Automotive brand press - pragmalinguistic remarks

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Rzeszow University

Grazyna Filip

Annotation

The subject of the article is pragmalinguistic characteristic of selected automotive magazines as a representation of brand press available on Polish market. The material basis of the consideration consists of Polish-language brand periodic with branding function issued between 2012-2016: «Volkswagen Magazyn», «Das Auto. Magazyn» and «Experience Magazine. Magazyn marki Peugeot w Polsce». Listed magazines are characterised by mostly regular columns and their structure and language are ancillary to perlocution, which direct purpose is convincing the reader to the brand and encouraging him to buy specific model of car. Different kind of language and non-language mechanisms are used for persuasion. The integral part of analysed magazines is though the graphic layout as an expression of visual communication.

Key words: brand press, branding, persuasion, pragmalingustic, recipient category.

Анотація

Ця стаття є продовженням дослідження, яке автор розпочала в 2012 році публікацією статті під заголовком «Про назви моделей автомобілів марки Volkswagen» [Філіп 2012]. Впродовж п'яти років досліджень виник цикл з шести статей, тематика яких стосується мовних сигналів автомобільного брендінгу.

Галузева преса, а також та, що видається автомобільними концернами, слабо представлена в польському пресознавстві з мовного боку. Запропонована автором тема заповнює якусь прогалину в дослідженнях щодо мови преси і є прикладом інтер- або трансдисциплінарних аналізів, в яких лінгвістичні методології пов'язані з доробком зі сфери маркетингу і журналістикознавства. Галузеві журнали, які проаналізовано в статті, мають маркетингово-рекламний характер і є суттєвим елементом стратегії створення позитивного зображення марки. Сам брендінг слід розуміти ширше, ніж рекламу. Це добре продуманий і неухильно реалізований та актуалізований процес, на якому ґрунтується стратегічний аналіз, проектування тотожності марки, її зовнішніх мовних сигналів чи графічного зображення. Метою креативників цієї марки є створення її позитивного іміджу, а також тривала фіксація його у свідомості наявних та потенційних клієнтів.

Підтвердженням цих роздумів є видані в 2012-2016 роках польськомовні періодичні галузеві видання про функцію брендингу: «Volkswagen Magazyn», «Das Auto. Magazyn», «Experience Magazine», журнал марки «Peugeot». Згадані пресові видання характеризуються відносно постійними рубриками, а їх структура і мова підпорядковані такій мовній діяльності, наслідком якої буде спонукування читача звернути увагу на марки авто. З метою спонукування до якоїсь дії у виданнях послуговуються різними мовними і позамовними механізмами. Цілісним складником аналізованих журналів є графічний малюнок як вираз візуальної комунікації.

Завдяки тематичній диференціації рубрик запропонована не тільки реклама моделей авто, але й цікавий для читачів виклад типів преси, наприклад, зі сфери культури, культурології, антропології чи географії. Тексти, які розміщені в журналах, написані перш за все офіційним різновидом польської мови, що підтверджує знайомство з принципами мовної коректності. Це передусім загальна лексика, наприклад, «шліфувати хоб- бі», «зарахувати бій», професійні звороти, що ґрунтуються на прихованому суфіксі -ak або -ka.

Для всіх періодичних видань, які ми досліджували, характерним є концептуалі- зація автомобілів у категоріях сім'ї, для якої окремі конкретні моделі авто виконують типову для людини функцію, мають визначений характер, а також відіграють схожі у суспільстві ролі: товариша, партнера, спортсмена. У створенні образу підкреслюються «чоловічі» ознаки автомобілів.

Пропозиція моделей автомобілів скерована на різні цільові групи клієнтів. У специфікації пропозиції враховується перш за все професія, зацікавленість, а також сімейний стан потенційних покупців автомобілів. Незалежно від асоціацій, символіки авто, які згадуються у статтях на шпальтах автомобільної преси, розробники окремих марок дбають, щоб образ концерну, який репрезентовано через них, був носієм сильних цінностей. Це свідома дія, підтвердження чого можна знайти в проаналізованих у статті текстах, в яких, - незалежно від марки, - підкреслено безпеку і зручність їзди, емоцію радості від володіння автомобілем і їзди на ньому, а також нові технології, які вдосконалюють керування автомобілями і є більш досконалими для водіїв.

Ключові слова: бренд-преса, брендинг, переконання, прагмалінгвістика, категорія реципієнтів.

