HEALTH AND HEALTH CARE ADVERTISING TEXTS IN THE LATVIAN LINGUISTIC LANDSCAPE

Covid-19 has taken over the world and people's minds. It makes us think about health more than ever before (at least to such a large extent), about human relationships, and about the information we receive, process, consider, or ignore.

This post does not focus on informative, regulatory, or prohibition texts in Latvia related to Covid-19, as I am at home and do not go out to study the linguistic landscape (see Gorter 2019, also Pošeiko 2019, 2020). However, these texts have not been ignored, either. I have decided to go through my photo database of studies of the Latvian linguistic landscape to understand which city texts raise the issue of human health and safety, who advertises public or private health care in Latvia, and how it is done.

Now, I can identify fifteen categories of texts that could be supplemented and clarified. Some texts can be applicable to another or several other categories. However, the categories I defined are:

1. No smoking signs or signs indicating a smoking area.

2. Texts placed by state medical institutions (mainly hospitals and polyclinics), for instance, name signs and direction signs.

3. Texts placed by private health centers (including dental offices): name signs, advertisements with offered services, advertisements about advantages of the client card.

4. Texts placed by medical device manufacturers and traders: name signs, lists of offers.

5. Advertisements placed by health insurance service providers about different types of insurance options and the need for them.

6. Advertisements for medicines, food supplements, specific medical devices, and products which are most often placed at pharmacies.

7. Advertisements about road safety (mainly about the need to fasten seatbelts, not to drive under the influence of alcohol, and speeding).

8. Reminders about health examinations for certain risk groups and about health measures (e.g., vaccination, condom use during sex).

9. Informative messages about individual diseases and/or groups of patients, such as people with HIV.

10. Advertisements for the provision of assistance to those in difficulty (e.g., those suffering from depression, victims of physical or emotional abuse, alcoholics, drug addicts).

11. Advertisements promoting healthy lifestyles (e.g., advertisements for healthy food, sports activities, quality of sleep).

12. Official calls for donations (mainly blood and money for the treatment of a person or group).

13. Safety regulations and warning signs in public places: children's playgrounds, parks and nature trails, construction sites, and railway tracks.

14. Business advertisements that include metaphors related to the field of medicine (e.g., medical services, terms).

15. Texts placed during an emergency: restriction signs, official announcements (including instructions), texts of encouragement, notices of canceled events, temporarily closed businesses and traffic routes, and advertisements.

In general, these texts are intended to educate the public about the health, safety, and well-being of themselves and the people around them. They are based on readers' trust in professionals (doctors, pharmacists, insurers, responsible mechanics) and their knowledge and professional experience (even if they are misleading).

Recommendations from various medical organizations, advertising marketers, and companies for effective advertising, ethics, and good morals can be found on the Internet (e.g., Guidelines for advertising of regulated health services; Blue Corona; Lucas-Fehm 2012; Schenker, Arnold & London 2014). Recommendations include advertising strategies such as highlighting novelty and urgency, using reliable and easy-to-read facts, limiting the amount of written text, and applying bright colors and a creative image. It is concluded by the sites providing recommendations that in many cases, an illustration (photo, infographic, drawing) is what attracts attention and tells a story. Experts repeatedly emphasize that advertisers need to speak honestly, clearly, simply, and directly and that creative solutions should not be avoided.

So, I decided to pay attention to the content of texts, to chronicle the common ways and means of transmitting information. I selected 73 photos from my above-mentioned database and found 32 photos on the Internet taken in the last days. They illustrate the 15 groups of texts mentioned above.

                

Smoking ban signs are the highest in number of all surveyed signs;  they often can be seen at the doors or on the walls of public authority, private business, and non-governmental organization buildings (see Image 1). It is already customary for 10 m from the door to be a non-smoking distance; non-smokers have the right to enter/exit without "swimming" through clouds of cigarette smoke. In reality, this is not always possible, smokers like smoking. 

Image 1: No smoking sign in Riga

Here I would like to add that I think it a bit comical of a reminder to place on alcohol advertisements - that alcohol has a negative effect. Maybe then it doesn't need to be advertised at all? There is an easy-to-understand advertising formula: we know it's bad, and we know (assume) that you know, but it's nothing personal, just business…; all responsibility is in your hands.

The first visual feature that unites many texts is the use of red and green colors. Letters, words, and sentences are often red and/or green, as are individual segments of the sign and its background(s). On the one hand, the color red draws attention and provides a warning; on the other hand, green symbolizes life and vitality (health). Almost like a traffic light: be sure to watch (!) - watch carefully first (stand and wait), then move (keep acting)!

