CHAPTER ONE

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

Newspaper advertisement has greatly evolved in the world today, as it is used as a tool of communication to pass across information to the entire public about the happenings in the world. Also, it is used to create awareness of the available goods and services for consumers to know and get them in order to increase the sales of that particular brand of products. 

Newspaper advertisement examples refer to real life instances of advertisements that have been published in newspaper, showcasing different techniques, formats, and styles employed in the field of print advertising. These examples serve as a valuable resource for advertisers, business owners, marketers, and graphic designers, providing inspiration and insights into effective strategies for reaching target audiences through newspapers.

Newspapers advertisement have been a prominent marketing medium for decades, delivering messages to a wide range of readers and generating brand awareness. These advertisements are typically placed within the pages of newspapers, strategically positioned to capture the attention of the readers.

According to Israel (2017), the language used in advertising is much different from other media types because it is specifically designed to grab the attention of potential consumers and persuade them to act. He continued by saying that advertising language must be concise, bold, and persuasive to compel people to buy products or service.

He further added that, from the very beginning of modern advertising, campaigns copywriters have worked hard to craft a compelling message that will emotionally impact their target audience. This means using a great mix of emotive words alongside facts about a product or service and carefully constructed images that convey both feelings and informative ideas. Advertisers know that, if the audience does not feel something when they read their advertisement, there is no chance that anyone will purchase what they are selling. He says the key element of successful advertising language is its ability to create a sense of urgency- it needs to be direct, explicit, and friendly enough not to alienate potential customers from acting immediately. The goal for any campaign should be convincing buyers that this product or service can improve their lives in some way, whether it is a physical change such as beauty enhancement, mental changes like more energy or free time for leisure activities, financial gains through savings with deals. This means creating headlines that draw your attention away while still being relatable and understandable by the average person reading it, not just industry insiders who may understand technical jargon better than moot others.

Israel (2017) continues by saying that, advertisers also incorporate, specific techniques such as rhetorical questions (which appeal directly on an emotional level), powerful adjectives (such as unprecedented features) or story-telling elements into advertisement copy so readers can relate personally with what they are reading rather than simply glossing over copies without any reaction whatsoever.  These linguistic devices create solid messages visual content so audiences can easily imagine how this product or service could benefit their everyday life even if only slightly on top of this, advertisers tend to use persuasive phrases line “limited time offer” or “act now” because these prompt people to make decisions faster before competitors step up with equally appealing options from other brands.

Therefore, choosing the correct words for advertisements require strategic thinking; it has been proven throughout history that when a particular word elicit emotion from an audience, enough incentive exists towards purchasing whatever products marketers wish would promote, thus boosting sales tremendously.

According to Lindsay (2024), discourse is the use of language to share ideas, insights, and information. Discourse can include fictional and poetic words as well as non-fictional prose. To be considered discourse, a piece of writing is longer than a sentence and have a coherent purpose and meaning.

According to Brown and Yule (1983), discourse analysis is the norms, preferences and expectations which relates language to context.

• Background of the Study

According to Berkman and Critson (1980), there is nothing new under the sun, and advertisement is not an exception. In the study, they highlight that as early as 3000 BC, Babylonian merchants were hiring barkers to promote their goods. Again, notice about gladiatorial games testify to the prevalence of written advertising in ancient Rome and even in the so-called dark ages, Civilization kept advertising a lamp alight, with ingenious signs for inns and shops. And, as early as 1625, printed advertisements could be found in English in the pages of the weekly news. In America, advertising came with the columnists (Gilson & Berkman 1980). Later, as the National Communications Network grew with industrialization, American merchants and manufacturers became eager to promote their product, on a broad scale as possible. This led to development of advertising agents, and as the nineteenth century progressed so did advertising industry in the United States and the rest of the world, and in (1877), Anyer founded the first full-service advertisement agency (Hutchinson & Walters 1987).

Advertising has overwhelmingly penetrated every corner of life as a main communicative channel in the information age. English advertising began in the medieval age and thrived in the 1920s. According to Lei (2010) no matter what advertisement it is and what media it is employed, language is indispensable for advertising. In an attempt to communicate to a group of people, individuals take recourse to a wide range of vocabulary items. This explains why Malgwi (2009) posit that anyone who uses a language knows the importance of vocabulary for effective communication. The advertisement can be broken down into brand advertising retail or local advertising, political advertising, directory advertising, direct response advertising, business to business advertising, Institutional advertising, public service advertising and interactive advertising (Sri,n.d.)

