Consumer product warnings

Composition, identification, and

assessment of adequacy
Group 2: Imas Nita Juwita
Apriliaty rahmat
Warning adequacy
Warnings on cigarette packages
 1) the legal issues involved in cigarette warning
litigation.
 (2) the issues of warning adequacy from the
point of view of both linguistic and human
factors analysis.
discourse analysis
and speech act
The linguists
identification

issues as type size, placement,

human factors and the general visibility of
analysts warning labels, as well as the
usefulness of graphic images.
 required warnings have usually been significantly
weaker than those initially proposed.

warning“Caution: Cigarette Smoking May Be

Hazardous to Your Health”

Smoking is dangerous to health and may

cause death from cancer and other diseases

 The Trade Regulation Rule for the Prevention of Unfair or

Deceptive Advertising and Labeling of Cigarettes in Relation to
the Health Hazards of Smoking).
 Later market research surveys reported by
the FTC suggested additionally that
 (1) if warnings were to be effective, they should
be short (one idea per warning), simple, and
direct; and
 (2) disease-specific warnings, that is, those
listing specific diseases as possible
consequences of smoking, are far more
effective than non-disease-specific warnings.
 (1) medical accuracy, WARNING: Smoking causes

recommended that

Sample warnings by
death from cancer, heart
(2) Demonstrable filling attacks and lung disease.
of a gap in consumer CARBON MONOXIDE:
knowledge about Cigarette smoke contains
The FTC

health hazards carbon monoxide and other

FTC
poison gases.
(3) intelligibility, and
WARNING: Smoking may be
(4) ability to “prompt addictive.
consumers to think LIGHT SMOKING: Even a few
about the health cigarettes a day are
hazards of smoking” dangerous.
 Strong or weak
• 1. They are often formulated as
hypothetical warnings or contain strong
warning words like POISON.
• 2. They mention specific possible
negative consequences and lack such
modal qualifiers asmayandcould.
• 3. They are easy to see.
• 4. They are written in simple syntax and
in ordinary, everyday language.
 1. Either formulate the warnings as hypothetical or use strong conventional warning labels like POISON.
 2. Avoid unnecessary qualifying language, e.g. the modal auxiliariesmayandcan.
 3. List specific undesirable consequences of unsafe behavior.
 4. Make the warnings conspicuous in all ways, e.g. color contrast, type size, and position on product.
 5. Write the warnings in simple syntax and in ordinary vocabulary.
 6. Include specific information about negative consequences on each label in a rotational series.
 7. Do not narrow the target population by addressing specific labels to different portions of that
population (e.g. pregnant women).
 8. When considering the use of rotating warnings, consider that differences in the strength of individual
warnings may have the effect of weakening stronger warnings.
9. Field-test all proposed warnings. (This step would appear to go without saying, but, given the history
of proposed federally mandated warnings, it is clear that it does not.)

 (Dumas 1992: 300–301)

Warnings on a manufacturing product
 CAUTION: MAY IRRITATE SENSITIVE SKIN. Contains methacrylic ester. Wash
after skin contact. KEEP AWAY FROM CHILDREN. [found on the back of one
container]
 CAUTION: MAY IRRITATE SENSITIVE SKIN. READ CAUTION ON BACK LABEL.
[found on the front of one container]
 CAUTION: Contains methacrylic ester. Wash after skin contact. KEEP AWAY
FROM CHILDREN. [found on the back of the container which directed the
user to the back of the container]

The language on the latter two labels contains a total of seven sequenced
information chunks (Shuy 1990b) or idea units (Chafe 1985). They read thus:

 CAUTION: MAY IRRITATE SENSITIVE SKIN. READ CAUTION ON BACK LABEL.

 CAUTION: Contains methacrylic ester. Wash after skin contact. KEEP AWAY
FROM CHILDREN.
The highly informative
warning might read something like this:

 WARNING! IF you handle this product without

wearing gloves, you risk
 DISFIGUREMENT and DISABILITY. ALWAYS WEAR
GLOVES WHEN
 HANDLING THIS PRODUCT.