Running Head : THE ANALYSIS OF ASSOCIATIVE MEANING IN BEAUTY

PRODUCTS ADVERTISEMENT SLOGAN

THE ANALYSIS OF ASSOCIATIVE MEANING IN BEAUTY PRODUCTS

ADVERTISEMENT SLOGAN

(A STUDY OF SOCIOPRAGMATIC)

NURWINDA AGIKA S. BUANE

UNIVERSITAS NEGERI GORONTALO

 CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

Background of Study

Language is one of importance aspect in communication. It holds the important

roles in expressing someone idea, thought, feeling, and knowledge. Therefore, in this

modern era, language is not only used as a tool of communication, but it is may become

a way to earn money. For example in buy and sell activity, we may found in everywhere

that in buying and selling people often try to get profits; especially the one who play the

role as the seller. The seller needs to promote their product to the customer by

persuading them with such a good words; they may attract the customer by introducing

and showing the benefit and the advantages of the product, or they may use some media

in order to promote their product. Nowadays, advertisement slogan is become one of the

popular and powerful tools used by the seller to communicate their message of a

product to the target audience.

Advertisement slogan is a short phrases that contain some message used in

advertising company, and usually used to attract attention from audience or customer to

a distinctive product feature or may reinforce a company’s brand. Moreover, the

language used in advertisement may different with the daily language that usually

spoken or written by most people. In other words, the marketers should ensure that their

message of particular product reached the right audience, which this is may be a

difficult task to do. In advertising the company has to use short yet memorable phrases

that can catch a potential customer attention to the product. Pavel Skorupa and Tatjana

Duboviciene (2015) argue that “the purpose of any advertising campaign is to make the
target audience remember the transmitted message, which will eventually change the

customer’s buying habits due to the impact the advertisement has on their thinking,

feelings, and behaviuor”. (p.109). The other purpose of advertisement slogan is also to

differentiate one company product form other and highlight the advertised brand.

Nowadays, it is almost impossible for not seeing advertisement slogan, since people are

exposed to advertising almost every day in their life. People see it in newspaper,

magazine, internet, social media, streets, television, public transport, in the radio, etc.

In Indonesia we can find many advertisement slogans especially those from beauty

product brand, the advertisement slogan may easily found from media like television or

internet; as the result of the domination of the beauty product in Indonesian market.

Therefore, those advertisement slogans may not be understandable by some of

Indonesian people; it is because some of the brands use English as their advertisement

slogan. In other word the message of the advertisement slogan will hard to get by the

audience. Yet if the readers want to understand the meaning or information from the

slogan the reader should interpret the overall meaning of the slogan.

Furthermore, the researcher is expected to analyze the associative meaning in the

beauty product advertisement slogan.

Research Question

Based on the background of study above, this study formulates research question, that

is;

1. What are the types of associative meaning that appeared in beauty product

advertisement slogan?

2. What are the meanings of the advertisement slogan?

Aims of Study

The aims of the study are mainly to answer the research question and to provide

information about the meaning of advertisement slogan in beauty product.

Significances of Study

The significances of this research are varieties. The result of this research may

give an access to students to understand associative meaning in non-formal

communication. Moreover, this research can give some contribution for those who have

concern in linguistics field; this study can be used as reference for some people who

concern in advertisement slogan, so they should be carefully when making a slogan; and

this study can be used as a reference for the next researcher who is going to conduct a

research in the same area.

Scope of Study

On this research, the researcher focuses on the types of associative meaning that

appeared in the beauty products advertisement slogan. This research will use Leech

framework as a tool of analysis. The data analysis in this study limited only to some
beauty products from famous brand specifically the one that gain popularity among

Indonesian people; and the products use English as their advertisement slogan.

Definition of Term

1. Associative meaning

Associative meaning is an expression that has to do with individual mental

understanding of the speaker. It can be broken up into five types; there are

connotative meaning, collocative meaning, social or stylistic meaning, and reflected

meaning.

