Journal of Pragmatics 43 (2011) 2095–2109
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Code-breaking/code-making: A new language approach in advertising María José García Vizcaíno * Montclair State University, Spanish/Italian Department, Montclair, NJ 07043, United States
A R T I C L E I N F O
A B S T R A C T
Article history: Received 13 March 2009 Received in revised form 11 October 2010 Accepted 11 October 2010
The aim of this article is to study the mixing of languages in the advertising campaigns of the Spanish airline company Vueling. The main hypothesis is that foreign languages are used in this context for their symbolic and visual value rather than their content or informational components. The theoretical frame of multilingual advertising for the analysis is the linguistic fetishism approach proposed by Kelly-Holmes (2005). The data analysis will be carried out in two stages and will apply two different but related models of analysis. First, I will show how these ads break syntactic patterns of codeswitching according to the Matrix Language Frame model by Myers-Scotton (1992, 1993, 1995, 2001, 2002). Second, by applying the syntactic categories of codeswitching in Poplack (1982), I will explain how this company creates a new form of codeswitching in advertising very different from previous code-mixed ads in the general market and particularly in Spain. The results of the analysis confirm the hypothesis that symbolism is the driving force in using foreign languages in Vueling campaigns: English, French and Italian are inserted within Spanish idioms and proverbs to convey ‘foreignness’ rather than information. This pattern of ‘domesticating’ foreign elements into local semantic and syntactic frames suggests a desire to globalize or at least ‘Europeanize’ Spanish ads within the airlines market while maintaining and reinforcing Spanish identity. ß 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Code mixing Advertising Linguistic fetishism Domesticated foreignness Glocalization
1. Introduction In recent years there has been increasing interest in the use of foreign languages in advertising, especially the use of English in non-Anglophone countries such as France (Martin, 2002, 2006), Belgium (Van Gijsel et al., 2008), Russia (Ustinova and Bhatia, 2005), Germany (Piller, 2001; Einbeck, 2004), Ecuador (Ovesdotter, 2003) Brazil (Friedrich, 2002), or Korea (Jung, 2001; Lee, 2006), to mention a few. All these cases of multilingual advertising share three characteristics. First of all, English is the only foreign language used. Second, the English language is introduced in the non-English ads mainly through brand names, slogans, proper names, and words or phrases. Third, the role of English in these code-mixed ads is associated with values such as modernity (Atkinson and Kelly-Holmes, 2006; Lee, 2006; Gerritsen et al., 2007), progress (Piller, 2003), youth (Van Gijsel et al., 2008), and a gate-keeping function in the labor market (Ovesdotter, 2003). In the present study, I analyze the case of the Spanish airline company Vueling, whose advertising involves code-mixing (hereafter CM) of languages that are not used in normal everyday communication in the sociolinguistic context of Spain. Vueling is a new generation, low-fare airline company based in Barcelona (Spain), which started its business in May 2004. Its signature feature is a new communication style, very different from what other Spanish airline companies have ever done: colloquial, casual, young, fresh. This communication style is reflected in every aspect of the company: website, advertising
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 973 655 7507; fax: +1 973 655 7102. E-mail address:
[email protected]. 0378-2166/$ – see front matter ß 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.pragma.2010.10.014
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campaigns, check-in counters, planes, and crew. One example is that flight attendants address passengers as tú (second person singular, informal, and personal), instead of usted (second person singular, formal and distant) saying things like: ‘‘Recuerda abrocharte el cinturón de seguridad’’ instead of the traditional: ‘‘Recuerden abrocharse su cinturón de seguridad’’ (‘‘Please, remember to fasten your seat belts’’). Likewise, crew members introduce themselves by giving their first names and birthplaces to make the flight experience personal and intimate for the passenger: ‘‘En este vuelo, te atenderemos en la parte de delante Aitor, de Bilbao y María de Valladolid y, en la parte de atrás, Carmen de Madrid y Francois, de París’’ (‘‘On this flight, you will have Aitor from Bilbao and Maria from Valladolid in the front to assist you and, in the back, Carmen from Madrid and Francois from Paris.’’). The case of Vueling constitutes an example of multilingual communication in advertising as defined by Kelly-Holmes: ‘‘the appearance of a number of languages or voices in a market-discourse situation’’ (2005:10). This author does not limit her notion of bilingual or multilingual advertising to a particular speech act, but she extends her analysis to wider contextual frames. Accordingly, in this study, Vueling ad campaigns are conceptualized as a phenomenon of multilingual advertising communication since they take place in different media (radio, newspapers, buses, airports, subway stations, and Internet sites) and manifest themselves in different ways ranging from mixing languages within Spanish idioms (Volará hasta le cat1) to the manner in which flight attendants and pilots address passengers (Buen Vueling2). Although the case of Vueling is another example of multilingual advertising, it is different from previous studies on this topic in the three aspects presented earlier. First, Vueling advertising campaigns involve mixing foreign languages other than English such as in ‘‘Gana le golden billete3’’ in which you find Spanish (gana, billete), English (golden), and French (le) in the same sentence. Second, unlike previous studies (Piller, 2001; Einbeck, 2004; Gerritsen et al., 2007; Martin, 2002) in which foreign languages are introduced mainly through content words such as nouns, adjectives, adverbs, and verbs, Vueling introduces foreign languages not only as content words but also as linking words and, most interestingly, as morphemes within lexemes. For example, they embed an English suffix into a Spanish lexeme as in their very own brand name, Vueling (vuel- is a Spanish lexeme that means ‘to fly’). Third, and most important, I will show later that the insertion of foreign languages in the case of Vueling does not seem to be associated with social or affective values, but rather with symbolic and visual aspects. Hence, the purpose of this study is to confirm the hypothesis that the use of foreign languages in Vueling is driven by symbolism rather than information or content (Kelly-Holmes, 2005). In order to prove this hypothesis, I analyze the syntactic structures in which foreign elements are embedded in terms of the structural principles of codeswitching (not merely in sociopragmatic aspects) in order to draw conclusions regarding the symbolic vs. informational role of the foreign languages inserted. Toward that aim, I will be using two models of analysis: Myers-Scotton’s Matrix Language Frame (MLF) model and Poplack’s taxonomy of codeswitching syntactic categories. These two approaches explain codeswitching from a structural point of view since both consider the nature of this phenomenon to be rule-governed. Whereas the MLF model will be used to explain how Vueling ads deviate from codeswitching structural principles (code-breaking), Poplack’s taxonomy will be applied to our corpus to identify the types of codeswitching that Vueling ads create (code-making). The corpus for analysis consists of four Vueling advertising campaigns: the first two campaigns (2004 and 2005) and the last two (2007 and 2008). Most of Vueling’s campaigns have been designed by the advertising agency SCPF in Barcelona though some ads have been created by other agencies or freelancers. For the sake of cohesion, in this study I have used only the graphic advertisements designed and created by SCPF for newspapers, airports, subway stations, and buses. The agency provided me with 23 ads for the campaign of 2004, 33 ads for 2005, 31 for 2007, and 30 for 2008. The advertising agency only had 6 ads designed in-house for the 2006 campaign, and for that reason it has not been included in this work. Thus, in total I analyzed 117 advertisements, each of them featuring several clouds talking to each other in different languages and using different types of CM (see Fig. 1). 