. Baker (2003) point out the less obvious instances how adjectives themselves modify
other words. These include deriving an adjective into another adjective (wildish boy, yellowish
flower), by forming a compound word with a noun (blackbird, blacklisted) or they can be embedded
into a relative clause (a man who is rich, a tale that was too long).
4.2.2. English adjectives vs English adverbs
Huddleston and Pullum (2005) state that adverbs can be graded and modified similar to adjectives,
but they differ in function. The most common suffix an adverb can have is undoubtedly –ly as in
quickly, loudly or rapidly. However, adjectives and adverbs can both be graded by using more and
most. Compare more beautiful and more quickly.
A basic functional difference between adjectives and adverbs is that adjectives modify nouns and
adverbs modify other word categories. In addition, adverbs cannot usually function as a predicative
complement. This is shown in Table 2 (Huddleston & Pullum, 2005: 123:
Table 2. Adjective and adverb function
1.
2.
a)
a)
MODIFIER
an impressive performance
She performed impressively.
PREDICATIVE COMPLEMENT
b)
Her performance was impressive. [adjective]
b)
*Her
performance
was [adverb]
impressively.
2.b) shows how the insertion of an adverb makes the structure ungrammatical. Huddleston and
Pullum point out that whereas impressively is derived from an adjective, the structure would be
equally ungrammatical with any other adverb – they cannot function as predicative complements
e.g. Her success was well earned vs. *Her success was almost.
Huddleston and Pullum (2005: 124) point out that some words can function both as adverbs and
adjectives. In Table 3 examples demonstrate some such instances:
Table 3. Overlap of adjectives and adverbs
1.
2.
Adj.
Adv.
their early departure
they departed early
that very day
It’s very good.
I don’t feel well.
I didn’t play well.
Huddleston and Pullum suggest that early has an identical meaning whether it is used as an adjective
or an adverb, but very and well differ in meaning depending on the word class. As an adjective, very
places emphasis on the noun telling something about that ‘particular’ day. As an adverb, very means
20
something akin to ‘extreme’ or ‘highly’. Well as an adjective refers to the person’s health, but as an
adverb it tells the quality of a performance, action etc., referring to a good standard.
Huddleston and Pullum (2005) also point out that the –ly suffix does not always reveal adverbs, but
also adjectives derived from nouns. Examples of this are friend – friendly, woman – womanly and
coward – cowardly.
4.3. Adjectives in Finnish
This section covers some grammatical features and functions of adjectives. It will additionally present
one approach to classifying adjectives in Finnish.
4.3.1. Finnish adjectives in general
According to ISK (2005: 596)), Finnish adjectives are used to describe beings, things, states or events,
whether real or fictional. They inflect based on number and case. Examples of Finnish adjectives
include vetinen ‘watery’, äänekäs ‘loud’ and tuliset ‘spicy, pl.’, e.g. tuliset ruoat ‘spicy foods’. The
Finnish adjective class is an open word class and can be expanded through loan words, by deriving
new adjectives from existing words in other classes or by forming participle constructions from
existing verbs. In Finnish, the participle construction refers to the nominal verb form which can be
used like an adjective, e.g. juokseva mies ‘running man’, laulava lintu ‘singing bird’ and valittava
naapuri ‘complaining neighbor’.
Many Finnish adjectives express relative qualities and properties and can therefore be derived in
comparative and superlative forms, for example hyvä – parempi – paras ‘good – better – best’, yet
some express absolute properties that are not comparable, e.g. kielitieteellinen ‘linguistic’ or eilinen
‘the day before’. ISK states that telling Finnish adjectives apart from other word classes can on
occasion be difficult since the classes are not always clearly restricted. I.e. an adjective cannot always
be told apart from nouns and adverbs, since an adjective can function as subject, object and even
adverbial in a sentence, and as such, the adjective fills the role of a noun or an adverb (see Table 4):
Table 4. Finnish adjectives with different functions
ADJ. AS NOUN
ADJ. AS ADVERB
FINNISH
Vihreät vastustavat ehdotusta.
Jotain on pahasti vinossa.
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ENGLISH
The Green Party opposes the bill.
Something is terribly wrong.
Note that Vihreät would literally be translated as *Greens but here the adjective refers to the Green
Party.
4.3.2. Adjective classes in Finnish
According to ISK (2005: 597), Finnish adjectives can be categorized depending on whether the
properties they describe are relative (e.g. ihana ‘lovely’) or absolute (musiikillinen ‘musical’). ISK calls
the former suhteelliset adjektiivit ‘relative adjectives’ and the latter absoluuttiset adjektiivit
‘absolute adjectives’. The characteristics described by the adjective define whether it can be derived
to form comparative and superlative forms.
ISK suggests that there is no clearly established and fixed criteria for defining what constitutes as
absolute, or in this context, which adjectives can be seen as to depict absolute characteristics. They
suggest that at least such adjectives, which restrict the use of other defining features, can be
considered absolute e.g. seuraava (next), oikeanpuoleinen (right-hand side), lopullinen (final) or
nykyinen (current).
ISK states that relative adjectives can describe the following semantic features (listed in Table 5):
Table 5. Relative adjectives
DEGREE/INTENSITY
PHYSICAL PROPERTY
RELATIVE AGE
CHARACTERISTIC/STATE
MIND
SUBJECTIVE DESCR.
MODALITY
FINNISH
[aika] vanha
pieni, paksu, kevyt
uusi, nuori
OF kiltti, vihainen
ihana, kauhea
ilmeinen, todennäköinen
ENGLISH
[pretty] old
small, thick, light
new, young
kind, angry
lovely, horrible
apparent, probable
According to ISK (2005: 598), the relative adjectives themselves do not confirm an object’s property,
e.g. the size is not measured simply by saying something is large. For example, a light buffalo ‘kevyt
puhveli’ is still heavier than a heavy rodent ‘painava jyrsijä’. They also not that most relative
adjectives have their opposites e.g. kuuma – kylmä ‘hot – cold’, iso – pieni ‘large – small’ or uusi –
vanha ‘new – old’.
ISK (ISK: 598) suggests that absolute adjectives describe such properties that an entity either has or it
does not have. I.e. such adjectives do not scale in comparative or superlative forms. Most absolute
adjectives are noun-based in their origins and can describe e.g. the following semantic features
(Table 6):
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Table 6. Absolute adjectives
MATERIAL
TEMPORAL/GEOGRAPHICAL
ORIGIN
DURATION
(ABSOLUTE) PROPERTY
(ABSOLUTE) STATES
COLOURS
FINNISH
puinen, lasinen
esihistoriallinen, espanjalainen
ENGLISH
wooden, vitreous
prehistoric, Spanish
20-tuntinen
musiikillinen, sosioekonominen
kuollut, työtön
punainen, valkea
20 hour-long
musical, socioeconomically
dead, unemployed
red, white
Unlike with relative adjectives, absolute adjectives do not become ‘less absolute’ regardless of which
noun they modify. I.e. kuollut ‘dead’ does not change in its meaning regardless of whether it modifies
zombie or bird. Dead is dead. In addition, many absolute adjectives have their opposites as well.
Some are established words without any prefixes e.g. eloton – elollinen ‘lifeless – live’ but some are
formed by prefixes e.g. kielellinen – ei-kielellinen ‘linguistic – non-linguistic’. Furthermore, some
absolute adjectives describe properties that essentially exclude some other properties from the noun
e.g. elävä – kuollut ‘alive – dead’ or puinen, lasinen, muovinen etc. ‘wooden, vitreous, plastic’. ISK
suggests that colours can also be consider absolute adjectives since red can be considered red
regardless of what noun it is describing.
ISK (2005: 600) classifies adjectives of this type in their own group, if the adjectives specify the noun
in relation to other similar entities. I.e. adjectives of this type specify an individual or group, and ISK
refers to them as yksilöivät adjektiivit ‘specifying adjectives’. Examples of such adjectives are
viimeinen (last), paras (best), ainoa (only one) and kolmas (third). Specifying adjectives do not derive
in comparative forms, although some ISK lists some superlative forms as specifying adjectives, e.g.
paras above. Hakulinen et al. add that ordinal numbers are specifying adjectives as well, e.g.
maaliskuun toinen (March second) or kolmanneksi suurin (third largest).
4.4. Adjective use in food advertisements
Huotila (1996) also studied adjective use in adverts, yet the approach in the current study is
different. She studied adjective use in Finnish and English food advertisements. The study aimed at
showing how adjectives are used for describing food in adverts, and Huotila classified the adjectives
in her material both semantically and syntactically. Her material consisted of food adverts appearing
in magazines such as Cosmopolitan, She, Me Naiset and Anna. The study does not indicate if the
Finnish adverts were considered to be translations or not (Huotila, 1996: 49). The adjectives in the
adverts were divided based on the senses they appeal to, and Huotila classified the following five:
23
taste, sight, smell, touch and sound. The food in the adverts varied from health foods to sweets, e.g.
breakfast cereals, cakes, yoghurts, vinegar and pasta.
Huotila argues that adjectives make a difference in adverts and that the texts would be plain and
simple without them (Huotila, 1996:22). For example, in her material an advert for yoghurt reads
“Fruttis Extra Creamy Yoghurt” and the argument is that the use of adjectives gives the consumer a
new perspective on the advertised product. Arguably, here the advertiser is increasing the perceived
value of the product by highlighting the creaminess of the yoghurt. This could perhaps be also
perceived as segmentation choice. When picturing adverts about healthy yoghurts currently on the
market, the advertiser mostly highlights the nutrition values of the product and creaminess appeals
to sense of taste. Hence, not only do adjectives make the adverts more entertaining to read, but they
can, in my view, be used to enhance product segmentation. In the case of Fruttis yoghurt above, the
segmentation choice would be to advertise yoghurt to people who above all want a great taste in
their food or snacks, and may not place an emphasis on health benefits.
4.4.1. The methods of the study
The syntactic analysis of the adjectives used in the food adverts focused on four aspects. With the
English adjectives Huotila analysed if the adjectives were gradable or not, which adjectives were
attributive and predicative and if the adjectives accepted degree modifiers (e.g. really, surprisingly).
In addition, the adjectives were classified based on their syntactic function. The functional
classification show if the adjectives function as heads of adjective phrases (e.g. a surprisingly old
relic) or as modifiers to noun phrases (e.g. they proposed new reasons for the outbreak). Lastly,
Huotila classified the adjectives based on which of them were parts of a prepositional phrase (e.g.
she’s new to the game), a ‘that’-clause (e.g. why do you find it odd that) and a ‘to’-infinitive (is it
possible to see them live).
Huotila’ (1996) then further classified the adjectives in the food adverts in three ways based on their
semantic purpose. One classification was based on the adjective meaning and if the meaning denotes
physical qualities (e.g. big tree, tall man), psychological qualities (e.g. scary, exciting) or evaluative
qualities (perfect, desirable). Second, the adjectives were divided based on if they were dynamic (a
controllable aspect in a noun e.g. a wild woman) or stative (a non-controllable property, e.g. an old
house) (Greenbaum et al. 1990: 145). Huotila also classified the adjectives based on their gradability.
