Paroemia in the Context of Modern French Public Internet Advertisin

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Introduction

The current stage of society’s development is characterized, first of all, by an increased interest in social issues both on the part of individuals and society as a whole. Hence, the institute of public advertising is nowadays undergoing active development as a phenomenon of spreading urgent social issues to a wide public. Public advertising is a set of material and virtual objects that exist in the form of text, graphic images, as well as audio or video sequences. The main purpose of this phenomenon is to disseminate information about actual social issues and promote ideas for their solution that have an informational or attractive nature [1]. Public advertising is a variation of non-commercial advertising, and its function is to prevent the unacceptable human behavior in various spheres of society (In environmental, interpersonal, medical, etc. aspects), as well as to attract the attention of a wide audience to the fact of their existence and distribution [2].

Due to the fact that public advertising primarily realizes its attractive potential, an important aspect of its study is the consideration and description of models to create social advertising of various types, as well as an assessment of its distribution potential. Nowadays, the largest audience coverage for advertising of all types, including public advertising, can be provided by the Internet, including various search engines, local thematic sites, social networks and online communities. Due to the realisation on the Internet, social advertising, as well as other advertising types, acquires new features of representation, among which scholars (A.  Zemtsovskaya, A. Stoyanov [3]; G. Nikolayshvili [4]; A. Kovaleva [5]) can distinguish: text creolization, a polycode channel of representation (the presence of a graphic object), smallformat advertising texts, as well as the presence of a reference in electronic or text format.

The study is carried out according to the methodology proposed in the work Phenomenon of Precedence in the French Public Service Advertising and its Communicative and Pragmatic Potential [6], based on French social Internet advertising. The relevance of the work is explained by increased linguistic interest in the phenomenon of polycode and polymodal advertising text (see, for example, [6–13]). Researchers pay special attention to social advertising given the fact that “these texts are actively involved in everyday language/speech reality and have a pronounced suggestive potential” [6. P. 127].

Social advertising is considered in the works of linguists in terms of content and mechanisms of influence [7; 8]; verbal and non-verbal means of implementing a polycode (polymodal) text [9; 10]; precedent phenomena [11; 12]; national and cultural elements [13].

In comparison with the commercial advertising, the main purpose of which is to sell goods or services [2], public advertising is aimed, as mentioned earlier, at attracting recipient’s attention to significant issues and ills. Therefore, social advertising possesses a high representational potential, expressed in a variety of representation forms and appellative strategies and images used. In addition, an important specific feature of social advertising is its ethnospecificity, which is primarily associated with the peculiarities of the implementation of certain socially significant topics in various linguistic and cultural communities.

The realisation of public advertising via the Internet allows one to maximize the potential of social advertising, including through the latest technologies: using SMM-technologies, geo-location tracking and up-to-date user data.

Public advertising features realisation  on the Internet

The distribution of social advertising via the Internet is related to the highest bandwidth of this communication channel. The use of the Internet for the representation of public advertising allows one not only to expand the audience of recipients-viewers, but also to deliver such advertising in a targeted way. This feature is most relevant for targeted social advertising that contains information about sources of assistance in various situations, providing contact details, etc. Modern technologies allow one tracking the history of user requests and their activity in social networks, based on SMM-technologies (including targeted advertising), without obtaining the user’s personal data and/or unlawful interference in the user’s personal life. This means becomes possible thanks to algorithms for processing requests in the form of Big Data, which allow one to provide a user with a specific account and /or IP address information corresponding to the history of his search queries and visits to various sites by identifying cookie requests. Such technologies offer the possibility of the targeted delivery of advertising messages that may be of interest to the user and at the same time not disclose his personal data to the distributor of advertising messages [14].

In the context of public advertising, this practice is extremely effective in cases where a user could be a victim of violence (psychological, sexual, physical, domestic or from other persons) and does not have information about receiving help, or cannot apply for it directly. Therefore, contextual social advertising can significantly affect the situation with violence for the better.

Contextual public advertising can also be effective if it is dedicated to various environmental initiatives, e.g., the treatment of animals (assistance to homeless animals, conservation of rare wild animal species, initiatives against cruelty to animals, etc.), or aimed at providing humanitarian and psychological aid. While using targeted public advertising, it is also possible to significantly expand its effectiveness by attracting a specific target audience to participate in the announced initiatives [7].

