Legal and Advertising Language Characteristics

Legal Language Characteristics

Legal language is a specialized language used predominantly in legal contexts. It is characterized by intertextuality, a conservative function, and a form that seeks clarity, precision, and targeted communication within the legal-administrative sphere. Legal texts are not uniform; they vary across legislation, written administrative documents, notarial acts, and doctrinal texts.

Morphosyntactic Level

Noun Phrase

• Abundance of abstract nouns.
• Substantive accumulation of enumerations.
• Generalizing-value items.
• Specified adjectives.

Verb Phrase

• Utilization of the 3rd person.
• Present tense.
• Future indicative and periphrasis of obligation.
• Future subjunctive.
• Present participles (Latin-influenced).
• Gerunds (often overused).

Syntax

• Long periods and complex syntactic constructions.
• Impersonal, reflexive, and passive voice.
• Adversative coordination and choice subordination.

Semantic Level

• Very large vocabulary in the field of law enforcement.
• Archaisms and Latin maxims and aphorisms.
• Judgmental character formulas for treatment according to the aforementioned personality.
• Rich in formulas and idioms.

Advertising Language Characteristics

An advertising message is broadcast with the intention of convincing the receiver to purchase a product.

Purpose:

1. Persuasion (the stated aim is to inform).
2. Handling/appeal by deception (it does not actually sell).
3. Seduction (especially through compelling images).

Elements:

• Iconic elements (image, typography, text, and sound. For example: eroticism, sexuality, career success, virility, liberation of women, humor).
• The image resembles the product.
• Symbol/mark/logo which identifies with the product.

Linguistic Text

Slogan

• A short, suggestive, and easy-to-remember phrase.
• Its function is to draw attention.
• Emphatic expressions.
• Presence of an appellate function.
• Poetic function.
• Connotative language.
• Variety of signs and records.
• Innovative language.
• Simple syntax.

Brand

• The name given to a particular product and its manufacturer.
• Use of foreign words.
• Suggestion of prestige.
• Involvement of antiquity and nobility.
• Composition and derivation.
• Names referring to the rural origin of the product.
• Manufacturer's name.
• Names of animals.
• Acronyms.

Body of the Advertisement

It is based on originality, brevity, and expressiveness.

Resources:

• Alliteration, onomatopoeia, paronomasia, rhyme, exclamations, rhetorical questions.

Noun Phrase

• Ellipsis of verbs.
• Use of heavy noun construction.
• Adjective intensifiers.
• Comparatives and superlatives.
• Fixing of superlative character.
• Intensive use of deictics.
• Presence or absence of the article.

Verb Phrase

• Imperative, subjunctive, present, and future indicative.

Syntax

• Sentence patterns.
• Juxtaposition and coordination.
• Parallelistic construction.

Semantic Level

• Hyperbole, lexical repetition, neologisms, foreign words, flattering expressions, personal challenges, metaphors, similes, antithesis, paradox, personification, metonymy, paronomasia, changes in set phrases.