The goal of advertising is the persuasion of a customer of the merits of a particular product or ... more The goal of advertising is the persuasion of a customer of the merits of a particular product or service. Whatever the strategy advertisers employ in order to influence the consumer, language is the main carrier of the message. Among the components of advertising (visual images, words, logos, brand names, graphic designs and so on), words play a key role since by them the audience is able to grasp the advertising message (Dyer, 1982; Nga, 210). In advertising, copywriters use English words to project the product or service they are bringing to the audience's attention in the most attractive fashion. Copywriters use English quite distinctively; they sometimes employ the descriptive style of writing to present their messages. The rationale is that description makes the information more intriguing and engaging for the audience. The primary objective of description in advertising is to frame an image of a product in the minds of the consumer through sufficient details and allow them to experience the product through their five senses. Description in advertising creates a dominant impression, an overall attitude, mood or feeling about a product or service. In the current paper, the writer has analyzed the descriptive elements in the English used in an advertising text in a newspaper in Ghana. The theoretical framework that was adopted was Fairclough's (1992) Three-Dimensional Model Theory and the qualitative research design was employed for the study. The descriptive features that were realized in the selected advertisement (henceforth advert) were sensory details, figurative expressions, modifiers and picturesque vocabulary. The description of the advertising text was effective, in that, it left the reader with a clear impression: a craving for the Castle Milk Stout alcoholic beverage that was advertised..
International Journal on Studies in English Language and Literature
For over three decades, scholars have shown overwhelming interest in genre analysis of the resear... more For over three decades, scholars have shown overwhelming interest in genre analysis of the research article (hereafter, RA). Indeed, multi-sections of the RA have been given attention by scholars. Sections such as the abstract, introduction, method, discussion and conclusion in different disciplines have been studied using Swales' (1998, 2004) modified version of the Create-a-Research-Space (CARS) model. Each section of the RA has unique moves identified. For example, the RA introductions according to Swales (2004) has three moves with different steps emerging from each discipline. (Jogthang, 2001; Samraj, 2002; Renu et al 2013). Apart from the RA introductions which have been observed to have different steps but the same three moves, other related studies focused on different sections of the RA. Research has shown that after Swales' (1998) pioneering work of the introductions of RA in three different disciplines, other scholars (Bhatia, 1993; Santos, 1996; Hyland, 2000; Bruce, 2014) of genre analysis have adapted the CARS model to work on different sections of the RA. At the same time that the CARS model has been used in analyzing the RA, it has equally been adapted for undergraduate writings (Afful, 2005; Kwan, 2006), graduate writings (Bunton, 2002, Daniels, 2017) and many other related studies. One observation noted is that in a study conducted by Bruce (2014), hefound that novice writers have been found guilty of not establishing a critical stance when writing the literature review. Partridge andStarfield (2007) also assert that students are expected not just to know the literature on their topic but also to evaluate it. The literature review according to Bruce (2014), should be more than a summary; it includes a critique that assesses or evaluates theories, ideas, claims, research designs, methods and conclusions. From the perspective of Kramer et al (2003), the literature review should make critical compilations of studies done previously, make a critical evaluation of the literature that was studied and progress by having a critical attitude.According to Swales and Feak (2013), theliterature review section can explain clearly which potential areas for inclusion have not been covered in the review and why they have been omitted.
One of the greatest classics of feminist fantasy science fiction, Angel Island by Inez Haynes Gil... more One of the greatest classics of feminist fantasy science fiction, Angel Island by Inez Haynes Gillmore, tells the tragic story of what happens when a group of five shipwrecked sailors encounter on an Island five winged-women who have left their own race of winged-people. The men and women on this uncharted island are mutually attracted to each other. The bird-like language of the winged-women is as mysterious and fascinating as their graceful beauty. Enchantment turns to lust and the men possess these angel-like creatures in a rather horrific and uncouth manner. The men must come to terms with the language and culture of this extraordinary race of female creatures. The relationship that develops between the men and women in Angel Island work out as one would imagine they would in most feminist novels in the early part of the twentieth century. The relationship is characterized by romance, male dominance, gender inequality, revolts, rebellions and conflicts. The current study focuses on the communicative segment of this fantastic relationship.
The present work is based on an academic investigation conducted in the university community of C... more The present work is based on an academic investigation conducted in the university community of Cape Coast, Ghana. The research target population comprised: students, lecturers and the non-academic staff. The study focused on the effect of inter-personal relationship on code choice. It also looked at the nature of the linguistic situation and the kinds of code choice in the university. A sociolinguistic approach was employed in the research and the investigation was conducted within the framework of ethnography of speaking and sociology of language. The study also adopted the ethnographic research design and the instruments used for data collection were: observation, questionnaire and interview. The results of the research revealed that the inter-personal relationship between interlocutors defined by age, sex, rank, status, religious affiliation, marital status, level of education and ethnicity affected code choice in discourse situations.
