Advertising English and ESP: the British Cosmopolitan ad as an example of ‘specialised’ text

Abstract

Advertising English is characterised by several linguistic, pragmatic and functional features that distinguish it from other varieties of English that are not specialised. In this paper we have analysed the linguistic (i.e. graphic-phonologic, morpho-syntactic and lexico-semantic), pragmatic and functional features of advertising English, using a sample of 1142 advertisements run in British Cosmopolitan in 1999 and 2000, and have considered their closeness or distance from general English texts. In short, this analysis has proved that advertising English is a variety of ESP (English for Specific Purposes) with a low degree of specialisation and of a social type, which is on the borderline between GE (General English) and ESP. It has also proved that although related to EBE (English for Business and Economics), because of its economic content and purpose, advertising English seems to be closer to GE than EBE.

Keywords

• advertising
• English varieties
• ESP
• discourse analysis