Language choice as discourse: A transitivity approach to MTN® and ETISALAT® advertising communicative webs in Nigeria
Taofeek O. Dalamu
Department of English and Literary Studies, Anchor University, Lagos, NigeriaDr. T. O. Dalamu earned a PhD from the University of Lagos, Nigeria, under a thorough supervision of Prof. Adeyemi Daramola, with specialization in Systemic Functional Linguistics, Discourse Analysis, and Digital Humanities in relation, mostly, to advertising communications. Currently, Dr. T. O. Dalamu teaches English courses at Anchor University, Lagos, Nigeria.
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5494-4854
Abstract
Advertising texts are significant to manufacturers to promote and skyrocket products’ consumption. This study examined kinds of textual choices in advertising, accounting for their frequencies. Two advertisements each from MTN® and Etisalat® – of the Nigerian advertising universe – were chosen for sample analysis, employing Transitivity and word-formation procedures, as the conceptual frameworks. Transitivity allowed tables and graphs to compute the recurrence of textual components. The research revealed Material Processes of has offered, go rock (MTN); and get, pick up (Etisalat) as pronounced choices. Circumstances of Location such as This week… (MTN); and on weeknights… (Etisalat) are choices of communicative augmentations. The investigation further recapitulated creative over-generalization (yous), word play fragmentation (Y’ello), and alphanumeric code (9javaganza) as communicative facilities of MTN and Etisalat constructs. Hence, the researcher suggested that an extensive study of language choice in advertising domains can strengthen government policies to benefit, among others, readers, researchers, manufacturers, and advertising practitioners.
Keywords:
advertising, discourse, ideational metafunction, language choice, systemReferences
Adetugbo, A. 1997. English Phonetics. A Course Text. Yaba: University of Lagos Press.
Awonusi, V. O. 1998. Nigerian English in political telemarketing. English World-Wide. A Journal of Varieties of English 19 (2): 188-204.
Barry, A. M. S. 1997. Visual Intelligence: Perception, Image, and Manipulation in Visual Communication. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Blommaert, J. 2009. Discourse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bloor, T. & Bloor, M. 2013. The Functional Analysis of English. Great Britain: Hodder Arnold.
Bourdieu, P. 1988. Language and Symbolic Power. Cambridge: Polity.
Brierley, S. 2002. The Advertising Handbook. London: Routledge.
Buda, J. K. 2006. Language Choice. http://www.f.waseda.jp/buda/texts/language/html (19 September 2014).
Butler, C. S. 2003. Structure and Function. A Guide to Three Major Structural-Functional Theories Part I. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Carter, R. & Nash, W. 2013. Seeing Through Language. Lexington, KY: Blackwell.
Cook, G. 1992. The Discourse of Advertising. New York: Routledge.
Dalamu, T. 2017a. A Discourse Analysis of Language Choice in MTN® and Etisalat®Advertisements in Nigeria (Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Lagos, Yaba, Nigeria). Available at: http://www.isfla.org/Systemics/Print/Theses.html
Dalamu, T. 2017b. Periodicity: Interpreting the flow of Osundare’s ‘Harvestcall.’ Buckingham Journal of Language and Linguistics 10: 42-70.
Dalamu, T. 2017c. Narrative in advertising: Persuading the Nigerian audience within the schemata of storyline. AFEL 7: 19-45. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1344/AFLM2017.7.2
Dalamu, T. 2018a. Exploring advertising text in Nigeria within the framework of cohesive influence, Styles of Communication 10(1): 74-97
Dalamu, T. 2018b. Akèrègbè, Resourcing the past, communicating the present in shared cultural knowledge: A case study of GTB advertising. Communicatio 12 (1): 113-137.
Dalamu, T. 2018c. English language development in Nigerian society: A derivative of advertising communications. Complutense Journal of English Studies 26: 263-286.
Dalamu, T. 2018d. Euphemism: The commonplace of advertising culture. Acta Scientiarum. Language and Culture 40(2): 1-15.