Besides the methods of distribution, public Internet advertising has also its own constitutive features, as well as specific features of representation. Thus, public Internet advertising is usually a small-format text (up to 200 characters), which may also contain elements of hypertext markup (links, hashtags, reposts, etc.). At the same time, the text of public advertising is divided into a slogan, main text and a reference. All these constitutive units can either be exclusively present in the object of public Internet advertising, or constitute a set of advertising text. In addition to the text, a graphic image (photo or video, depending on the format of the advertisement) becomes a necessary component of modern social Internet advertising [15].

In his research on the public advertising phenomenon N. Oprishch points out the importance of considering the combination of text and graphic components of public advertising, as well. Thus, the texts of modern public advertising, besides the actual text components, may also contain metagraphic means of expression, such as: chromographic selection (highlighting text components using color to place semantic accents); supragraphic selection (using different types of fonts for different parts of a text (slogan, main text, reference), as well as for various text parts, including reducing or increasing the font for individual semantic elements of a text); topographic selection (the location of a text on an advertising poster, for example, vertically or inside a graphic object) and syngraphic selection (the selection of the verb component using various punctuation marks, especially for analytic languages) [16].

Figure 1. Example of public Internet advertising
Source: WWF. Open Source. Saxoprint Creative Awards 2016.
URL: https://www.saxoprint.fr/qui-sommes-nous/partenariats/creative-awards?page_id=6828 (accessed: 10.10.2022).

Here we will illustrate the given features with the example of French public advertising for the environment protection.

In Figure 1, we can note the presence of all significant elements of modern social Internet advertising: the presence of a large graphic object, the presence of a phrase-slogan (n’attendons pas que le manque se fasse sentir pour réagir — do not wait for the time when the shortage will be sufficient for your reaction); the presence of the main text performing an explanatory and informative function in a smaller font (protéger les océans, c’est sauver notre planète — protection of the oceans is the way to preserve the planet); as well as several references: active hyperlinks to popular social networks, an active hyperlink in the icon of the WWF international organization.

This example allows us to consider the main functions of all constitutive parts of the public Internet advertising poster. Thus, a graphic image in an object of public advertising usually has an attractive and emotive function: here its main function is to attract attention and evoke an emotional response from the recipient-viewer. In this example (Fig.1), the graphic image allows a repicient to draw a parallel between the slogan of public advertising and the hyperbolized embodiment of the problem in question in the life of an average layperson. To accomplish this, Japanese sushi dishes (sashimi and rolls) are used as a graphic image, in which one of the main components is missing — seafood (fish, shrimp, eel, as well as a wrapper for nori seaweed rolls). The use of the sushi image with the absence of seafood allows the creators to appeal to the impact of environmental problems to protect the flora and fauna of the seas and oceans on human daily life. In addition, we can underline that the image of sushi is used, among other things, as an accessible and popular food format familiar to the recipient-viewer: so, at the time of 2016 (the year of this advertisement release), more than 23 % of respondents regularly (once a month or more often) consumed sushi, and among young people the percentage of consumption exceeded 30 %, according to the data of the analytical agency Statista [17].

An advertising slogan, like a graphic image, has an attractive and emotive character, which determines its metaphorical (like a graphic element) nature. The main function of the public advertising slogan is to update the problematic request so that it attracts the attention of the widest possible audience. At the same time, it can be noted that the slogan reflects the most generalized message, containing elements of artistic expressiveness. If a graphic object carries the function of presenting a hyperbolized example, then the slogan is the ideological basis of the advertising object.

The main text, in turn, explains the connection between the semantics of the graphic object and the text series of the slogan, specifying the appeal of the advertising object — in this example, calling for the preservation of the oceans.

References, as a separate type of text, is a hypertext fragment consisting of an active hyperlink to the initiator of the advertising campaign (WWF) and allowing a user to go specifically to the page of this environmental initiative, as well as to the hypertext fragment with a link to popular initiative resources located in the most significant social networks.

As a result of such an advertising composition, public advertising becomes more effective, because it offers a possibility not only to draw attention to the presence of certain social issues, but also to perform an action (go to an initiative site, make a donation, sign up as a volunteer, distribute a message, etc.), which allows to expand the range of participation.

