THE USE OF DIALECTS IN ADVERTISING DISCOURS ON THE EXAMPLE OF ITALY

Abstract

Advertising has become an integral part of people’s lives in the age of rapid development of information technology and communication channels. Forms and technologies of advertising change every day, along with changes in advertising discourse. For a long time there was a contemptuous attitude towards the dialect, although not everyone considers it a low speech register. Recently, there has been a tendency to reproduce and preserve the dialect. In the last decade, it seems to have returned to fashion because of its diversifying function, so more and more often in the advertising campaigns in Italy dialectisms in slogans are being used or even an entire campaign using dialects from different regions is built. Linguistics has not yet fully studied this aspect of functioning of dialects, the pragmatic aspect of their use in advertising discourse and the impact they have on the recipient of the advertising message. In advertising discourse due to the use of dialects such concepts as “native”, “our”, “own” become more understandable. Arguments of national pride and patriotism occupy a very important place in the advertising discourse. Using a dialect, instead, companies want to confirm and emphasize their strong relationship with the “territory” where the dialect is being spoken or understood. The article defines the concept of discourse; features of advertising discourse are described; highlights the general trends in the use of dialects in advertising discourse in Italy and the pragmatic aspect of this phenomenon. The pragmatics of dialect in advertising has several aspects. In some cases, the trademark is Italian and targets the entire national territory, and the use of the dialect emphasizes a strong relationship with the territory or consumers. In other cases, companies use dialect as an element of “entry” and politeness. In general, the article describes four main directions or trends in the use of dialects in advertising discourse, which are illustrated by examples. The need to study the Italian advertising discourse in the aspect of use of Italian dialects and the need to highlight the main trends and directions of this use largely determines the relevance of the article. In linguistics, this area of functioning of dialects, the pragmatic aspect of their use in advertising discourse and the linguistic influence they have are not fully studied.