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Aspects of Advertisement Language in 1950s

  • The Sociolinguistic Journal of Korea
  • Abbr : 사회언어학
  • 2007, 15(2), pp.163-185
  • Publisher : The Sociolinguistic Society Of Korea
  • Research Area : Humanities > Linguistics

Chae Wan 1

1동덕여자대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

This paper aims to study the linguistic aspects of advertisements from 1950 to 1959. I compiled and analysed the copies of advertisements from newspapers published during that period. The brief summary of this study is as follows: Many of the copies were written in Chinese characters (漢字) with a mixture of Hangeul (한글). Chinese characters were most frequently used in advertisements. Compared with current advertisements, words from foreign languages were less found in those of 1950s. Domestic products were so few in 1950s that sellers didn't have to compete with others to sell their goods. Thus the linguistic expressions of advertisements were stylistically and strategically simple. But after the Korean War, many kinds of Korean products began to be launched to the market. Then the advertisement language became sophisticated to appeal to the consumers. There was a change in the meaning of the word satang during that period. Originally satang meant "sugar", and "candy" was called al­satang ("egg-shaped sugar"). But when the domestic manufacturer made sugar and named it seoltang ("snowy sugar"), consumers began to call "sugar" seoltang. As a result, the meaning of satang changes from "sugar" to "candy".

Citation status

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