ABSTRACT
In a previous work (Santello 2015) I have shown that experiments are powerful instruments to understand advertising in multilingual contexts. Controlled experimental settings make it possible to verify whether multilinguals who belong to a defined group of speakers display response to language use in advertising that differs from or complements what has been found through textual analysis. Findings could even diverge from what one could predict in light of the psycholinguistic mechanisms revealed by studying Hispanics in the US. In the case of Italian English bilinguals in Australia – here referred to also as multilinguals for the sake of consistency with the rest of the volume – when exposed to advertisements in Italian or in English, the speakers tend to respond more or less positively according to their language dominance, intended as “the degree to which a bilingual leans towards one language” (Santello 2014: 26). However, as opposed to what one could expect, Italian dominants respond more favourably to advertisements in English than in Italian, while English dominants respond more favourably to advertisements in Italian. These results were obtained using a range of print advertisements – spanning different types of product categories – that were not only understandable but also structurally varied so that they produced different levels of appreciation and response.