M. Vasilyeva can also identify the characteristic features of the ways to represent public advertising on the Internet. To create advertising objects, such techniques as metaphor, alliteration, hyperbolization, personification, as well as elements of parody, precedent phenomena and pun are often used [1]. The variety of techniques used in public advertising is provided, first of all, by the peculiarities of its functioning: a transformed text with an indirect impact can be more effective in the issue of a complex impact on the recipient-viewer. Thus, the use of the figures of speech (metaphor, hyperbole, impersonation, etc.) allows the authors of an advertising message to better convey the emotive component of the message, as well as activate the attractive function. Moreover, the use of the figures of speech techniques allows one to attract non-standard graphic solutions for the visual (iconic) component, which also activates the emotive and attractive functions of public advertising.

In the article devoted to the study of linguistic features of public advertising texts P. Scorupa and T. Dubovičienė indicate the most frequent techniques used in creating public advertising: rhyming combinations (rhymed slogan), alliteration, metaphor, hyperbole, pun. However, the scholars note that such phenomena as onomatopoeia, assonance, consonance, synonymous rows are much less common in social advertising texts [2].

In French public advertising, the following techniques can be often found: alliteration, metaphor, rhyming combinations, hyperbole, pun, national precedent statements, as well as quotations. At the same time, it can be noted that the use of quotations as a figure of speech can be used in various qualities: in the form of direct quoting with an indication of authorship, in the form of winged expressions and excerpts from sacred books (the Bible, the Koran), less often — in the form of proverbs and sayings, as well as through indirect appeals to the above forms [6].

Results and discussion: paroemias in French social advertising

Paremias, by which following V.M. Mokienko [18. P. 10] we mean “a logically complete figurative or non-figurative saying of an aphoristic nature, which has an edifying meaning and is characterized by a special rhythmic and phonetic organization”, were considered in a number of works [19–22].

While studying the use of paroemias in the modern French public advertising discourse, we can note the relative rarity of its use referring to other artistic techniques. In this study, we analyzed 312 objects of French public advertising distributed via the Internet in the period from 2016 to 2022.

Table 1
The use of figures of speech in modern French public Internet advertising

Figure of Speech	Example	Quantity / 312	Frequency %
Metaphor / metaphoric expression	Célébrons la vie. Donnons notre sang	143 / 312	45,8 %
Personification	L’alcool vous rapproche de la nature.	32 / 312	10,25 %
Alliteration	Allo? Allo? Non mais… Allo? Quoi? Vous me recevez? Allo? T’as un mobile, t’as pas de reseau?	40 / 312	12,8 %
Rhyming combination	j'achète malin je jette moins	28 / 312	8,97 %
Pun	Dites non aux copycats	21 / 312	6,7 %
Hyperbole	Fumer, c’est être l’esclave du tabac.	11 / 312	3,52 %
National-precedent statement	Tu connais l’histoire de Paf le chien?	18 / 312	5,7 %
Quotation	Le chat a neuf vies. (M. Twain) Le papier a cinq.	14 / 312	4,48 %
Paroemia (proverb, saying)	Devenir proprietaire c’est sûr, sans se serrer la ceinture[1]	5 / 312	1,6 %

Despite the fact that “the linguistic units that most clearly reflect national and cultural information, without any doubt, can be attributed to paremias” [23. P. 324], nevertheless, the scope of their use in social advertising is relatively small

According to Table 1, paroemias are the rarest of all the figures of speech that we have identified in modern French public Internet advertising (1.6 %). This trend may be related to the difficulty of using paroemias in the format of public advertising, when appealing to the acute social issues of modern France, such as domestic violence, non-traditional relationships, transport safety, tolerance to migrants, etc. The use of paroemias as slogans of modern public Internet advertising also limits the target audience of such advertising, since understanding the metaphorical message embedded in it and its correlation with modern issues requires a deep understanding of French culture and knowledge in the field of history, literary studies and the French language. Meanwhile, the use of well-known proverbs and sayings for Francophones can make public advertising more attractive and interesting for native speakers.

