What are the main communicative functions of redundancy? What do we mean by saying the english language is 50% redundant?
The Duracell Bunny Adverts
I've chosen to analyse the Duracell bunny adverts because it's one of my favourites since I was little, I enjoyed seeing the new Duracell bunny racing.
The Duracell bunny has become common metaphor for something that is long lasting and anything that continues indefinitely, which began with the original Duracell advert from 1975. It was so effective that Duracell still uses the bunny in its ad campaigns now, which shows that it works and has continued to last, just as advertised.
'Duracell lasts 6x longer over any other battery.'
It's a simple, yet cliched redundant message. It is redundant because it was a safe choice for them to go with: toys running out of power is something all audiences can understand, young and old.
The compare the Duracell bunny adverts with the Shannon & Weaver Communicative model it would be hard to find many faults where communication could break down with this advert because of how safe and clearly communicated the message is in the adverts, especially in the original advert.
Duracell (Information source) has communicated what they wanted to the advertisers (Encoders) very specifically with the following: 'No other battery looks like it' and 'It lasts up to 6x times longer.' These two messages are brought across by the image and the voice over in all the adverts which hasn't changed in over 30 years, making the message even more redundant due to the lack of innovation. The message has effectively communicated well to the Audience (Decoder) and has been understood (Destination).
It is clear that this message has been working otherwise they wouldn't still be communicating it. Duracell has become prominent as a brand and product because of their ad campaigns.
Redundancy as the Duracell advert proves is an effective way to communicate to an audience who already has a common understanding of the message that is being communicated. For example: a toy running out of power. This is what the main communicative functions of redundancy is, communicating with already established understanding.
The English language contains lots of words that have the same meaning, they're redundant words: descend and down, up and ascend. 50% of the English language is made up of words such as these.
In the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell, there exists a fictional language which disposes of such redundant words and through this creates a much simplified version of the English language called 'Newspeak' which is used to stop people from thinking outside of the modes of thought the English Socialist party allows.
One example of this would the word free, which only exists in the form of something you don't have. For example: 'A field free from weeds'.
However getting rid of the redundant words our vocabulary becomes a lot less expressive, the flip side to this is with so many redundant words, there are phrases which make use of redundant words and combines them together which if you were to take the words by definition would mean the exact same thing repeated over. Examples of this are:
- Actual experience/fact
- Add an additional
- End result
- Enter in.
- Final Outcome.
More found at:
http://www.dailywritingtips.com/50-redundant-phrases-to-avoid/
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