Up to this point, we have avoided several ads in my collection which manipulate in much the same way as the above but have the additional dubious feature of being exploitative in a way that is, in my opinon, somewhat noxious. Of course, all advertisements exploit in the sense of wanting to convey the impression of the "rightness" of the product or service advertised. These ads, however, are different in that they typically contain manipulations aimed at the sexual appetite of the viewer/reader. Most often, but not always, the target is the American, purportedly to-be-dominated-and-therefore-to-be-exploited female.

While it is clear that in a society and culture which makes a regualr habit, nay a ritual, out of being titillated sexually, advertisers in that society can be expected to attempt to capitalize on that tendency, one can hardly find a reason for necessarily condoning such manipulation. It is not my purpose to discuss it at length here. It is, indeed, the subject of an entirely different piece. I merely present a few examples for your interest and understanding:

Shofar kosher frankfurters and salamis depicts a very shapely female posterior in a pair of almost revealing cut-off jeans. A package of Shofar kosher midget salami is crammed in one back pocket. The ad is titled "Little Nosh." [Yiddish for "a little something to eat]. Suffice it to say that "salami" has a phallic connotation in the popular culture and let your imagination do the rest!

In a milder yet equally exploitative fashion, Sassafras swimwear presents a photo of four very comely young ladies all dressed in fashionable, not particularly risque', swimwear. However, they are all posed full length, from the rear. The title of the advertisement is "Beach bums," an obvious allusion to the posteriors as well as to the well-known bound idiom. Solorflex somewhat less mildly or subtley exploits males by depicting the very well-muscled and proportioned Ken Norton with the linguistic manipulation: "A hard man is good to find." Lastly, an ad that drew so much criticism a few years back that it was eventually pulled: the Canadian Black Velvet whiskey bottle is placed under a very comely young woman in a strapless, black-velvet evening gown. The caption, "Feel the Velvet Canadian" is placed over the figure in such a way that the words, "feel the," are squarely over her breasts. The seeming message: "If we men [and men as potential purchasers are the obvious target of the ads] would but purchase the whiskey, we may vicariously experience this woman's breasts." Again, this is a very clever linguistic manipulation at the lexical and syntactic level. It is however, a poignantly exploitative and noxious example of the kind of semiosis American advertising as an institution could well do without.

Thus, if we analyze the language of commercials, we will clearly see how important is the use of idioms in advertisement. Advertising occupies a central position in the landscape of consumer culture. Advertisers commit major resources to finding out how the purchase of a product could fulfill consumer needs and desires - which may or may not have anything to do with the product's purpose. While advertising's immediate goal may be the promotion of a specific item, its legacy is a standard of values and behavior, which have made advertising copy into idiomatic expressions.

2.3. Creative usage of the idioms. Extension and alteration

Here we will analyze an extended idiom. Extended idioms were described in the introduction as being featured in their original form together with an additional piece of text that somehow makes a comment on the idiom itself. This comment is often fairly concise and occurs in direct proximity to the idiom, either directly preceding or immediately following it. The main effect provided by the comment is to draw attention to the literal meaning of the idiom.

Burn the candle at both ends, then get rid of the smoke

This extended idiom is found in an ad for a product by Comfort called Refresh, which is sprayed onto clothes to remove smells, or as the slogan promises, it “puts freshness back into clothes”. The entire background of the ad consists of a picture of a woman wearing a dress and a cardigan, but it seems to have been cut in two pieces, with the left half showing her at night in a dark and smoky room, her hair slightly disheveled and her cardigan flailing open, revealing the straps of her dress. In the right-hand half of the picture it is daytime, she standing in a brightly lit room with a desk and a computer visible in the background. Her hair has been combed and her cardigan is neatly adjusted. The woman is holding a spray bottle of Comfort Refresh in her left hand, spraying its contents towards the smoky left-hand half of the picture. The idiom itself, burn the candle at both ends, is written across the smoky half of the picture, while the comment, then get rid of the smoke, is superimposed on the other side. The idiom is partly motivated by conceptual metaphor(s), but it is also possible that conventional knowledge plays a part in forming mental images, at least for some speakers. According to Szabó, the underlying metaphor behind this idiom is energy is fuel for the fire, but it is unclear exactly what they mean and they fail to give a more detailed analysis. Presumably, if we understand energy in terms of fuel for a fire, it means that we need energy to keep the fire burning, in this context perhaps the fire of life. My attempt at an explanation would be that if we burn the candle at both ends, i.e. use up too much energy late at night and early in the morning, there will not be enough left.