2. The linguistic fetishism approach The theoretical model of code-mixed advertising around which this study is framed is the linguistic fetishism approach proposed and developed by Kelly-Holmes (2005). This approach is based on Marxist ideas about the culture of consumption and the value of commodities in capitalist societies. According to Marx, capitalists ignore the social relations and labor conditions under which commodities are produced. Instead, capitalists ‘‘fetishize’’ commodities by assigning them a symbolic value rather than appreciating the utility or use value commodities contain. Kelly-Holmes (2005) applies Marx’s views to the use of foreign languages in advertising by claiming that the use-value of languages, that is, their referential function, has been obscured or mystified by their symbolic value through the process of fetishization. One consequence of linguistic fetishism in multilingual advertising is the notion of ‘fake multilingualism’ defended by Kelly-Holmes (2005:184) and based on the concept of ‘impersonal bilingualism’ first proposed by Harald Haarmann (1989). Haarmann claims that foreign languages in Japanese mass media are not used to address different speakers’ communities in Japanese society, but rather for their symbolic functions. For instance, English plays three main symbolic functions in Japan: 1 This is a very colloquial expression in Spanish literally meaning ‘‘Even the cat will fly.’’ It is used when you mean that everybody did, do, or will do something. For example, in this case, it means that everybody will fly with Vueling (even the cat). In English there is an expression that is somewhat close but somewhat dated: ‘‘Every Tom, Dick, and Harry will fly.’’ 2 ‘‘Have a nice flight.’’ 3 I use italics for the non-English words appearing in the ads for the sake of clarity. In Vueling ads, however, there are no italics and this is precisely a very interesting feature that will be discussed in section 5.
[()TD$FIG]
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Fig. 1. Vueling advertisement containing different languages and types of CM.
English is the language of intercultural relations, the language of technology, and the symbol of a modern lifestyle. He identifies this third function, symbolic internationalization, as a general worldwide trend in commercial advertising in which Japan participates. So, Haarmann describes the duality Japanese/English as ‘impersonal bilingualism’ since there is no use of English in Japanese everyday life, and it is limited only to the mass media. Since not only English is used in Japanese mass media, but also French and German, this author talks about an ‘impersonal multilingualism’ in Japan: The multilingualism in Japanese mass media is not a reflection of language use in a multilingual society (. . .) Although society in Japan is not completely monolingual, the main minority language in Japan, Korean, is not even represented in the mass media. This means that language use in the mass media is, in practice or in effect, a matter of fashionable style rather than a reference to communicational needs in Japanese society. (Haarmann, 1989:54) The case of Vueling is very similar to the case of Japan in this respect. The use of English, French, Italian, and Dutch does not represent the linguistic reality in Spain today. Those foreign languages are used only in Vueling’s advertising campaigns (not even in the general context of Spanish mass media), but they are not used on a daily basis in the sociolinguistic context of Spain. Ironically, other languages that are used in everyday life in Spain are not represented in Vueling ads, a point that will be discussed in detail in section 5.2. In addition to Haarmann, other authors have also examined the symbolic function of languages in advertising. Focused specifically on the role of English in non-Anglophone advertising contexts, Cheshire and Moser (1994) claim that English does not usually work as a system of signs, but as a sign in itself. In other words, advertisers use English with no expectations that consumers will understand what they see as in the case of Japanese TV ads. In this sense, these authors support the idea that English can be used as a symbolic resource to be exploited by any country in the world according to the needs of that specific community. This is precisely the case in our corpus of ads: for Vueling, English, French, Italian, and Dutch are not used to convey meanings as they would be used in Anglophone, French, or Dutch ads. Rather, these languages convey symbolic values in a very unique Spanish way of using foreign languages. Another consequence of this linguistic fetishism is the concept of ‘domesticated foreignness,’ that is, the way that foreign words are used symbolically as fetishes and, at the same time, are treated locally to be sold to the consumer. Kelly-Holmes maintains that ‘‘advertising strategies involving foreign words, taken out of their original contexts and domesticated for
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commercial purposes contribute to – or at least play into – an ethnocentric view of ‘foreign’ languages’’ (2005:18). As it will be shown later, in the case of Vueling, the service to be sold is ‘international’ in the sense that it is an airline flying to foreign countries, but the way it is sold combines the ‘foreignness’ of English, French and Italian with the domesticity of Spanish expressions to give rise to a special type of local view of foreign languages. 3. Breaking codes in Vueling advertising In the case of multilingual Vueling advertising, specific morphosyntactic constraints of codeswitching are breached. The model of analysis that will be used to examine how Vueling breaks the structural principles of code-switching is MyersScotton’s Matrix Language Frame (MLF) model. The Matrix Language Frame model originally was designed to explain structural configurations in classic codeswitching. However, as Myers-Scotton herself explains, features of the model are used to explain structures in a wide variety of contact phenomena (Myers-Scotton, 2002:10). The reason this model has been used for the analysis of Vueling ads is twofold. First, this model is a structural approach to codeswitching, that is, it does not focus on social functions or motivations for CM, and therefore predicts which CM utterances will be considered well-formed. In our case, it will be used to show how Vueling ads break structural principles of codeswitching. Second, the MLF model has been used not only to analyze cases of oral codeswitching, but also recent cases of written CM in literature (Callahan, 2004) and advertising (Luna et al., 2005). The MLF model first appeared in 1992 and has been updated and modified (1993, 1995, 2001, 2002) in response to several criticisms. Despite the changes over time, the model’s main hypothesis and principles remain the same. The main hypothesis of the MLF model is