The presented text is a continuation of academic interests which I started by publishing the article Names of VW Brand Car Models [1]. The material basis of the taken analysis was among others Polish-language issues of «Volkswagen Magazyn» quarterly, published by Kulczyk Tradex since December 2014. During five years of research I have created a series of six articles, which themes are: Personification as a way of branding VW on the Polish market shown on the example of „ Volkswagen Magazyn» and „Das Auto. Magazyn» [2] and The Joy of the Drive as Language Signal of Creating Brand [3]. The next three texts awaiting for release in domestic and foreign publications are: The Tactile Aspect of Communication in the Trade Press of Peugeot and Audi Brands, The connotations and Symbolism of Lion in Peugeot Brand Press as an Element of Creating Brand and «To the Knights, to the Nobility, to the Bourgeoisie» - About the Recipient Category in Peugeot Brand Press.

Brand/specialist press, also this issued by automotive combines, is weakly represented in polish linguistic press studies. This subject was analysed in the publications of among others Maria Wojtak [8], [9], who focused mostly on cycling magazines. As Malgorzata Kita noted in the review of my earlier mentioned article about the tactile aspect of communication in the brand press of Peugeot and Audi, this kind of analysis are filling «the gap in the research about language in press and are a good example of harmonic fusion of modern

linguistic instruments and marketing research» The text mentioned here is a chapter of co-edited by me monograph Senses. Linguistic - Cultural Aspects, which will be published in 2017 by Rzeszow University Publishing House.. The analysed magazines though often have marketing - advertising character and are important part of the strategy of creating positive image of the brand. The branding should be here understood wider than advertising itself. It is a precisely considered, consequently pursued and updated process, that consists of strategic analysis, design of the brand's identity, its external, including linguistic, signals and graphic image. The purpose of a specific brand's developers is creating its positive image and fixing it in the awareness of real and potential clients [compare about this Filip 2012, 2014 and 2015]. The confirmation of operations led to gain this goal are, among others, texts published in quarterlies released by automotive combines.

The observations I have published until now do not empower me to form conclusions about brand press in general, but though they allow to form some pragmalingustic remarks related to specific brand's magazines. At this point the range of material basis must be specified. It consists of following Polish-language brand periodics created for branding, published between 2012-2016:

«Volkswagen Magazyn», published by Kulczyk Tradex since December 2014. Since June 2012 it is renamed as «Das Auto. Magazyn.». It is a free magazine issued in quarterly cycle addressed to fans and owners of Volkswagen vehicles. The current publisher of Polish version of the quarterly is Volkswagen Group Polska Sp. z o. o. (previously Kulczyk Tradex) and the international coordinator of the magazine is Rtidiger Schingale from Volkswagen AC in Wolfsburg. industry press transdisciplinary linguistic

«Audi Magazyn», owned by Volkswagen Group Polska Sp. z o. o, the international coordinators are Fleur Cannas and Claudia Stiehl from Audi AG in Ingolstadt, Germany. The publisher of polish version is Yo Media Consulting, with Joanna Wysocka as the editor in chief.

«Peugeot Experience Magazine. Magazyn marki Peugeot», published since 2016 in new graphic layout as «Experience Magazine. Magazyn marki Peugeot w Polsce.», issued according to the seasons: winter, spring, summer and autumn.

The listed magazines have mostly regular columns. Here is an example collation of tables of contents:

«Peugeot Experience Magazine» nr 11/2015: Current Affairs, Interview, Plank, Innovations, Model, Peugeot Design lab, Worth to Know (diagnostics, service arrangements, etc.), Feuilleton, Lion's Recommendations (book, music, film, applied art), Culture, Bon appetit, Travel, Sport, Emotions, Partner,

«Peugeot Experience Magazine. Magazyn marki Peugeot» summer 2016, selected article titles: Motion: Not Using Hands - Hands-free Side Door Opening System; #Drive To Tenis - Even closer to world's tennis; Expert in the Field of Innovation - the New Peugeot Expert; Peugeot wins! - successes of Polish Drivers on the Rally Paths; New Chapter - The Presentation of New Peugeot 3008; i-Cocpit® - Another Scene of New Peugeots Interiors; Quest: Four Seasons - 1100 km through Poland Driving Peugeot 308 SW Seeking for Automotive History Traces; Emotion: No Compromise - Peugeot 308 GTi on the Prologue Rally Road; Common Denominator - Two Disciplines, Two Different Cars, One Driver; Lion's Claw - Peugeot 208 GTi in the Eyes and Lens of Automotive Enthusiasts; Star Cast - Brilliant Lion 2016 - PEMReaders Plebiscite. Film - Automotive Contest with Prizes.

