The use of linguistic tokenism to secure brand loyalty

Code-switching practices in South African print advertising

Bibliographic Data

ID20406438
AuthorsMarthinus Conradie (United States Department of State), Angelique van Niekerk (0000-0002-8233-2441, University of the Free State)
Year2015
Volume46
Issue1
Pages117-138
Publication date2015-01-02
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueLanguage Matters (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1022-8195 • E-ISSN: 1753-5395
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/10228195.2014.981570
OpenAlexW2073228103
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited29

Code-switching from English to other languages has become an established repertoire in English-dominated advertising which, in the South African media landscape. Within this context, we analyse the use of code-switching in support of two advertising objectives: 1) establishing an audience-advertiser relationship, and 2) positioning consumers as having certain desires, beliefs and aspirations that should encouraged brand affiliation. We argue that the deployment of code-switching in relation to these objectives assumes particular significance under modern consumerism, in which consumption is linked to the performance of identity. Focusing on print magazines, the results highlight a prominent difference between code-switching from English to Afrikaans, and English to indigenous South African languages

Advertising · Art · Business · Code-switching · Consumerism · Linguistics · Loyalty · Political science · Repertoire · Sociology · Computer Science · Digital Communication and Language · History · Linguistics, Language Diversity, and Identity · Multilingual Education and Policy · Marketing