Linguistic advertising practices and language policies in Luxembourgish print media

Abstract

This dissertation focuses on linguistic advertising practices and language policies in selected Luxembourgish print media. Chapter 1 serves as a general introduction to the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, discussing the status of the national language Lëtzebuergesch and the country’s past and current language policies. In chapter 2, different aspects of language in advertising are reviewed, such as English in advertising, market language and language in relation to identity. The analysis of two data sets including 209 advertisements in total reveal a change within Luxembourg from a trilingual nation (French, German and Luxembourgish) to a different variety of multilingualism that includes English. In the next chapter, the idea of advertisements as clever puzzles is discussed, listing the various element of an advertisement. Chapter 4 provides a detailed description of the data collection methodology used for this particular research project. The last segment presents the results of a quantitative and qualitative data analysis and discusses how multilingualism in written advertising provides an insightful window on forms of multilingualism in Luxembourg.