Semantics domain, verbs and collocation in women’s beauty product advertisements

Abstract

Semantics domain contains a number of words that are collocated, and these words have attribute functions. To show these functions, two semantic domains of female beauty products for face and body were analysed to identify common verbs and compare commonly used verbs in both domains. The beauty products advertisements were from D'HERBS and Vida Beauty. Screenshots of online advertisements were analysed using Leech’s (1966) framework with the addition of the semantics domain, lexical relation and frequency analysis as Leech’s (1966) framework was found to be less comprehensive to explain the attribute functions of the verb. Findings show that there were two properties of verb, specific and general collocation in the domains. Verbs with specific collocates refer to direct relationships with referred domains and vice versa for the general one. Verbs that were specifically collocated to the beauty of faces includewere mencerahkan/mencerah; menganjal/menganjalkan, while for the body, mengurang, menurunkan/turunkan; mengharumkan/mewangikan. Whether the verbs are specifically or generally collated to domains, the most important issue in the advertisement language is the use of verbs that can influence the audience. The selection of verbs that are part of the information in advertising is not arbitrary but is intended to meet the expectations and hopes of consumers.