the Matrix Language (ML) Hypothesis, which is based on the idea that one of the two (or more) languages in bilingual (or, in this case, multilingual) speech production is more activated than the other(s) (Myers-Scotton, 1995:239). The language that is more activated is the Matrix Language (ML) and the others are the Embedded Languages (ELs). In order to identify the ML and EL in codeswitched utterances, Myers-Scotton suggested in the earlier versions of the MLF model that the ML was the language with more morphemes; that is, frequency was the main criterion for determining the ML (Myers-Scotton, 1992:22). However, this criterion was later modified. In 1993 and 1995 revisions, the ML is the language that provides the morphosyntactic frame of ML + EL constituents. In the case of Vueling, most of its advertising campaigns have more morphemes in English than in any other language (see Tables 1, 2, and 4), yet the source of the grammatical frame is Spanish4. Also, in Vueling ads, there is not just one EL, but several. The most frequent EL is English, but French, Italian, Dutch, and Catalan are also used. There are two main principles governing the MLF model: the Morpheme-Order Principle and the System-Morpheme Principle. On one hand, Myers-Scotton’s (1993) Morpheme Order Principle states that the sequential order of the morphemes within a code-switched utterance must follow the order of the matrix language, not the embedded language. In Vueling ads, there are several examples of noun phrases that follow this rule such as (1) and (2) in which the adjective ‘premier’ and the noun ‘week’ in English are placed in the same order as in Spanish: (1)
Hoy es le premier aniversario (Today is the first anniversary5)
(2)
Esta week (This week)
However, there are also many Vueling ads that violate this principle as in (3)–(6): (3)
La no problema airline (The no problema airline)
(4)
La new generation airline (The new generation airline)
(5)
In new aviones tú volarás (In new planes you will fly)
(6)
Very centric aeropuertos (Very centric airports)
In all these examples, the order of the content morphemes (nouns and adjectives) in the matrix language conflicts with that of the embedded language; that is, in English, adjectives or nouns modifying nouns are placed before the noun: the ‘no problem airline,’ the ‘new generation airline,’ ‘new planes,’ ‘very centric aeropuertos.’ However, in Spanish, adjectives or nouns modifying other nouns can be placed either before the noun or after it. The less common pre-posed position is normally used for emphatic or literary purposes. The more common post-posed position serves to qualify the noun. Hence, in examples (3)–(6), they would be placed after the noun: la ‘aerolínea sin problemas,’ la ‘aerolínea de nueva generación,’ ‘aviones nuevos,6’ ‘aeropuertos muy céntricos.’ 4
Besides, Spanish is the more unmarked choice in these ads in the sense of ‘markedness’ as discussed in Scotton (1988). I provide a literal English translation of each example containing foreign analytical units in order to give the literal meaning that matches each foreign word. In the cases of puns, proverbs, or cultural references, literal translations will be given for the sake of knowing the meaning of the foreign word, but a footnote will be provided with the equivalent expression in English. 6 Although the adjective nuevo (new) is one of the few adjectives in Spanish that can be placed either before or after the noun changing its meaning accordingly, in this particular example nuevo should come after the noun aviones (planes) since it means ‘brand new planes,’ not ‘new (different) planes’ as it would mean if the adjective was placed before the noun. Notice, however, that in ‘‘la new generation airline,’’ the translation into Spanish would be ‘la aerolínea de nueva generación’ since nueva here means ‘another’ generation, not a brand-new generation. 5
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Table 1 Types of CM by foreign language in 2004 Vueling advertising campaign. Syntactic categories
English
French % of totala
No. of CM Intrasentential Internal verb Auxiliary VP Determiner Single noun NP Adjective Preposition Adverb PP Clause Conjunction Extrasentential Sentence Idiomatic expression Interjection In-text translated CS Totals a
63
24.51
3
1.16
10 14 11 26 4 3
3.89 5.44 4.28 10.11 1.55 1.16
2
0.77
2 138
0.7 53.57
Italian
No. of CM
% of total
1 7 1 1 3 2
0.38 2.72 0.38 0.38 1.16 0.77
2
0.7
17
5.79
No. of CM
% of total
1
0.38
1
0.38
The total number of CM or analytical units was 257 both in matrix and embedded languages.
Table 2 Types of CM by foreign language in 2005 Vueling advertising campaign. Syntactic categories
English No. of CM
Intrasentential Internal verb Auxiliary VP Determiner Single noun NP Adjective Preposition Adverb PP Clause Conjunction Extrasentential Sentence Idiomatic expression Interjection In-text translated CS Totals a
97 1 20 4 8 22 10 20 17 1 2 11
French % of total 23.48 0.24 4.84 0.96 1.93 5.32 2.42 4.84 4.11 0.24 0.48 2.66
a
Italian
No. of CM
% of total
4 19 1 2 2 1 1
0.96 4.60 0.24 0.48 0.48 0.24 0.24
1
0.24 0.24
1 2
0.24 0.48
1
216
52.24
32
7.72
No. of CM
1
1
Dutch % of total
Catalan
No. of CM
% of total
1
0.24
2
0.48
No. of CM
% of total
1
0.24
1
0.24
0.24
0.24
3
0.72
The total number of CM or analytical units was 413 both in matrix and embedded languages.
On the other hand, the System Morpheme Principle is based on the distinction between content and system morphemes, which is central to the MLF model. In the earlier versions of the MLF model, content morphemes were defined as open-class items and system morphemes as closed-class items (Myers-Scotton, 1992:22). In later versions, these definitions are refined and content morphemes are considered to be elements that participate in the thematic grid, either receiving or assigning thematic roles: nouns, adjectives, pronouns, stem verbs, and some prepositions. On the contrary, system morphemes are functional elements: determiners, copula, ‘do’ verbs, possessive ‘of,’ quantifiers, possessives, and inflectional affixes. Bearing this distinction in mind, the System Morpheme Principle states that ‘‘if system morphemes are required in ML + EL constituents to signal system relations, they will be ML system morphemes’’ (Myers-Scotton, 1993:98). However, in Vueling ads, we find numerous examples of EL system morphemes within ML + EL constituents. One recurrent example is the case of the English suffix –ing appearing affixed to a stem verb in Spanish. This type of ML + EL constituent is the most frequent case of CM in these ads (see Tables 1–4), and it has become not only the brand name (Vueling), but also is used to signal a new communication style in this airline company: telefoning, compring, rebajing7, etc. 7 Rebajas means ‘sales’ in English. The interesting thing in this case is the fact that the English –ing suffix has been added not to a Spanish verb, but to a Spanish noun such as rebajas to create a new verb: rebajing.
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Table 3 Types of CM by foreign language in 2007 Vueling advertising campaign. Syntactic categories
English
French % of totala
No. of CM Intrasentential Internal verb Auxiliary VP Determiner Single noun NP Adjective Preposition Adverb PP Clause Conjunction Extrasentential Sentence Idiomatic expression Interjection In-text translated CS Totals a
81
18.40
18 2 22 7 24 16 12 1 6 1
4.09 0.45 5 1.59 5.45 3.63 2.72 0.22 1.36 0.22
4
0.90
194
44.03
Italian
No. of CM
% of total
1 15 2
0.22 3.40 0.45
1
No. of CM
4 4
Dutch % of total
0.90 0.90
1
0.22
3 1
0.68 0.22
13
2.92
Catalan
No. of CM
% of total
No. of CM
% of total
1 1 2
0.22 0.22 0.45
3
0.68
1 4
0.22 0.90
9
2.01
3
0.68
0.22
19
4.29
The total number of CM or analytical units was 440 both in matrix and embedded languages.