Daramola, A. 2008. A child of necessity. An analysis of political discourse in Nigeria. Pragmatics. Quarterly Publication of the International Pragmatics Association 18(3): 355-360.
DeRosia, E. D. 2008. The Effectiveness of nonverbal symbolic signs and metaphor in advertising. An experimental inquiry. Psychology and Marketing 25: 298-316.
Dyer, G. 2005 Advertising as Communication. London: Routledge.
Eggins, S. 2004. Introduction to Systemic Functional Linguistics. London: Continuum.
Fairclough, N. 1992. Discourse and Social Change. Malden, USA: Polity Press.
Fairclough, N. 2003. Analysing Discourse. Textual Analysis for Social Research. New York: Routledge.
Firth, R. A. 1957. Papers in Linguistics 1934-1951. London: Oxford University Press.
Fontaine, L., Bartlett, T. & O’Grady G. (eds). 2013. Systemic Functional Linguistics: Exploring Choice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Forceville, C. 1996. Pictorial Metaphor in Advertising. London/New York: Routledge.
Forceville, C. 2017. Visual and multimodal metaphor in advertising. Cultural perspectives. Styles of Communication 9(2): 26-41.
Gee, J. P. 2011. An Introduction to Discourse Analysis. Theory and Method. New York: Routledge.
Gieszinger, S. 2001. The History of Advertising Language. Frankfurt: Peter Lang GmbH.
Gil, J. M. 2013. A neurocognitive interpretation of systemic functional choice. In: L. Fontaine, T. Bartlett & G. O’Grady (eds.), Systemic Functional Linguistics. Exploring Choice, 179-205. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Goddard, A. 2002. The Language of Advertising. New York, NY: Routledge.
Goffmann, E. 1979. Gender Advertisements. London: Macmillan.
Gully, A. 2012. The Discourse of Advertising: Preliminary Investigation [1]. http://enlil.ff.cuni.cz/jais/v001.htm (24 December 2013).
Inglis, F. 1972. The Imagery of Power. London: Heinemann.
Jaworski, A. & Coupland, N. (eds). 2006. The Discourse Reader. New York: Routledge.
Halliday, M. A. K. 1994. An Introduction to Functional Grammar. London: Arnold.
Halliday, M. A. K. 2013. Meaning as choice. In: L. Fontaine, T. Bartlett & G. O’Grady (eds.), Systemic Functional Linguistics. Exploring Choice, 15-36. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Halliday, M. A. K. & Matthiessen, C. M. I. M. 2004. An Introduction to Functional Grammar. London: Hodder Arnold.
Halliday, M. A. K. & Matthiessen C. M. I. M. 2014. Halliday’s Introduction to Functional Grammar. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.
Hermerén, L. 1999. English for Sale. A Study of the Language of Advertising. Lund: Lund University Press.
Hoey, M. P. 2000. Textual Interaction. London: Routledge.
Hoffman, B. 2002. The Fine Art of Advertising. New York: Stewart, Tabori and Chang.
Johnstone, B. 2008. Discourse Analysis. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
Keyton, J. 2006. Communication Research. Asking Questions Finding Answers. New York: McGraw-Hill Inc.
Kress, G. 1981. Halliday: System and Function in Language. London: Oxford University Press.
Kress, G. 2010. Multimodality. A Social Semiotic Approach to Contemporary Communication. London, GB: Routledge.
Kress, G. & van Leeuwen, T. 2003. The Grammar of Visual Design. London/New York: Routledge.
Lamb, S. 2013. Systemic networks, relational networks and choice. In: L. Fontaine, T. Bartlett & G. O’Grady (eds.), Systemic Functional Linguistics. Exploring Choice, 137-160. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Leech, G. 1966. English in Advertising. A Linguistic Study of Advertising in Great Britain. London: Longman.
Lemke, J. L. 1995. Textual Politics. Discourse and Social Dynamics. Oxon: Taylor & Francis.
