The topic under discussion

We all adapt our language to suit the subject matter, often without real­izing it. Most activities have a specialized vocabulary. If you are playing a ball game, you need to know that 'zero' is a duck in cricket, love in ten­nis, and nil in soccer. If you have a drink with friends in a pub, you need to know greetings such as: Cheers!, Here's to your good health!

In some cases, a relatively normal vocabulary is combined with altered syntax. In newspaper headlines and telegrams, all surplus words are routinely omitted, sometimes resulting in unintentional ambiguity:

Giant waves down Queen Mary's funnel (British newspaper) Dacoits (= bandits) shoot dead policeman (Indian newspaper)

Specialized speech styles are carried to excess in some cultures, where social situations may follow a high degree of ritual, as among the Subanun, a Philippine tribe. If you want a drink, it is not sufficient simply to give the Subanun equivalent of English 'Please may I have a drink'. This utterance might cause a Subanun speaker to praise you for your fluent Subanun, but you would not get a drink! Drinking, par­ticularly the drinking of beer, is a highly ritualized activity which pro­gresses through a number of stages. At each stage, there is an appro­priate style of speech, and advancement in Subanun society depends on how well a person copes with this.

But style adaptation is not only a means of fitting in socially. More worryingly, it can be used to manipulate people, sometimes without them realizing it, as in the language of advertizing.

The language of advertising

Musk. The missing link between animal and man. Earthy. Primitive. Fiercely masculine, (cosmetic advertizement)

Outspan. The great taste of grapefruit. Cool, refreshing, full of flavour. Wholesome, natural grapefruit - the colour of the sun. Puts the rest in the shade, (fruit advertizement)

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Advertisers get their effect in three major ways. They write it large, they make it short, they make it 'jingly'. The magazine advertisements quoted above were printed in larger than usual print, so it was hard not to read them as one flipped through the pages, just as it is hard not to read billboards on the roadside.

Words that are inessential for the meaning are omitted, so most of the 'sentences' do not contain a verb. Consider how comparatively dull the result would have been with verbs: Think about musk. It is the missing link between animal and man. It is earthy. It is primitive. It is fiercely masculine.' If verbs are used in the main message of an advertisement, they are often imperatives:

Drinka pinta milka day Go to work on an egg Have a break, have a Kitkat.

If they are not imperatives, they are almost always in the present tense, and negatives are rare:

Persil washes whiter

Oxo gives a meal man appeal

You can take a White Horse anywhere.

In an extended advertizement, the wording often follows a formula. First, the 'key' word, followed by a longer sequence: 'Musk. The miss­ing link between animal and man.'Then comes a series of shortish, catchy phrases. Important words are backed up with ne;'r-synonyms: 'Earthy. Primitive'; 'Cool, refreshing'; 'Wholesome, natural'. There's likely to be a pun somewhere: The colour of the sun - puts the rest in the shade'. It's easy to think up other examples of plays on words in well-known ads:

Better in jams than strawberries (car advertizement) Players please (cigarette advertizement)

These strategies are not only used to make people buy particular shampoos or perfumes. They are also utilized by politicians, as in the slogans of political parties:

Let's go with Labour (Labour party slogan) Labour isn't working (Conservative party slogan)

But not all 'advertizing' is so straightforward. Less obvious, and so more dangerous, are some of the other techniques used by politi­cians, such as the use of metaphor (sometimes defined as 'the use of a word or phrase in place of another in order to suggest a likeness

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between them'). Subtle and skilful use of metaphor can influence peo­ple's thoughts in a way in which they are unaware. The arms race is a classic example. Politicians sometimes pretend that their nation is in an athletic contest with other nations, even though this may be entirely in their imagination. Richard Nixon, ex-president of America, repeatedly emphasized how important it was to 'win' in the 'race' against other countries: This nation cannot stand still because we are in a deadly competition... We're ahead in this competition... but when you're in a race the only way to stay ahead is to move ahead’.

These days, nuclear weapons attract a high number of metaphors. These hideously dangerous devices tend to be referred to by politicians as 'nuclear shields' or 'nuclear deterrents', or a 'nuclear umbrella'. This leads people to believe that they are genuinely necessary (we all need umbrellas), purely defensive (shields), and even useful in discouraging others from warfare (deterrents). These beliefs may, or may not, be true. But the language used in discussing nuclear armaments ensures that the average person does not look beyond the reassuring language, and therefore fails to perceive the potential dangers involved. In an ideal world, everyone would be able to recognize linguistic manipulation, and question whether it was conveying, or hiding the truth.

In short, all human beings are capable of altering their language according to the needs of the situation. It is important to know how this is done, and also to keep on eye on how normal communication skills can be twisted to manipulate people.