CURSOS E CONGRESOS DA

UNIVERSIDADE DE SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA Studies in Contrastive

N 170
Linguistics

PROCEEDINGS OF 1HE 4TH INTERNATIONAL

CONTRASTIVE LINGUISTICS CONFERENCE
SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA, SEPTEMBER, 2005

General editors
CRJSTINA MOURN FIGUEROA
TERESA Ic!AR MORALEJO GRATE

Associate editors
ANTONIO LVAREZ RODRGUEZ
SUSANA M. a DovAL SUREZ
M. DOLORES GMEZ PENAS
ELsA M. a GONZLEZ LVAREZ
LUIS IGLESIAS RBADE
ANDREW ROLLINGS
TERESA SNCHEZ ROURA

2006

UNIVERSIDADE DE SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA

 5

ndice
INTERNATIONAL CONTRASTIVE LINGU!STICS CONFERENCE (4'" 2005. Santiago de Com-
postela)

Studies in Contrastive Linguistics : Proceedings of the 4''. lnternational Contrastive

FOREWORD ..................... .. .. .. ........... ...... .... ......... ... ... .... .. .................. .......... ............ ........ . 13
Linguis tics Conference, Santiago de Compostela, September, 2005 / General editors Cris-
tina Mourn Figueroa , Teresa !ciar Mora lejo Grate ; Associa te editors Antonio lvarez
Rodrguez ... [et al.]. - Santiago de Compostela : Universidade, Servizo de Publicacins e HEATHER ADAMS / LAURA CRUZ GARCA
Intercambio Cientfico , 2006 . - 1098 p . ; 24 cm. - (Cursos e Congresos da Universidade Language use in the advertising of financia! products - a case apart?. 15
de Santiago de Compostela; 170). - D.L. C 2876-2006. - ISBN 84-9750-648-0. ISB N 987-
84-9750-648-9 NAOKO AKAHORI
The Japanese department store as a fantasy world - A marketing strategy
l. Ling stica contras tiva-Congresos . l. Mourn Figueroa, Cristina , ed. lit. II . Moraleja of linguistic illusion ....... .. ..................................................... . 23
Grate , Teresa !ciar, ed. lit. Ill . lvarez Rodrgue z, Anto nio, col. IV. Universidade de San-
tiago de Compostela. Servizo de Publicacins e Intercambio Cientfico , ed. V. Ttu lo. ANGLICA ALEXOPOULOU
VI. Serie Anlisis de errores seudolongitudinal en la interlengua escrita de hablantes
no nativos de espaol de origen griego ............... . 31
801 (063)
j AMAL AL-QINAI
Code-switching and style shift in translation ........................... .. . ... .. ........... . 45

ESTHER LVAREZ DE LA FUENTE

La traduccin natural en la adquisicin bilinge simultnea ingls/es paol.. 59

Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, 2006 SUSANA AZPIAZU TORRES

Stylistic-contrastive analysis of nominality and verbality in languages ..... 69

SONIA BAILINI
Deseo de cuberta La cortesa en la enseanza del espaol a italianos ... 79
Alejandro Vidal
FRANCISCO BALLESTEROS / J UAN PEDRO RICA / JOANN E NEFF
MERCEDES DfEZ PRADOS
The ICLE error tagging project: analysis of Spanish EFL writers 89
Edita
Servicio de Publicacins da
LORENA BARRERA FERNNDEZ
Universidade de Santiago de Compostela The appraisal of pronunciation learning strategies and motivation ............... .. . 99
Campus universitario sur
15782 Santiago de Compostela HELEN BHARDWAJ
www.usc.es/spublic Learning How to Say NO .... . .......... ....................................... .. 107

ALICIA BOLAOS MEDINA / MARIA JESS RODRIGUEZ MEDINA

Imprime LYDIA BOLAOS MEDINA
Imprenta Universitaria Estrategias de localizacin de sitios web a partir del anlisis contrastivo
Pavilln de Servicios (ingls/ espaol) de un corpus de pgina s de multinacionales informticas ... 115
Campus universitario sur
GERHARD BRCKNER
Contrastes culturales: se pueden analizar y explicar las culturas sin utilizar
Dep. Leg.: C 2876-2006
estereotipos? ...... .. ......................... . 125
ISBN 84-9750-648-0
ISBN 978-84-9750-648-9
MARA LUISA CARRI PASTOR
Estudio contrastivo de la incorporacin del error para el autoaprendizaje de
una lengua a trav s de internet ......... ..... .............. .. 143
6 7