Advertising is a genre of mass media communication which unearths the exceptional qualities of pr... more Advertising is a genre of mass media communication which unearths the exceptional qualities of products and services in a persuasive fashion. It is also a form of marketing communication through which business organizations inform the general public about new or improved commercial endeavors. Advertising in modern time comprises varied component parts (visual imagery, graphic and color designs, print and auditory techniques.); however, language plays an indispensable role in the transmission of the message. Language has an immense influence on human beings and the way they behave. The language of advertising influences the reasoning, thinking, feeling and the general attitude of the audience. Copywriters, like poets, choose their words carefully in order to achieve a particular rhetorical effect. They use language in such a way that they attract attention, arouse interest or desire and create need. Language forms an integral part of advertisements. The current study focused on persuasive elements in the English employed in advertisements in newspapers in Ghana. The study investigated the extent to which Aristotle's three artistic proofs (logos, pathos and ethos), figures of speech and grammatical elements in the English of advertisements in the Ghanaian newspapers were employed by copywriters for persuasive effect. The current study was underpinned by three theories, namely, Aristotle's Rhetorical Theory, Conventional Figurative Language Theory and the Standard Theory of Generative Grammar. These theories lent support to the three thematic trends of the study. The qualitative research design was employed given the interpretive nature of the analysis of the corpus. The current study did not involve human subjects as data sources because the corpus was from written documents. The purposive sampling method was employed owing to the subjective nature of the process of data collection. The qualitative content analysis approach was adopted as the analytical framework for the study. This made it possible for the coding of categories of the textual data based on the themes, patterns and trends that emerged. The findings of the research revealed that copywriters in the Ghanaian newspapers employed Aristotle's three artistic proofs, figures of speech and grammatical elements in the English of advertisements for persuasive effect.
Asian Journal of Humanities and Social Studies, 2016
This paper explores the relationship between students’ scores in English Language (EL) in senior ... more This paper explores the relationship between students’ scores in English Language (EL) in senior high school (SHS) and those they obtain in Communicative Skills (CS), a course at the university level based on English for Academic Purpose (EAP). Over the years, students’ performance in CS, which is geared towards sharpening students’ language skills, has become a major concern to both students and lecturers at the University of Cape Coast. Nonetheless, current literature on CS is bereft of connecting students’ output in EL with that of CS. This study therefore attempted to bridge this lacuna by employing statistical analysis of students’ entry grades in EL and the grade they subsequently obtain in CS to extrapolate the link between their scores in EL and CS. The analysis shows that although there is a positive correlation between students’ score in EL and CS, that correlation is not significant, suggesting that other factors like students’ attitude and lecturers’ teaching style and c...
A group of people living and working together in close proximity enforced by an institution like ... more A group of people living and working together in close proximity enforced by an institution like the university communicate with one another both formally and informally. Language is the means of communicating information and it is also the channel of establishing and maintaining relationship with other people. Language is also a medium of meaningful interaction among individuals in a social context (Gregory, 1978). The University of Cape Coast community is multilingual. The population is made up of students and workers drawn from the heterogeneous ethnic regions of Ghana. The linguistic situation is such that many different languages co-exist and individuals speak more than one language. The current study revealed that due to the multilingual nature of the University of Cape Coast various language choices are made in communication. The choice of language also involved a switch from one language to another or the mixing of languages.
A vast majority of known languages have mechanisms which enable the speaker to express time (Comr... more A vast majority of known languages have mechanisms which enable the speaker to express time (Comrie, 1985). Among these languages most of them also express time with a verb, and more specifically, with various verbal tenses (Smith, 1991). The verbal tense, a grammatical category which differs significantly from one language to another may also be considered a grammaticalization of time; in other words, chronological time is expressed with,
Little is known about persuasive effects of figures of speech in the English of advertisements in... more Little is known about persuasive effects of figures of speech in the English of advertisements in Ghanaian press. In the current study, we focused on this persuasive effect of figures of speech in the English employed in advertisements in newspapers in Ghana. Since advertising is a genre of mass media communication which unearths the exceptional qualities of products and services in a persuasive fashion, it is also a form of marketing communication through which business organizations inform the general public about new or improved commercial endeavors. Therefore, language plays an indispensable role in the transmission of the message. The language of advertising influences the reasoning, thinking, feeling and the general attitude of the audience. The study reported about in this article was underpinned by the Conventional Figurative Language Theory, utilizing the qualitative content analysis approach as the analytical framework. The findings revealed that copywriters of the Ghanaia...