Another case in Vueling ads in which the System Morpheme Principle is not followed is that of ‘do’ verbs inserted in Spanish verb phrases; that is, the lexical verb is in the ML but the auxiliary verb is in the EL: (7)
Vuela, don’t camines (Fly, don’t walk)
(8)
Don’t te duermas (Don’t fall asleep)
According to the MLF model, in these cases EL Islands should be triggered, that is, ‘‘grammatically well-formed constituents entirely in the EL’’ (Myers-Scotton, 1995:249). Possible EL islands would have been (9) and (10) for (7) and (11) and (12) for (8): (9)
Vuela, don’t walk
(10)
Fly, no camines
(11)
Tú, don’t fall asleep!
(12)
Hey you, no te duermas!
Table 4 Types of CM by foreign language in 2008 Vueling advertising campaign. Syntactic categories
English No. of CM
Intrasentential Internal verb Auxiliary VP Determiner Single noun NP Adjective Preposition Adverb PP Clause Conjunction Extrasentential Sentence Idiomatic expression Interjection In-text translated CS Totals a
French % of totala
57 2 45 2 14 36 21 28 14 3 9 1
12.92 0.45 10.20 0.45 3.17 8.16 4.76 6.34 3.17 0.68 2.04 0.22
1
0.22
233
52.78
No. of CM
Italian % of total
7
1.58
1
0.22
3
0.68
11
2.48
The total number of CM or analytical units was 442 both in matrix and embedded languages.
No. of CM
% of total
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Another example of breaching the System Morpheme Principle without triggering EL Islands occurs with the use of several prepositions that do not serve to assign roles; that is, they are not content morphemes, but system morphemes such as the preposition ‘of.’ This possessive ‘of’ in English accompanies a noun (content morpheme) in the ML (Spanish): (13)
Compring del 8 al 15 of enero (Buying from 8 until 15 of January)
(14)
Happy cuesta of enero (Happy hill of January8)
The corresponding EL Islands in these cases would have been: (15)
Compring del 8 al 15 of January
(16)
Happy cuesta of January
Finally, one of the most interesting aspects of Vueling ads is that the breaching of the MLF model takes place in constituents with several embedded languages. In other words, not only system morphemes in English (EL) are inserted in Spanish (ML) constituents, but also system morphemes in French are often included without triggering EL Islands whatsoever. For instance, in (17) we find two different system morphemes (two copula verbs actually) in two different ELs, English (to be) and French (c’est), within the same ML Spanish sentence. Likewise, in (18) we find two different ELs in two different system morphemes (possessive preposition ‘of’ and determiner ‘le’) within the same ML phrase. (17)
To be puntual c’est lo normal (To be punctual is what is normal)
(18)
Al país of le fados (To the country of the fados)
This breaching of the structural constraints of codeswitching constitutes marked choices that may serve to construct new meanings on the part of the speaker (Myers-Scotton, 2000:1270). In the case of Vueling, the advertisers select marked choices to negotiate a new norm in the market of airline advertising. 4. Making a new code in Spanish airline advertising Having presented how Vueling breaks structural principles of codeswitching, I will now show how Vueling creates a new code in advertising different from what previous code-mixed ads have done. I will explore the formal types of CM presented in Vueling in order to see if certain combinations tend to occur more frequently than others and analyze where the switching of languages takes place. I will use as a model of analysis for my corpus an adaptation of the types of codeswitching identified by Poplack (1982). I use Poplack’s model instead of Myers-Scotton’s for several reasons. Although both models deal with grammatical rules of CM, Myers-Scotton’s MLF model focuses on structural constraints and principles governing codeswitching whereas Poplack presents a more detailed classification of the syntactic categories of codeswitching regarding both intrasentential and extrasentential CM. For this reason the MLF model was chosen to examine how Vueling ads break structural principles of codeswitching and Poplack’s taxonomy to identify what types of syntactic categories of CM Vueling makes in these ads. I adapt Poplack’s model in two ways. In addition to the two types of codeswitching distinguished by this author, intrasentential codeswitching taking place within a sentence and extrasentential codeswitching occurring between sentences, I add a third type of codeswitching found in Vueling ads: ‘in-text translated CM.’ Second, I have adapted the syntactic categories of codeswitching distinguished by Poplack (1982) by incorporating new categories (i.e. internal verb) and eliminating other (i.e. quotations) according to the specific CM patterns found in Vueling (see Tables 1–4). In the present study, each syntactic category in each language corresponds to one analytical unit in that language. For example, in the utterance ‘‘Gana le golden billete,’’ there would be four units since each word corresponding to the four syntactical categories is in a different language: VP (Gana) + Determiner (le) + Adj (golden) + Single noun (billete). However, we see that in the utterance ‘‘la new generation airline,’’ which also contains four words, there are only two analytical units: a determiner in Spanish (la) and a NP in English (new generation airline). It is important to analyze the types of syntactic categories and not merely the number of foreign words in each language; we do not want to know just the number of words used in English vs. Spanish or in French vs. Spanish, but to draw conclusions from the types of analytic unit substitutions taking place in these multicultural advertising campaigns. In other words, identifying the types of analytical units where the foreign languages are inserted will help us to examine how and to what extent foreign languages are integrated into the structure of the matrix language of the ads and also to determine if the use of foreign languages serves a visual function rather than a content or meaning-based purpose. Although all syntactic categories and analytical units will be divided and studied in all languages used in the ads, I only present in Tables 1–4 those types of analytical unit substitutions taking place in the embedded languages, not in the matrix language. However, in those tables, I also present the percentages of CM types in each embedded language in relation to the
8 The NP ‘‘cuesta de enero’’ in Spanish refers to an expression used right after Christmas when most people have spent too much money and they do not have any in January. An equivalent expression in English for (14) would then be something like ‘‘Don’t let your January credit card statement get you down!’’
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total number of analytical units in that particular advertising campaign. These data make it possible to compare percentages and types of CM used in the foreign languages in relation to Spanish. In the following subsections, I show the three main types of CM found in my corpus. 4.1. Intrasentential CM In Vueling campaigns, I have found 12 different cases of intrasentential CM that fall into four categories: intraverbal, intraphrasal, clause substitution, and conjunction substitution. Each will be explained below. Intraverbal CM: (a)
Internal verb substitution9, when the CM takes place within the verb lexeme: vueling, compring, telefoning. It is important to notice that this type of CM obviously involves two languages: the matrix language in the lexeme (Spanish) and the embedded language in the suffix (English). So, although we count it as one analytical unit or one type of CM within the category of analytical units in English, we should bear in mind that this particular type of CM affects the matrix language as well.