M.' Luz CASAL SrLVA ANITA FETZER

El rasgo[anterioridad] en francs, castellano y gallego 157 Negative theme zones in political interviews: a co ntrastive analysis of
German and Eng lis h turn-initial :iositions .... ........ .. ...... . 305
CHRISTrAN CH!ARCOS / LGA KRASAV[NA
Rhetorical distance in cross-language evaluation. A parameterized MARA SALVADORA GAGO RAMREZ
approach of referential accessibility ... .. ...... .. .......... ..... . 167 Elementos para un anlisis contrastivo/ comparado espaol/francs ........ ..... ... . 31 3
PAULA CffUENTES -PREZ / DEDRE GENTNER FRANC[SCO GALLARDO DEL PUERTO
Infe rring meaning on motion verbs: contrastive study of English and The comparative skills of more and less balanced bilinguals in
Spanish........ ....... .......... .. ................... . 181 discriminating 13 consonant sounds .. . ............ .. .... .. ... .. . 327
CARMEN CONTI ] IMNEZ ELENA GARAYZBAL HErNZE / MAGDALE NA CAP J UAN
A tentative typology of benefactive applicatives: problems and possible Cross-Lingustic studies in Williams Syndrome .. 335
solutions ............... ...... ..... . 189
PILAR GUERRERO MEDrNA
MARIA ]OSEP CUENCA The grammatical expressio n of the "spontaneous" middle type in German
The contrastive analysis of discourse markers: the case of well ..... ...... ........ . 197 and Spanish .... .... ... ... .... ................ .... ... . . .... ...... ....... . 343
M.' SORAYA D OMNGUEZ PORTELA HELENA GUIMARES / ED UARDA MOTA
Unha ollada sobre pois en das linguas: galego e portugus ....................... ... . 207 The role of comparative s tylistics in translators' training ... ...... ... .... ...... 355
MARA ]OS DOM!NGUEZ VZQUEZ / CARLOS VALCRCEL RIVElRO REGINA GUTIRREZ PREZ
Nouvelles tendances dans la composition nominale: frarn;:ais, a ll emand et The translation of metaphor: a contrastive study ........ . 365
espagnol mis en contraste ............ ...... .. ....... .. .................... .. .......... .. .... ... . . 217
ESTHER GUTIRREZ QUINTANA
LUIS EGUREN Aproximacin contrastiva a la categora del artculo en espaol, italiano
Anlisis contrastivo del artculo en espaol y en vasco . 227 y portugus . . . . . . . . .. ... . ... . . ... . . ...... .. ............. . 373
ELENA ERRICO PERTTr HIETARANTA
La anglicanizacin del espaol de Gibra ltar: un e studio emprico 235 When dictionaries are n o t enough, or why corpora are u seful to
translator training also 383
MERCEDES EURRUTIA CAVERO
Approche smantique-contrastive frani;ais-espagno l des mots de la gestion .. 245 Hru-CHUAN Lu I Szu-CttrA Wu
Estudio del lxico a partir del contras te de dos corpus: el CATE y el CLE . 391
SHEHDEH FAREH
The acquisition of conditional sentences by Arab learners of English. 253 NrCOLAS ROBERT H URST
Contrasting cases : English intrusion in m a gazine advertising within Iberia .. 397
EUSA FERNNDEZ RE! / LURDES DE CASTRO MOUTINHO
A fronteira xeogrfica do Mio: tamn front eira prosdica' .. .................... ..... . 265 Roco J rMNEZ BRrONES
Lexica l templ ates: A lexico-functional approach to the syntax-semantics
CARMEN M.' FERNNDEZ RODRGUEZ
interface in English and Span ish 407
Castle Rackrent ayer y hoy: dos tradu cciones del angloirlands ........ ... ......... . . 277
SUSANA M.' JIMNEZ PLACER
PACO FERNNDEZ RUBIERA / [NMA TABOADA
"Gringos" in Mxico: Khaterine Anne P orter's experience 419
Subjects, matrix interrogatives and the puzzle present in Spanish :
The structure of wb-interrogatives in Spanish ............... ... ............ ..... . 285 MARI CARMEN JORGE
Estudio comparado de ciertos trminos de la familia semntica de ca/idus 427
FRANCESC FERNNDEZ SNCHEZ
The contrastive analysis (German-Spanish) of the language course leaflet
VASlUKl KA NELLO U
fer fereigners (LCLF): its rele vance fer ( would-be) translators and fereign
"The Vicky lives in the London" A contrastive analysis of the English &
language learners as illustrated by the action of erlautern .. 295 Greek s ystem of articles ; implications fer tea ching ... ... . 435
 9
8

