MIXING ENGLISH IN BILINGUAL ADVERTISING: CHOICE OF ENGLISH VS. OTHER LANGUAGES
MIXING ENGLISH IN BILINGUAL ADVERTISING: CHOICE OF ENGLISH VS. OTHER LANGUAGES

Summary/Abstract: The English language has reached every corner of the world. The growing occurrence of English in product advertisements in the countries where it is not the native language indicates that it appears to be the most frequently used foreign language in the media and product advertisements. This article focuses on the roles of English in advertising markets throughout the world. With advertising becoming more and more persuasive in contemporary society, research aimed at advertisements has grown progressively important. The presence of two or more languages on one market leads to modifications of traditional advertising, thus aiming to target bilingual consumers. In this article, abrief overview of earlier work on English use in bilingual advertising throughout the world is presented. The reasons and different types of motivation for language mixing in advertisement are described. The main features of advertising texts in general are presented, and special attention is paid to language mixing in Slovakia where language mixing, predominantly of English and Slovak, is observed. The abundance of English usage in commercials all over the world, including Slovakia, canbe explained by utilitarian reason as well as social reasons, as the English language is a sign of novelty, prestige and high quality. Moreover, this paper reviews the marketing literature on the use of English vs. other languages in advertising to consumers in selected countries.

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