Bilingualism and the Emotional Intensity of Advertising Language

Stefano Puntoni, B (Bart) de Langhe, Stijn Osselaer

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

189 Citations (Scopus)
335 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

This research contributes to the current understanding of language effects in advertising by uncovering a previously ignored mechanism shaping consumer response to an increasingly globalized marketplace. We propose a language-specific episodic trace theory of language emotionality to explain how language influences the perceived emotionality of marketing communications. Five experiments with bilingual consumers show (1) that textual information (e.g., marketing slogans) expressed in consumers' native language tends to be perceived as more emotional than messages expressed in their second language, (2) that this effect is not uniquely due to the activation of stereotypes associated to specific languages or to a lack of comprehension, and (3) that the effect depends on the frequency with which words have been experienced in native- versus second-language contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1012-1025
Number of pages14
JournalJournal of Consumer Research
Volume35
Issue number6
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2009

Research programs

  • RSM MKT

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