Surface-structure transformations and advertising slogans: The case for moderate syntactic complexity

Since its introduction in 1957, Noam Chomsky's theory of transformational grammar has been the subject of much psycholinguistic research. Through several metamorphoses, the theory has remained controversial as to whether it represents how the mind actually processes language. Psycholinguists have studied this area over several decades. Syntactic structure has been studied in terms of recall and effects on reaction time to secondary tasks, but little is known about syntactic structure and attitude formation. Advertising researchers have looked at the effects of many types of complexity (e.g., semantic and visual), but few have investigated the effects of syntactic complexity on attitude formation. This study used a within-subjects experiment to examine how surface-structure transformations affected readers' comprehension, recognition, recall, and attitudes toward slogans. As expected, syntactic complexity did not affect the comprehension of advertising slogans, but simple-syntax versions-especially the active voice-showed an advantage in recognition. Slogans with moderate syntactic complexity showed a significant positive effect on free morphemic recall and attitude toward the advertisement, but a high degree of syntactic manipulations resulted in significantly lower free morphemic recall and attitudes toward the ad, suggesting a possible curvilinear relationship. These findings and implications for advertising professionals and educators are discussed. (C) 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.