The pragmatics of promotional features and discourse strategies in postgraduate school prospectus in Nigeria

Felix Bayode Oke

Anchor University, Lagos State, Nigeria

Felix Bayode Oke is a doctoral student in the University of Ibadan and a lecturer in the Department of Languages, Anchor University, Ayobo, Lagos State, Nigeria. He has published a number of peer-reviewed articles in his area of scholarship in reputable journals.


https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8577-224X

Ezekiel Opeyemi Olajimbiti

Federal University Lokoja, Nigeria

Ezekiel Opeyemi Olajimbiti (PhD) teaches in the Department of English and Literary Studies, Federal University Lokoja, Kogi State, Nigeria. He is a member of professional bodies such as Pragmatics Association of Nigeria (PrAN), English Scholars’ Association of Nigeria (ESAN) and others. He specialises in children’s representation in the media, media studies and political discourse. He has published in reputable journals. His research interest covers pragmatics, discourse analysis, semantics and sociolinguistics.


https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5263-0149


Аннотация

This paper extends the frontier of research in the marketisation of higher education institution by investigating the pragmatics of promotional features and discourse strategies in the postgraduate school prospectus. The data for the study is the University of Ibadan postgraduate school prospectus (2015 edition) downloaded from the university website (http://www.postgraduateschool.ui.edu.ng). Insights were drawn from Bhatia’s genre analysis, an aspect of Hallidayian’s Systemic Functional Linguistics, for the analysis. The theory accounts for promotional features, linguistic features and discourse strategies in the discourse. Four promotional features: offer, commodification, incentives and clients were marked off by modality, epistemic and deontic linguistic features while strategies of self-promotion, implication, promotional tact and evocation to considerateness are tactfully employed to project the superiority ideology to the prospective students. The study concludes that the academia is no longer solely informative but promotionally oriented.

Ключевые слова:

commodification, marketisation, genre analysis, promotional features, evocation to considerateness

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Опубликован
2021-03-31


Bayode Oke, F. и Opeyemi Olajimbiti, E. (2021) «The pragmatics of promotional features and discourse strategies in postgraduate school prospectus in Nigeria», Crossroads. A Journal of English Studies, (32), сс. 4–15. doi: 10.15290/CR.2021.32.1.01.

Felix Bayode Oke 
Anchor University, Lagos State, Nigeria

Felix Bayode Oke is a doctoral student in the University of Ibadan and a lecturer in the Department of Languages, Anchor University, Ayobo, Lagos State, Nigeria. He has published a number of peer-reviewed articles in his area of scholarship in reputable journals.

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8577-224X
Ezekiel Opeyemi Olajimbiti 
Federal University Lokoja, Nigeria

Ezekiel Opeyemi Olajimbiti (PhD) teaches in the Department of English and Literary Studies, Federal University Lokoja, Kogi State, Nigeria. He is a member of professional bodies such as Pragmatics Association of Nigeria (PrAN), English Scholars’ Association of Nigeria (ESAN) and others. He specialises in children’s representation in the media, media studies and political discourse. He has published in reputable journals. His research interest covers pragmatics, discourse analysis, semantics and sociolinguistics.

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5263-0149