Advertisements are fashioned in diverse forms, but in most of them, language is absolutely essent... more Advertisements are fashioned in diverse forms, but in most of them, language is absolutely essential. Although visual images, graphic and color designs and other techniques constitute aspects of print advertising, it is the language of the advertisement that enables consumers to identify a product and remember it. Indeed, language has a powerful influence on readers and their behavioral patterns. The English Language is employed in the print media in Ghana as a means of communicating information about goods and services with the goal of persuading the consuming public to take purchasing decisions. In the current article, I applied Aristotle’s Rhetorical Theory to the analysis of persuasive elements in the English used in advertisements in Ghanaian newspapers. The qualitative research design was employed in the study as the corpus was solely from written documents. The findings of the study demonstrated that copywriters in the Ghanaian print media employed Aristotle’s three artistic ...
International Journal of Linguistics and Communication, 2016
The goal of advertising is the persuasion of a customer of the merits of a particular product or ... more The goal of advertising is the persuasion of a customer of the merits of a particular product or service. Whatever the strategy advertisers employ in order to influence the consumer, language is the main carrier of the message. Among the components of advertising (visual images, words, logos, brand names, graphic designs and so on), words play a key role since by them the audience is able to grasp the advertising message Nga, 210) . In advertising, copywriters use English words to project the product or service they are bringing to the audience's attention in the most attractive fashion. Copywriters use English quite distinctively; they sometimes employ the descriptive style of writing to present their messages. The rationale is that description makes the information more intriguing and engaging for the audience. The primary objective of description in advertising is to frame an image of a product in the minds of the consumer through sufficient details and allow them to experience the product through their five senses. Description in advertising creates a dominant impression, an overall attitude, mood or feeling about a product or service. In the current paper, the writer has analyzed the descriptive elements in the English used in an advertising text in a newspaper in Ghana. The theoretical framework that was adopted was Fairclough's (1992) Three-Dimensional Model Theory and the qualitative research design was employed for the study. The descriptive features that were realized in the selected advertisement (henceforth advert) were sensory details, figurative expressions, modifiers and picturesque vocabulary. The description of the advertising text was effective, in that, it left the reader with a clear impression: a craving for the Castle Milk Stout alcoholic beverage that was advertised..
The current study focused on the effect of interpersonal relationship on code choice in discourse... more The current study focused on the effect of interpersonal relationship on code choice in discourse situations in the university community of Cape Coast. The study also looked at the nature of the linguistic situation and the kinds of code choice in the university. It revealed that the university community of Cape Coast is multilingual and the kinds of code choice are: unmixed codes, code mixing and code switching. The research target population comprised: students, lecturers and the non-academic staff. The present study employed a sociolinguistic approach and it was conducted within the framework of ethnography of speaking and sociology of language. The study also adopted the ethnographic research design and the instruments used for data collection were: observation, questionnaire and interview. The findings of the research revealed that the interpersonal relationship between participants in discourse defined by age, sex, rank, level of education and ethnicity affected code choice.
Advertising is a type of communication whose ultimate goal is to persuade potential customers of ... more Advertising is a type of communication whose ultimate goal is to persuade potential customers of the good qualities of products and services. There are various strategies that advertisers employ in order to persuade their customers to take purchasing decisions. One of them is the designing of an advertisement in which the pictorial images and other graphic designs are prominent. Another persuasive technique is the use of language to transmit the advertising message. In this regard, copywriters employ language in an attractive way to achieve persuasion in advertisements. It is worth postulating that although a number of persuasive strategies are available in advertising, language is integral in the communication of information. The focus of the current study was the use of grammatical elements in the English of advertisements by copywriters in the newspapers in Ghana for persuasive effect. The qualitative research design was employed and the study was underpinned by the Standard Theory of Generative Grammar. The current study proved that copywriters in the print media in Ghana employed imperative and declarative sentences, nominal phrases, the second person personal pronoun and modifiers such as adjectives and adverbs for persuasive effect.
Time is a concept which is related to our perception of reality. A vast majority of languages hav... more Time is a concept which is related to our perception of reality. A vast majority of languages have mechanisms which enable the speakers to express time. Many languages have grammatical means that make it possible for users to express the time when an action or event occurs. Among these languages, most of them also express time with a verb, and more specifically, with various verbal tenses. The verbal tense, a grammatical category which differs significantly from one language to another, may also be considered a grammatical component of time. Verbal tense can provide us with a particular kind of insight into our perception of chronological time which is expressed with and within the tense of the verb. Tense is concerned about how events are located, perceived and referred to along the past-present-future timeline. Aspect is about the manner in which a verbal action is experienced or regarded. In general linguistic approaches, tense and aspect are treated as complementary ways of e...