Finally, the adjectives were divided into inherent (e.g. a red car) and noninherent (e.g. a good game)
24
adjectives. Huotila did not find the same inherenent vs. noninherent model in Finnish grammatical
literature, yet for the purposes of her study the same model was applied to Finnish adjectives as well.
According to Huotila (1996), the adjectives in the Finnish advertisements were more troublesome to
analyse due to the more complex inflection system of the Finnish language. She states that Finnish
adjectives classify and describe a noun in an attributive or predicative position and that Finnish
adjectives are also gradable. Finnish adjectives no not necessarily follow regular rules in their
comparative and superlative forms, e.g. hyvä – parempi – paras ‘good – better – best’ cf. kaunis –
kauniimpi – kaunein ‘beautiful – more beautiful – the most beautiful’. She also covers a wide range of
properties that define Finnish adjectives and others which make it occasionally difficult to recognize
them.
4.4.2. Results
Huotila (1996) divided the adjectives in the food adverts into the following semantic sets:
1.
intensifying adjectives e.g. perfect, unique, impressive,
2.
post-determiners, including restrictive adjectives, e.g. the fourth student, a single reason,
3.
general adjectives susceptible to subjective measurement e.g. beautiful, terrible,
4.
general adjectives susceptible to objective measure, including those denoting size or shape
e.g. thick, round,
5.
adjectives denoting age e.g. young, ancient,
6.
adjectives denoting colour e.g. orange, brown,
7.
denominal adjectives denoting material e.g. enriched uranium and denoting resemblance
to a material e.g. the taste is no longer metallic and
8.
denominal adjectives denoting provenance or style e.g. French tapestry.
Huotila did not find any adjectives in her material describing sound. Adjectives that did not fit any of
the above sets were classified as other adjectives. Some of Huotila’s classifications were the same as
the semantic sets used in the present study (Dixon, 2012b), such as Age and Colour. Her sets 1, 3 and
8 are classified in Value in the present study, 4 and 7 are classified in Physical property and 2 is
closest to Quantification.
The study showed that 69% of the English adjectives in the material were stative and 31% dynamic.
61% of the Finnish adjectives were stative and 39% dynamic. According to Huotila, both English and
Finnish adverts appeared to use stative and dynamic adjectives mostly at same instances. 88% of the
25
English adjectives were gradable and 12% nongradable. 99% of the Finnish adjectives were gradable
and only 1% nongradable. 81% of the English adjectives were inherent and 19% noninherent,
whereas 94% of the Finnish adjectives were inherent and the final 6% noninherent.
The following table shows the division of semantic sets in Huotila’s (1996) material (Table 7):
Table 7. Semantic sets in the food adverts (in %)
English
Intensifiers
20
Restrictive
0
Subjective
25
Objective/Shape/Size 38
Age
1
Colour
2
Material
9
Provenance
5
Finnish
28
1
25
24
2
7
10
3
The table shows that the largest groups in both languages were the intensifiers, subjective adjectives
and objective and shape/size defining adjectives.
The following table displays how prominently the adverts appealed to the five senses Huotila
examined in her material (Table 8):
Table 8. Sense-appealing adjectives in food adverts (in%)
Sense of Taste
Sense of Sight
Sense of Touch
Sense of Smell
Other
English
Finnish
16
21
12
0
51
16
20
7
7
50
According to Huotila, the most frequent Finnish adjective denoting taste was täyteläinen ‘full/rich’
and the most common English adjective of taste was delicious. The classification based on senses
revealed that taste was not the sense of choice for the advertisers but instead the most frequent
sense appealed to in the adverts was sight. Huotila suggest that the advertiser might attempt to
make the consumer also visualize the food being offered.
Huotila (1996) analysed 281 English and 282 Finnish sentences in her material. Both the English and
the Finnish adverts had almost the same frequency of attributive and predicative adjectives: 71% of
the English and 72% of the Finnish adjectives were attributive and 29% of the English and 28% of the
Finnish adjectives were predicative. Huotila chose to include English postpositive adjectives in the
26
same group with the predicative adjectives since only 3% of the English adjectives were classified to
be postpositive. Huotila also noted that both the English and the Finnish adverts used ‘good’ and
‘new’ in several contexts. Her study did not focus on the frequency of individual adjectives, but ‘new’
was very common in the Ford adverts as well. The Finnish Ford adverts included 89 basic and
inflected forms of uusi ‘new’(not including possible synonyms) and the English adverts had 68
instances of ‘new’. Whereas Huotila used a different framework in analysing the adjectives in her
material, her results about the semantic sets in food adverts are of particular interest. Chapter 6 will
discuss the results of the analysis in the current study and if similar sets were prevalent in car
adverts.
27
5. Research material and methods
In this chapter the adverts and their characteristics will be covered in more detail. Not only are the
Finnish adverts partly translated from the English adverts, there is evidence to assume they are also
localized and adapted. Later, chapter 5.2 will cover the methods that went into analysing the adverts
and the adjectives.
5.1. The Ford online adverts
The material consists of a total of 12 Ford car adverts in PDF form found originally in 2012 on their
UK and Finnish home pages. The English material consists of 1522 adjectives and the Finnish material
of 1584 adjectives. This was largely due to the fact that Finnish is an agglutinative language with
considerably more different inflection possibilities compared to English. This would, in my view,
falsely increase the amount of different Finnish adjectives compared to the number of English
adjectives.
The Ford adverts were chosen, for instance, due to easy access since some car manufacturers
demanded requisition forms to even get their adverts. The Ford adverts were more convenient to
acquire, since they were readily available for free download. They are not web pages yet they were
available online. For this reason it was considered that not only do the Finnish adverts feature
translated segments from the English adverts but they are also localized and adapted to the Finnish
market. Hence, the Finnish adverts are considered possible localizations. The adverts and their
features will be discussed in more detail later in this chapter, but due to their possibly localized
nature the English adverts will not be referred to as STs and the Finnish adverts will also not be
referred to as TTs. They will mainly be referred to as English or Finnish adverts. Many segments are
clearly translated, yet some segments are added or completely missing. The possible reasons for
these differences are discussed shortly, but what is of importance is that the Finnish adverts clearly
feature both directly translated segments and clearly adapted and changed segments. However,
since no other localized versions for other markets were consulted, it is uncertain the Finnish adverts
would have been specifically translated from the English adverts.
The cars featured in the adverts are the Ford Transit van, pick-up Ford Ranger, medium-sized people
carrier Ford C-MAX and Grand C-MAX, Ford Fiesta hatchback, Ford Focus and Ford Mondeo. Table 9
shows the page counts of all the adverts:
28
Table 9. Page counts of the Ford adverts
English
Finnish
Transit
31
27
Ranger
23
23
C-MAX
25
25
Fiesta
39
39
Focus
32
32
Mondeo
7
30
The difference in the number of pages in the Mondeo adverts are immediately apparent. However,
Ford was not consulted for what the reasons for this might be. Perhaps Mondeo is not as popular in
the UK market and the marketing team has not seen fit to focus much efforts in its advert. This was
one reason why the adverts were not seen to have an ST and TT relationship between each other, or
at least not in the traditional sense as it would apply to translating e.g. novels. However, the rest of
the English adverts and their Finnish counterparts are closer to each other in regards to their page
counts.
5.1.1. Layout and structure
The structure of both the Finnish and the English adverts are most likely standardized across multiple
markets, and the visual layout and the order in which most information is presented is so similar the
structures are close to identical. Whereas the focus of this study is on the adjectives and their use,
any differences noticed in the layout will also be discussed here. By default in this chapter both the
Finnish and English adverts are referred to simultaneously and the language is only mentioned in
case it is to focus on the differences in the adverts. Otherwise the findings will be referring to the
whole material and their layout and structure.
The general layout of the adverts follows a certain type structure. They start with a few pages,
generally between 4 to 6, where pictures of the cars are in the limelight. These pages do not
necessarily feature any marketing phrases nor any other information, and if they do, the writers have
kept the textual components to a minimum. For instance, both the English and the Finnish Ford
Fiesta adverts were the ones with most pages and e.g. in both of them pages 3 and 4 feature simply
photos of the car without any text. In addition, the reason the Fiesta adverts had 7 pages more than
any other advert was the lesser amount of information per page. In most adverts somewhere around
page 7 the reader can already expect a lot of textual information, but Fiesta adverts maintain a
minimalistic approach all the way to their final pages. As a comparison, on page 26 in both Fiesta
adverts they list “Ulkovarusteet–Exterior features” and these pages have maybe around 100 words
each. The same section in the Ford Focus adverts was “Ulkovarusteet–Exterior equipment”, and page
25 in both languages. The amount of information is considerably more than in the Fiesta adverts,
perhaps around 300 words. Hence, the Fiesta adverts were an exception to the rules the writers
29
employed: overall only the first few pages focus solely on the pictures, and after that the adverts
focus on presenting a vast amount of information on the cars.
The amount of information provided after the first pages varies somewhat between the adverts, but
in most of the adverts the pages following the early photo-focused pages still feature pictures of the
cars, some catchy marketing phrases, as on page 4 in both Ranger adverts: “Tarvitsen kapasiteettia
isoja ja raskaita kuormia varten–I need a truck that can handle bigger, heavier loads”. They also start
presenting smaller pictures accompanied by more detailed information, as is shown on the same
page of the Ranger advert. In the bottom right corner in both adverts they show a picture of the
Ranger’s loading area and the text alongside the picture tells of the car’s “DIN-compliant tie-downs”,
and how much force such tie-downs can handle. In most of the adverts the layout in this type of
sections is to present one large picture accompanied by smaller pictures around it. The largest
picture is not always the car itself, as can be seen on e.g. page 9 of the English Focus advert, where
the focus is on Ford’s ECOnetic technologies and its friendliness to the environment. Here the picture
is a young boy holding an energy-efficient lightbulb.
As the adverts progress, the focus on information and technical details increases considerably, as less
of the space is used for pictures and the emphasis is on tables and figures detailing e.g. performance,
weight and loads, emissions or equipment options for different models and editions. For example
starting on page 22 in both Ford CMAX adverts they show the weights and loads of Ford C-MAX and
Grand C-MAX. This features a detailed list of such details as gross vehicle mass of all different
editions with different engines (e.g. Ford C-MAX 1.6 Ecoboost or Ford C-MAX 2.0 Duratorq TDCi) and
maximum towable mass each edition can handle. After these sections most of the adverts list the
different colour options for the cars and their interior, except for the Fiesta adverts that presented
them earlier in the text. This could be explained by the possible focus on aesthetics in the Fiesta
adverts, since these adverts features, overall, less text than the other adverts. The final page in all
the adverts, save for the Fiesta adverts, has been reserved for disclaimers. Again, Fiesta’s adverts
differ somewhat in this regard since their disclaimers are on the second to last page. The very final
page is reserved for one last picture of the Fiesta. Some of the adverts also mention EURO NCAP
ratings and logos here, or other possible awards (e.g. Focus’s ‘International Engine of the Year
awards 2012’ for three engine types).