2. Beauty Product

According to Canada Health Care beauty product also known as cosmetics is any

substance used to clean, improve or change the complexion, skin, hair, nails or teeth.

It is include beauty preparations such as make-up, perfume, skin cream, nail polish;

and grooming aids such as soap, shampoo, shaving cream, and deodorant.

3. Advertisement Slogan

Based on wikiquote advertisement slogan are shorts, often memorable phrase used

in advertising campaign. They are claimed to be the most effective means of

drawing attention to one or more aspects of a product.

 CHAPTER II

LITERATURE REVIEW

Associative Meaning

As stated before leech differ the meaning into conceptual meaning, associative

meaning (connotative meaning, social or stylistic meaning, affective meaning, reflected

meaning, collocative meaning), and thematic meaning. Conceptual meaning or

sometimes called denotative or cognitive meaning is the kind of meaning that has the

clearness of meaning and context bound.

Conceptual meaning deals with the basic or essential components of meaning

which are conveyed by the literal use of a word; thematic meaning is according to leech

is communicated by the way in which a speaker or writer organize the message, in terms

of ordering, focus, and emphasize. It is often felt, for example, that an active sentence

and passive sentence, thematic also is mainly about a matter of choice between

alternative grammatical constructions in sentences.

Meanwhile, associative meaning is a meaning of lexeme or word relating to

something out of linguistics context (Chaer, 2007). As cited in Irfan (2017) Associative

meaning have a deeper implicit meaning from the conceptual meaning and it is more

related to the level of understanding of people’s mental; where the difference between

the conceptual meaning and the associative meaning can be done based on the

relationship of a meaning of a word with another word; and how associative meaning

can be affected by the culture and the human experience.

 In addition, leech proposed the types of associative meaning regarding to give

more and better explanation about associative meaning.

1. Connotative Meaning

Connotative meaning can be define as the communicative value of an expression

according to what is referred to, exceed the above contents are purely conceptual.

(Leech, 2003). Leech also added that “connotative meaning was concerned with the

real world experiences one associates with the linguistics expression one uses or

hears”. Connotative meaning is determinate and open ended. It is because

connotative meaning is depends on the knowledge and beliefs of the speaker and

may belong to any characteristics of the referent, and real or imaginary as indentifies

by the speaker. Connotative meaning may vary according to culture, background or

society, and it the meaning may be subjective or unstable depend on how much an

individual or society perceives an expression.

For example; the word ‘snake’ as conceptual meaning can be conveyed as ‘any

of numerous scaly’, ‘legless’, ‘sometimes venomous reptiles’, etc. However in

connotative meaning ‘snake’ can be referred to ‘evil’ and ‘danger’. Other example,

in English the word ‘dog’ may have the connotation or refer to ‘loyalty’, apart from

its referential meaning.

2. Social or Stylistic Meaning

Leech (2013) stated that social meaning (stylistic meaning) is a piece of

language that convey about the social circumstance of its use. Social meaning was

understood through the recognition of different dimension and level of style within

the same language. (Umagandhi, Vinothini, 2017). It is varies between age-groups,

sex, social class and cultures, and dialect.

 For example; word ‘pavement’ is used in British English and word ‘sidewalk’ in

American English; then the word ‘residence’ is formal and ‘home’ is casual. Other

example of social or stylistic meaning is from the slogan of Dunkin Donuts

‘America Runs On Dunkin’; In the slogan the word ‘America’ talking about the

everyday folks who get things done. It is used in the scope of society who are busy

and do not have time to linger. (as cited in Hasibuan).

3. Affective Meaning

Affective meaning different with social meaning is the aspect of meaning that

which reflect personal feelings of the speaker, includes the attitudes of the listener or

the attitude to something the listener was talking about. Leech (2003) conveyed that

‘effective meaning is often explicitly conveyed through the conceptual or

connotative content of the words used”. A person may derive their own affective

meaning from a word and choose how they will interpret the meaning.

