Figurative Language in Social Media Captions for Clothing Advertisements
- Kamonthip Pho-Klang, Center for International Studies, Faculty of Humanities, Srinakharinwirot University, Bangkok, Thailand, Email: Kamonthipp@g.swu.ac.th
Abstract
Social media advertising is a means of online communication to inform prospect customers about products in a verbally and visually persuasive way. Since language has a powerful influence over people and their behavior, social media captions play an important role in the world of digital marketing. This study aimed to explore types of figurative language most frequently employed in social media captions for clothing advertisements. Lexical and syntactic analysis were also conducted to investigate how the figurative language was applied in captions of clothing advertisements and for what functions. The sample group included 100 captions from Instagram and Facebook sites of five fashion brands: H&M, UNIQLO, Forever 21, Topshop, and Mango, out of which 20 were taken from each brand. Results revealed that alliteration was the most frequently used, followed by imagery, and assonance. As for its functions, the figurative device was employed in advertising captions mainly for describing product features, illustrating the model’s look, action or feeling, and emphasizing product quality.
Keywords: figurative language, social media captions, clothing advertisements
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