Multigraphic Orthography and Social Values in Advertising Discourse of Beauty Products in Japanese Language

In beauty product advertising strategies in Japan, the specialty, uniqueness and advantagesof having three main types of orthography, namely kanji, hiragana and katakana,including the Roman Alphabets have resulted in discourse makers taking advantage ofthese orthographies as creatively and maximally possible in producing an advertisingdiscourse. This article discusses the mechanisms of multigraphic orthography that manifestthe values of occidentalisation in the 24 advertising texts studied. From the analysis andinterpretation, these occidentalisation values are not only reflected in various forms of foreignloanwords, such as English, French and Italian that are multilingual in form, but also in themultigraphic form by taking advantage of four forms of orthography of which each hasdifferent graphic characteristics, namely hiragana, katakana, kanji and Roman alphabets. Multilingual benefits in the form of multigraphic orthography in the advertising discourse donot only act as patterns, decorations/ornaments, emphasis and the feel of external image tohighlight the differences as a way to attract the public s attention, but also provide prestigiousimages and atmosphere, symbol of modernity, ease in penetrating the international marketand more competitiveness. The presence of foreign loanwords, particularly the Englishlanguage in the form of katakana and Roman alphabet orthography gives a fresh aura andatmosphere, euphemism, more versatility, style, fashion, scientific and futuristic reliability andmost importantly, a complement to the Japanese writing system itself.