For example, the slogan of McDonalds is ‘I’m Loving It’, the word ‘Loving It’

as the evidence that this sentence describes the writer’s and reader’s feeling towards

the product. (as cited in Hasibuan).

4. Reflected Meaning

Reflected meaning arises when a word has more than one conceptual meaning or

multiple conceptual meaning. Leech (2003) stated that reflected meaning is what

being communicated through association with another sense of the same expression

or the meaning which arises in case of multiple conceptual meaning when the sense

of words parts of our response to another sense. This may cause when one sense of

words affects someone interpretation to another meaning. For instance, in the

 following lines from the poetry ‘futility’ by Wilfred Owen we can find a reflected

meaning;

‘Are limbs, so dear achieved, are sides, full nerve still warm-too hard to stir’

The word ‘dear’ is used as the sense of ‘expensiveness’, but also alludes, one feels

in the context of poem, to the sense ‘beloved’. (Leech, 1981). Other example of

reflected meaning is from the slogan of KFC “Finger Lickin’ Good”. The sentences

may cause many assumptions from the readers; the word ‘good’ reflected to the

food which is tasty and make the people want to lick their finger. (as cited in

Hasibuan).

In other words, reflected meaning is a word that has more than one or several

meaning, but apparently still appropriate with context situation.

5. Collocative Meaning

Collocative meaning is the meaning which is a word acquired in the company of

certain words. Based on Irfan (2017) collocative meaning deals with wprd which is

associated with another word in order to make the word becomes a good phrase and

sounds correct. Leech (1981) argued that “collcative meaning communicated

through association with words tends to occur in the environment of another word”.

In other words, words collocate or co-occur with certain words only. For example,

‘big business’ where the word ‘big’ is more suitable with word ‘business’ rather

than ‘large’ or ‘great’.

In addition, collocative meaning refers to associations of a word because of its

usual or habitual co-occurrence with certain types of words. For example, ‘pretty’

and ‘handsome’ indicate ‘good looking’ or the word pretty and handsome share

common ground in the meaning of good looking. Yet, these two words may be
 distinguished by the range of nouns with which they are likely to co-occur or

collocate; where the word ‘pretty’ collocates with girl, woman, village, garden and

flower; and word ‘handsome’ collocates with boy, men, etc.

Advertisement Slogan

Advertisement is a media to promote the products to public. Lee and Johnson

(2004) stated that advertisement is the commercial communication about a group of

companies and their product which convey to people through media such as radio,

newspaper, television, and any other media. (as cited in Irfan, 2017). In addition

advertisement as stated by Tjiptono that has main function; first it is to inform public

about the product, second influenced people to buy the product, third is updated

information, and lastly is to create a new atmosphere when the public receives

information.

Meanwhile, slogan is a short easily remembered phrase, especially one used to

advertise an idea or product. (as cited from Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary).

According to Granat (2003) slogan is tagline that express on phrase of advertisement

and it is an importance item by the company. The main point of slogan is it has to attract

the customers’ attention. Therefore, Leech (1966) added that advertising slogan should

obey some following rules such as, attentive value, memorability, and readability,

selling power. (as cited in Irfan, 2017).

In the conclusion, advertisement slogan are short phrases used in advertising

campaign to attract attention to a distinctive product feature or reinforce a company’s

brand. (as cited from Wikipedia). In addition, some advertising slogan can have notable

influence in everyday social interaction. It can serve as connection point between

community members as individuals share pithy tagline in conversation. It is also play a

part in the interplay between rival companies.

Previous Study

This study is not the only one that analyze the associative meaning, there were

several previous studies that related to the same topic about the study of associative

meaning from many different objects. Here are some studies that already conducted

before this study.

