DENOTATIVE AND CONNOTATIVE VIEW ON COMMERCIAL ADS SLOGAN

A. INTRODUCTION

The meaning of words in a language is related to their referents in the real world. At above words there are eleven words which will be elaborated each of its referent: LIFE, APPLE,WAS, MUCH, EASIER, WHEN, APPLE, AND, BLACKBERRY, WERE, JUST and FRUITS. Those words can be described as follows:




B. DISCUSSION:

A.  INTRALINGUISTIC ANALYSIS

NO	WORD	REFERENCE (IDEAS, THE CONCEPT)
1	Life	Inanimate, Abstract entity, condition that distinguishes human beings, animals and plants from earth , rock, etc.
2	was	One of  the Past tense to be, showing state
3	much	It is used for the uncountable plural noun, similar to the word “many”
4	Easier	Not difficult, free from pain, discomfort, anxiety, trouble etc.
5	when	Showing period or time something happened.
6	Apple	Inanimate, one kind of fruit, its shape is round, it has firm juicy flesh. Its skin is green, red or yellow when the fruit is ripe.
7	and	A conjunction connecting words, clauses and sentences
8	Blackberry	Inanimate, commonly found in USA, a kind of small berry, this fruit when ripe growing wild on bushes called brambles.
9	were	One of the past tense to be, showing state
10	just	Used in Great Britain in the perfect tenses and often in US with the simple  past tense, place with the verb, to indicate an immediate past..
11	Fruits	Inanimate, collective pattern, parts of a plant or tree. They contain the seeds. It is also used as food e.g. Apples, bananas.

At first there is a word of “Life”. This word as the part of message of that slogan is given by human being aimed at the same kind of creature. So, the word “Life” in this case refers to the life of human being in living their daily life. Then it is stated that “Life was much easier” which means that human life in the past time was assumed as “lesser difficulty or “much easier”. The life of human being will be predictably easier if “Apple and Blacberry were just fruits”. In this context the communicator try to propose a problem by delivering a direct comparison between the entity of Apple and Blackberry as the real fresh fruits and Apple and Blackberry as modern technological gadget findings.

In addition, the word “Apple” denotatively refers to a round fruit with firm juice flesh a skin that is green, red and yellow when the fruit is ripe. In addition, in the context of modern era the word “Apple” refer to the Steve job’s famous brand of computer and electronic gadget like iMac, iPod, iPhone and iPad. People around the world mostly youngsters in urban area will have this famous brand in mind when they hear someone saying the word “Apple”.
Besides that the word “BlackBerry” denotatively refers to the small berry which when it ripe, it grows wild on bushes. Similar to the case of the modern context of the word “Apple”, this word associate to the company of RIM issued this famous product all over the world.

The most interesting thing from that slogan is the hidden  or implicit effort of the communicator of this slogan to say how hard the competition companies which want to promote their product brands and how the use of sophisticated gadget of famous brand will also create competition of the pride in social and cultural status. Most teenagers will be happy and feel proud if the can buy and use both famous technological gadgets. They will ready to stand in line to buy the newest release of Apple and Blackberry as their favorite products.

B.  EXTRALINGUISTIC ANALYSIS

Besides comprehending this sentence linguistically, this sentence can also be understood by the help of Pragmatic study. There is a context of utterance circled this utterance. According the study of pragmatics, the utterance of “Life was much easier when Apple and Blackberry were just fruits “can be elaborated as follows:

The communicator is a person or group of individual who doesn’t belong to the brand of Apple and Blackberry user. The communicant is everyone who read this banner. The objective and context of the utterance is a notification or remainder that in the past it was easier to consider Apple and Blackberry as just the names of fruits. The today’s boastful pride of having the product of Apple and blackberry is annoying and makes some people feel hurt.

In the view of sociolinguistic study the utterance of “Life was much easier when Apple and Blackberry were just fruits “can be elaborated as follows: in each society, there is a tentative or assumed collective mind (the set of shared rules, norms and social system) that the more sophisticated and expensive gadget someone has will reflect his or her value before the eyes of everyone. This collective mind is tentative since there are some people who think that it is very naive that the value of someone is determined by the type or kind of gadget someone has.

                                                       

C. CLOSURE

The communicator of the slogan has been successfully conveying the idea of the hard battle of rivalry among the fans of the product of Apple and BlackBerry. Before the existence of both new reference, they were just fruits as a part of a tree or plant that is used as food like bananas, grapes or apples.