T!LMAN T. KLINGE MARA ESTELA MARTNEZ JURADO

Competencias interculturales en el mbito de alemn especfico para A revision of the differences betw.e en nucleus placement in English and
turismo ........ . 443 Spanish and the way they influence second language learners' productions 603

HENRIK K0HLER SIMONSEN ALEXEI MEDVEDEV

CorpLex: Blueprints of a corporate dictionary and editing system .. ........... .. ... . 453 Contrastive phonosemantics as a basis for word formation ...... .... .... ... .. 611

THOMAS KOLLER CARMEN MELLADO BLANCO

Development of web-based plurilingual learning software for French, Estudio contrastivo del artcu lo alemn en sintagmas libres y fijos .. 617
Spanish and Italian .... 461
SEBASTIN MERCADO
Mara Labarta Postigo Contrastive study of the rnacrostructure of medicine instruction leaflets in
Complejidad y aprendizaje de la formacin del plural en alemn .............. .... . 471 English and Spanish .. ..... ..... ... ..... ... .... ......... .... ... ......... . 631

PETER LAUWERS J\'1ARLEEN MERTENS

Aussi vs ook. Une analyse contrastive de deux adverbes polifonctionnels ... .. 479 Typological comparison of the prepositional object in Dutch and Italian ...... 643

RAQUEL LZARO GUTIRREZ / CARMEN VALERO-GARCS NATA~A MILIVOJEVJ

Intercultural communication in healthcare settings. A case study ........ .......... ... 493 Reference transfer in English and Servian. A contrastive study ... ..... ... .. .. .. ....... . 653

NAGIKO IWATA LEE MARA MONTES LPEZ

Contrastive academic writing in Japanese and English ......... ..... ... ...... .. ......... ..... . 509 Algunas reflexiones sobre el lxico de las interlenguas de los estudiantes
de italiano L2 ...... .... ... ... .. ... ... .. ... .. ... .. .. .. ... ..... ..... ....... ... ............. . 665
M.' TERESA LPEZ-MEZQUITA MOLINA
Los corpus lingsticos del ingls: estudio contrastivo de listados de ANA I. MORENO
frecuencias .. .... ..... ... ....... ..... ... .. ............................ ................................. . 517 Where do academics draw their conclu sions from? An English-Spanish
contrastive study of research articles on Business and Economics .. ........ .. . 673
PAULA LPEZ-RA
Manipulation in translation: the case of Orwell's Newspeak compounds .... ... . 529 LIESBETH MORTIER
Extracting meaning from contrastive corpora: the case of continuative
MARA JESS LORENZO MODIA aspect in French and Dutch ......... ................... ................ ... 681
Cogirations on the French Revolution: The History of Sir Geo1ge
Warrington; or The Political Quixote ...... .. .. . ... ... ............. . 539 SONIA MURAS MATALOBOS / MARA XESS ROCA RBADE
Sorne errors in the translation by William Shand of Lorenzo Varela's
B EATRIZ MACIA VEGA Catro poemas pra catro grabados 689
A contrastive study of the use of Who and Whom in American, British
and New Zealand English ... ..... ................... .......... ... 547 J OANNE NEFF VAN AERTSELAER / CAROLINE BUNCE
Pragmatic word arder errors and discourse-grammar interdependence .. . 697
SAMUEL MALVAR Mouco / LAURA PINO SERRANO
Dire et rpondre: un couple a comparer ..... ... ..... ...... .... ....... ... ............ ..... ..... .... .... 557 EVA OG!ERMAN N
Cultural variability within Brown and Levinson's politeness theory. English ,
MARA JOSEFA MARCOS GARCA
Polish and Russian apologies ....... ...................... .... ........... ............ ... ..... . 707
Paralelismos existentes entre las estructuras escindidas y pseudo-escindidas
en francs y en espaol.. .......................... ....... ............................. . 567 JENNIE HMAN
Transla ting corporate rhetoric: hyperbolic and metonymic hyperlinks on
JUANA I. MARN ARRESE / BEGOA NEZ PER UCHA 719
company web sites ..... ............. .. ....... .
Evaluation and structuring in the discourse of fact and opinion:
a contrastive study .... ....... .. ...... ... ...... ... 577 INS LZA MORENO
Fraseologa metafrica metalingstica: ensayo de anlisis contrastivo
A NA M. MARTN CASTILLEJOS / M PAZ KINDELN E CHEVARRA entre espaol y francs actuales ........ ..................... ....... ..... .... . 729
Sharing experiences. A contrastive study of our students writing style :
architects versus enllineers ar thi> TTPM <:n1
10 11