Nighttime is when we recuperate and gather more energy, and if that time is cut short there will be no fuel for the fire. However, is it not possible that some other metaphor is involved as well, one that involves time rather than fuel for a fire? One very common metaphor we use in order to understand time is by seeing it as a physical object, sometimes more specifically as a container, which we can move in and out of, as in expressions such as We’re well into the century and He’s like something out of the last century, or as a moving object. In my view, burning the candle at both ends could be partly motivated by this metaphor as well, if we think of a period of time as a bounded entity or slot, that can be shortened at both ends. The candle burning at both ends would then correspond to our night rest being shortened at both ends [24; 90]. Interestingly enough, the reference in this ad is not specifically to the lack of energy that is caused by late nights out and early mornings, but rather it addresses the problems associated with smoky venues and how to feel clean and fresh the next day. The focus is thus not on the short period of rest, but on the short period of time in which you must get your clothes feeling fresh again. What our conventional knowledge tells us, and which could influence our mental images associated with this idiom, is that it is often dark late at night and early in the morning. Being up at these times would therefore require some form of light source, such as a candle, which then would have to be burned at both ends of the day.

Regardless of the exact motivation behind the idiom, it is clear that the element smoke in the comment is grounded both in the literal meaning of the idiom, according to which a candle is burning, and in the wider situation associated with the metaphorical meaning of the idiom, i.e. the knowledge that late nights are associated with going out to smoky bars or clubs, which is information that is partly provided by the picture. Out of context, the idiom would perhaps be difficult to understand, since our attention is drawn to its literal meaning by the comment clause then get rid of the smoke. Gibbs et al., reporting on earlier studies by Gibbs, point out that “people do not ordinarily process the entire literal meanings of idioms,” which often results in a “double-take” when they encounter idioms in a non-metaphorical context [22; 127].

This is clearly what has been exploited by the makers of the ad in question. When reading the idiom burn the candle at both ends, we are more likely to access the metaphorical meaning, which is why we might react when we get to the word smoke, which triggers the literal meaning. This incongruity draws our attention to the underlying metaphorical mappings, and allows us to access the input spaces. The source domain object/fuel is elaborated as a candle space, which contains the candle, the process of burning, and the smoke, or perhaps rather soot, that results from it. The target domain time/energy is instead elaborated as a nightlife space, in which a person stays out late, frequents venues where people smoke cigarettes, and as a result end up with clothes that smell of smoke.

In the headline, which may be understood as a conceptual blend, both these spaces are activated at the same time, and a humorous effect is created by the double literal interpretation of the element ‘smoke’ against both the inputs.

This makes this example similar to the double grounding constellation proposed by Feyaerts and Brône (in press), and it might also be argued that there is metonymic tightening in the blend, since the smoke stands for the previous night out on the town. In that input space, the smoke was one element among others, while in the blend it represents all the others, and in fact forms the evidence that has to be removed.

А good example of an altered idiom in commercial is following:

Comfort is in the eye of the beholder

This ad one for Focus contact lenses, which appeared in Marie Claire in March, 1997. The main part of the ad is taken up by a picture of a woman dressed in a white knitted polo jumper, cuddling a fluffy toy animal that might be a teddy bear. The headline above the picture is written in white against a green background and reads Comfort is in the eye of the beholder, a variant form of the idiomatic expression or proverb Beauty is in the eye of the beholder . As with the previous ad, the headline is ambiguous and may be interpreted both literally and metaphorically. Again, the fact that the idiom has been altered triggers the otherwise non-salient literal meaning, but perhaps not as strongly as in the previous ad, since Comfort is in the eye of the beholder may actually be understood in an entirely metaphorical sense, as opposed to Don’t get your panty liners in a twist, where a literal interpretation is inevitably highlighted.