30
5.1.2. Adjectives in the adverts
This section will cover one aspect of the adjective use in the advert, and that is the visual aspect;
where the adjectives appear and how they are used.
All sections in the adverts appeared to have adjectives, and the purpose of this study was to analyse
all of them. This meant that whereas the early pages of the adverts were arguably more glamourous
and marketing-focused, the adjectives found both on e.g. those pages and in the end disclaimers
were included in the material. No detailed analysis was done e.g. on what type of differences there
were between different sections, such as what type of semantic sets were common in the sections
with technical information or the early marketing-focused pages. However, possible limitations and
future recommendations for further studies will be discussed in more detail in the final discussion.
Adjective use was not limited to simply e.g. advertising text, as on page 2 of the English Ford Focus
advert “Ford Kinetic Design is the reason why our vehicles look more exciting than ever before. Bold,
dynamic lines that create energy in motion”. The adjective use is evident all the way to the
disclaimers, and this can be seen e.g. in the International Engine of the Year award logos. What is
apparent, however, is that the adjectives, just as no doubt the other word classes, are used for
different intentions in different segments. The bold and dynamic lines create an aesthetic image in a
consumer’s head. A very different kind of use is exemplified with Max and maximum which were
classified as adjectives in this study. They were most often used to tell the maximum weights and
speeds of the cars or engine types, and here the main purpose is to inform technical information.
However, whereas the general outline of the adverts was marketing at first and informative later,
both bold and maximum could essentially appear nearly anywhere in the adverts.
To summarize, the total of 3106 words classified as adjectives were used for various purposes to
inform, highlight, contrast, awe and for many other intentions. All adverts save for the English
Mondeo advert were relatively long and had plenty of adjectives and material to comb through. The
next section will focus on the methods that went into analysing the material and the adjectives.
5.2. Methods
This section will discuss the methods that went into analysing and classifying the adjectives. Dixon’s
(2012) proposal for semantic sets was extended to better suit the material in the current study, and
the details for the changes are discussed here.
31
5.2.1. The process of the analysis
As discussed in 5.1, there were a total of 12 adverts in English and Finnish. The aim of this study was
to find all adjectives in the material and classify them based on Dixon’s (2012) semantic sets. No
electronic tools were used in combing through the material but instead each adjective had to be
located manually.
The adjectives were sorted into three separate files. Firstly, both the English and the Finnish
adjectives were saved with their close collocates and the page number where they were found in the
adverts. This was done on two separate Word files and all adjectives were marked in bold. The
contexts and collocates were deemed necessary since the hypothesis was that without a visible
context it would be difficult to effectively verify which semantic set each adjective belonged to. The
bold font allowed for the 1584 Finnish adjectives and 1522 English adjectives to be then transferred
to a separate Excel file where they were categorized based on their semantic set and grade.
The method of the analysis was to classify the adjectives found in both the English and the Finnish
adverts based on Dixon’s (2012) classification of semantic sets. The adjectives are also shown based
on which grade they are in – basic form, comparative or superlative. No specific framework was
considered relevant for recognizing the grade in each adjective. The recognition of the semantic sets
was the more strenuous. In addition, the focus of the study was to classify all adjectives regardless of
the section of the adverts in which they appeared. Hence, there is no conclusive data on whether
some semantic set was more frequent in some sections compared to others.
5.2.2. Classifying the semantic sets
Dixon’s (2012) semantic sets were covered earlier in Section 4.1.2. Hence, they are now discussed
only in regards to how the descriptions were, for the most part, expanded for the Ford adverts.
All the classes were included and the adjectives found in the adverts are classified based on these
categories. Only a single semantic set proposed by Dixon (2012) was renamed for the purposes of
this study. Human propensity was re-classified as ‘Personification’. Delbaere et al. (2011: 121)
suggest that in personification we attribute humane qualities to inanimate objects, and this has been
found to even help in advertising and brand image. The hypothesis was that few, if any, adjectives
would actually describe humans in the material and the focus would instead be on the cars. Hence, if
any human propensity was to be found in the adverts, it was thought to more likely personify the
cars. Dixon’s (2012) classifications about small, medium and large adjective classes were not
32
considered relevant to the current study. These classes were not considered relevant to advertising
language, unlike the semantic classifications. Perhaps another study could take a different approach,
but whether an adjective found in the adverts was considered to be in a closed class or an open class,
was not seen to affect advertising language.
The description of Dimension was not significantly expanded for this project. Dixon exemplified
“deep, vast and tall” and in the adverts all adjectives describing size, length, height etc. were
classified in this set. English examples are larger, biggest and deeper. Deeper is one example of an
expansion in the meaning since it was not considered to mean Position in this context since the
context was “to create a deeper boot space”. Finnish examples are suurikokoinen ‘large sized’,
isompitilavuuksinen ‘with bigger space’ and täysleveä ‘with full width’.
Age was considered to mostly refer to the age of the cars and the definition was expanded when
needed from e.g. “ancient, old and young” (Dixon, 2012). English examples are new, latest and allnew. Latest exemplifies how the semantic set was used to classify adjectives that describe how
recent the car or technology is. Finnish examples are uusi ‘new’, alustavia ‘preliminary’ and
hetkellinen ‘momentary’. Age was considered to be the best category for hetkellinen. It does not
describe age like e.g. young or new but it was seen to measure the duration of an event in time.
Alustavia was also included in this semantic set since the context was alustavia testituloksia
‘preliminary test results’, and it was considered to describe how far the tests were.
Value was greatly expanded from Dixon’s (2012) proposal to cover more of the adjectives found in
the adverts. English examples include international, advanced, best and versatile. For the most part
Value was seen to cover most words that seek to describe how good something is, and many of the
Value related adjectives can be seen as subjective marketing language. Finnish examples include
ihanteellinen
‘ideal’,
ylvään
‘
noble’,
viihdyttävämpi
‘more
entertaining’,
uudistunut
‘updated/renewed/upgraded’ and tavanomaisia ‘ordinary, pl’.
In this study every word stating a colour was not considered to be an adjective, or at least an
adjective of interest to the study. The classification adopted for Colour was seen to be something
more, e.g. in the Finnish adverts kiiltävän musta ‘shiny black’. The English adverts simply stated the
colours e.g. yellow, grey or black. Hence, very few adjectives in the adverts were classified to
describe Colour, but this will be discussed in more detail later.
Physical property was considered to cover all adjectives describing e.g. toughness, mass, consistency
and power. English examples are ultra-strong, technical, soft, electric and automatic. From technical,
33
electric and automatic we can see that many functionalityrelated adjectives were seen to belong to
this category. Finnish examples are kiiltävät ‘shiny, pl.’, integroitu ‘integrated’, dynaamisesta ‘from a
dynamic’, jämäkämpää ‘stiffer’ and tehokkaammat ‘more powerfull, pl.’.
Personification was seen to describe cases where the cars were given animate, or humane,
properties and features. This description would of course have been applied to any instances where
inanimate objects would be personified, be it cars, engines or other devices. English examples
include smart, intelligent, bold and sporting. Most sports-related adjectives were seen to be
personifying since by default it is humans that possess sporty features and different sports gear, e.g.
in this instance cars, are only tools for the humans in the sport activity. Finnish examples include
älykäs ‘intelligent’, urheilulliset ‘sporty, pl.’, sokean ‘blind’ and kyvykäs ‘talented/gifted’.
Speed was to cover any adjectives describing e.g. how fast or slow an event or process took place or
how fast or slow an object (e.g. a car) was. It turned out that none of the Finnish adjectives were
classified to describe speed. This is not to say speed was never mentioned in the adverts, but more
commonly it only appeared in its noun form nopeus ‘speed’. Examples of the English adjectives
included lightning-fast and slow-moving.
Difficulty was seen to cover not only how easy or difficult a task was, but whether covering a certain
terrain or condition was a challenge. Especially the Ford Ranger was advertised to be able to cover
most rough terrains and this is one example of an adjective that was classified in this semantic set.
Other English examples include arduous, complex and difficult. Finnish examples include vaikeissakin
‘even in difficult’, pahimpia ‘the worst’ and helpon ‘easy’.
Similarity was to be adopted with the same description as in Dixon’s (2012) proposal. In essence, the
intention was to classify those adjectives that signal how similar or different something is compared
to something else. However, the adverts ended up featuring very few adjectives that fit this
classification. However, none of the Finnish adjectives were seen to fit this semantic set, and very
few English ones were considered to fall into this set either. One example of such an adjective was
alternative which was not used e.g. to signal style, and was therefore not seen to be classified as a
Value describing adjective. The context was ‘provides an alternative range of finance products’
where alternative was considered to describe a ‘different’ range of finance products compared to
something else.
In this study Qualification was expanded to cover other qualities than just e.g. likelihood as proposed
by Dixon (2012). It was also adopted to cover, for instance, how suitable or unsuitable something was
34
for a task or situation. Individual words were labelled in this semantic set in case their meaning made
them unsuitable to other categories, and they were, at the time of the analysis, seen to qualify
something. English examples include unauthorised, true, accurate and stringent. Stringent was seen
to fit this semantic set due to its context ‘Engineered to meet stringent Euro Stave V emission
standards’. In this context it was seen to reflect more on a level of classification or standards that are
either met or not. This was one reason why it was not seen to fit e.g. in the Difficulty set. Finnish
examples include asianmukainen ‘appropriate/proper’, sopiva ‘correct/right’ and alkuperäisiä
‘original, pl’.
Quantification was also adapted to fit the adjectives found in the adverts. Some adjectives, like fewer
in the English adverts and runsaasti ‘plenty of’ in the Finnish adverts fit Dixon’s (2012) classifications
well without any adaption. Overall, besides the obvious adjectives signalling amount the category of
Quantification was adapted to also include adjectives that e.g. do not specifically signal amount but
still refer to how comprehensive something is. This is shown, for instance, in ‘A full line-up of passive
and active safety features make use of the latest technology’ where full states that the line-up,
according to the advert, includes all safety features a consumer might hope for. When the same
criteria for Quantification related adjectives were applied both for English and Finnish adverts, the
results showed there were a lot more Quantification adjectives in the English adverts. The results and
the possible reasons for this are discussed later in the analysis.
Position was adjusted and expanded as well from what Dixon (2012) described as adjectives
signalling position. Instead of just e.g. geological location, in this study Position was also used to
cover adjectives that, for instance, described how high or low something was if that adjective
described the noun’s position. For instance, the adjective ylempi ‘upper’ found in both adverts was
classified to signal position in such a context as “Etusäleikkö – ylempi”.