Let's take a closer look at Image 2; here, red is used along with white in the unified advertising conception of the pharmacy “a.aptieka”.

Image 2: Advertisement at a pharmacy in Ventspils

Both colors are in advertisement’s frame, in the pharmacy’s logo, in the STOP sign (it makes you stop just before the indicated line or sign) stylized with the pharmacy’s slogan, and in the dress of a woman in the photo. The slogan – Rūpējies par savu veselību laicīgi! ‘Take care of your health in time!’ – explicitly points to the importance of preventive measures (e.g., vitamin use) in everyone’s life and implicitly reveals the willingness (mission?) of the pharmacy to provide everything necessary for the implementation of these measures. This is also stated in the slogan under the logo in the advertisement: Labai veselībai! Labam garastāvoklim! ‘For good health! For good mood!’.

In Image 3, the red color visually divides the informative text into several parts – a person's statement about HIV (Man ir HIV ‘I have HIV’), a rhetorical question and answer from an HIV-infected person (Apskausi mani? Es neesmu tev bīstama. ‘Will you hug me? I am not dangerous to you’), a black-and-white photograph of a woman, icons showing possible types of HIV infection, icons illustrating situations where a person cannot get HIV, and information on annual HIV tests. The sign’s main information is related to the text on a red background or in red letters. Of particular importance is the rhetorical question’s being in red. The color emphasizes the anxiety caused by the question in people who do not know what to do in such a situation.

Image 3: Informative message in Riga

My collection of excerpted photos is not large, so I can't claim a generalization for the moment – but it is interesting to observe that it is a woman who is shown as infected in both HIV-related environmental advertisements (even partially as a Death-figure – see the condom advertisement, Image 4). What to say, poor/successful men!

Image 4: Condom advertisement in Riga

The advertisement encourages heterosexual young people to use a condom to avoid getting HIV. Its slogan is Piesmej kaulaino, lieto prezi saulaino! ‘Ridicule death, use a sunny condom!’ Rhyme (kaulaino-saulaino), slang, and euphemism are used in the advertisement: prezis is an abbreviation of the word prezervatīvs ‘condom’, which is used by many on a daily basis; kaulainā ‘the bony (feminine form)’ is a taboo word used to refer to death. Though, the slogan-warning in the photo refers to the young, attractive man who is lying on a couch and waiting for a woman who could have HIV.

Continuing the semiotic review of advertisements, one cannot fail to notice image metaphors (optical metaphors – Kessler 2018: 26) and multimodal metaphors (metaphors formed by a combination of written text and images) in advertisements. Their rhetoric is particularly strong in advertisements related to road safety: not driving under the influence of alcohol, not speeding, respecting motorcyclists, fastening seat belts while driving. The Road Safety Department of Latvia regularly organizes various social actions. We have to admit, Latvia cannot be proud of its excellent driving culture. Although the information provided by the Road Safety Department shows that the number of fatalities and injuries in car accidents is decreasing every year, the statistics are worse than in most EU countries (CSDD 2019). If you are interested in a survey on road signs from the point of view of conceptual metaphors, I recommend reading an interesting and methodologically useful article by researchers Solveiga Liepa and Ilze Oļenhoviča (Liepa, Oļenhoviča 2017).

A typical multimodal metaphor is aching sensations in the abdomen being illustrated by flames of fire, such as on a plate or in a cup of coffee. Image 5 shows an advertisement for Rennie which contains a verbal metaphor (vēders deg ‘stomach burns’) and two image metaphors (food (including red pepper) burns, and Rennie extinguishes the flames). The cause-effect relationship is shown here: spicy food causes aching (burning) sensations in the stomach and the solution is Rennie, which will ‘put out the fire’ – reduce/stop the pain. A team of 24 firefighters together, and the work will always be done on time! 😊

Image 5: Medication advertisement in Daugavpils

In order to reduce the risk of cancer or to detect it in time, various social campaigns are carried out by addressing risk groups or their relatives. Image 6 shows an advertisement that raises the issue of the need for women to have regular breast examinations, because thestatistics on the incidence of cancer and number of dead women in Latvia are unfortunately high. In the advertisement, the image of the daughter and the mother-daughter relationship are used to draw the attention of the older generation to the importance of breast examinations for long viability.

