National, Regional, Emotional. Research into the effect of using a standardised language or a regional language on its perceived emotional intensity and its effect in advertising.
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2022-10-31
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en
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Previous research has demonstrated a dampening effect of perceived emotional intensity of second language (L2) as opposed to first language (L1) use. This study is the first to expand the scope to encompass languages that are even closer to home. This study provides research into the difference in emotional intensity between a standard and a regional language. Moreover, it also contributes to a novel field of marketing research by analysing the effect of using a standard or regional language in written advertisements employing emotional or neutral appeals for influencing the attitude towards the advertisement and organisation and the intention to use a product or service. This study used participants who spoke Dutch as a standard language and Limburgian (regions middle and north) as a regional language. The research was conducted through an online survey that contained two sets of materials. The first set of materials consisted of eight emotional statements (e.g., I love you, I hate you) in both the standard language and the regional language in order to analyse whether there is a difference in the perceived emotional intensity between the two languages. Participants were asked to indicate how emotional they perceived each statement. Furthermore, the second set of materials included four advertisements promoting the use of the train in the Netherlands. All advertisements contained a different combination of language (standard vs. regional) and type of appeal (emotional vs. neutral). Participants were randomly shown one of the four advertisements and were asked to indicate their attitude towards the product, attitude towards the organisation and their intention to use the service. Results indicate that there is a significant difference between the perceived emotional intensity of the standard language as opposed to the regional language. As hypothesised, the regional language was perceived as more emotional. Moreover, the advertisements in the regional language had the tendency to lead to a more positive attitude towards the advertisement and organisation and to a higher intention to use. In addition, emotional appeals were significantly more effective than neutral appeals for influencing the attitude towards the advertisement and organisation. Contrary to what was expected the regional language effect was not greater for advertisements using emotional appeals as opposed to neutral appeals. For the variable attitude towards the advertisement there was a significant interaction present. However, this interaction went in the opposite direction of what was expected as it indicated that the advantage of using Limburgian in an advertisement was greater for the neutral appeals as opposed to the emotional appeals. Based on the significant results, this study serves a starting point into a novel domain of research by expanding the scope and paving the way for future research focused on regional and stand language use in advertising.
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Faculteit der Letteren