35
6. Analysis
This chapter covers the results uncovered in the analysis of the Ford online adverts. The adjectives
were divided into 12 semantic categories based on Dixon’s (2012) semantic sets. The adjectives in
each semantic set were also divided into three subcategories based on whether they appeared in
basic form, or if they were graded in comparative or superlative forms. Table 9 shows the
classifications used for the analysis, yet the adjectives will be referred to by their set name and grade
in this chapter, not by the numeric value of the category and subcategory:
Table 10. Categories used in the analysis
CATEGORY
1. DIMENSION
2. AGE
3. VALUE
4. COLOUR
5. PHYSICAL PROPERTY
6. PERSONIFICATION
7. SPEED
8. DIFFICULTY
9. SIMILARITY
10. QUALIFICATION
11. QUANTIFICATION
12. POSITION
SUBCATEGORY
1
BASIC FORM
01.1.
02.1.
03.1.
04.1.
05.1.
06.1.
07.1.
08.1.
09.1.
10.1.
11.1.
12.1.
SUBCATEGORY
2
COMPARATIVE
01.2.
02.2.
03.2.
04.2.
05.2.
06.2.
07.2.
08.2.
09.2.
10.2.
11.2.
12.2.
SUBCATEGORY
3
SUPERLATIVE
01.3.
02.3.
03.3.
04.3.
05.3.
06.3.
07.3.
08.3.
09.3.
10.3.
11.3.
12.3.
The focus of the analysis was to see the semantic division of the adjectives and if comparative or
superlative forms are favoured in either language. Whereas some individual adjectives, such as
‘new’, were frequent in both the English and the Finnish adverts, the frequency of individual
adjectives was not in focus in this study. However, words of interest will be mentioned e.g. in case
they were surprisingly frequent or if they represented some semantic set on their own.
6.1. Adjective use in the English Ford adverts
The largest semantic set in the English adverts was Value. The second largest set was Physical
property. Figure 1 displays the percentage each semantic set covered of the total English adjectives
in the adverts:
36
40
29
Fraction (%)
30
23
20
13
8
10
8
7
5
1
0
3
4
0
0
Figure 1. Share of each semantic set in the English adverts (%)
As Figure 1 shows, there were no adjectives describing Colour, and very few adjectives describing e.g.
Speed or Similarity. In total only 4 adjectives were found to describe Similarity. Figure 2 shows the
number of adjectives in each semantic sets:
500
440
Absolute count
400
351
300
201
200
121
115
101
83
100
58
39
9
0
0
Figure 2. Number of adjectives in each semantic set
37
4
The results are interesting. First of all, Personification was not nearly as frequent as was initially
expected. Delbaere et al. (2011) state personification is a powerful advertising tool since “it taps into
the deeply embedded human cognitive bias referred to as anthropomorphism” (2011: 121). This
refers to our tendency to attribute human qualities to things and it does take place in the Ford
adverts too, such as in:
(4) Thanks to smart ideas and clever refinements, Ford’s advanced technology is creating
cleaner, more fuel-efficient vehicles today (Transit, p. 7)
The excerpt shows all adjectives in italics. Smart and clever are also underlined to show the
Personification adjectives. But as the figures show, only 83 of the total of 1522 adjectives were
classified as personifying. It is worth noting that in this study the use of personification was viewed
solely in regards to adjective use, and it was not studied if personification was used e.g. by the means
of simile. However, the adverts did not appear heavy in metaphor of any type, but perhaps a
different study into car adverts could come up with different results.
6.1.1. The largest semantic sets in the English adverts
Value was the largest semantic set in the English adverts, e.g. unique, sports-style, best, addictive or
entertaining. To clarify, sports-style was classified as an adjective indicating subjective value and
sporty was classified as personifying. This is not to say that sporty is not a subjective classification as
well, but in these adverts sporty bestows a humane property on an inanimate object, e.g. in “sporty
cockpit” in the Ford Focus advert (p. 16). Sports-style signals i.e. style, as in ‘sports-style front seats’
(Focus, p. 15) which is no different to e.g. ‘a retro style handbag’.
One frequent instance where adjectives signalling value appear is when they refer to something
displayed in a picture in the advert. E.g. in the Ford Fiesta advert you see a picture of the car’s cockpit
(p. 7), and the main eye candy in the picture are the Fiesta’s leather seats. The text on the left of the
picture is as follows:
(5) Enjoy high-quality partial or optional full leather seats, perfectly complemented by a leather
trimmed handbrake handle and gearshift knob in the Fiesta’s beautifully crafted interior. A
new premium flow through centre console with armrest, cup holder and chrome highlights –
plus enhanced ambient lighting – complete your interior with finesse. (Standard on Titanium
X)
38
The underlining shows the adjectives of relevance. The value signalling adjectives complement the
photograph well and the advertisers likely focused on using adjectives that help paint their product,
the car, in ‘a pretty picture’. Not all value signalling adjectives appear next to, or in, pictures,
however. For example, in the Ford Transit Van advert Special Vehicle Options mention ‘Enhanced LED
lighting for loadspace’ (Transit, p. 29), yet these sections of all the adverts, both in English and in
Finnish, are scarce with photographs. The few pictures in these sections usually feature only
diagrams of the cars’ dimensions and space. This shows that even the sections without the most
apparent marketing elements do feature value signalling adjectives. Whereas the focus was not to
see which semantic sets were most frequent in each type of section, these sections did feature a lot
of adjectives from the third and fourth largest semantic sets in the adverts, which are Quantification
and Dimension. This will be discussed later in more detail.
The second largest semantic set in the adverts was Physical property. As previously discussed, this
semantic set was seen to cover many frequently occurring adjectives such as dynamic, electronic or
automatic. Dixon’s classification (2012) listed mainly more conventional descriptions of physical
properties such as strong or resilient, but these car adverts have an ample amount of adjectives
describing clearly physical, if maybe technical, features. This was to be expected in car adverts. It is
worth noting that technical was also classified in the physical property semantic set. Physical
property appeared in several uses and of course not all may have been with marketing in mind. For
example, in the Ford Ranger advert (p. 7) ‘heavy’ is simply used to describe the circumstances in
which the Anti-lock braking system (ABS) is activated. This is shown in ‘Designed to prevent the
wheels from locking up under heavy braking’. However, it was apparent that the adjectives used in
describing physical properties were also used for creating a positive, durable image of the cars. This
was the most obvious way these adjectives were used for marketing purposes.
This type of marketing use can be seen e.g. with the adjectives ‘powerful’ and ‘fuel-efficient’:
(6) a) These highly fuel-efficient engines use advanced technology (Ranger, p. 14)
b) these highly fuel-efficient engines are offered with an impressive choice (Transit, p. 16)
c) My Ranger is so powerful and stable (Ranger, p. 8)
d) With a choice of powerful new diesel engines (Ranger, p. 4)
Arguably both adjectives can also be seen to function as value adding adjectives in these contexts,
but for the purposes of this study, and also based on Dixon’s (2012) classification, such adjectives
were viewed to mainly describe the physical features of these inanimate objects: Ford Ranger, the
39
car itself, and engines. ‘Powerful’ is implicitly used to describe the technical and mechanical prowess
of e.g. the engines and how much torque or speed they can achieve. Fuel-efficient refers to the
engines’ properties in achieving its goals with, assumedly, less fuel consumption that is viewed as the
industry average. It is worth noting that the figures listed at the end of the adverts were not
compared to adverts published by any other car manufacturers so this study does not show that the
Ford engines would be any more fuel-efficient than those of their competitors. However, Ford
advertisers are clearly using the adjective to create a positive image of their cars, due to the everincreasing focus of the climate change. This was true for both the English and the Finnish adverts.
As discussed above, Physical property was widely used to express the strength and durability of the
vehicles as well. This can be seen e.g. here:
(7) a) Robust computer-optimised body structure with ultra-rigid safety cell (C-MAX, p. 10)
b) its beautiful and durable exterior to a special multi-stage painting process (Fiesta, p. 22)
c) This makes it lighter, stronger and stiffer – and an immensely rigid base upon which to
attach its superb chassis (Focus, p. 10)
‘Lighter’ was also classified as an adjective describing physical properties but it does not describe
endurance. In the excerpts above rigid, stronger, stiffer, robust and durable exemplify how such
adjectives are used in the adverts to give confidence to the reader: the Ford cars are built to last.
6.1.2. Less frequent semantic sets in the English adverts
The remaining semantic sets appeared less frequently, and these were (in order of frequency)
Quantification, Dimension, Age, Qualification, Position, Difficulty, Speed, Similarity and Colour.
Colour will not be discussed in more detail since such words were not found in adjective use in the
adverts.
What was immediately surprising is how few adjectives were found to describe speed. It is safe to say
that none of the cars are meant to be advertised as so called super cars. However, my initial
expectation was that an advertiser would take advantage of the idea what speed means to many
people in regards to cars. In fact, only one instance of e.g. faster was found to directly describe the
cars’ speed in:
(8) 6-speed manual transmission – Improved fuel economy and faster acceleration from rest
when fully laden. (Ranger, p. 10)
40
Other than this, lightning-fast gear change appeared three times in the adverts, and this phrase does
not specifically refer to the car’s speed. Based on the results of this study, it is likely a segmentation
decision not to emphasize the speed excessively. The cars advertised in the material of this study
were pick-ups, vans and family cars and unlikely more affordable as well.
No consistent use for Position was apparent in the adverts, but it was, for example, used to point if a
location was remote or in “from high beam to low” (Focus, p. 11) or “the low seating position” (Focus,
p. 12). Quantification had one notable use in creating a positive image for the cars and this was done
by highlighting the lower emissions achieved with different technologies. Overall there were 46
instances of low, lower and lowest and some of these referred to less emissions as in “trough
improved fuel economy and lower CO2 emissions” (Transit, p. 16). Not every customer might care
about eco-friendliness even today, so the mentioning of lower emissions is a likely segmentation
choice.
Dimension was not seen as a semantic set that the advertisers would have used specifically with
marketing in mind. This is not to say it was not used to create positive images of the cars as well, and
this was apparent when describing the space of the cars. No data was found to suggest that
Dimension would have been used to advertise e.g. the compact size of any car, even Fiesta. The
following examples show the use of Dimension:
(9) a) The Ford C-MAX is a spacious five-seater, while the larger Ford Grand C-MAX (C-MAX, p. 2)
b) Ford Grand C-MAX’s spacious and versatile interior is packed with innovative features…to
allow easy access (C-MAX, p. 4)
c) Long or tall, big or small, light or heavy, the legendary Ford Transit Van…it has a great
capacity for hard work…find full-height rear doors (Transit, p. 4)
The above excerpts show how this type of adjectives can give a consumer a reassuring feeling that
the car they are looking at will be able to accommodate a lot of cargo, if need be. In regards to
Similarity, the only adjective that was clearly found to fit this description was alternative in
“alternative range” (Transit, p. 16). Overall, this and Colour were non-existent in the adverts.