Image 6: Reminder for breast examination in Daugavpils

There is a different picture in the advertising of Image 7; here, instead of physical and human relations, there is a person as a technical device and the health examination is equated to a technical inspection. A multimodal metaphor expresses that a woman is a machine with wheels (breasts), which is indicated by an image that requires an annual technical inspection, which is revealed to us in a written text (Veic tehnisko apskati… krūtīm ‘Do a technical inspection… for breasts’). The question is, does a woman move forward or backward with her breasts?! Always? 😊

Image 7: Reminder for breast examination in Riga

A similar concept for creating an advertisement can be observed in Image 8, in an advertisement targeting men born before 1978 (Visiem modeļiem pirms 1978. gada ‘For all models before 1978’) for whom a prostate exam is recommended. A man is verbally and pictorially equated with a car model (hence a technical device) that needs fluid to perform its functions (in the case of a man as a human, to perform sexual function and urinate). The advertisement shows that the prostate exam is a "real" test for men, an image of a horse suggests a horsepower of a car (man).

Image 8: Reminder for prostate exam in Riga

These last two advertisements are certainly eye-catching and provocative precisely because of these metaphorical comparisons and stylizations of human body parts (as evidenced by the interest and comments of my relatives, friends, and colleagues), thus achieving their goal of capturing peoples’ interest and providing information. Both invitations to take a health check include verbal and image metaphors, and it is the illustrations in the advertisements that tell most of each story (what is important, what is at stake).

When paying attention to the linguistic features of advertisements, mention should be made of a euphony achieved using the same number of letters and syllables (for instance: Redzi! Dzirdi! Dzīvo! ‘See! Hear! Live!’ on a warning sign at railway track), rhymes, parallels, and contrasts (e.g., what is allowed and what is forbidden; existing and potential habits of people). As an example, an advertising text for Liepāja Tennis Sports School: Teniss, tā nav tikai spēle, tas ir dzīvesveids ‘Tennis is not just a game, it is a way of life’.

In terms of the use of languages, it should be noted that 72 texts contain information in Latvian (exception – an advertisement about help free of charge for drug addicts in Russian, which is placed on an electricity box in Liepāja). Foreign languages are used in advertisements for medications, on the signs of insurance companies, and in the safety regulations. Although in emergency situations information may be legally published in all required languages, only four of the texts related to Covid-19 contain information in other languages, too. Three examples are given below.

Image 9: LL signs in Riga. From top: multilingual direction sign in Latvian, Russian, English, German, French and Norwegian, bilingual sign in Latvian and English, and bilingual sign in Russian and Latvian

To end, I would like to say that the Latvian linguistic landscape also contains texts of businesses that are not related to medicine and health care (hopefully, at least not at professional level). For example, the 112 telephone number, which must be used to call and report danger to life, health problems, and safety hazards, is used in a translation company’s name: 112 Tulkojumu palīdzības serviss ‘112 Translation Assistance Service’. Image 10 shows that a computer service’s name is datoru ātrā palīdzība ‘computer ambulance’. In both cases, businesses apparently offer a very urgent "recovery" of work/equipment. 😊

Image 10: Name sign of a computer service in Riga

Blue Corona. Measurable Marketing Solutions. Pieejams: https://www.bluecorona.com/healthcare-advertising-campaigns/

Lucas-Fehm, L. (2012) Advertising and Health Care. Physicians News Digest. Pieejams: https://physiciansnews.com/2012/04/13/advertising-and-health-care/

Medical Board of Australia. Guidelines for advertising of regulated health services. Pieejams: https://apps.who.int/medicinedocs/documents/s17806en/s17806en.pdf

Pošeiko, S. (2019) Lingvistiskā ainava. Nacionālā enciklopēdija. Pieejams: https://enciklopedija.lv/skirklis/52199-lingvistisk%C4%81-ainava

Pošeiko, S. (2020) Lingvistiskā ainava Latvijā. Nacionālā enciklopēdija. Pieejams: https://enciklopedija.lv/skirklis/64532-lingvistisk%C4%81-ainava-Latvij%C4%81

Schenker, Y., Arnold, R.M., London, A. J. (2014) The Ethics of Advertising for Health Care Services. The American Journal of Bioethics. 14: 3, pp. 34-43.

CSDD (2019) Ceļu satiksmes negadījumu skaita dinamika Latvijā. Pieejams: https://www.csdd.lv/celu-satiksmes-negadijumi/celu-satiksmes-negadijumu-skaits

Kessler, S. (2018) Theories of Metaphor. Revised. Berlin: Logos Verlag.

Liepa, S., Oļenhoviča, I. (2017) Metonym-Based Multimodal Metaphors are there to Keep You Safe and Sound. Valoda – 2017. Valoda dažādu kultūru kontekstā. Proceedings of Scientific Readings XXVII. DU: Akadēmiskais apgāds “Saule”, 116–126.