MANUELA PALACIOS GONZLEZ LAURA RAMREZ SINZ

Translation and gender: Galician versions of contemporary poetry by La diminucin de adjetivos en espaol y sus equivalencias en alemn .. 875
Irish Women .................. ...... ... ......... .. .... . 741
ANTNIO JOS RODRIGUES LEAL
IGNACIO M. PALACIOS / ROSA ALONSO Temporal values of gerundive clauses in European Portuguese 883
Lexis and leaner corpora. A study of English/Spanish false friends on the
basis of the data provided by SULEC (Santiago University Learne r of T ERESA MARA RODRGUEZ RAMALLE
English Corpus)... ... ......... ..... .. ...................... . ................ ... . 749 Comportamiento de algunos verbos de causa externa e interna en ingls
y espaol ................ .. .. ............. . 889
MONICA PALMERlNI
Factividad en la nominalizacin : sobre la estructura [el hecho/il /atto + FRANCESCA ROMERO FORTEZA

subdordinada] en espaol e italiano .... .......................... ... ......................... .. 761 Funciones y posibilidades de internet: anlisis crtico desde el punto de
vista del cataln.......... ... .... .... ... ... ...... .. .. .. .... ............... .... . ............... .. ........ . 897
ISABEL PARRADO ROMN
La flexin verbal en la adquisicin del bilingismo como L1 .. ........................ . ANDREW SAVAGE
769
What do Tuareg proverbs mean? ..... ... ........................... .. 907
CARMEN PREZ BASANTA / MARA ELENA RODRGUEZ MARTN
A corpus-driven approach to teaching conversation: using the British M.' Milagros de l Saz Rubio
National Corpus .................................................................. ... ........... ... . 779 A tentative contrastive analysis of Spanish and English discourse
markers of reformulation ................ 917
MARA BEATRIZ PREZ CABELLO DE ALBA
A lexical-syntactic study of cooking verbs in English and Spanish ..... ........... .. ERIK SHLEEF
787
The academic lecture in Germany and the US: cross-disciplinary and
AILA PESONEN cross-cultural variation .................. ........ . ............ ..... 931
On negation in discourse: Analysis of negated expressions in Viktor
Pelevin's novel Generation P ........ .............. . RAFAEL SElZ RTIZ
797
La world wide web y el aprendizaje del ingls como segunda lengua... .. ..... 941
MARA JESS PINAR SANZ
Analysing political advertising in the context of visual communication KATHRIN SIEBOLD
and multimodality ....... ..... .................. ..... ........... ...... .... ...... .... ................ ... 805 Cmo se piden las cosas? Estudio pragmalingstico de las peticiones en
espaol y en alemn .................. .. ......... .......................... 953
MARA CRISTlNA P lNHi.O / MILAYDIS SOSA NAPOLSKIJ
First steps towards evaluation of machine translation from English into XOS SOTO A ND !N
Portuguese: A semantic experiment ............. ... ................ ....... . 815 O (macro)papel semntico de experimentante: anlise descritiva-contrastiva. 961

LUDMILLA PODOLSKI BARRY PENNOCK SPECK

Word arder and pragmaric fu nctio ns in English, Russian and Estonian ... 827 Styling the voice, selling the product .............. ........................ .. ... ... ....... .......... .. ... . 973
M. DOLORES PORTO REQUEJO ARIADNA $TEFNESCU
English and Spanish expressions fo r the internet: contrasting The epistemic inferences of the Romanian discourse particle pai by
conceptualizations ....... ................ ... ........ .... ................ ... 835 comparison to the English discourse particle well ............ .......... ......... ... . 981

JOS CARLOS PRADO-ALONSO BEGOA SUREZ MORENO

Ful/ invers ion in narrative and scientific American English ...... ... ...................... . 845 Algunas observaciones sobre el parlato cinematogrfico aplicado a la
didctica: dos actividades .................. ......... ............................. . 993
ROSA RABADN / BELN LABRADOR / NOELIA RAMN
Putting meanings into words: English -ly adverbs in Spanish translation ...... . BERNHARD J. SYLLA
855
Raumsensibilitat und Binarlogik. Die Kognitive Baisstruktur bei
MIRNA RADIN -SABADOS Dativ/ Akkusativ-Kondurrenz als Besonderheit des Deutschen .... 1013
Realities and fictiona l world(s) - First person narrative and epistemic
modality in English and Serbian..................... .............................. .............. .... .. ........ 863
12 13

INMA TABOADA / PACO FERNNDEZ RUBIERA

On the interna! structure of infinitival clauses: A cornparative study in
Asturian , Spanish and Galician ......................................... . .............. ... .... .. 1023