It should also be noted that one of the most common methods of public advertising is appeals to various national precedent phenomena, including the paremiological fund of language. Therefore, the text of public advertising will not use the proverb itself (unlike the saying, a grammatically complete structure), but only an appeal to it: the text will use the same metaphorical symbols in the same meanings and using the same lexemes, but without repeating the actual set expression. So, in Figure 2 (Fig. 2.) we can see an example of public advertising, which composition is based on an appeal to French proverbs and to the Latin winged expression.

Figure 2. Modern French public advertising
Source: Fodation Cultura. L’agence de l’héritage national de la France.  URL: https://fondation.cultura.com/ (accessed: 10.10.2022).

 

Text. Si vous avez peur de l’obscurité rassurez-vous l’obscurité a peur de la culture.

Fondation Cultura

Sous l’égide de la fondation de France

Translation: If you are afraid of the darkness, rest assured the darkness is afraid of culture.

Cultura Foundation

Under the aegis of the Fondation de France

This example of public advertising contains appeals to three main semantically significant symbols: light (lumière) with references to enlightenment, culture; darkness (ténébres) as an analogy of ignorance and dark; fog (brouillard) as an allusion to the unknown.

The text of the public advertising considered in Figure 2 contains a metaphorical appeal to French proverbs: “La lumière ne dissipe point le brouillard, mais conduit à travers ses ténèbres” (Light does not dispel the fog, but leads through it) and “L’ignorance est bien plus à craindre que les lumières” ‘Ignorance should frighten more enlightenment’^[2]. According to Chevalier and Gheebrandt le brouillard / the fog has the following metaphorical meaning — “When the forms are not yet distinguishable or when the old forms disappearing are not replaced by precise new forms, empty place, kingdom of formlessness from which transformations can take place, moving mists [which] are […] the very substance of darkness” [24. P. 149]. In French, the lexeme “ténèbres” has the following meanings:

“1. Obscurité profonde, sinistre, qui peut provoquer la peur, l’angoisse; / Deep, ominous darkness, causing fear, longing;

2. Domaine de ce qui est obscur, inconnu, difficile à comprendre / The sphere of the unclear, unknown, that is difficult to understand” [25].

In turn, the light is also a classic symbol, which description can be found in the Encyclopaedia Universalis: «Pour en esquisser l’enjeu symbolique, on peut introduire trois grandes acceptions de la lumière sur le plan de l’imaginaire: la lumière-séparation, la lumière-orientation, la lumière-transformation. Ces trois aspects de la lumière comme symbole se définissent par rapport à trois altérités ou trois formes de ténèbres, soit, respectivement: l’abîme; l’obscurité; l’ombre et l’opacité. Lumière-séparation et abîme s’opposent dans une symbolique de la création. Lumière-orientation et obscurité structurent la symbolique de la connaissance. La lumièretransformation se heurte à une double altérité: s’opposant à l’opacité, elle est le symbole de la manifestation, se confrontant à l’ombre, elle devient le symbole de la purification (catharsis)» [26]. ‘To outline the symbolic issue, we can introduce three main meanings of light on the imaginary plane: light-separation, light-orientation, light-transformation. These three aspects of light as a symbol are defined in relation to three alterities or three forms of darkness, namely, respectively: the abyss; darkness; shadow and opacity. Light-separation and abyss are opposed in a symbolism of creation. Lightorientation and darkness structure the symbolism of knowledge. The lighttransformation collides with a double otherness: opposing opacity, it is the symbol of manifestation, confronting the shadow, it becomes the symbol of purification (catharsis)’.

Here we would remark that the symbolism of light is contrasted with both the symbolism of darkness and the symbolism of fog as its form. Then the sayings we are considering can also be considered in a metaphorical aspect: light, symbolizing knowledge, dispels darkness, the fog of ignorance. This interpretation also correlates with the Latin proverb “Scientia vincere tenebras”, especially popular in Frenchspeaking countries, and has become the motto of several French, Netherlandish and Belgian universities, in particular, the Vrije Universiteit Brussel [27]. The partial transition of the meanings of the paroemiological fund of the Latin language to the French language, which is part of the group of Romance languages, is due to the fact that Vulgar Latin acted as a substrate for the group of Romance languages [28]. This kind of connection allows us to speak about the similar semantics of the paroemias that have undergone a number of linguistic and socio-cultural changes with the preservation of the set values.