Qualification did have some marketing use yet as is seen by in the tables above, it was not used very
widely. In this paper Qualification was considered to include Dixon’s (2012) type of examples of true,
false, wrong etc. but also examples such as right:
41
(10)
a) just the right extent for optimum feel and control (Fiesta, p. 8)
b) the next appropriate gear at precisely the right moment for lightning-fast gear changes
(Focus, p. 8)
c) help you find the right vehicle to suit your needs (Transit, p. 16)
In the examples above only the final excerpts displays more apparent marketing use. On page 16 of
the Transit advert Ford dealerships are advertised to help you find the right car for your needs which
does not advertise any of their cars per say, but instead creates an image of trustworthiness and
professionalism around their sales representatives. The adverts also welcome the consumer to visit
their local dealership for expertise. Only two instances of wrong were found, and these were the only
clearly negative uses of Quantification. “Wrong fuel” (Fiesta, p. 26 or Ranger, p. 10) was the only
context, but my personal interpretation of advertising is that the companies use most of their
advertising space on highlighting positive aspects about their product. Not much of that time nor
space is spent on negating things or speaking of negative things overall.
Age was the fifth most common semantic set in the adverts and whereas the frequency of individual
words was not looked at in the study via e.g. a corpus tool, Age did feature one of the most common
adjectives found in the whole material: new. Out of the total of 115 Age-related adjectives found, 68
were new and they only existed in basic form. Had any instances of e.g. ‘brand new’ been found, they
would have been considered a single adjective (phrase) for the purposes of this study, yet none were
noticed. Essentially, the Ford adverts feature a large amount of advertising phrases like ‘the new Ford
Focus’ or ‘the new Ford Grand C-MAX’ which easily explains their frequency. New was also used to
describe new models of engines as in “New Duratorq TDCi Stage V engines” (Transit, p. 16).
Finally, Difficulty was not found to be a common semantic set. However, one use did arguably help to
improve the already rugged image of the Ford Ranger. Difficulty was described as something that the
Ranger can overcome in the form of rough driving conditions as in:
(11)
a) maintain control in difficult and dangerous driving conditions (Ranger, p. 8)
b) identify a potentially dangerous driving situation (Ranger, p. 8)
Difficulty related adjectives were also used to describe the cars in question make the consumer’s life
easier. Overall only 39 adjectives were classified to belong to this semantic set and 32 of these were
either easy, easier or easy-to-follow:
42
(12)
a) make your work life easier and your leisure time more fun (Ranger, p. 8)
b) for easier starting in cold conditions (Ranger, p. 15)
c) enhanced instrument cluster navigation display with easy-to-follow route guidance (CMAX, p. 17)
6.1.3. Adjective grade in the English adverts
The initial expectation was that advertising language would be filled with comparative and
superlative forms. The idea was that an advertiser would, in a way, harness the power of language
and repeat how their car is ‘faster’ and ‘more fuel-efficient’ than all other cars in its class. This was
based on an assumption and not on the previous studies consulted in this research. Based on this
study, however, it was not the case with this type of online adverts and an overwhelming amount of
the adjectives were in their basic form. In fact, 1213 adjectives were in the basic form, 141 in
comparative and 168 in superlative.
The basic forms constituted 80% of the adjectives found in adverts. Whereas the main focus of the
study was to discover what type of semantic sets are prevalent in car adverts, this discovery was the
most surprising and arguably significant. As stated earlier, one of the most common adjectives found
was new and it never appeared in comparative nor the superlative forms. For example, a phrase like
‘the newest addition to a long line of eye-catching cars in the Ford catalogue’ was something which
would not have been out of place in this type of adverts. However, according to the findings of this
study such a phrase would indeed be out of place since only 9% of the adjectives were in
comparative and 11% in the superlative form. Figure 3 shows the relations of the different forms in
the each semantic set:
43
Absolute count (Fraction wihtin category in paranthesis)
500
SUPERLATIVE
COMPARATIVE
BASIC FORM
11 (3%)
21 (5%)
400
408 (93%)
13 (4%)
24 (7%)
300
314 (89%)
200
101 (50%)
7 (6%)
100 17 (14%)34 (30%)
2 (2%)
97 (80%)
81 (70%)
0
81 (98%)
0
56 (28%) 2 (3%)
101 (100%)
7 12%)
1 (11%)
49 (84%)
44
(22%)
26 (67%) 4 (100%)
8 (89%)
13 (33%)
Figure 3. English adjective grades by semantic set (% and count)
To start, there is not a single comparative form in the semantic set of Age, but only superlatives and
basic forms. No obvious reason for this was found in the study and this does not conclusive mean, in
my view, that comparative adjectives describing age could not be used in adverts like this. For
instance, whereas no instances of ‘older’ or something similar were found in the adverts, one could
assume that an advertiser could use such a word for varying intents. For example, ‘The new Ford
Mondeo achieves the subtle elegance you’ve come to except in older cars’ would arguably work.
However, such phrases were not found in the material.
The only semantic set with significantly less basic forms (22%) compared to comparative (28%) and
superlative (50%) forms was Quantification. This was mainly apparent in the final pages of the
adverts with the technical information since a large number of minimum and maximum were
classified as Quantification adjectives in this study. They were classified as superlative. The largest
reason why there were many comparative quantification adjectives was the frequent use of low and
lower for quantification instead of Position.
44
The adjectives that were classified to show Qualification never appeared in neither comparative nor
superlative form in the adverts. For instance, forms such as ‘more true’ were not present in the text.
Dixon (2012) classifies Qualification to belong to the large adjective classes, so this leads to assume
that qualification adjectives are common in English. However, in this type of advertising genre, they
were used considerably less than two largest semantic sets, and never in comparative nor
superlative.
As seen in Figure 3, most semantic sets have less than 20% of their total number in comparative or
superlative. The only exceptions to this were Age, Difficulty and Quantification. On the other hand,
Speed, Similarity and Difficulty did not appear in superlative at all. Speed appeared in basic form 8
times and once in comparative, Difficulty 26 times in basic form and 13 times in comparative and
finally, Similarity only 4 times in basic form and it did not show up in comparative nor superlative.
In regards Dimension, Value and Physical Property, basic form was the most common one and the
other forms do not come close to its frequency. 80% of Dimension consisted of the basic forms, 14%
of comparatives and only 6% of superlatives. The same for Value was 93%, 5% and 3%, and for
Physical Property 89%, 7% and 4%. This shows that whereas Quantification was an exception and
appeared more often in comparative and superlative, this study hints that basic form would be the
most common form in adverts such as this.
6.2. Adjective use in the Finnish Ford adverts
This section covers the results found when analysing the adjective use in the Finnish Ford adverts.
The frequencies of the semantic sets do differ somewhat compared to the English adverts. This can
be seen in Figure 4:
45
40
Fraction (%)
30
26
30
19
20
7
10
5
1
0
1
5
0
3
2
0
Figure 4. Share of each semantic set in the English adverts (%)
Value and Physical property were the largest semantic sets in the Finnish adverts as well. 30% of the
adjectives were classified to describe value, and 26% to describe physical properties. Figure 5
displays the number of Finnish adjectives in each semantic set:
600
478
Absolute count
500
410
400
305
300
200
115
100
84
76
16
1
22
0
40
37
0
Figure 5. Number of adjectives in each semantic set
It is immediately apparent that the third largest semantic set is Dimension. In the English adverts it
was the fourth largest set, and this in itself is not a large difference. However, 305 Finnish adjectives
were seen to describe Dimension, whereas in the English adverts this was the case for only 121. Also,
in the English adverts Quantification was the third largest semantic set, and in the Finnish adverts it
46
was only the seventh. Some Finnish adjectives were seen to describe Colour, whereas no adjectives
were seen to do this in the English adverts. Also, whereas at least some English adjectives described
Similarity, no Finnish adjective was seen to function this way.
6.2.1. The largest semantic sets in the Finnish adverts
Both the English and Finnish advertisements have similar types of adjectives for describing
Dimension. E.g. Ford Transit models are distinguished, among other things, by their height:
puolikorkea ‘medium roof’ and täysikorkea ‘high roof’. All the adverts have an ample amount of
these adjectives, but the Finnish adverts had a clearly larger amount of suuri ‘big’ and its inflected
forms and derivatives e.g. suurikokoinen ‘large sized’. For instance, the English had a total of 24
occurrences of big, large and their inflected forms. In the Finnish adverts there was a total of 139 iso
‘big’, suuri ‘large’ and their inflected and derived forms. All the adverts had plenty of other
Dimension related words, but Finnish adverts had a lot more of them. No obvious reason for this was
discovered in the analysis. Suuri was used for several different contexts. The following examples
show excerpts from the Finnish adverts and their original versions in the English adverts:
(13)
a) Suuri valikoima tyylejä (Focus FIN, p. 19) ‘With a great choice of series’ (Focus ENG,
p. 20)
b) Suurin yhdistelmäpaino (Focus FIN, p. 28) ’Max. Towable Mass (braked)’ (Focus ENG, p.
18)
c) Suurin nopeus (Focus FIN, p. 28) ’Max. speed (mph)’ (Focus ENG, p. 27)
d) Pitkä tai lyhyt, suuri tai pieni, kevyt tai raskas – legendaarisesta Ford Transit –mallistosta
löytyy sopiva vaihtoehto (Transit FIN, p. 4) ’Long or tall, big or small, light or heavy, the
legendary Ford Transit Van can carry it all’ (Transit ENG, p. 4)
Value and Physical property were very similar to their English counterparts in use. As shown earlier in
Tables 7 and 8, their frequency in the TT’s did not differ much from the ST’s. No obvious differences
were found and it was common to see the translations using either a direct translation or a close
equivalent in regards to adjectives describing value or physical property:
(14)
Ford Focuksen edistyksellinen ja älykäs IPS-turvajärjestelmä käyttää monia
hienostuneita tekniikoita…ultralujista suurlujuusteräksistä valmistettu turvakehikko ‘Ford
Focus’s advanced Intelligent Protection System (IPS) uses a range of sophisticated
technologies…including ultra-high strength steel safety cage’
47
The excerpts above exemplify how some segments have been translated faithfully from the STs.
Edistyksellinen ‘advanced’, (Value, basic form), hienostuneita ‘sophisticated’ (Value, basic form) and
ultralujista ‘ultra-high strength’ (Physical property, basic form). As stated above, no significant
differences between these two semantic sets were noticed between the English and the Finnish
adverts.
The same was true to Age. 8% of the English adjectives and 7% of the Finnish adjectives were
classified to depict age. In fact, whereas the percentages were not the same, the total number was.
Both the English and the Finnish adverts had 115 adjectives describing age. As discussed earlier, the
English adverts had a total of 68 appearances of new, but the Finnish adverts had a total of 89
appearances of uusi and its inflected and derived forms e.g. uusi, uusin ‘newest, sg.’, uusimmat
‘newest, pl.’. Not all of them were Age related, however, e.g. uudenlainen ‘a new type of’ (a total of
three instances) was classified as Value attributing adjective. The same was true to Personification.
The frequency of English personifying adjectives was found to be 5% (total of 83) and the amount of
similar Finnish adjectives was also a total of 5% (76). E.g. a total of 24 instances of smart and
intelligent were found in the English adverts, and a total of 25 instances of älykäs ‘intelligent, smart’
and its derived forms were found in the Finnish adverts.