MUSTAPHA TAIBI
La equivalencia contrastiva e n la traduccin para los servicios pblicos
(espaol-ra be)..... .................. ............................ ..... ... ...... ............. .. .. .. ........... 1033

Mrsuzu TAKAMr Foreword

An analysis of Japanese EFL learners' usage of modal auxiliaries in
error-tagged written corpus ... .......... ... .......... ... ....... .. ... .. ... ....... ... ... ..... ..... ... .. 1041

] LIA T ODOL / ROSANNA DOLN

Translating cooking recipes in English, Spanish and Catalan ........................... . 1051

MIHAELA TOPOR / G LORIA VZQUEZ GARCIA / A NA FERNNDEZ MONTRAVETA It is a great pleasure for us to present this volume , which contains
Perfrasis verbales del espaol y rumano: correspondencias y vacos lxicos 1061 a large selection of contributions to the 4th lnternational Contrastive
KRI STEL VAN G OETHEM
Linguistics Conference (ICLC4) , held in Santiago de Compostela from 20
A contrastive study of French and Dutch preverbs 1069 to 23 September 2005 (http:// www .usc.es/iclc4).*
The proceedings presented here contribute to maintaining the
WEIQUN WANG
Corpus-driven study of translation units in an English-Chine se parallel
prestige of a series of symposia which began eight years ago with the aim
corpus 1077 of conducting, promoting and expanding and research in the field of Con-
trastive Studies. This volume stands as the final reward for those scholars
RONG ZHANG
Inte rnational or self-conscious? A slip of the J apanese government in
and researchers from all over the world who presented their latest research
policyma king ... .... ... ...... .............. ...... .. ....... .... ..... ... ... ... ... .... ... ... ......... . 1091 ar ICLC4. Our task now is to make the main achievements reached within
the field of Contrastive Studies known to ali those interested in this
discipline, with the purpose of bringing to light new perspectives, lines
of research and theoretical and methodological approaches.
The papers, arranged alphabetically, cover a wide thematic spec-
trum , including Corpus and Computational Linguistics, Cultural Studies,
Discourse Analysis, Pragmatics, Languages for Specific Purposes, Grammar,
Lexicology and Lexicography, Phonetics, Phonology and Spelling, Second
Language Acquisition , Foreign Language Teaching , Semantics, Socio-
linguistics, Historical Linguistics, and Translation Studies. Among these
disciplines, we would like to emphasize the high number of papers related
to the field of Discourse Analysis , indicative of the current critical interest
in this type of studies . We have also respected the style and approach

For further studies deriving from the same conference , please see Current Trends
in Contrastive Linguistics: Functional and Cognilive Perspectives and Languages
and Cultures in Contrast: New Directions in Contrastive Lingu istics, edited by M.
A. Gmez Gonzlez, L. Mackenzie and E. Gonzlez lvarez and submitted for
publication to John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Scudies in contrasrive linguistics
PROCEEDINGS OF TilE 4rn INTERNATIONAL CONTRASTIVE llNGl!lSTICS CONFERENCE. SEPTEMBER, 2005; pp. 973-980

1 Styling the vo1ce, selling the product

Barry Pennock Speck

UNIVERSITAT DE VALENCIA

Abstract
Our voices tell others a lot about where we come from, our gender, our age, our
emotions, and other information, often without us being aware of ir. Lyons 0977) labels
a signa! as informative if ir is meaningful to the receiver as opposed to communicative,
which is meaningful to the sender. In TV commercials, where every single detail is infused
with meaning, voices are carefully moulded to achieve the effect the advertising agency
wishes to project and form part of the covert information included in the advert. In this
paper I will compare the physicality of voices, what Barthes (1977) called "the grain of
the voice", in British and Spanish commercials to show how certain voices correlate with
certain products.
Keywords: Sociolinguistics Media language Voice quality

Introduction
In this article I will be analysing voice-overs in English and Spanish
commercials. Most TV commercials are made up of sorne kind of mini drama
and most, but not ali, include a voice-over. In the case of British "slice-of-
life" ads which mav include "accents, slang, or dialect" voice-overs may,
 974 Studies in contrastive finguistics
Styling the voice, selling the product
975
BARRY PENNOCK 5PECK

according to Brierly (2003: 267) tidy llp "any amb ..