Besides the appellative approach to the use of paroemias in public advertising, it is also possible to use them with partial replacement, e.g. replacing one or more words in a proverb by consonance.

The public advertising presented in Figure 3 and Figure 4 was launched in 2018 jointly by the largest French dealer of supported cars, WeltAuto.FR and BADR (La brigade des accidents et des délits routiers / The road accidents and crimes brigade) is an operational unit of the French police for accidents and road accidents. This advertisement consisted of two slides: on the first one, a viewer was offered the text from Figure 3 and Figure 4, on the second slide there were photos from the scene of a fatal accident. Since in this study we are interested in the analysis of the text component, namely the use of paroemias in soci public al advertising, only text fragments of this advertising campaign will be given below.

Figure 3. French social advertising dedicated to driving safety
Source: Effie France. 29e rendez-vous de l’efficacité de la communication.
URL: http://www.effie.fr/pages/campagne.php?ID=277 (accessed: 10.10.2022).

Text. Il faut que jeunesse se casse.
Les enfants, c’est bien aussi quand ils sont loin.
Translation: Youth needs to crash.
Children are also good when they are far away.

The social advertisement under consideration is devoted to the problem of road safety, namely careless driving by young people or minors that leads to traffic accidents. It should be note that paroemia is not the only Figure of Speech in this advertisement: in addition to the actual paroemia, in this text are also used the technique of demotivation (motivation from the opposite) and sarcasm, which also aims to draw the audience’s attention to the actual problem, in this case by expressing disagreement with the message of public advertising.

As a paroemia in this case, the French proverb “il faut que jeunesse se passe” / “Youth tends to make mistakes” — S’emploie pour excuser de façade ironique ou condescendante les écarts de conduite d’une personne jeune / Is used to ironically or condescendingly justify the bad behavior of a young person [29.  P 337]. To use this proverb in the advertising slogan, the authors of this text replaced the verb “se passer” (to make mistake / to mistake) with the consonant verb “se casser” (to crash) in the form of the 3rd person singular (Present Tense / Le présent). Due to the replacement of the semantic verb by consonance, the meaning of the proverb has changed significantly, retaining the sound and form familiar to the native speaker, which made it possible to use the resulting expression as a provocative slogan of social advertising.

Moreover, a paroemia can act as a slogan of social advertising as an integral unchanged expression.

Figure 4. The use of paroemia in modern French public advertising
Source:  Effie France. 29e rendez-vous de l’efficacité de la communication.
URL: http://www.effie.fr/pages/campagne.php?ID=277 (accessed: 10.10.2022).

Text. Les oisillons quittent le nid quand ils peuvent voler, et les enfants quand ils peuvent conduire.
Les enfants, c’est bien aussi quand ils sont loin.
Translation: The chicks leave the nest when they can fly, and the children when they can drive.
Children are also good when they are far away.

The example of public advertising in Figure 4 belongs to the same advertising campaign dedicated to road safety and driving cars by young people and minors. In this case, the authors used the integral unchanged French saying “Les oisillons qittent le nid” / “Chicks leave the nest” [29. P. 567]. As in the previous example in Figure 3, the paroemia here is part of a complex stylistic device to attract the attention of the target audience with the help of sarcastic expression and an element of demotivation. At the same time, the saying that is not a grammatically complete object is included in the text as one of the elements of a complex sentence.

The statistical calculation we carried out revealed the limited use of paroemia in modern French public advertising, despite the high attractive potential of this figure of speech. It should be noted that the orientation of public advertising to the mass audience, including migrants and foreign citizens living in France, makes it difficult to use paroemias as a semantically complex object, since their use leads to a narrowing of the target audience of recipient viewers, because the use of these elements requires a deep knowledge of the French linguoculture, as well as knowledge of the semantics embedded in proverbs and sayings.

Concluding remarks

Modern trends in the society development, in particular, the rapid development of the social sphere and the transition to an information type of society generates the emergence and active development of several phenomena, among which public advertising can be noted. Public or non-commercial advertising is a special type of advertising, and its main task is to attract the attention of recipients-viewers to current social issues. In view of the informatization of all society spheres, modern public advertising is often represented by information messages distributed by media, including the Internet. The choice of web channels for the distribution of public advertising is primarily due to the possibility of presenting public advertising objects to as many potential viewers as possible. In addition, the latest algorithms of information networks allow authors to create targeted advertising and deliver it directly to representatives of the target audience. The realisation of such an approach can significantly increase the effectiveness of public advertising not only in terms of attracting the attention of interested segments of the population to it, but also in terms of helping socially vulnerable categories of citizens, which is the goal of one of the thematic types of public advertising.