6.2.2. Less frequent semantic sets in the Finnish adverts
Speed was even less frequent in the Finnish adverts, since only a single adjective was classified to
describe speed. The concept of speed was referred to in the texts, but it was more often referred to
with a noun instead of an adjective: nopeus ‘speed’. The same applied to the English adverts, e.g. on
page 17 of the English Ranger advert ‘Performance–Max. speed (mph)’. The only adjective that was
classified in this semantic set was hitaammalla ‘with a slower’ in ‘edellä ajava auto ajaa hitaammalla
nopeudella’ ‘the car in front is driving with a slower speed’. Unlike in the English adverts, there were
a few Colour related adjectives. They always appeared in compound form and it was this that led to
them being classified as adjectives instead of belonging to some other word class. I.e. the only
adjective (phrase) in this semantic set was kiiltävän musta ‘shiny black’ which formed 1% of the total
adjectives (16 instances). These mainly appeared when describing styling features as in ‘Kiiltävän
mustat ylä- ja alaetusäleiköt’ ‘High-gloss black upper and lower grilles’.
Only 2% (37) of the Finnish adjectives were seen to describe Position and 4% (58) of the English
adjectives were given that classification. Not a single adjective in the Finnish adverts met Dixon’s
(2012) criteria for the semantic set of Similarity. Only 4 in the English adverts were given that
48
classification, so overall this class was non-existent in the material. There was no large difference in
Difficulty either, since 3% (39) of the English adjectives described difficulty. No more than 1% (22) of
the Finnish adjectives did this, e.g. “vaikeissakin olosuhteissa” ‘in difficult conditions’.
5% (84) of the Finnish adjectives were classified in the Qualification semantic, compared to the 7%
(101) of the English adjectives that were qualitative. There was also no large difference in
Quantification since maximum was classified as an adjective in the English adverts, but not in the
Finnish adverts. This was mainly since e.g. maksimi was part of a noun structure in the Finnish
adverts, for example in a compound word such as maksimiteho “maximum power” or
maksiminopeus “maximum speed”. Hence, only 3% (40) of the Finnish adjectives were classified in
the Quantification semantic set and 13% (201) of the English adjectives were seen to belong to this
set.
6.2.3. Adjective grade in the Finnish adverts
Both the English and the Finnish adverts had around the same amount of comparative forms. A total
of 75% of the Finnish adjectives was in basic form (80% in English), 11% in comparative vs. 9% in
English and 14% in superlative vs. 11% in English. 1181 of the Finnish adjectives were in basic form,
178 in comparative and 225 in superlative form. Even though the difference is not a large on, the
Finnish adverts had 32 basic forms less than the English adverts, and slightly more comparatives and
superlatives.
At this point it is safe to say that neither language favoured neither comparative nor superlative
forms for marketing purposes. However, in this study the scope was not limited e.g. to the excerpts
appearing in or around photographs or areas that were more clearly traditional advertisements.
What this means is that all adjectives were chosen for the material, not just those appearing next to
beautifully filtered photos of the cars being advertised. I did not focus on if such parts would have
had more comparative or superlative forms, since even the parts about more technical information
and those that featured equipment alternatives had all three grades. It is worth noting that had the
division between grades been more even, it might have been easier to spot which sections truly had
most of the superlatives and comparatives.
As with the English adverts, superlatives were slightly more frequent than comparatives. Figure 6
shows the same fractions within each semantic set as earlier in 6.1.3 about the English adverts:
49
Absolute count (Fraction within category in paranthesis)
500
SUPERLATIVE
61 (13%)
COMPARATIVE
BASIC FORM
9 (2%)
400
40 (8%)
35 (9%)
300
120 (39%)
200
377 (79%)
366 (89%)
25 (8%)
27 (23%)
100
4 (5%)
9 (12%)
160 (52%)
67 (88%)
88 (77%)
16 (100%)
0
1 (5%)
4 (18%)
0
1 (100%) 17 (77%)
80 (95%) 1 (3%)
6 (16%)
35 (88%)
25 (68%)
4 (10%) 6 (16%)
Figure 6. Finnish adjective grades by semantic set (% and count)
In Dimension, basic form was the most common form in all the adverts but otherwise the division
between the forms differed greatly. In the English adverts 80% of the adjectives expressing
dimension were in basic form and in the Finnish adverts this applied to just 52%. So overall 48% of
the Finnish Dimension adjectives were either comparative or superlative, and only 20% of the English
ones were other than basic form. 8% comparative in Finnish, 14% in English, and 39% superlative in
Finnish vs. only 6% in the English adverts. The considerable difference in the frequency of
superlatives in the Finnish adverts is explained by the fact of the 305 Dimension related adjectives in
the Finnish adverts no less than 99 adjectives were different derivatives of suurin (the biggest) e.g.
suurimmillaan (at its biggest) or suurimpaan (into the biggest). No single Dimension related adjective
was as frequent in the English adverts, and based on this study alone it was not apparent why English
did not use as many inflected forms of Dimension related adjectives.
The division of Age related adjectives was very similar between both languages. None of the adverts
had any Age related adjective in the comparative form. In the Finnish adverts 77% of the adjectives
found to describe age were in basic form and 23% in superlative, whereas the same values were 70%
50
and 30% in the English adverts. Qualification differed slightly, since Finnish adverts had at least some
comparative forms (4%) whereas all Qualification adjectives were in basic form in the English adverts.
The only adjectives to fit the classification were three instances of tarkemmat ‘more accurate/ more
detailed’. Each of the three instances directed the reader to either a Ford retailer or a different page
for more detailed information. Speed obviously differed since only one adjective in the whole Finnish
material was found to describe speed. So, this single comparative adjective was hitaammalla ‘with a
slower one’.
All adverts had around the same amount of graded adjectives describing Physical property. In the
Finnish adverts the division between different grades was 89%–9%–2% and in the English 89%–7%–
4%. However, Value adjectives were divided less equally: 79%–8%–13% in the Finnish and 93%–5%–
2% in the English adverts. So, the Finnish adverts had 14% more comparatives and superlatives than
the English adverts. This was an interesting finding. Overall, there were only 11 English Value
adjectives in superlative, whereas there were 24 different inflections from paras ‘best’ in the Finnish
adverts alone Since it is unknown from which adverts the Finnish texts have been translated from, it
is unknown if this has been the result of localization strategy. It is worth noting that 25% of all the
adjectives found in the Finnish adverts were comparative and superlative, whereas only 20% of the
adjectives in the English adverts were classified as comparative and superlative.
As stated earlier, no Similarity related adjectives were found in the Finnish adverts so they shall not
be covered in any more detail. The same will be done with Colour since the English adverts had none.
All the adjectives classified to describe colour in the Finnish adverts were in basic form.
The English adverts had slightly more adjectives describing Position than the Finnish adverts. 4% (58)
compared to 2% (37) in the Finnish adverts. Also, the frequencies within the semantic set were
different since 84% of the English Position related adjectives were classified to be in basic form,
whereas 68% of the Finnish Position related adjectives were comparative. For the Finnish adjectives
only one word in different forms was found to occur mainly in comparative and this was alempi
‘lower’. For example, the adverts frequently described a car part with ‘etusäleikkö, alempi’ ‘front
lower grille’. Dixon’s (2012) examples mainly focused on locations (e.g. remote, eastern), but in this
study this type of adjective was classified to refer to Position.
5% of both the Finnish and the English adjectives were classified in Personification. In regards to
inflections, neither the Finnish nor the English personifying adjectives appeared in superlative at all.
The English adjectives were for the most part in basic form at 98% vs. 2% comparative, and the
51
Finnish adjectives were 88% in basic form vs. 12% comparative. The two English adjectives that were
classified as personifying and comparative were frugal ‘is even more frugal’ and smarter ‘Smarter
thinking for greater efficiency’. Whereas the Finnish personifying comparatives were not too
common either, at least one word and its derivatives occurred more than once: seven comparative
forms of urheilullinen ‘sporty/athletic’ which were urheilullisemman ‘more athletic’, in ‘antaa
urheilullisemman ulkonäön’, urheilullisemmat ‘more athletic, pl.’ and urheilullisempaa ‘more sporty’.
Neither the English nor the Finnish adverts had many Difficulty related adjectives and the Finnish
even less. The Finnish adverts had only 1% (22) compared to the 3% (39) in the English adverts. This
is explained by easy and easier in the English adverts, since they alone appear 30 times combined.
The Finnish adverts did not use a direct translation in their place, e.g. ‘selkeä reitinohjaus’ ‘easy-tofollow road guidance’. Selkeä and its inflected forms were classified as Qualification adjectives.
Finnish adjectives appeared in all three forms, whereas no superlative forms of Difficulty related
adjectives were found. However, whereas 5% of the Finnish adjectives were in superlative form, in
reality this 5% only means a single adjective. This was pahimpia ‘the worst, pl.’ in “Euroopan
pahimpia tieolosuhteita” (Mondeo, p. 8) ‘The worst/The most difficult driving conditions in Europe’.
As seen earlier in Table 9, the English Mondeo advert was considerably shorter than the Finnish
advert, and there is no similar page describing road conditions, or testing. Perhaps Ford has wanted
to market Mondeo to conditions that are not met in the UK climate, but this could not be confirmed
for this study.
Finally, Quantification was less frequent in the Finnish adverts as stated earlier. Both the English and
Finnish adverts appeared to have comparably few Quantification adjectives in the basic form. Only
10% of the Finnish adjectives were in the basic form and only 22% of the English adjectives received
this classification. They differed more in regards to the other frequencies since 88% of the Finnish
adjectives were classified as comparative whereas only 28% of the English adjectives fell into this
category. Only a total of 40 Finnish adjectives were found to describe Quantification and 35 of them
were comparatives e.g. vähemmän ‘less’, pienempi ‘lesser’ and enemmän ‘more’.
52
7. Discussion of results
This chapter presents the summary of the results found in the analysis. In addition, the possible
meaning and options for future research into adjective use in advertising, translated adverts or
language-use in adverts in general will be discussed.
7.1. Summary of the results
As predicted in the initial hypothesis, Value and Physical properties were the largest semantic sets in
both the English and the Finnish adverts. In addition, basic forms were the most prevalent grade
found in the analysis, and most parts of the Finnish adverts followed the same structure of the
English adverts. However, the adverts were considered localized digital products from the start, as
suggested by Schäler (2005). Because of this, the findings were not identical in the English and the
Finnish adverts.
Value and Physical properties were indeed the largest semantic sets at 29% and 23% in the English
adverts and 30% and 26% in the Finnish adverts. However, whereas the adverts were expected to
include Speed in complementing the performance of the cars, this barely happened by using
adjectives. As stated in Section 6.2.2, speed was mentioned yet mainly with a noun ‘nopeus’ ‘speed’.
A single Finnish adjective was given this classification, constituting less than 1% of all the Finnish
adjectives and only 9 adjectives received this classification in the English adverts, constituting 1% of
the English adjectives. Age was not as common as expected either, even though uusi ‘new’ and
different inflections of them were fairly frequent. However, only 8% of the English adjectives and 7%
of the Finnish adjectives described age.