(b)
Auxiliary substitution, when the insertion of the foreign language affects just the auxiliary verb: ‘‘Vuela, don’t camines’’ (Fly, don’t walk).
(c)
Verb phrase substitution (VP hereafter), when the foreign language replacement affects the entire VP where there is an auxiliary, ‘‘The pasajero 2.000.000 is coming’’ (The 2 millionth passenger is coming), or not: ‘‘One click y colas disappear!’’ (One click and lines disappear!)
Intraphrasal CM: (d)
Determiner substitution, when only the article or determiner is inserted in a foreign language: ‘‘todos les destinos’’ (all destinations). In this case the determiner ‘les’ is in French.
(e)
Single noun substitution, when just the main noun of a noun phrase containing adjectives or other nouns is replaced in a foreign language: ‘‘Billet acompañante gratis’’ (Free ticket for a companion). The noun ‘billet’ (ticket) is in French.
(f)
Noun phrase substitution (NP hereafter), when the NP (whether it is just one noun or nouns with adjectives or with other nouns modifying the main noun) is in the foreign language: ‘‘la new generation airline.’’ Verbs functioning as nouns are counted as NPs since they function syntactically as such. For example, in the new slogan of the 2008 campaign, ‘‘Flying hoy means Vueling’’ (Flying today means Vueling), the –ing form ‘flying’ is considered a NP since it functions as a subject NP within the utterance and the verb ‘means’ is considered the VP.
(g)
Adjective substitution, when only the adjective is in a foreign language: ‘‘En new aviones’’ (In new planes).
(h)
Preposition substitution, when only the preposition is replaced: ‘‘90 vuelos for semana!’’ (90 flights per week). In this example, something worth explaining happens. The correct English preposition here should have been ‘per’ not ‘for.’ Yet, this is one example of how sometimes the level of competence in the foreign languages of the ads is not very high or even sometimes advertisers just want to reproduce typical mistakes of non-native speakers of that language so that they can translate literally in their minds, understand the message, and get closer to the audience. In this case, the preposition ‘for’ can have different meanings in English depending on the context. One of those meanings in Spanish is por (‘‘to the advantage of,’’ Collins Dictionary, 1989), which sounds similar (except for one consonant) to ‘for.’ So, maybe ‘for’ was used instead of ‘per’ because it sounds similar to por and it will be easily recognized by Spanish speakers knowing some English.
(i)
Adverb substitution, when the adverb is inserted in a different language: ‘‘Now dos vuelos diarios’’ (Now two daily flights).
(j)
Prepositional phrase substitution (PP hereafter), when the whole PP is inserted in a foreign language: ‘‘De Madrid to the sky’’ (From Madrid to the sky10).
Clause substitution: (k)
9
This type of intrasentential CM takes place when a subordinate clause appears in a foreign language such as ‘‘In spring quien corre, fly’’ (In spring, s/he who runs, flies), in which the main clause of the sentence is part of a Spanish saying11.
The term ‘substitution’ will be used in the same sense as Martin (2002) to characterize the replacing of the matrix language with foreign elements. This is a colloquial expression used in Madrid meaning that there is no other place like Madrid, except heaven. The interesting thing is that in Spanish cielo is the word used for both ‘heaven’ and ‘sky.’ The advertiser has chosen ‘sky,’ which immediately is translated as cielo in the mind of the average native Spanish audience who may not know that the correct word in that context should have been ‘heaven’ or if the audience does know will find that lexical choice funny because of the literal translation. 11 Actually the Spanish saying is ‘‘Quien no corre, vuela’’ (S/He who doesn’t run, flies) meaning that some people are really smart and can get something before you unless you act quickly. The equivalent saying in English would be something like ‘‘the early bird catches the worm.’’ Two interesting things in this ad are the play on words with vuela (fly) making reference to the act of flying and to Vueling, and the rhyme produced by adding the PP ‘‘in primavera,’’ which rhymes with the translation of ‘fly’: vuela. 10
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Fig. 2. Vueling advertisement containing different types of CM.
Conjunction substitution: (l)
This CM substitution occurs when the conjunction is embedded in a language other than Spanish such as in the Dutch-English ad ‘‘Vliegen naar Barcelona or Valencia’’ (Fly to Barcelona or Valencia) or in the Spanish-FrenchEnglish ad ‘‘Juega et gana vuelos to all destinos’’ (Play and win flights to all destinations).
One example of different types of intrasentential CM found in the same ad is presented in Fig. 2. We see intraverbal CM and five different types of intraphrasal CM: determiner substitution in French in ‘‘Por le interés I love you Andrew’’ (For the interest I love you, Andrew12), single noun substitution in English in ‘‘Soy tu mejor friend’’ (I am your best friend), NP substitution in English such as in ‘‘La new generation airline,’’ preposition substitution in French in ‘‘I am crazy pour tus huesos’’ (I am crazy about your bones13), and clause substitution ‘‘Remember soy your madre’’ (Remember I am your mother). 4.2. Intersentential CM Regarding intersentential (Hoffmann, 1991) or extrasentential CM (Poplack, 1982) in Vueling advertising campaigns, I have found three types: (m)
Sentence substitution, when the whole sentence is in the foreign language, for example in French: ‘‘J’adore novembre’’ (I love November).
(n)
Interjection substitution, when expressions of greeting, surprise, etc. are in an embedded language: ‘‘Ciao!’’ (Hello!)
(o)
Idiomatic expression substitution, when an idiom or colloquial expression is presented in a foreign language such as in Italian ‘‘Mamma mia.’’
12 This is a Spanish saying (‘‘Por el interés te quiero, Andrés’’) literally meaning ‘I love you just because I can get a benefit from you, Andrew.’ The proper name ‘‘Andrés’’ here is just a proper name used because in Spanish it rhymes with the word interés, which means ‘benefit’ in this context. A possible equivalent saying in English could be something like ‘‘No money, no love.’’ 13 This is a Spanish idiom meaning to be crazy about somebody.