. ' igumes or uneas Manipulating voices
regional accents". In other cases, voice-overs may reinforce the i~~:::with
the advert proper. Sutherland (2000 109) h e m With regard to the manipulation of our voices, Laver & Trudgill (1979:
. states t at the reason the ar
is that they are cheaper and more flexible especially in case differ: e used 26) talk about "actual markers" and "apparent markers" . The latter can be
or languages are needed for different markets. I have only . l dntdaccents divided into "misleading markers" which are "deliberately projected by a
ove h me u e voice speaker in orcler to lay claim to characteristics of identity which are not actually
. rs p10per, t at is , those in which the voices heard in tl d -
~~~~~b~~e~o~~e~~~ 1 belong to an actor appearing on scree~eat a:~r\i~~: his" and "misinterpreted markers" which are a misinterpretation on the part
of the listener. From the examples Laver & Trudgill (1979) give -putting on
an accent to sound like someone from a higher social class and whispe1y voice
In my anal~sis of English and Spanish voice-overs I have taken .
~~~~~7~e;se~~~a~h1~al origin, gender, age, and voice settings such as cr~:~o
being construed as conspiratoria! when it is actually a symptorn of laiyingitis-
it is clear that these authors are thinking of speech produced during naturally
f un amental frequency to see if these correlate with differen~
groups o products. My English corpus is made u of . . . . occurring conversation. However, in written-to-be-spoken genres such as films,
advertisements recorded at random durina the mont~ f Anmety-~1.X d1stmct plays, commercials and other types of performances voices are often or always
~ITV base, MTV ~its and MTV2. Of these~ twe!ve did
hus a total of eighty-four voiceovers were analyzed The S
:ot
f:!~~~ i~o~Oe~~~~
.l
manipulated deliberately. In the world of TV commercials, where eveiy single
detail is infused with meaning, voices are carefully mouldecl to achieve the
consists of 263 adverts with voice-overs from a .total ofarns 1 cor?us effect the advertising agency wishes to project (Ha11 1991: 180) and in effect
advertilsements_ recorded at random during the month of Auous~7~20~~)tmct form part of the covert information that is not readily available to viewers
severa terrestnal Spanish channels. on (Tanaka 1994). The designers of TV ads use speakers for voice-overs that fit
in with the image of the product they are attempting to sell or promote.
Voice Therefore, the voices chosen are communicative in the sense that they are
Our voices often tell others a lot about our gender aoe wl . deliberately chosen to achieve communicative ends. The following Dove Body
from h e . , o , 1e1e we come Wash commercial is an example of clear voice manipulation. It starts with a
, ow we are_ iee 1'.ng and other information that we might not even be
:~re fofh In_ many obs m the service industries voices are already an important soft-spoken, slightly breathy voice belonging to a woman who is evidently
enjoying, in an almost sensual way, a series of beauty treatments. From the
ph o t e image that employees project and as such are groomed in much
t e same way that a perso ' h word "yeah" the voice changes into a much more edgy, no-nonsense Estuary
Vi . . ns p ys1ca 1 image is (Cameron: 1985 1995 ?001)
o1ces are important judging by the number of web d ,. . ' - . English (henceforth EE) type of voice. The linguistic message and the voice
to modify and improve them. A voice is a kind otages a vert1smg courses seem to be saying that modern young women like you and I have no time
essential to distinguish between the tw f . signa! _and as such it is to mess about with elaborate beauty treatments but we still want to look good.
d " . . . 0 types 0 S1gnals, i.e. , "informative"
(1) Start the morning with a moisturising Tibetan body mask, aromatherapy
an commumcat1ve" identified by Lyons 0977: 33 v 1 1) . .
~u~haokresthsignhal is informative in~e~ti~~c~~r~~~gs~~~~~;
essential oils and a hydrotherapy, bubbly tank thingy ..... Yeah, like you've got
"if (regardless of the time fer all that in the morning. Squeeze a little spa [inrrusive "r"] into your
e earer aware of someth 0 f h. h h shower instead with Dove Body Wash.
On . . mg w ic e was not previously aware. "
the other hand, commumcative signals are "intended by th d
the receiver aware of something of which h . . e sen er to make Hypothesis and Analysis
1977: 33 vol 1) M f h . . e was not prev1ously aware" (Lyons
. . . ost. o t e time m everyday life our accent, the sound of Following logically from the section above I hypothesize that, in spite
our v01ces are mostly informative that is d of the multiplicity of advertising techniques , certain voice types, characterized
of speech, or pitch deliberately for co~:U~ic~ti~~t e~hdasng~ our acce~t, r~te by the age of the speaker, his/ her gender, geographical or social affiliation,
is manipulated deliberately it becomes com . . . owever, i vo1ce ancl other factors such as voice quality, should correlate with the promotion
, mumcat1ve.
of certain product types. I therefore analyze both corpora using these variables.
I have discussed the results according to language starting with the English
corpus.
 976 Studies in contrastive linguistics
English Corpus
In spite of the very short duration of voice-overs, identification of