The adjective grades were less evenly distributed than expected. Basic forms were expected to be
the largest group and this was true, yet no less than 80% of the English adjectives and 75% of the
Finnish adjectives were in their basic form. Only 9% and 11% were in comparative and 11% and 14%
in superlative. It is likely that by selecting all adjectives the frequency of basic forms was higher
compared to if only certain segments of the adverts (e.g. before the extensive lists of technical
features and accessories) had been chosen for the material. However, as stated earlier in this study,
there was no indication that some segments of the adverts had been completely lacking in any grade
completely. This study, then, provided an extensive overview of semantic sets and grade in all the
adjectives used in English and Finnish Ford adverts.
53
7.2. Interpretation of the results
Sedivy and Carlson (2011) suggested that it was only in the first half of the 20th century that adverts
sought to inform the customer and since then the focus has been on persuasion. The adverts chosen
as material for this study, however, do arguably contain a lot more information than the adverts
Sedivy and Carlson possibly refer to. As mentioned in Chapter 5, the Ford adverts have several pages
of material focused in marketing, which is seen by use of nicely filtered photos of the cars and by the
use of short, compact advertising phrases. However, the websites and the PDF adverts are likely
designed to provide all possible information any consumer would need to evaluate the usefulness of
each car for their purposes. Hence, in addition to trying to persuade the consumer, the adverts also
inform. Perhaps the team behind designing the original and localized adverts focus on also providing
as much facts as possible about the cars, so let’s imagine for a moment that instead of a phrase like
“Electronic Stability Programme (ESP) with Traction Control and Emergency Brake Assist (EBA)”
(Focus ENG, p. 26) would instead be ‘Industry-leading Electronic Stability Programme (ESP) and
world’s best Emergency Brake Assist (EBA)’. Perhaps an excessive use of Value adding adjectives, or
superlatives, would also begin to take away the credibility of the adverts.
Perhaps the information these adverts offer signal an intentionally broad segmentation choice: one
advert to suit the needs of many. The photographs of the stunning cars accompanied by advertising
text might already catch the attention of one consumer. Then, the following pages already feature
relatively detailed information alongside aesthetic pictures. As a consumer that wants to know all
progresses through the pages of the advert, then they find extremely detailed technical information
about the product. Finally, each consumer that was impressed by the car and the information
provided by the advert, find a retailer’s contact information and insurance information at the end of
the advert. It is likely that Ford’s market segmentation works on multiple levels, and on a higher level
they have already chosen what features to include in each car and on which market to sell them.
After that, they localize the adverts in a way that allows most desired consumers to find all they need
from the advert. Perhaps on this final segmentation level the decision is to make the origin of the
advert unknown and make the advert appear as natural and domestic as possible to the consumer,
as proposed by Schäler (2005: 3). This could explain some of the larger differences in grade and
semantic sets found in the Ford adverts. Additionally, perhaps a comparative study focused more on
the grammatical differences of Finnish and English might explain some of the differences found in
this study.
54
It is worth noting that whereas Dixon’s (2012) classifications for 12 different semantic sets were
initially seen to suit the purposes of the study well, it is worthwhile to consider if this was ultimately
the best option. As explained in Section 5.2, only Human propensity was changed to Personification.
Otherwise the semantic sets were only expanded to cover adjectives found in the Ford adverts. Age,
Colour, Personification, Speed, Difficulty, Similarity, Qualification and Position were below 10% in
both languages. Colour, Speed, Difficulty, Similarity and Position were below 5% in both the English
and the Finnish adverts. This does not undermine the usability of Dixon’s proposed semantic sets,
but it begs the question if it should be adapted as it is to suit any analysis of any material. Perhaps
another study could combine some of the semantic sets into larger groups, or omit some sets
altogether. However, regardless which semantical features possible future studies would choose to
focus on, this is not to say this study has not revealed interesting information as well. For instance,
Value and Physical property were clearly the most common semantic sets, but neither Dixon (2012)
nor I dissected these sets. Another proposal for a further study could be to limit the focus on those
two sets, and to divide the sets into more descriptive subcategories based on e.g. if the adjective
describes aesthetics (shiny, stunning, beautiful), durability (durable, strong, robust) or electronics
(electronic, automated, high-tech). This type of study could reveal additional details on the language
used in car adverts, or in the adverts of industrial products overall.
Based on the findings of this study, referring to speed is not a common practice in advertising midrange affordable cars. As stated earlier, none of the cars in the adverts were advertised as sports
cars. Speed is mentioned, but it is more often introduced as a noun. Speed related adjectives are not
common and a translator or localizer should consider it unwise to add such adjectives unless the ST
was fuller of such adjectives than the English Ford adverts used in this material. Perhaps another
study could analyse online adverts of more than one car manufacturer, and investigate how speed is
referred to overall. Such a study could cover more word classes than simply adjectives, e.g. nouns
and adverbials, and how consistently such instances are translated and localized or changed (e.g.
omission, different word class used to describe the speed or if that segment is in the advert at all).
Another interesting finding was that the English adverts had no less than 10% more adjectives
describing Quantification compared to the Finnish adverts. The details for this were covered in the
analysis, e.g. maximum and max. were classified as adjectives in the English material but maksimi in
the Finnish material was not. This was because the word is a noun and often appears as a part of a
compound. This can be seen as one example of how some localized material, even if translated
faithfully, can use different word classes to achieve the same communicative function. It is worth
55
noting since the grammatical focus of this study was limited to examining adjective grade, this study
does not conclusively show which word classes were replaced and when.
As stated earlier in this study, the lack of comparative and superlative forms did not diminish the
appeal of the adverts. For example, on the second page of the English Transit advert a passage says
“Years of not backing down from the hardest work has made the Ford Transit Van what it is today: a
tough and respected van. Add a fresh range of economical engines with increased power and torque,
plus a near-endless variety of driveline and payload configurations, and you have the perfect solution
for all your business needs”. The picture shows the Ford Transit alone on a highway, and the
background is blurred to perhaps create an image of speed. As a side note, here we might see an
example of how the advertisers wanted to create an image of speed, and this was not done by using
adjectives. In regards to comparatives and superlatives, though, the above excerpt shows a total of
seven words and phrases that were classified as adjectives in this study. Yet only one of them is in
superlative, so the writers have not seen a need to emphasize the car’s proposed excellence by
superlative nor comparative adjectives. In my view, this shows that the advertisers have managed to
create positive images about the cars without resorting to only using graded adjective forms.
Whereas Delbaere et al. (2011) suggested that personification is a common practice in advertising
and used with successful results, this study showed little use of that in car advertising. Only 5% both
of the English and the Finnish adjectives were given this classification, so this suggests that
personification is not a common practice in car advertising. Perhaps a look into a completely
different consumer segment would reveal different results, e.g. would super cars be marketed more
with associating human or animal qualities in the cars? However, even Delbaere et al. suggested that
personification is done only by adjective use, so this study alone does not mean that another study in
car adverts could not find very different, and interesting, results as well.
56
8. Conclusion
This study looked at which semantic sets proposed by Dixon (2012) would be the most prevalent in
English and Finnish Ford adverts, and which adjective grades were the most common. To summarize,
the initial hypothesis was correct in regards to that Value and Physical properties would be among
the most common semantic sets, and that basic forms would be the most common grades. However,
it was surprising how little comparatives and superlatives were used in the adverts and how
significant the differences were in the frequencies of different semantic sets. 80% of the English
adjectives were in their basic form and 75% of the Finnish adjectives were in that grade. In the
English adverts no less than 52% of the adjectives described Value or Physical property, and the same
value was 56% in the Finnish adverts. The remaining 48% and 44% were divided as almost as
unevenly between 10 other semantic sets.
As stated in Section 7.2, further studies into adjective use in adverts might benefit from revising
Dixon’s (2012) 12 semantic sets to better suit the material, for example by annexing some of the sets
or omitting others. However, if Dixon’s model would be used for another study, another course could
be to either choose different products and adverts. If another similar study into car adverts would be
conducted, the most logical course, in my view, would be to limit the analysis on only certain
segments of the adverts instead of covering the entire PDFs. Whereas covering the whole adverts
should not automatically be viewed as a limitation in this study, it is worthwhile recognizing that this
decision no doubt affected the results. Focusing on e.g. the first or last 10 pages of the adverts would
have likely produced different results.
However, I feel that a more interesting proposition for a further study would be from the aspect of
localization or segmentation. As stated earlier, the adverts are recognized to be localized products
for the target market, but the original American adverts were not consulted in this study.
Furthermore, it is not necessarily a given that the American adverts would be ‘originals’ per say: if
the same car was launch simultaneously on several markets, the adverts might have been even
written at the same time. Hence, it would be interesting to study how even three different adverts of
the same car would differ between different markets. One approach could be studying adverts in
three different languages e.g. in English, Finnish and Italian, or even studying three English language
adverts from e.g. American, UK and Australian markets.
One approach to studying possible segmentation in the Ford adverts is to examine all available online
adverts from one year, and preferably from several market areas (UK, USA, Finland, Sweden etc.).
57
First hint of a segmentation strategy would be if three markets featured e.g. Fiesta and New Zeeland
would not. Additionally, if there was more instances like the 30 page Finnish Mondeo advert vs. 7
page English Mondeo advert, the differences could be studied in more detail: what was dropped in
this localized version and why. As suggested by “Euroopan pahimpia tieolosuhteita”, even the English
and Australian adverts could not be completely the same and a study such as this could yield
interesting results about localization and segmentation strategies.
Huotila (1996) did not study adjective grade in her material so it is difficult to compare the findings in
that regard. However, even in her study Intensifiers were very frequent, and this semantic set
arguably equal Value in Dixon’s (2012) classification. From this we can assume that it is indeed
common for advertisers to appeal to values in advertising, but further studies into localized adverts
and language use in adverts overall would no doubt reveal more about the conventions and language
of localized adverts.
58
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60
Appendix 1. Fiesta advert page 5
Appendix 2. Fiesta advert page20
Appendix 3. Fiesta advert page 34
Appendix 4. Adjective lists of the Fiesta adverts
Finnish Fiesta advert
S1
S2
-Nerokas. Vaikuttava...Tutustu uuteen sisältöön verkossa…
S3
S4
S5
-Voisiko tämä olla uuden ystävyyssuhteen alku?
-Säihkyvine erikoispiirteineen ja laadukkaine yksityiskohtineen Ford Fiesta antaa jalostuneen ja ylvään
vaikutelman.
S6
-…kaikki yksinkertaisilla puhekomennoilla…se on yhdistetty yhteensopivaan matkapuhelimeen…Katso
viimeisimmät tiedot…
S7
-Nauti korkealaatuisesta nahkaverhoilusta…Fiestan näyttävää sisustaa kaunistaa…Ambient-valaistus tuo
mukavan ja rentouttavan ilmapiirin ohjaamoon.
