Advertising as Multilingual Communication

Advertising has traditionally communicated messages to consumers with strong local and national identities. However, increasingly, products, producers, advertising agencies and media are becoming internationalized. In the development of strategies that appeal to a large multinational consumer base, advertising language takes on new 'multilingual' features. The author explores the role of advertising language in this new globalized environment, from a communicative theory point of view, as well as from a close linguistic analysis of some major advertising campaigns within a multicultural and multilingual marketplace.

Helen Kelly-Holmes is a Lecturer in sociolinguistics with new media at the University of Limerick, Republic of Ireland. Her research interests revolve around the interrelationship between media, markets and languages, and she has published widely on all aspects of these issues. She is the author of Advertising as Multilingual Communication .