Leymore, L. 1975. The Hidden Myth. London: Heinemann.
Litosseliti, L. (ed.). 2010. Research Methods in Linguistics. London: Continuum.
Mattelart, A. 1991. Advertising International. London: Routledge.
Matthiessen, C., Teruya, K. & Lam, M. 2010. Key Terms in Systemic Functional Linguistics. London/New York: Continuum.
Myers, G. 1994. Words in Ads. London/New York: Arnold.
Napoli, D. J. 1996. Linguistics. New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Nwagugo, J. & Anumnu, S. 2003. Introduction to Research Method. Lagos: IKOFA Press.
O’Halloran, K. L. 2008. Systemic Functional-Multimodal Discourse Analysis (SF-MDA): Constructing ideational meaning using language and visual imagery. Visual Communication. http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1470357208096210 (24 June 2017).
O’Halloran, K. & Lim, F. 2014. Systemic Functional Multimodal Discourse Analysis. In: C. D. Maier & S. Norris (eds.), Texts, Images and Interaction: A Reader in Multimodality, 137-153. Berlin, GER: Mouton de Gruyter.
O’Quinn, K. 2012. How Language Choices Can Make or Break Your Communication. http://www.writingwithclarity.com/wp/wp-content/Words_of_wisdom_Melcrum.pdf. (12 September 2014).
Osuala, E. C. 2001. Introduction to Research Methodology. Owerri: African FEB-Publishers.
Putz, M. (ed.). 1997. Language Choice. Studies in Language and Society. http://benjamin.com/#catalog/books/impact.1/main. (29 November 2013).
Ravelli, L. 2000. Getting started with functional analysis of texts. In: L. Unsworth (ed.), Researching Language in Schools and Communities 1: 27-63.
Ross, D. Jnr. 1985. What surface-structure parsing can tell us about style. In: J. D. Benson & W. S. Greaves (eds.), Systemic Perspectives on Discourse XV, 225-240. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Schiffrin, D., Tannen, D. & Hamilton, H. E. (eds.). 2002. The Handbook of Discourse Analysis. New York: Blackwell Publishing.
Tanaka, K. 1994. Advertising Language. A Pragmatic Approach to Advertisements in Britain and Japan. London: Routledge.
Thompson, G. 2004. Introducing Functional Grammar. Great Britain: Hodder Arnold.
Thompson, G. 2014. Introducing Functional Grammar. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.
van Dijk, T. A. 2010. Discourse and Context. A Sociocognitive Approach. Melbourne: Cambridge University Press.
Urbach, C. 2013. Choice in relation to context: A diachronic perspective on cultural valeur. In: L. Fontaine, T. Bartlett & G. O’Grady (eds.), Systemic Functional Linguistics. Exploring Choice, 300-317. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Vestergaard, T. & Schroder, K. 1985. The Language of Advertising. New York, GB: Basil Blackwell.
Williamson, J. 1978. Decoding Advertising. Ideology and Meaning in Advertising. New York: Marion Boyars.
Wodak, R. & Meyer, M. (eds.) 2001. Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis. London: SAGE.
Yule, G. 1996. The Study of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Zapata, A. A. 2000. Handbook of General and Applied Linguistics. Mérida, Venezuela: Trabajo de Ascenso sin publicar.
Zapata, A. A. 2007. Types of Words and Word-Formation Processes in English: Inglés IV. http://webdelprofesor.ula.ve/humanidades/azapata/materias/english_4/unit_1_types_of_words_and_word_formation_processes.pdf. (18 June 2015).
Department of English and Literary Studies, Anchor University, Lagos, Nigeria
Dr. T. O. Dalamu earned a PhD from the University of Lagos, Nigeria, under a thorough supervision of Prof. Adeyemi Daramola, with specialization in Systemic Functional Linguistics, Discourse Analysis, and Digital Humanities in relation, mostly, to advertising communications. Currently, Dr. T. O. Dalamu teaches English courses at Anchor University, Lagos, Nigeria.
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5494-4854