At this point it is worth to mention the opinion of Jerzy Dyszy, rally driver considered nowadays as one of the best automotive journalists in Poland. The author pays attention to changes in the character of automotive press which took place during last several dozen of years:

«The automotive magazines than was something completely different than the contemporary ones, which are focusing evidently on selling (the goods shown by advertisers obviously). Major automotive magazines, such as «Quattroroute» was enabling to learn something important about the construction of the car. Nowadays this knowledge is in the big part available in the Internet, one just need to know how to seek for it and how to understand it. Sometimes these are press information, sometimes scientific and sometimes from research institutes» [7, 23]. A little controversial, but not wrong, may seem - coming from autopsy - Jerzy Dyszy's views on competence of contemporary journalists:

«I must say though, that accurate and good knowledge about anything can distract in journalism, instead of helping. [...] A regular journalist knew, what was the result: one drove worse, the other better. I knew how it happened, but I couldn't write it. And when I did, the half took offence and the other half was only unsatisfied. Journalist is a person who writes about something he doesn't know on. About what he finds out, about what he comes to, but if this knowledge was full, it could turn out, that he shouldn't show it... [...] Inquisitive journalists isn't needed by contemporary media [underline G. F.]. More important is the ability to share the knowledge that he has or gained for the needs of even one single article, in such way, that the reader will want and be able to take something for himself out of it. Want - which means it must be attractive and can - which means this knowledge must be applicable. It's a hard art. And what's worse, if you do it, it's not so obvious that there will be a publisher or advertiser interested in such material... [7, 24].

The structure and language of contemporary brand periodics are therefore ancillary to perlocution, which direct purpose is convincing the reader to the brand and encouraging him to buy specific model of car. Different kind of language and non-language mechanisms are used for persuasion. The integral part of analysed magazines is though the graphic layout as an expression of visual communication. Here must be emphasised the communicational power of the format of photographs, on which some car parts are sometimes filling the whole page of a specific issue.

A characteristic of all the analysed periodics is conceptualisation of cars in the category of family, in which each member (respective car model) with common genes have specified character, fulfil actions typical for a human, play specified social roles: companion, partner, athlete, hero/strongman and sometimes even lover, as in the case of VW brand. In creating images emphasised are though mostly masculine features, but when in it comes to Peugeot also the femininity of smaller models is accentuated. The newly introduced models are metaphorized as baby or a young/non grown up person in general, e.g. busybody lion cub.

The offer of cars conceptualised this way is presented to various target groups. The specification of target includes mostly professions, interests and family status of the potential buyers. The direct recipients of the texts published in the automotive magazines are e.g. businessmen, architects, musicians or restaurant owners. David Guerin in the interview with Przemyslaw Kozera says: «Each of our brands [combine PSA Peugeot Citroen, note G. F.] is creating its own world. Has its own receivers, who have different expectations» [6, 12].

No matter what associations, connotations and symbolism is shown by car names or brand logo, the creators of each brand take care about making the image of brand they represent carry positive emotions and values, as shown in another extract from Peugeot magazine: «The Peugeot brand is a carrier of strong values. It knows what is a driving experience, what joy comes out of driving a car, how much pleasure can a visit in the showroom give» [6, 12]. It is an informed operation, what can be confirmed by the analysed texts, in which - no matter the brand - strongly emphasised are the safety and comfort of drive, joy of having a car and driving it, as well as new technologies that improves driving a car and replace drivers.

The determinant of automotive magazines is the dialogue character of published texts, for what a representative genre example are interviews. Accordingly to eruditive ambitions of the redactions, the invited guests are not only automotive brand specialists, but also sociologists, computer scientists, travellers, athletes, musicians, photographers or actors, such as e.g. Catherine Deneuve and Gerard Depardieu in the autumn 2011 issue of «Peugeot Experience Magazine» or Jennifer Lopez in the first issue of «Audi Magazyn» in 2013. Contemporary mass media set the dialogue as a trend. Conversations dominated over the other ways of broadcasting and became a media phenomenon which popularity is still increasing [compare 4]. Not without significance is in this case the pragmatic function of conversation - getting closer to the recipient and enhancing chances to convince him to presented views. For a major, or even prevailing, number of recipients of today's mass media the dialogue is a more attractive form than the first- or third-person narration. That is why the elements of discussing with reader are brought to also other press genres than dialogue. Without a doubt this kind of communicational mechanisms have perlocutive purpose.

The feature of analysed brand quarterlies is also communicational polyphony. This term I take after Maria Wojtak in reference to the lecture Communicational Polyphony in the Contemporary Press delivered by the author on November 29^th 2016 at Rzeszow University, and also to her report performed during the conference «Language Our Native» on February 21^st 2017 at Polish Philology Institute also at Rzeszow University. Linguists consider though, if the publicist style exist at all [compare 10]. In this case it can be rather discussed as an interference of different functional variations of Polish speech, depending on thematic diversification of publicist texts. The basis is colloquiality as a base of any kind of communicational behaviours, variant depending on the reader's background. Satiety of press articles with lexical determinants of colloquiality depends also on the magazine's profile and its target group. Consciously I use here the marketing terminology, because - what is confirmed by media experts - it would be naive nowadays to think, that an unbiased information independent of economical market laws do exist [compare articles from anthology Kita, Loewe 2012]. The indicators of the reading, listening and watching rates are what determines contemporary media market. The level of colloquiality in the press articles is also depending on specific journalistic genres. In the widespread belief the decrease of language register is aimed at reduce the distance towards reader and as a consequence to convince him to presented opinions and encourage to buy newspaper or magazine.