However, due to virtualization, public advertising is forced to adapt itself to the requirements of the web environment, in particular, to reduce the volume of messages and use not only text, but also graphic means of expression to attract the attention of Internet users. Therefore, public advertising distributed in the web space acquires its own linguistic and constitutive features, among which: a small format of a text message; the division of text into semantic parts (slogan, main text, reference); the use of a graphic image — an illustrative component; the use of metagraphic means of expression; the use of various linguistic means of expression, among which are national precedent phenomena, metaphor and metaphorical expression, alliteration, hyperbole, personification, as well as paroemia.

The present study focused on the role of paroemia as a special figure of speech used in the texts of modern French public advertising. Based on statistical calculations, it was highlighted that the use of couples in French public advertising is currently quite limited, which is due to the peculiarities of its representation. The use of elements of the language paremiological fund as components of social advertising leads to a narrowing of the target audience of recipients-viewers, since the use of these elements requires a deep knowledge of the French linguoculture, as well as knowledge of the semantics embedded in proverbs and sayings.

Moreover, the use of proverbs and sayings in public advertising texts is complicated by the requirement to simplify the text distributed on the Internet, whereas paremiological units as well-established expressions may contain archaisms and historicisms that complicates the structure and semantics of the text. Another obstacle to the use of paroemias in modern public advertising is the issue of compatibility of modern realities and social issues, to which advertising texts appeal, and the paroemiological fund. Thus, the main subjects of modern French public advertising are: migration, domestic violence, road safety, sexual minorities, etc., which is not reflected in the paroemiological fund of the language.

However, the attractive potential of proverbs and sayings, despite the conditions described above, nevertheless allows them to be used as components of social advertising. It can be noted that in modern French public advertising, proverbs and sayings can function in various forms: in the form of integral unchanging statements as a component of an advertising slogan; in the form of integral modified statements with the replacement of a part of the paroemia by another on the principle of consonance; in a completely modified form in the form of appeals to the proverb as a paraphrased utterance with the preservation of the meaning and individual key elements, but a completely changed grammatical structure of the utterance. The use of paroemias in any of these forms creates an appeal to the linguistic and cultural heritage of the language and allows authors to fill the text with a deeper metaphorical meaning.

To sum up the conclusions we would like to underline that despite the limited use of paroemias in the texts of modern public advertising, the attractive potential of such texts for French native speakers becomes much higher due to appeals to national traditions, norms and specific linguacultural (national precedent) semantics. For a broader perspective, futher studies of realization and functioning of paroemias in public advertising needs to be conducted.

 

^{1 Dictionnaire de l’Académie française, 9e édition (actuelle). URL: https://www.dictionnaireacademie.fr/article/A9C1233 (accessed: 12.10.2022).}

^{2 Le dictionnaire des proverbes et idiotismes français. Paris, 1892.}

About the authors

Ekatherina D. Anisimova

Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia (RUDN University)

Email: 1042210137@rudn.ru
ORCID iD: 0000-0002-9854-3921

post-graduate student of the Department of Foreign Languages, Faculty of Philology

6, Miklukho-Maclay str., Moscow, Russian Federation, 117198

Vladislav E. Anisimov

Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia (RUDN University)

Author for correspondence.
Email: anisimov-ve@rudn.ru
ORCID iD: 0000-0002-6006-3965

PhD, Assistant Professor of the Department of Foreign Languages, Faculty of Philology

6, Miklukho-Maclay str., Moscow, Russian Federation, 117198

Vladimir N. Denisenko

Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia (RUDN University)

Email: denisenko-vn@rudn.ru
ORCID iD: 0000-0001-6021-4068

Prof. Dr. Sc. (Philology), Professor, Professor-Consultant of the General and Russian Linguistics Department, Philological Faculty

6, Miklukho-Maclay str., Moscow, Russian Federation, 117198

References

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