Bilingualism in the Global Media and Advertising

English in Italian advertising

“…Even when the presence of English is minimal, it contributes to the creation of an ‘Englishized’ linguistic landscape (in the broader sense of the term), and thus to everyday encounters with the global language par excellence. Its extensive presence in advertising, which has become part of our common daily experience, can somewhat weaken its prominent function of attention‐getter: English is thus ‘constantly re‐tooling itself’ (Bhatia and Ritchie : 543) through linguistic strategies that are often glocalized. Findings related to other European countries, and to Italy as the ones exemplified by Tosi (), are confirmed by my data.…”

“…Bilingual creativity refers to creative linguistic processes that involve competence in two or more languages (Kachru ). Several studies have investigated processes of bilingual creativity in code‐mixed advertising, particularly with English as ‘the single most important vehicle of bilingualism’ (Bhatia and Ritchie : 10) and the most successful foreign language in international marketing (Bhatia , , ; Martin , ; Bhatia and Ritchie , 2008). English is exploited by advertisers and often becomes nativized to create ‘multiple special effects’ that would not be achievable if just one linguistic code were used at a time (Bhatia and Ritchie ).…”

“…English is exploited by advertisers and often becomes nativized to create ‘multiple special effects’ that would not be achievable if just one linguistic code were used at a time (Bhatia and Ritchie ). A more glocalized version of English is thus often created by tailoring linguistic innovation and symbolism to local languages/audiences (Martin ; ), while at the same time exploiting the ‘global’ values attached to English (Bhatia ; Bhatia and Ritchie ). As Martin (: 177) points out, ‘[w]ell aware of the ‘pluricentricity’ of English (Kachru , ) and of its connotative value in advertising, advertisers combine these visual creations with both global and localised varieties of English as part of their international marketing strategies, creating a ‘global’ advertising landscape in France and in other countries in the Outer and Expanding Circle’.…”

“…Language mixing is employed at different levels and in different patterns in order to create literary and socio‐psycholinguistic associations (Bhatia ; Bhatia and Ritchie ; Ustinova ). Processes of adaptation by means of hybridization, analogical patterning, double marking, reduplication, acronyms and truncation are commonly found in the discourse of advertising, both in world Englishes (Bhatia and Ritchie : 539ff.) and in European contexts (e.g.…”

English in Hong Kong Cantopop: language choice, code‐switching and genre

“…Auer 1984; 1998; Gumperz 1982; Li Wei 1994; 2005; Myers‐Scotton 1993). Nonetheless, written code‐switching has existed for many centuries, as evidenced by its occurrence in ancient texts (Aslanov 2000; Watt 1997), and some researchers have paid attention to code‐switching in written data or planned discourse such as poetry and novels (Kachru 1989; Callahan 2002; 2004), advertising (Bhatia and Ritchie 2004; Martin 2002) and pop song lyrics (e.g. Bentahila and Davis 2002; Kachru 2006; Lee 2004; 2006; Moody 2006; Sarker and Winer 2006).…”