Not all of this remarks are referring to the analysed automotive brand magazines. They are free quarterlies though, sent to - registered in database - clients of specific brands authorized showrooms. The direct aim of this kind of press publishers is therefore not selling a magazine, but fixing brand's positive image and as a result gaining clients. The marketing aim is therefore wider extended, what determines the linguistic-stylistic shape of magazines. Quarterlies can also publish non ordered texts, wherein redactions reserve a right to edit the sent texts, they can also refuse publishing announcements and advertisements which content or form conflicts the character of magazine. The assumption of publishers is that the magazines have an elite and specialist character, hence e.g. stressing elitism, uniqueness, luxury as values in «Audi Magazyn». Noticeable is that brand creators are taking big care about the tastes that readers and the real owners or potential buyers of cars have. For the sake of thematic diversification of columns the magazines offer therefore not only another cars promotion, but also an interesting reading of press genres, e.g. from the field of culture, cultural studies, anthropology or geography. The published texts are written mostly using the official version of Polish language, what certifies the knowledge of linguistic correctness rules. It does not mean though, that they have no colloquial elements. I dedicate another currently prepared text to this matter, so here I only list determinants of colloquialism that exist in analysed quarterlies. It is above all colloquial lexis, e.g. szlifowac hobby or zaliczyc drift, professiolectal univerbizations based on colloquially characterized suffix -ak lub -ka, e.g. dostawczak, rajdowka and colloquial provenance idioms like phrase dwiescie osemki sq miqkkie jak diabli, which I have included in the title of mentioned text.

Pragmalinguistic remarks about brand press specificity arise from marketing character of presented automotive magazines. Subdued to this aim is the expansion of rhetorical means noticeable in every text published in automotive quarterlies. From the viewpoint of the reader who is aware of this kind of media actions it is not difficult to notice the persuasion in Jerzy Dyszy's statement: «In «Plejady» [Subaru brand magazine, note G. F.] we try to act just like that: treat Readers more seriously than other magazines treat average users of cars» [7, 28].

References

1. Filip G., 2012, O nazwach modeli samochodow marki Volkswagen [in:] Jednotlive a vseobecne v onomastike. 18. slovenska onomasticka konferencja, editor Martin Olostiak, Presov, p. 294-303.

2. Filip G., 2014, Personifikacja jako sposob brandingu VW na rynku polskim na przykladzie «Volkswagen Magazyn» i «Das Auto. Magazyn» [in:] Mowoznawczyj wisnik, v. 19, red. G. I. Martynowna, Czerkasy, p. 154-160.

3. Filip G., 2015, Radosc z jazdy samochodem jako j^zykowy sygnal kreowania marki [in:] Radosc. Aspekty j^zykowo-kulturowe, red. G. Filip, M. Patro-Kucab, 2015, Radosc. Aspekty j^zykowo-kulturowe, Rzeszow, p. 103-118.

4. Kita M., 2012, Medialna moda na dialog [in:] Kita M., Loewe I. red., J^zyk w mediach. Antologia, Katowice, p. 222-237.

5. Kita M., Loewe I. red., 2012, J^zyk w mediach. Antologia, Katowice.

6. Kozera P., 2015, Sztuka globalnego rynku. Wywiad z Davidem Guerinem, «Peugeot Experience Magazine» nr 11, p. 10-13.

7. Piesniewski J., 2015, Idzie wlasn^ drog^ - rozmowa z Jerzym Dyszym, «Plejady. Magazyn milosnikow Subaru», nr 59, p. 20-29.

8. Wojtak M., 2002, Stylistyka listow do redakcji na przykladzie poczty redakcyjnej miesi^cznika «bikeBoard» [in:] Synchroniczne i diachroniczne aspekty badan polszczyzny, red. M. Bialoskorska, L. Mariak, v. VIII, Szczecin, p. 195-214.Wojtak M., 2012 «Wysoki wspolczynnik czadu», czyli o slownictwie w prasie specja- listycznej - na wybranych przykladach [in:] J^zyk w mediach. Antologia, red. M. Kita and I. Loewe, Katowice, p. 121-138.

9. Wojcicka M., 2004, Czy istnieje styl publicystyczny? [in:] Wspolczesne odmiany j^zyka narodowego, red. Kazimierz Michalewski, Lodz, p. 198-207.

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