Let us start with the original idiom, which is partly motivated by the conceptual metaphor ‘feelings are objects’ or in this case rather personal characteristics or abstract notions are objects. Being seen in terms of an object is what enables beauty to be located in different places, in this case in the eye of the beholder as opposed to in the face of a woman. Fittingly enough, contact lenses are also objects that are located in the eyes of some beholders, namely those with poor eyesight. The source domain objects is elaborated as a more specific space, which will be referred to as lenses, and it includes the simple scenario in which lenses are worn or placed in a person’s eyes [22; 130]. In addition, we can identify two elaborations of the target domain feelings/ characteristics, where one may be labeled comfort and the other beauty. In the comfort space, there is the feeling of comfort, which exists in the opinion of the person experiencing the event, while in the beauty space; there is the characteristic of beauty, which exists in the opinion of the observer. In the altered idiom in the headline, all these spaces are activated simultaneously, and contribute to the understanding of what it means to use the Focus lenses. Not only will they improve a person’s eyesight, they are also comfortable for the wearer and make her/him look good in the eyes of other people. Moreover, all three input spaces may be understood to be reflected in the image, in particular the comfort space, to which the warm jumper and cuddly toy belong, but perhaps also the beauty space, which in that case is reflected in the face of the woman, and possibly also the lenses space, if we assume that the woman in the ad is wearing them. However, they are also signaled in the text or slogan at the very bottom of the ad, which says “see better,” “feel better” and “look better,” and these are of course linked to the three different input spaces lenses, comfort, and beauty.

The altered idiom in the headline may also be seen as a comment on the image, which actually illustrates some examples of what comfort may involve, but at the same time asks what it really means for something to be comfortable. Is it wearing a warm jumper and cuddling a fluffy toy as the woman in the picture is doing, or is it something else? That is all up to the beholder, which of course carries a possible negative implication as far as the aim of the ad is concerned. Are the contact lenses really comfortable or is that also, metaphorically, in the eye of the beholder?

The role played by metaphor and conceptual blending in these creative examples shows that advertising language follows the same cognitive principles as everyday language, but many processes, which are normally unconscious and therefore largely go unnoticed may be highlighted and made more noticeable

Conclusion

In this paper we tried to analyze and identify the impact, which is produced by the usage of the idiomatic language on the recipient of the information in terms of the pragmatic aspect of the usage of idioms in commercials. To keep it simple, usage of idioms is a powerful source for creation of the desirable effect with the potential customer. The basis of this phenomenon lies within the sophisticated subliminal organization of the idiomatic expressions. We do not split these expressions into parts but perceive them as a holistic thing.

The idioms are found either in the headline or in the body copy of the ads and occur in two main patterns, which we referred to as extended idioms and altered idioms, respectively. The extended idioms are found in their original form, accompanied by an additional piece of text that is either a continuation of or a comment on the idiom, hence the label. This comment or complement provides an elaboration on the idiom itself, sometimes by drawing attention to its literal meaning, as in Burn the candle at both ends. Then get rid of the smoke. In the altered idioms, on the other hand, one lexical item has been replaced in a context where in normal cases it would not be replaced, for example in Don’t get your panty liners in a twist, or syntactically altered in a way that does not occur in regular use. In short, the main difference is the location of the creative or unexpected surface element—as a complement to the idiom or inside the idiom. Besides, every person has a clear and instantaneous image in mind that is tightly welded with the particular idiomatic expression. So whereas the motivation of the promoters is quite clear, the mechanism of the linguistic influence through idioms leaves much to be learned about.

However, it is important to note that this paper does not state exactly what features are mapped or which conceptual links are established each time a particular idiom is deconstructed. Similarly, no claims are made as to how individual people would interpret the ads and there is no suggestion that everybody would understand them in exactly the same way, which means that there are many questions that still need to be answered.

Resume

Курсова робота під назвою «Ідіоми в рекламних слоганах. Прагматичний аспект» торкається проблеми вікористання ідіоматичниго словнику в рекламних оголошеннях та слоганах з огляду на прагматичний аспект використання фразеологізмів та їх похідних.

Головна мета роботи полягає у дослідженні феномена ідіоми в англійській мові та використання ідіоматичних виразів як інструмента маніпуляциії свідомостю покупця.

Робота включає в себе декілька основних завдань :

- Проаналізувати ідіоматичнє мовлення, виділити основні типи ідіом

- Проаналізувати використання ідіом в усному мовленні і в сфері реклами

- Дослідити вплив ідіом на свідомість покупця