Historical advertisements and their language reflect tendencies and activities of the particular time period. When studying historical advertisement and its language, certain skills are required nowadays in order to understand the peculiarities, usage and significance of the language of the time.
Advertisement is the source of history of its time, and its research provides an insight into both the history of the particular place, the city and the society of the time, its habits and values. Also, the political history of the age leaves an impact on the content of the advertisement.
In its turn, comprehension of the language is a significant factor, as the text dominates in historical advertisements, and there are few pictures. An insight into the history of printed advertisement proves that a concise “text of advertisement” had to be created in order to get the advertisement printed in a publication, naming and advertising a particular product or service, it was important to show the information where the particular product could have been bought.
The aim of the article is to provide an insight into the history of printed advertisement, using advertisements published in Liepāja publications during the 30s of the 20th century, mostly paying attention to the language of advertisements.
In the article, the language of origin and problems of printed advertisements of the 30s of the 20th century have been analysed; differences in the language application have been studied comparing them with advertisement language nowadays.
Analysis of literature and other resources, students’ surveys, and expert interview methods have been used to achieve the aim of the article.
Research methods have been used in order to understand texts of old advertisements as resources of historical evidence, to study the written language of the time, as well as to understand that the advertisement of the time in the language context differs from the modern advertisement language and also from the Latvian literary language in general.
It has been concluded that the Latvian language in the course of time is changing and developing. The language used in advertisements is simple; in order to attract attention, the superlative degree of adjectives is used. Advertisements are printed in black-and-white; the effect is achieved with bold letters and font size; the personification of the advertisement is common.
Nowadays, youth can perceive the historical advertisement and be surprised that it was also used earlier in order, e. g. to attract customers to products. Some similar advertising slogans can be found that are still used nowadays. However, some difficulties are encountered when reflecting on the language of the time – separate words, expressions, also the applied orthography, as well as the old (Gothic) print.
Youth justify difficulties of text perception with language development in the course of time, application of archaisms; they see the impact of the German language. The text of advertisements seems simple, even primitive, topical; it is an offer of practically applicable things.
Nevertheless, the expert interviews confirm that the impact of a foreign language can be noticed in the advertising language, forms, words that are not used in the modern Latvian literary language any longer.
To sum up, the authors of the article think that the research of the advertising language in the context of history is essential. Also, nowadays, when the digital marketing has developed, the issue about the communication with the consumer is still topical from the advertising point of view, and also the language application and content are important – what and how we want to say to consumers.
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