TRANSFORMATIONAL GENERATIVE GRAMMAR ANALYSIS ON THE SELECTED HEADLINES OF CIGARETTE ADVERTISEMENTS

Abstract

Advertisement is one of the principle forms of marketing communication to give someone information about the product offered and also persuade the consumer to buy. Headline is the most important part of the advertisement which conveys the whole message of advertisement. The government regulation especially no: 19/2003 becomes the underlying method for the copy writers to think harder to make an effective headline but it must avoid the presentation of the cigarette identity directly. Moreover, Lane and Russell (2002: 425) suggest in creating an effective headline that it should be short, simple words, and usually no more than 10 words. Regarding this statement it is not surprising if the construction of the sentence used in the headline sometimes grammatically incorrect for example: auxiliary deletion, subject deletion, particle movement, etc. Therefore, this construction makes the reader get difficulty in understanding the message of the advertisement because the pattern or the grammar on the headline of cigarette advertisement is not well applied. The research entitled “Transformational Generative Grammar Analysis on the Selected Headlines of Cigarette Advertisements” is conducted to describe and analyze the transformational processes on the selected headline by tree diagrams and to classify into transformation types applied by the sentences of selected headline. The transformational process is used to describe how the deep structure which becomes the basic structure and meaning of the headline is converted into the surface structure as the result of transformational process. In summary, in order to solve the ungrammatical structure presented in the headline, we should understand both the surface structure and deep structure which underlies on each the headline. This research is the qualitative research. Meanwhile, to collect the data, the writer gets 10 selected headlines. After the data have been collected, the writer identifies the transformational process occurring on each headline and classifies them to the type of transformation. Through data analysis, the writer conclude that there are 11 transformation types used by the transformational process on the 10 selected headlines of cigarette advertisements. In the transformation types, the selected headline of cigarette advertisements mostly use the imperative transformation type. It occurs because imperative type is used to ask the consumers to do the activity as the copy writer recommends. On other words, it is used to attract, persuade and stimulate the consumer’s wishes to buy the products. From the results of the study, the writer conclude that transformational process here is very important for us because by transformational process, we can