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4.3. In-text translated CM Finally, there are several examples of what I have labeled ‘in-text translated CM’ following the concept of ‘in-text translation’ by Bandia (1996). This CM consists of using one language to translate what has just been said in another: Spanish and English: ‘‘Corre, run!,’’ Catalan and English: ‘‘Campions, Champions!!!’’ This analytical unit is not in the model of analysis of syntactic categories by Poplack (1982), but it has been added in this study because it appears several times and constitutes a unique case of CM. The repetition of an utterance in another code has previously been interpreted by authors such as Gumperz (1982) and Androutsopoulos (2006) as an attempt to clarify what is said, to amplify, or emphasize a message. However, the fact that there are so few cases of in-text translated CM in Vueling (only four in all the campaigns analyzed) shows that it does not seem to be the main intention of these advertisers to clarify, amplify, or emphasize the information expressed in one foreign language that may not be well understood by the reader. Rather, the low frequency of this type of CM supports the hypothesis that the use of CM in Vueling is driven by symbolism rather than content. This idea will be discussed in more detail in the next section. 5. Results and discussion 5.1. Syntactic and semantic patterns of CM in Vueling ads The results of the analysis of these Vueling advertising campaigns highlight four important observations, each of which will be discussed in detail. The first observation about this analysis is the fact that the most frequent type of CM in all Vueling campaigns is internal verb substitution (see Tables 1–4). This is especially the case in the first two campaigns (24.51% in 2004 and 23.48% in 2005) where the words vueling, compring, and telefoning appear in every single ad at least three times (in some ads, even five). The reason that internal verb substitution is used more in the first two campaigns than in the last two (only 18.40% in 2007 and 12.92% in 2008) may be linked to the fact that this type of CM represents the brand name of the company and symbolizes a new linguistic code both in the world of airlines advertising and among young people who use the –ing as a form of causal and colloquial speech. An example of this phenomenon is the way crew members talk to passengers: ‘‘Buen vueling’’ (Have a nice flight), ‘‘Hasta lueguing’’ (See you later), etc. The suffix –ing used in English for actions taking place in the moment of speaking gives this type of CM a sense of immediacy and dynamism, contributing to the fresh and casual style that this company wants to communicate to its passengers. Therefore, using this type of CM in the early stages of its advertising campaigns was crucial to make people associate –ing mixing with this airline. By 2007, most people in Spain already recognized Vueling ads as evidenced by the recent article titled ‘‘200 palabras para una década’’ (‘‘200 key words in the first decade of the XXI century’’) which listed ‘‘Vueling’’ as one of the key words in our century: VUELING ‘‘Primera aerolínea española de nueva generación que se ha divertido enormemente en sus campañas publicitarias pegando el –ing en todas partes’’.14 (Magazine, 14 de diciembre de 2008) Also, regarding the most frequent types of CM used in Vueling campaigns, it should be pointed out that in the 2004 campaign, preposition substitution was the second most common type of CM, and in the rest of campaigns the number of prepositions replaced by embedded languages was very close to the number of content word substitutions (noun and adjective substitutions). In general, in most campaigns the number of content and linking word substitutions is higher than the number of phrase substitutions (NP, VP, PP), and this total is higher than the number of clause substitutions. In other words, Vueling ads more frequently replace single words than phrases or clauses (see Tables 1–4). Second, one characteristic of all Vueling campaigns is an abundance of cognates not only in Romanic languages such as French (billet, novembre), Italian (vacanze, il sapore), and Catalan (vola, campion), which share a common origin with Spanish (billete, noviembre, vacaciones, el sabor, vuela, and campeón), but also in English (generation, present, opportunity) and Dutch (februari, territorium), which are Germanic languages. Table 5 shows the number of cognate words in each embedded language and the percentage of cognates out of the total number of foreign words in each Vueling campaign. These figures represent the number of words and not the number of analytical units because one analytical unit can be a whole cognate, can contain several cognates, or can have none. For example, in the French unit ‘‘J’adore novembre’’ all the words in the unit are cognates of the Spanish equivalent sentence ‘Yo adoro noviembre.’ However, in ‘‘Offre valide jusqu’ au 6 juin’’ only the words offer and valide are cognates of the Spanish noun oferta and the Spanish adjective válida. In the French clause ‘‘Acheter sur,’’ none of the words are French/Spanish cognates. If we compare the number of cognate words per language and campaign (Table 5) to the number of analytical units per language and campaign (Tables 1–4), we see that the French types of CM almost correspond to the number of French
14 First Spanish new generation airline company that has had a lot of fun in its advertising campaigns sticking the –ing everywhere. (Magazine, December 14, 2008).
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Table 5 Cognate words per language in each Vueling campaign. English
2004 2005 2007 2008
French
Italian
No. of cognate words
% of total foreign words
No. of cognate words
% of total foreign words
106 153 127 98
54.35 51.8 46.8 37.6
16 30 16 7
8.20 10.16 5.90 2.69
Dutch
No. of cognate words 2
% of total foreign words
Catalan
No. of cognate words
% of total foreign words
No. of cognate words
% of total foreign words
1 3
0.33 1.11
1.02
16
5.90
2
0.73
No. of foreign words
195 295 271 260
Table 6 ‘True’ cognate words in English. English
2004 2005 2007 2008
No. of cognates words
No. of internal verb CM
No. of true cognates
No. of foreign words
% of total foreign words
106 153 127 98
63 97 81 57
43 56 46 41
195 295 271 260
22.05 18.98 16.97 15.7
cognates in each campaign, that is, most of the words embedded in French are cognates in Spanish. The same can be said for Italian and Catalan. In other words, the majority of Romanic languages embedded in Vueling advertisements consists of Spanish cognates. However, Germanic languages such as Dutch have very few cognates. The case of English is special because, although almost half of the foreign words in all the campaigns are English cognates, a high number of those are internal verb substitutions, which means that they are half English and half Spanish (vueling, compring, rebajing, telefoning). Therefore, in Table 6 we find the number of ‘true’ English cognates in each Vueling campaign. It is important to see how the percentage of English cognates decreases in the last campaigns. There are two main explanations. On one hand, we have seen that internal verb substitutions are less common in the last campaigns since people are already familiar with the brand name and the –ing style of communication. On the other hand, it makes more sense to use more English cognates of all types in the first campaigns so that the non-English audience can understand the message and still perceive the foreign flavor of the ads and less cognates in the most recent campaigns when readers are most used to the ‘foreignness’ of Vueling advertising. It should also be noted that the cognates are not only content words such as nouns (problem), adjectives (premier), adverbs (presto in Italian similar to presto in Spanish meaning ‘quick’), and verbs (c’est in French similar to es in Spanish meaning ‘is’), but also linking words such as prepositions (‘per’ in English and pour in French similar to por in Spanish), conjunctions (‘or’ in English similar to o in Spanish), and especially determiners such as definite articles in French. This category deserves special attention since in some campaigns, particularly in 2005 (see Table 2), the number of determiners was almost equal to the number of VPs and NPs. French was the language with the most determiners inserted into the matrix language (notice the low percentage of determiners in English), and determiner substitution was the most frequently used type of CM in French. One reason could be that definite articles in French (le, les, la, l’) are very similar to definite articles in Spanish (el, los, la, las), and are easily understood by non-French speakers. Another interesting aspect related to the use of cognates in Vueling advertising is the fact that not only content and linking words are used as cognates, but also syntactic structures. These structures have similar word orders both in the embedded and matrix languages, so they are easily recognized by readers who may not know English, French, or Italian. Sometimes, content morpheme cognates are also inserted in syntactic structure cognates such as in (19) and (20). (19)
Guardando les cupones day a day (Keeping the coupons day by day). In Spanish the phrase ‘‘día a día’’ means ‘‘day by day’’ or ‘‘little by little,’’ so the similar structure (noun + prep + noun) and the lexical cognate ‘day’ (día) makes this ad very easy to understand by a non-English audience.
