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Ethnic Language

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Foreign Languages in Advertising

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Abstract

This chapter deals with the third language strategy distinguished in this book: the use of language to appeal to ethnicity. It describes interest in ethnic language in advertising as an instance of ethnic adaptation, with examples of studies from Europe, Australia, and the USA. The chapter focuses on the most frequently studied ethnic language in advertising: the use of Spanish (versus English) for Hispanics in the USA. An extensive review of the literature shows how the effect of Spanish versus English is influenced by Hispanic consumers’ degree of acculturation, product typicality, ad congruity, and consumer motivation to process the ad. Finally, the chapter reviews studies of the code-switching direction effect and of consumer associations with Spanish and English in ads.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Language Studies, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

    Jos Hornikx

  2. Centre for Language Studies, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

    Frank van Meurs

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  1. Jos Hornikx
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Hornikx, J., van Meurs, F. (2020). Ethnic Language. In: Foreign Languages in Advertising. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-31691-4_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-31691-4_5

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