accents did not prove too difficult except when distinguishing between RP
and Estuary English accents in sorne ads (see Bel! 1991 for the difficulties in
distinguishing accents in advertisements). To classify an accent as EE r relied
on the appearance of at least one feature of this accent -glottal stop instead
of alveolar plosive, for example. I found forty-eight ads with Standard RP
accents, seventeen with American accents, fourteen with EE accents, two with
Cockney accents and one for each of the following accents: African American
Conservative RP, Northem, and Irish. As for age, I divided this category int~
ostensively young, indeterminate, and middle-aged to older speakers. AJ! the
voices which were not overtly young or old were included in the intermediare
category which, perhaps for this reason, was found to be the most common
with forty-three examples compared to thirty-nine young voices and two older
ones (indeterminate 51,2% versus others 49,6%).
The most common types of marked voice quality I identified were deep
voice, creaky voice, breathy voice, swoopy intonation, and enthusiastic,
aggressive, or vehement voices. There was sorne kind of salient voice-quality
feature in forty-six of the eighty-four ads. From the point of view of gender
''
' there were sixty-seven male voiceovers versus thirty-one female voiceovers
(72,5% male versus 27,5% female).
11 ! As expected for a middle-of-the-road accent, RP was used for the widest
range of products. Young RP voices were mostly encountered in mobile
ringtne ads, skin care and CDs. Indeterminate RP voices overlapped with
young voices, for instance in advertising music and skin care. Middle-aged
to older v01ces were scarce in this corpus. In the case of RP they were found
in ads for financia! services (RP) and an ad for Lukozade, an isotonic drink
~..
in which research into improving performance was emphasized. Most of the
EE voices were found in ads for mobiles, music, and skin care and belonged
to young speakers. The young female EE speakers advertising ringtones had
swoopy intonation. Fourteen of the eighteen American voices belonged to men
of an indeterminate age with deep, breathy voices and were found in ads
promoting films or DVDs. There was only one young female American voice
advertising lipstick and two other young voices advertising a CD and ~
computer game. The only older American voice in the middle-aged to old
category was an imitation of a character from an American canoon, Whacky
Races, m an ad promoting Opel Corsa cars. The only African American accent
was used to advertise a hip-hop album. A Cockney voice of indeterminate
age was used in two ads for Cut Magazine a down-market publication for
Styling the voice, selling the product
BARRY PENNOCK SPECK
977
men for which the connotations of the Cockney accent -clown to earth and
streetwise- was perfectly suited. The one ad with a Conservative RP voice-
over featured an older women saying: "Anyone for Pimms?" mimicking the
stereotypical "Anyone for tennis?" that conjures up images of the upper-classes .
Although the majority of the ads in my corpus featured male voices, products
aimed exclusively at girls or women featured only female voices whatever the
accent used, whereas sorne products aimed exclusively at men did have female
voices. Marked voice settings were found in over half of the ads but a clear
correlation with product types was found in the case of ads for films and DVDs
which had voice-overs with deep voices in nine out of ten ads. Breathy voice
was also found alongside deep voices in these ads and also to a much greater
extent in personal hygiene products than for other products.
Spanish Corpus
As there was only one voice-over featuring a regional accent, Catalan,
the results obtained from the Spanish corpus were less complex. As in the
case of English ads the majority of the Spanish voice-overs featured male voices
(65,5% male versus 34,5% female). Both male and female voices were used
in ads for a very wide variety of products but gender was a determining factor
in female hygiene ads which only included female voice-overs -the vast
majority of which were young. Young voices were also common in non-
alcoholic drink and ring-tone ads. In the Spanish corpus voices belonging to
an indeterminate age group were predominant: 225 out of 263 (indeterminate
85, 5% versus others 14,5%).
With regard to voice quality I found a higher proportion of breathy/
deep voices in film trailers while ali the perfume ads use sorne kind of special
trait, i.e. deep, breathy, sensual or foreign voices. Both sex related ads feature
ostensively sensual voices.
Conclusions
From my analysis of the two corpora it is quite clear that voice does
matter in TV ads in both Britain and Spain and that there are more similarities
than differences between the two languages. The greatest divergence being
the two corpora is the diversity of accents in British ads compared to the almost
total homogeneity in my Spanish corpus. Unsurprisingly the most frequent
accent used in the British ads is RP, the accent of authority, establishment and
prestige (Wells 1982; Holmes 1992, Downes 1998). The rationale for using other
accents may be because while RP enjoys overt prestige, rural accents embody
prestige of a covert kind (Holmes 1992: 347). Montgomery (2005: 73) found,
978 Studies in contrastive linguistics