S8
-Ford Fiestan hienostunut sähköisesti tehostettu ohjaus (EPAS)…jää tavanomaisilta ohjausjärjestelmiltä
saavuttamatta…täysi tehostus tekee ohjausliikkeistä…hallinta pysyvät optimaalisina…löytämään itsellesi
parhaan ajoasennon rentouttavaa ajokokemusta varten
S9
S10
-…valitsee seuraavan sopivan vaihteen täsmälleen oikealla hetkellä…
S11
-Kansainvälinen vuoden moottori 2012
-…timanttimainen pinnoitus vähentää kitkaa…Tuloksena on ällistyttävä suorituskyky näin taloudelliseen
moottoriin…Uusi 1,0-litrainen EcoBoost…
S12
-Vähemmän polttoainetta. Pienemmät päästöt
-…Fiestan uusien moottoreiden ällistyttävän hyvän polttoainetalouden. Uusi 125 hv:n 1.0L
Ecoboost…suuremman maksimitehon kuin isompi 96 hv:n 1.4L-moottori…noin 24% pienemmän kulutuksen ja
25% pienemmät CO2 –päästöt. Uusi 95 hv:n 1.6L Duratorq TDCi-dieselmoottori on vieläkin säästeliäämpi…
S13
-MyKey varmistaa ja rohkaisee turvallisen [sic] ajotyylin…
S14
S15
-Älykäs ohjelmisto…
S16
S17
-Kynnyslevyt ruostumattomasta teräksestä
-Täydellinen korinmuotoilusarja…Mustat ylemmät ja alemmat Sport-säleiköt…Suuri takaspoileri…Urheilullinen
jousitus
-Tärkeimmät vakiovarusteet
S18
-Urheilulliset etuistuimet… Kynnyslevyt ruostumattomasta teräksestä
S19
S20
-Nauti myös pienistä yksityiskohdista.
-Pehmeä, rauhoittava punainen loiste…jos rengaspaine laskee liian pieneksi…
S21
-Urheilulliset etuistuimet…Urheilullisten polkimien muotoilu…
-Tärkeimmät vakiovarusteet
S22
-Sopiva väri miellyttää sinua.
(tällä sivulla kokonaan kääntämätön kappale englanniksi)
-Jokaisen uuden Ford Fiestan turvana…vastaa todellisia autoja…
S23
-Maksullinen lisävaruste
S24
-…aina pienimpään kuulalaakeriin asti.
S25
-…integroidut suuntavilkut…Ylempi etusäleikkö… Ylempi etusäleikkö… Ylempi etusäleikkö… Alempi etusäleikkö…
Alempi etusäleikkö… Alempi etusäleikkö…Korinvärinen, iso (ei saatavana 1.6 TDCi ECOnetic-malleihin)
S26
-…tuulilasi on selkeä ja raaputus jää historiaan
-Nerokkaita varusteita jotka säästävä aikaa ja vaivaa…ettei väärää polttoainetta tankata…
-…(estää väärän polttoaineen tankkauksen)…Automaattiset päiväajovalot
tuulilasinpyyhkijät…)…Tuulilasinpyyhkijät – Automaattiset sadetunnistimella
(sisältää
automaattiset
S27
-Tee näyttävä vaikutus tällä muotoiluosasarjalla…
S28
-Luo
yksilölliset
sisätilat…Nauti
korkealaatuisen
nahkan…antamasta
tyylikkäästä
hienostuneisuudesta…hienovaraisesti eleganteilla kynnyslevyillä…ruostumattomasta teräksestä…
S29
-…valitsemalla upeasta audio-, navigointi- ja viihdejärjestelmien valikoimasta…ja oikea MP3-kappale valittu…
-….käyttää – digitaalista soitintasi Fordisi…
S30
-Ilmastointi – Manuaalinen…Himmeä LED-valaistus…
S31
-Etuistuimet – Urheilulliset…lattiaa korottomalla saadaan tasaisempi kuormatila…
S32
-Älykästä teknologiaa
-Fiestassa on paljon uutta älykästä teknologiaa…
-…törmäys edellä ajavan auton kanssa vaikuttaa todennäköiseltä…Ahtaissa paikoissa helpottaa…useimpia
suosittuja MP3-soittimia…Integroitu navigointi ja peruutuskamera…rengaspaine laskee liian pieneksi
esimerkiksi…
-…yhdistetty yhteensopivaan matkapuhelimeen…Katso viimeisimmät tiedot…On lainvastaista käyttää…
S33
-Älykäs IPS-turvajärjestelmä
-Fordin edistynyt IPS käyttää monia hienostuneita teknologioita…erittäin lujasta teräksestä
valmistettua…antavat optimaalisen suojan…Elektroninen ajovakauden hallintajärjestelmä…elektronisella
jarruvoiman jaolla…optimoitu vankka korirakenne…erittäin jäykkä turvamatkustamo…
-Turvallisin paikka lapsille…
S34
-Elektroninen ajovakauden hallintajärjestelmä (ESP)… Turvallisin paikka lapselle…
-Tekniset yksityiskohdat…Jousitus – Urheilullinen…optimaalisen
optimaalisen polttoainetalouden…Urheilullinen jousitus…
polttoainetalouden
saavuttamiseksi…
S35
-Suurin teho…Suurin vääntö…Suurin nopeus…
-…teknisten vaatimusten ja määritysten….Todelliset kulutuslukemat saattavat vaihdella…ovat olleet oikein
esitteen mennessä…Tekniset tiedot saattavat….lopulliset tiedot saatte…
-Ecoboost = enemmän tehoa + parempi polttoainetalous…
-…timanttimainen pinnoitus vähentää kitkaa…Tuloksena on ällistyttävä suorituskyky näin taloudelliseen
moottoriin. Uusi 1,0-litrainen EcoBoost…
S36
-…suurin sallittu paino… suurin sallittu paino…
-Kevyin omapaino täysin nestemäärin…ilmoittavat suurimman vetokyvyn auton….polttoainetalouden arvot
ovat ilmoitettua heikommat…Suurin sallittu aisapaino…Suurin yhdistelmäpaino…tekniset tiedot ovat olleet
oikein esitteen mennessä painoon. Tekniset tiedot…lopulliset tiedot saatta [sic]…
-Innovatiivinen, täysin lukittava suksiteline…Kätevä liukutoiminto…kätevää kuormausta varten…jopa pienellä
sateella…yhdistää täydelliseen korin muotoilusarjaan
S37
S38
-…laajennetun Ford-tiepalvelun…
-…tiedot ovat olleet oikeita painatushetkellä…tuotteiden jatkuvat
tiedot…ajoneuvon lopullinen malli tai….alkuperäisiä Ford-varusteita…
S39
English Fiesta advert
S1
kehittäminen…Kysy
uusimmat
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-Visionary. Ingenious. Remarkable…
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-With sparkling accents and high quality details, the Ford Fiesta is polished and poised.
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-…all with simple voice commands…
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-Enjoy high-quality partial or optional full leather seats…A new premium flow through centre console with
armrest…plus enhanced ambient lighting…
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-The steering system that always feels just right.
-Ford Fiesta’s sophisticated electric power-assisted steering (EPAS)…with conventional power steering
systems…full power is delivered for feather-light manoeuvring…just the right extent for optimum feel and
control…find your ideal driving position for a more relaxed driving experience…
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-Ford PowerShift delivers the perfect combination…selects the next appropriate gear…for smooth, lightningfast gear changes…
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-…International Engine of the Year.
-…consistent with larger displacement engines. The result is remarkable performance from such an economical
engine…the International Engine of the Year Awards 2012, the new 1.0-litre EcoBoost…
- International Engine of the Year… International Engine of the Year
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-Less fuel. More power. Lower emissions.
-…Fiesta’s latest engines are remarkably fuel efficient. The new 1.0 EcoBoost 125 PS petrol engine…more
maximum power than the larger capacity prior 1.6 120 PS that it replaces…better fuel economy and 25 per cent
lower CO2 emissions. The new 1.6 Duratorq TDCi 95 PS diesel engine…is even more frugal…
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-MyKey is an innovative programmable feature that encourages safer driving…and maximum audio volume…
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-This smart software monitors…
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-…responding to real time road speed and traffic conditions to deliver more accurate estimated arrival
times…Special guidance graphics…for safer and easier manoeuvring…
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-Electronic Stability Programme…
-Full bodystyling kit…Large body colour rear spoiler…
-Automatic headlights…
-Electronic front and rear windows
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-Electric windows front and rear
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-Automatic headlights
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-…in the small details.
-…if a tyre’s pressure is too low…
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-Full Bodystyling kit with large rear spoiler
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-…its beautiful and durable exterior to a special multi-stage painting process…new materials…it’s not only
virtually solvent-free, but will retain its good looks…
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-…right down to the smallest ball bearing.
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-…even on frosty mornings.
-Automatic headlights…Wipers – Front, automatic with rain sensor…
-Clever features that save time and hassle
-No dirty fuel caps to touch…with its unique safeguard…fills up with the wrong fuel…
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-Full Bodystyling Kit
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-Elegant stainless steel scuff plates…
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-…with your favourite music…a choice of superb audio….
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-…Electronic Automatic Temperature Control (EATC)…
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-…to create a deeper boot space…a flatter load space…
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-Smart technology…has a range of intelligent features…make life a little easier…
-…in slow-moving traffic by applying the brakes…Audible warnings help…operate most popular MP3
players…with remarkably simple voice commands…Special guidance graphics…for safer and easier
manoeuvring…pressure is too low…
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-Intelligent Protection System
-Ford’s advanced IPS uses a range of sophisticated technologies…including ultra-high strength steel safety
cage…
-Electronic Stability Program…with ultra-rigid safety cell…
-The safest place for children…
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-Intelligent Protection System…with electronic brake-force distribution (EBD)… Electronic Stability Programme
(ESP)…Automatic flashing of hazard warning lights under heavy braking…Active City Stop…
-The safest place for children…
-Electric power-assisted steering (EPAS)
-…for maximum fuel efficiency.
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-Maximum Power…Max. Speed
-…according to technical requirements…use of technical equipment…a range of advanced performance fuels,
the perfect partner to meet the most demanding needs…compared with ordinary fuels.
-…more power + better fuel economy.
-The diamond-like coating…The result is remarkable performance from such an economical engine…at the
International Engine of the Year Awards 2012, the new 1.0-litre Ecoboost…
-International Engine of the Year…
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-Max. Towable Mass… Max. Towable Mass…
-Represents the lightest kerbweight…full fluid levels…the maximum towing ability…Nose weight limit is a
maximum of 50 kg…
-Innovative, fully-lockable ski carrier…Comfortable slide-out function…for easy access …for convenient
loading…for a more enjoyable drive…
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-Modena leather in Metallic Effect…with Generic Silver stitching…Red Hot with Generic Red stitching…
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-…Ford Protect Premium Plan…
-This catalogue was correct…For the latest details…both original Ford accessories…
-…at the latest Ford Service Promotions…
-…from our latest model range.
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