Foregrounding in English Advertisements: A Research based on Advertisements on TIME

Abstract

Advertising forms an essential component of the business field, where the competition fight is the significant marker. Advertisements can give a psychological hint to consumers so that they purchase a product by using image ideology association. More than any other sign or symbol system, language employs a strong effect on consumers and their behaviors. The paper aims to apply Leech’s foregrounding theory on English advertisements on TIME and clarify the “language games,” including deviation and parallelism, so as to figure out its effects on market promotion. The author employs case analysis to examine the theoretical foundation, then presents and exhibits parallelisms and deviations in advertising using classification standards and standard examples. It is found that advertisement language parallelism and deviation is one of the essential linguistic attention-grabbing methods. With the help of the foregrounding, information contained in the advertisement acquires a new, often unexpected sound: at the minimum of the text, the maximum expression.