for example, that commodities that embocly expertise feature RP or American
accents but that others, such as foocl stuffs may use rural accents. Thomas
0999: 182) posits that advertise rs use rural accents "to indicare the wholesome
nature of food products" and "more prestigious accents such as RP to promote
financia! services". EE, which is used due to its credibility with a younaer
audience, might also be a vehicle of covert prestige. Another explanation for
the use of less authoritative accenrs may be the gradual spread of colloquial
speech throughout the media. Accent may be linked to other traits found in
verbal communication in the media, for instance, what Gregori-Signes (2000)
calls "quasi-conversational" discourse (Gregori-Signes, 2000) which can be
found, for example, in talk shows. This type of discourse also seems to growing
even in news programmes which were once the domain of the most
authoritative speech styles (Djerf-Pierre (2000). According to Fairclough (1994)
the rise in this style throughout the media is to hiele the imbalances in society
by persuading us that we are ali equal so a greater number of regional or
social accents in ads today alongside other characteristics of colloquial speech
are to be expected.
The age factor does seem to correlate with the type of product
advertised in both the British and Spanish corpus. Voices belonaina to the
indeterminate age group are the most common probably because~ like RP in
the British corpus, these voices are unmarked and can therefore be used with
a greater number of products.
Results from both corpora regarding gender seem to back up previous
research that the presence of women in commercials is secondary or
subservient to that of men. However, very little research seems to have been
carried out on the presence of women's voices in TV ads, which might be
due to a bias towards the visual that I have encountered in research in this
area . I have only founcl one researcher, Kimmel (2003 : 165), who states that
authoritative voices in ads are nearly all men's but he offers no empirical
ev1dence to back this up.
From the results of my research voice quality (cf. Barthes' "grain of the
voice) definitely seems to correlate with certain product types in both corpora.
Vo1ce settmgs wtth sensual or intimare connotations are more common in
beauty products and those related to sex and personal hygiene. Breathy voice,
for example, which is found in a number of ads has clear sexual associations
or, at the very least, is related to intimacy; Cruttendon (1986: 174) describes
it as 'bedroom voice' while Graddol & Swann (1989: 36) link it to "sexual
arousal". Creaky voice, which is encountered although to a lesser extent in
my corpora is also associated w ith intimacy (Gobl & Chasaide's 2000: 182)
Styling the voice, sel/ing the product
979
BARRY PENNOCK SPECK
ancl may also imply "calmness ancl assurance" (Brown & Levinson 1987: 268).
Finally, deep voices, according to Ohala (1983) ancl Gradclol & Swann (1989),
are authoritative which may account for their presence in TV commercials ancl
may explain why more male than female voices are used.
In all there seems to be a clear link between voice-overs and the type
of product being advertised. What is striking about the analysis of British ancl
Spanish ads is the fact that whether they are produced for a multi-national
auclience and clubbecl into other languages or whether they are clesigned for
a national audience, the manipulation of voice, is so similar. This would seem
to imply that the values held by consumers of TV commercials in Britain and
Spain are basically the same and that what the two aucliences share from a
cultural point of view is greater than the differences that separare them.
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Fontana, 179-189.
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Brown, Penelope and Lewinson, Stephen C. 1987 Politeness some Universals
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Djerf-Pierre, Monica 2000 "Squaring the Circle: public service and commercial
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'1

.
Abstract
The rwo analogous discourse particles (DP), well and pai, are epistemic pragrnatic
markers, or mental state intetjections that trigger higher-level explicatures (Schounip 2001;
Jucker 1993). The range of comexts in which these particles appear are similar and extremely
wide. In spoken Romanian, the particle has a preference for contexts characterized by non-
narrativity, rnetarepresentation, emphatic formlations, reponed speech, and phatic
expressions.
I propase a description of the pragmatic functions of the plii DP sta11ing from the
explicatures it triggers. They can be grouped into three majar classes: explicatures that
indicare a high degree of relevance of the local discourse unit, explicatures that indicate
insufficient relevance, and explicatures that indicare just a mental interna! process of
deliberation. The advantage of this approach would be that of an economic classification
of the pragmatic uses of the pa11icle. The pragmatic factor that constrains the use of the
DPs pai and well is the speaker's epistemic evaluation of the local discourse. The inherent
nature of the particles is epistemic and phatic, and the rich functional uses it acquires in
communication belong to agreernent, partial agreernent and disagreernent discourse acts.