The first study was conducted by Asep Hilmil Irfan in 2017. The study entitled

The Analysis of Associative Meaning in Samsung Advertisement Slogan. In the study

Asep focused on the associative meaning that appeared in Samsung advertisement

slogan, the data was taken from Samsung website and basically he analyze only the

advertisement slogan from Samsung product. His study adopted Geoffrey Leech theory

to analyze the data. The findings of the study showed that there were only four types of

associative meaning that appeared from the Samsung advertisement slogan. There were

connotative meaning (11 data), social or stylistics meaning (1 datum), affective meaning

(1 datum), and reflected meaning (2 data); where there were only one types that did not

appeared which is collocative meaning.

The second study was conducted by Winda Ayu Charmila (2015). The study

entitled A Study of Associative Meaning Found in The News Articles on Regional

Elections Law in The Jakarta Globe Online Newspaper. In the study Winda mainly

focused on answering two researcher questions; there were (1) what types of associative

meaning used in the article about regional election law in the Jakarta, (2) what are the
interpretation of associative meaning found in articles about regional election law in the

Jakarta Globe. Meanwhile, the study used qualitative approach, and document analysis

in order to analyze the data. Therefore, the study also used Geoffrey Leech theory about

meaning in order to analyze the data. The finding of the study showed that there were

fifty five sentences containing associative meaning; there were twenty five words

included to reflected meaning, thirty words included in stylistic meaning, twelve words

included in connotative meaning, two words included in collocative meaning, and

twenty one sentences including in affective meaning. As the conclusion, in the study all

types of associative meaning can be found or appeared in the data.

The other study was conducted by Eva Nurul Chandra (2013). Her study entitled

Meaning Analysis of English Slogan Advertisement. The study was intended to analyze

the text meaning of English slogan advertisement. Same as the other previous study, this

study was also use qualitative method. The difference is; this study analyzed the

figurative meanings and stylistic meaning of the slogan. This study used thirty kinds of

English slogan as the object of the research; where seven slogans come from the

advertisements that serve a service, and twenty three slogans come from the

advertisements that serve a product. Therefore, the finding of the study showed that

there were seven slogans that did not contain a figurative language, because some of the

slogans use ordinary word, and there were eight slogans that use hyperbole as a

figurative language.
 CHAPTER III

METHODOLOGY OF RESEARCH

Method of Research

This study will be used qualitative method. The researcher attempts to identity

and describe the data. As in Ranjit Kumar stated that qualitative study is to describe the

variation and diversity in a phenomenon, situation, or attitude. In other word this

method is suitable for this researcher, because the researcher attend to answer the

question and collect evidence of the study. Moreover, the researcher does not use a

questionnaire or estimating the number of variables as in quantitative method.

Therefore, the researcher will use descriptive method in order to support the qualitative

method.

Source of Data

The data of this research is taken from both from television and website of the

beauty products where the advertisement slogan can be found. Meanwhile, the data of

this research are some of famous brand of beauty product that used English as their

advertisement slogan.

Data Collection

The data will be collected through read and note writing the data. The researcher

will read all the beauty products advertisement slogan and observe which of the slogan

that close to the data needed by this study; which is the advertisement slogan that used

English. Furthermore, the researcher will use any other media to support the data
collection such as magazine, or advertisement billboard. The researcher then will note

writing all the selected data into some content of script.

Data Analysis

In analyzing the data the researcher will use identification, classification and

interpretation. In identification the researcher will read all the advertisement slogan that

have been transfer into script, then the researcher will underline the words, phrase, or

sentence that may contain associative meaning. The next step is classification and

interpretation in this step the researcher will classify the advertisement slogan based on

the types of associative meaning in order to answer the research question (1) what are

the types associative meaning that appear in the beauty product advertisement slogan.

Next interpretation, the theory of meaning based on sociopragmatic will be used

to analyze or to interpret the meaning of the advertisement slogan based on the context.

Moreover, the researcher will draw a conclusion based on the study findings.