(20)
From 20 s tutto incluso (From 20 s all inclusive). In Spanish, there is an expression ‘‘todo incluido,’’ which resembles the Italian word order of ‘‘tutto incluso.’’
This use of cognate words and structures, especially in the first Vueling campaigns, when the airline is being launched and advertised for the first time, is an effect of the homogenization of global advertising and presents a more ‘European’ image of this airline. By using cognates in English, French, and Italian, the company portrays itself as European and in consonance with globalization, ‘‘the consumer culture of the 20th Century’’ (Bhatia, 2001:207). On the other hand, the tendency to use fewer cognates in more recent Vueling campaigns reflects a desire to emphasize individual and local aspects of this Spanish airline.
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Fig. 3. Example of Spanish idiom with English words embedded in it.
This emphasis on local aspects of Spanish culture is precisely linked to the third important observation regarding the syntactic and semantic patterns of these ads. From the 2005 campaign onward there is extensive use of Spanish proverbs and idioms in which one or two words are replaced by foreign elements. Consequently, these proverbs sound Spanish since the semantic frame is local, but they contain foreign elements translated literally into the matrix language. This formal deviation from a well-established semantic pattern serves to attract the reader’s attention by breaking consumers’ expectations and most of the time producing a comical effect. Let’s illustrate this with one example. In Fig. 3, one of the talking clouds says to the other: (21)
Fly con friends por tu beautiful cara
In Spanish, the colloquial expression ‘‘por tu bella cara’’ (literally ‘‘due to your beautiful face’’) or even just ‘‘por la cara’’ is used when you get something by doing nothing, for free15. By leaving the main nucleus of the PP ‘‘por tu cara’’ in Spanish and just incorporating the adjective ‘beautiful’ in English, the message can be understood by someone who does not speak English, but is familiar with this typical expression in Spanish. If the reader (living or having lived in Spain) knows some English, he will not only understand, but also will probably find the literal translation of such a typical Spanish expression very comical. This expression is effectively used here to launch the campaign 2 1: two people fly paying only for one ticket. Finally, it should be noted out that the embedding of different foreign languages is not typographically marked with any font such as italics, which is the standard convention for introducing a foreign word. As Callahan points out, ‘‘In texts with more than one language, a different typeface may be used for each language, with the most common pattern being a standard font used for the ML, and italics for the EL(s).’’ (2004:103). So, not using italics or any other font type for foreign languages in Vueling ads is another formal deviation from the standard in which foreign languages are treated differently from the matrix language. 5.2. The symbolic role of foreign languages in Vueling advertising The results of the analysis presented in this paper confirm what other authors have said about English being the most frequently used foreign language in advertising in non-English speaking countries. In Vueling ads, CM in English occurs much more frequently than in any other language. Tables 1–4 show the types of CM and the number of instances of CM per language as well as the percentages of analytical units in each foreign language with respect to the total number of analytical units in that campaign. Foreign languages other than English appear in all the campaigns although in a more reduced number of analytical units. French and Italian are represented in all four campaigns, whereas Dutch and Catalan are present in very low percentages in just the 2005 and 2007 campaigns: out of 1552 analytical units counted in 117 ads, only 10 were in Dutch and 4 in Catalan, that is, 0.64% and 0.25% respectively of the total number of units. The limited use of Catalan to advertise an airline based in Barcelona supports the findings by Atkinson and Kelly-Holmes (2006) about the clear preference of Castilian or Spanish over Catalan in advertisements published in the Catalonian newspaper El Periódico. One of the reasons for using foreign languages such as French, Italian, Dutch, and Catalan seems to be related to the destinations advertised in those ads: Paris, Roma, Pisa, Milan, Venice, Amsterdam, and Barcelona. So, in these instances, the embedded languages reflect the desire to give some local color and flavor to the ad. However, the use of English as an embedded language in Vueling is a different case since this company does not have any flights to the UK or Ireland or any other English-speaking country. Two main reasons explain the frequent presence of English in Vueling ads. First, English is the most popular foreign language in Spain and one that many people can understand. As Berns et al. (2007) state, ‘‘English is the most frequently used language of communication in interactions between two Europeans or a 15
In English, the equivalent expression would be ‘‘on your good looks.’’
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European and another speaker of English – whether a native or non-native speaker – from anywhere in the world.’’ (p. 2). Also, in relation to this, the audience of Vueling campaigns is mainly young people (in large part, students) who do not have a lot of money to travel. In Spain, most young people know some English since they study it as a foreign language during secondary school. Furthermore, as Cheshire and Moser state, English is very fashionable among young people, and they use it for a number of expressive purposes: music, films, graffiti, swearing, and colloquial short exchanges of information (1994:454). Second, English is used much more than other foreign languages because of its status as the major vehicle of internationalization and a symbol of globalization. As Bhatia notes, ‘‘English is the leading linguistic cause of the homogenization of global advertising discourse’’ (2001:207). Two examples are the use of cognates and the non-use of italics. On one hand, the abundant use of cognates constitutes a way of bringing foreign languages near to Spanish, another way of making all the languages look similar in the form. On the other hand, the absence of italics for foreign languages reflects a desire to integrate all languages under the same form. According to Callahan the use of italics has a double effect: ‘‘The visual contrast between typefaces highlights the opposition between the two languages. In addition, the emphatic quality associated with italic type may spill over into the thematic content in the perception of the reader accustomed to seeing italics used for emphasis in monolingual texts. In this way, content which conveys only referential meaning may take on inferences by virtue of this variance in its physical appearance.’’ (Callahan, 2004:103) So, by contrast, the use of non-italics does not highlight any opposition between embedded and matrix languages nor does it emphasize denotations or connotations of those units. However, although there is a tendency to bring foreign languages together and make them uniform under the umbrella of globalization, there is also a tendency in Vueling ads to ‘‘adapt’’ English to local Spanish semantic and syntactic structures. There are several mechanisms for doing so. The main one is the addition of the English suffix –ing to Spanish lexemes. This type of CM was chosen by the advertisers to name the product: Vueling. Thus, the brand becomes a prototypical linguistic fetish as well as the company’s signature communication style. Another way of domesticating English into local syntactic and semantic structures is by inserting English words translated literally into very typical colloquial Spanish expressions as it was shown in example (21) above. This way of domesticating foreign elements for commercial purposes proves that the use of English is driven by symbolism rather than content since this language does not convey information or values, but rather ‘foreignness.’ This concept of ‘domesticated foreignness’ proposed by Kelly-Holmes (2005) applies clearly to the case of Vueling; they sell an international concept of flying but from a Spanish perspective. In other words, English is inserted into Spanish sentences, proverbs, and idioms in order to attract the reader to the foreign idea of flying, but it is actually a Spanish idea of flying that is being sold. This adaption of foreignness to local settings means using languages for the sake of their form – or even their graphic or visual aspects (Kelly-Holmes, 2006:514) –, not their content. Foreign languages other than English are also used in Vueling campaigns for their symbolic value rather than their informational value. Several results of my analysis show the predominance of form over information. One is the frequency of linking word substitutions such as English prepositions and French determiners and content words such as internal verb or single noun substitution over phrases and clauses. These single foreign units are used to infuse international flavor into the message, but not content. Another aspect that supports the symbolic value of foreign languages in Vueling is the fact that those languages do not have any official status in Spain. This is what is called ‘impersonal multilingualism’ in multilingual advertising (explained in section 2 above). Spaniards may know English or French because they learn them in schools or universities, but they do not use them in their everyday lives. Ironically, the other languages spoken in Spain such as Catalan, Galician, or Basque are not used in Vueling campaigns (except Catalan that is only used 0.25%16). Hence, the use of English, French, Italian, or Dutch here does not reflect a desire to convey meaning, but just to convey certain visual effects. This is what Kelly-Holmes expresses as ‘being part of the image rather than the text of the advertisement’ and using these languages for a ‘fetishistic effect’ (2005:39). Finally, another piece of evidence that proves that the use of foreign languages is motivated by symbolism rather than content is the fact that many of the proverbs and idioms used in Vueling are only known to Spaniards or someone who has lived in Spain long enough to become familiar with these particular cultural references. Consumers from other Spanishspeaking markets do not understand the meaning of many Vueling ads. Likewise, some non-cognate English, French, Italian, and Dutch words are not understood by the average Spaniard. Still, these campaigns are successful and the service is sold.17 As Eastman and Stein (1993) point out, fluency and understanding are not essential for a language to be successfully used as display. 16 Exploring the possible reasons why there are fewer advertisements written in Catalan than in Spanish in Catalan newspapers, Atkinson and KellyHolmes (2006) point out that using Catalan in a written medium would represent a stronger commitment on the part of the advertiser to the sociolinguistic situation of public life in Catalonia. I entirely agree and add that the main purpose of advertisers is to sell their products, not to make a statement to society through the language choice of their ads. 17 To illustrate some of the success achieved by Vueling, it can be mentioned that this company has just received the Innovation prize at the World Low Cost Airlines Congress held in Barcelona in October 2009. Previously, in March 2009, Conde Nast Traveller awarded Vueling the Best Low Cost Airline following a readers poll, and in June 2009, Vueling was considered the Best Low Cost Airline in the XVII Edition of Premios Travelranking. In 2005 its advertising campaigns were awarded the Laus prize for its creativity and quality in graphic design.
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6. Conclusion All in all, the results of the analysis confirm the initial hypothesis that the use of foreign languages in Vueling ads is driven by symbolism rather than content. Also, it has been observed that the profuse use of English and the graphically fusing of the foreign languages in the ads suggest a sort of globalization in Vueling campaigns. This globalization is not conveyed in the meaning of the words themselves, that is, it is not conveyed at the referential level, but rather at the visual level of language. Yet, another important observation is that at the same time that Vueling ads reflect globalization, they also reflect localization. In other words, the adaptation of foreign languages to Spanish frames conveys a desire to emphasize local features. These two aspects of advertising – global and local – have given rise to the notion of ‘glocalization’ proposed by Bhatia (2001:214) to describe the dual role that English performs. The notion of glocalization not only of English but also of other foreign languages can be applied to the case of Vueling airlines. This mixture of global and local suggests the construction of a new consumer identity in the market of airline advertising. Vueling identifies itself with its audience by adapting the idioms and colloquialisms used by most young people currently in Spain. Yet, this company goes a step further and creates a unique advertising style that is appealing and attractive to both young and adults. Vueling creates such an original and innovative mixture of foreignness and nationalism in its campaigns that the consumer identity portrayed is European and global, but at the same time profoundly Spanish. Further studies could explore how closely the linguistic features in advertising mirror the actual use of language in society. In other words, it could be useful to analyze how the innovative mixture of codes in Vueling ads mirrors the way people are currently using language in Spain, for example, the use of colloquial Spanish expressions with English words embedded and calques from English into Spanish. Also, interviewing advertisers regarding their motivations for using CM as well as interviewing consumers to know their reactions towards those code-mixed ads constitute important lines of research that need to be undertaken in the future to understand better how multilingual advertising works today and how consumers’ identity is constructed in the present era of globalization. Acknowledgement I express my deepest thanks to the Director of Accounts in SCPF, Helena Grau, who sent me the Vueling advertisements that I have analyzed for this article. References Androutsopoulos, Jannis, 2006. Multilingualim, diaspora, and the Internet: codes and identities on German-based diaspora websites. 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Piller, Ingrid, 2001. Identity constructions in multilingual advertising. Language in Society 30, 153–186. Piller, Ingrid, 2003. Advertising as a site of language contact. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 23, 170–183. Poplack, Shana, 1982. Sometimes I’ll start a sentence in Spanish y termino en español: toward a typology of code-switching. In: Amastae, J., Elías-Olivares, L. (Eds.), Spanish in the United States: Sociolinguistic Aspects. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 230–263. Scotton, C.M., 1988. Codeswitching as indexical of social relationships. In: Heller, M. (Ed.), Codeswitching: Anthropological and Sociolinguistic Perspectives. Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin, pp. 151–186. Ustinova, Irina P., Bhatia, Tej K., 2005. Convergence of English in Russian TV commercials. World Englishes 24 (4), 495–508. Van Gijsel, Sofie, Speelman, Dirk, Geeraerts, Dirk, 2008. Style shifting in commercials. Journal of Pragmatics 40, 205–226. María José García Vizcaíno is Associate Professor and Director of the Certificate Translation Program in Spanish at Montclair State University. She teaches translation and has done extensive research in Pragmatics and Politeness. She currently works on Code-Mixed Advertising and Translation. Recent publications include ‘‘The importance of pragmatic and interpersonal equivalence in translation,’’ Current Trends in Translation Teaching and Learning 2 (2008) 209–241, ‘‘Funciones pragmáticas de Eso es y Efectivamente en español peninsular,’’ Spanish in Context 3.2 (2006) 215–237, and ‘‘Translating code-switching in Chicano fiction,’’ Translation Studies in the New Millennium: An International Journal of Translation and Interpreting 3 (2005) 111–121.