Advertising messages should be informative, interesting, enjoyable, simple helpful and entertaining, and the success of an advertisement depends on the advertiser’s choice of discourse. It is aimed at persuading the audience to buy the product. In order to get the consumers attention, the advertiser uses some properties of language to persuade the audience. For example, by using the italicized words, the aesthetic words and the stylistic words, it aims is to create communication that is persuasive, so that the audience can pay good attention take a certain attitude and perform an action as intended by the advertiser. The advertisement structure has elements such as the headlines, body text, and signature.

Effectiveness in advertising depends on the careful use of words. Words are used to convey meaning exactly and vividly to the audience. It is therefore necessary to examine the language of advertising in terms of word meaning. Meaning are of two types that is, the connotative meanings which is the emotional meaning or inferred meaning and Denotative which is the common dictionary or literal meaning.

Emodi (2011) Is expedient to study the role of language of advertising in the development of life and society, as well as its features related to the style of the social environment. The clarity and comprehensibility of the element of simple fluent coherent language, which exist within the language of advertising, testify to the importance of its place in social relations. This is also important of researching the language of advertising.

 Wilson (2010, 2013), says advertising in its discrete form is generally agreed to have begun alongside newspaper in the seventeenth century. Frechman Theophraste Renaudot (Louis XILL’s official physician). Created a very early version of the supermarket notice board, a “bureau des addresses et des rencontre”. Parisians seeking or offering jobs or wanting to buy or sell goods, put notices at the office on the “de la cite” so a large number of people will have access to the information.

In England, line advertisements in newspapers were very popular in the second half of the seventeenth century, often announcing the publication of a new book, or the opening of a new play. The great fire of London in 1666 was a boost to the type of advertisement, as people used newspapers in the aftermath of the fire advertise lost and found, and changes of address.

Wilson (2010), says that, the industrial revolution, created a huge need for advertising. Manufactures needed to explain and recommend their product to customers whom they would never meet personally. Manufacturers, in chasing far-off markets, were beginning to compete with each other. Therefore, they needed to brand their products in order to distinguish them from one another and create mass recommendations to support the mass production and consumption model. Newspapers were the only ideal channel for the new beginning advertisements. New technologies made newspapers cheaper and more widely available and more frequently printed. They had more pages such that they could carry more advert (Ibid) indicated that simple descriptions, plus prices, of products served their purpose until mid-nineteenth century, when technological advances meant that illustrations could be added to advertising and colour was also an option.

For the case of Cameroon, the print media is highly control by privately owned newspapers as the State owns just one newspaper which is called Cameroon Tribune. Cameroon media include print publication that are both public and private. Privately owned newspaper in Cameron include;

      1.The Post

       2.Guardian post

        3.La nouvell expression

         4.The voice .

Before, Cameroonians had no engrossment in reading newspaper unlike today where you find newspaper stands always populated every morning in big towns with people trying to get the most recent editions of news- paper reporting on the current happening in the country and the world at large. This shows how importance newspaper  is for advertisers and many companies go to newspaper for advertisement of their products and services.

1.2.           Statement of Problem

The language used in newspaper advertisement is different from the language  communication. Understanding the language dynamics of discourse of advertisement will be instrumental in exposing advertisement loopholes, that can otherwise be held accountable for poor sales of the goods and services and advertisers often employ persuasive techniques that can blur the line between informing and manipulating customers. Exaggerated claims, false promises, and misleading information can deceive customers, leading to disappointment or harm.

1.3 Research Objective

This section handles the general and specific objectives of the work.

1.3.1 General Objective

11. 1 To carry out the discursive appraisal of the language of advertisement in some selected newspapers in Cameroon

1.3.2 Specific objectives

1. To identify the Lexico grammatical patterns in newspaper advertisement.
2. To examine the textual patterns in newspaper advertisement.
3. To identify the rhetorical patterns in newspaper advertisement.
4. To examine the semiotic patterns of the language of advertisement.

1.4. Research Questions

1. What are the lexico grammatical patterns in newspaper advertisement?
2. What are the textual patterns in newspaper advertisement?
3. What are the rhetorical patterns in newspaper advertisement?
4. What is the semiotic patterns of the language of advertisement?