LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 7 : 4 April 2007
ISSN 1930-2940

Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. A. Sharada, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         Lakhan Gusain, Ph.D.
         K. Karunakaran, Ph.D.
         Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D.

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BILINGUAL ADVERTISING IN A MULTILINGUAL COUNTRY
Renu Gupta, Ph.D.

Bilingual Ad
A Bilingual Ad in Tamil and English Calling for Enrollment in a College of Education

Abstract

With globalization, advertisers have begun using bilingual advertisements to reach a larger customer base. This paper examines bilingual advertisements in India, where code-mixing is used in both Hindi and English advertisements. It provides samples of these advertisements and discusses the motivation for this marketing strategy.

1. Introduction

One of the effects of globalization has been an increasing use of bilingual advertising. Advertisers now use bilingual advertisements to market their products to consumers. The primary reason is to tap a larger consumer base and reach two different linguistic communities; Bhatia and Ritchie (2004) give the example of the Mexican shopkeeper who justified his bilingual signboard by saying, “I would sell only half, if I did not use English.” (p. 517). This quote not only shows the desire to reach a wider customer base but also that English tends to be one of the languages used in bilingual advertising.

Although customer reach may be the primary motivation, bilingual advertising is realized in different ways across countries. One useful framework for examining bilingual advertising is the Concentric Circles model of the spread of English (B. Kachru, 2005). In this model, countries in the Inner Circle use English as their first language, whereas in the Expanding Circle, English is primarily a foreign language. Countries in the Outer Circle, such as India, fall between these two groups because English is “used as an institutionalized additional language” (B. Kachru, 2005; pg. 14).

Most studies on bilingual advertising have focused on countries in the Expanding Circle, where English is used as a foreign language. The studies examined the use of English in several countries —Ecuador (Alm, 2003), France and Germany (Hilgendorf and Martin, 2001; Martin, 2002a, 2002b; Piller, 2001), Japan (Takashi, 1990a, 1990b, 1992; Wilkerson, 1997), Korea (Jung, 2001; Lee, 2006), Mexico (Baumgardner, 2006) and Russia (Ustinova, 2006; Ustinova and Bhatia, 2005). They found that English words are frequently used in advertisements to convey a modern or cosmopolitan image of the product or company. Figure 2 shows an advertisement for a Japanese product called Fire Coffee. English is used for the product name but also for a description of how to make good coffee that is purely decorative.

Bilingual Ad

This is only a brief summary of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN A PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Bilingual Advertising in a Multilingual Country | Need for an Active Dictionary for the Advanced Learners of English in Pakistan | Voices of the Marginalised - The Voice of God in the Lives of the People
A Study of Leo Tolstoy's Language | Gandhi's Ideology on the Empowerment of Women | N. Palanivelu: A Pioneer among the Tamil Writers of Malaysia and Singapore | Strategies for Communication Skills Development for the Students of Engineering Colleges in India | LANGUAGE NEWS THIS MONTH -
Ethnic Killing in India, Etc. | On Refining Your Etiquette -CHAPTER 8 -- WORDS, PHRASES AND PRONUNCIATION - From the Book of Etiquette by Emily Post, 1922 | HOME PAGE OF APRIL 2007 ISSUE | HOME PAGE | CONTACT EDITOR

Renu Gupta, Ph.D.
Center for Language Research
University of Aizu
Aizu-Wakamatsu City
Fukushima 965-8680
Japan
renu@u-aizu.ac.jp.
 
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