The goal of advertising is the persuasion of a customer of the merits of a particular product or ... more The goal of advertising is the persuasion of a customer of the merits of a particular product or service. Whatever the strategy advertisers employ in order to influence the consumer, language is the main carrier of the message. Among the components of advertising (visual images, words, logos, brand names, graphic designs and so on), words play a key role since by them the audience is able to grasp the advertising message (Dyer, 1982; Nga, 210). In advertising, copywriters use English words to project the product or service they are bringing to the audience's attention in the most attractive fashion. Copywriters use English quite distinctively; they sometimes employ the descriptive style of writing to present their messages. The rationale is that description makes the information more intriguing and engaging for the audience. The primary objective of description in advertising is to frame an image of a product in the minds of the consumer through sufficient details and allow them to experience the product through their five senses. Description in advertising creates a dominant impression, an overall attitude, mood or feeling about a product or service. In the current paper, the writer has analyzed the descriptive elements in the English used in an advertising text in a newspaper in Ghana. The theoretical framework that was adopted was Fairclough's (1992) Three-Dimensional Model Theory and the qualitative research design was employed for the study. The descriptive features that were realized in the selected advertisement (henceforth advert) were sensory details, figurative expressions, modifiers and picturesque vocabulary. The description of the advertising text was effective, in that, it left the reader with a clear impression: a craving for the Castle Milk Stout alcoholic beverage that was advertised..
International Journal on Studies in English Language and Literature
For over three decades, scholars have shown overwhelming interest in genre analysis of the resear... more For over three decades, scholars have shown overwhelming interest in genre analysis of the research article (hereafter, RA). Indeed, multi-sections of the RA have been given attention by scholars. Sections such as the abstract, introduction, method, discussion and conclusion in different disciplines have been studied using Swales' (1998, 2004) modified version of the Create-a-Research-Space (CARS) model. Each section of the RA has unique moves identified. For example, the RA introductions according to Swales (2004) has three moves with different steps emerging from each discipline. (Jogthang, 2001; Samraj, 2002; Renu et al 2013). Apart from the RA introductions which have been observed to have different steps but the same three moves, other related studies focused on different sections of the RA. Research has shown that after Swales' (1998) pioneering work of the introductions of RA in three different disciplines, other scholars (Bhatia, 1993; Santos, 1996; Hyland, 2000; Bruce, 2014) of genre analysis have adapted the CARS model to work on different sections of the RA. At the same time that the CARS model has been used in analyzing the RA, it has equally been adapted for undergraduate writings (Afful, 2005; Kwan, 2006), graduate writings (Bunton, 2002, Daniels, 2017) and many other related studies. One observation noted is that in a study conducted by Bruce (2014), hefound that novice writers have been found guilty of not establishing a critical stance when writing the literature review. Partridge andStarfield (2007) also assert that students are expected not just to know the literature on their topic but also to evaluate it. The literature review according to Bruce (2014), should be more than a summary; it includes a critique that assesses or evaluates theories, ideas, claims, research designs, methods and conclusions. From the perspective of Kramer et al (2003), the literature review should make critical compilations of studies done previously, make a critical evaluation of the literature that was studied and progress by having a critical attitude.According to Swales and Feak (2013), theliterature review section can explain clearly which potential areas for inclusion have not been covered in the review and why they have been omitted.
One of the greatest classics of feminist fantasy science fiction, Angel Island by Inez Haynes Gil... more One of the greatest classics of feminist fantasy science fiction, Angel Island by Inez Haynes Gillmore, tells the tragic story of what happens when a group of five shipwrecked sailors encounter on an Island five winged-women who have left their own race of winged-people. The men and women on this uncharted island are mutually attracted to each other. The bird-like language of the winged-women is as mysterious and fascinating as their graceful beauty. Enchantment turns to lust and the men possess these angel-like creatures in a rather horrific and uncouth manner. The men must come to terms with the language and culture of this extraordinary race of female creatures. The relationship that develops between the men and women in Angel Island work out as one would imagine they would in most feminist novels in the early part of the twentieth century. The relationship is characterized by romance, male dominance, gender inequality, revolts, rebellions and conflicts. The current study focuses on the communicative segment of this fantastic relationship.
The present work is based on an academic investigation conducted in the university community of C... more The present work is based on an academic investigation conducted in the university community of Cape Coast, Ghana. The research target population comprised: students, lecturers and the non-academic staff. The study focused on the effect of inter-personal relationship on code choice. It also looked at the nature of the linguistic situation and the kinds of code choice in the university. A sociolinguistic approach was employed in the research and the investigation was conducted within the framework of ethnography of speaking and sociology of language. The study also adopted the ethnographic research design and the instruments used for data collection were: observation, questionnaire and interview. The results of the research revealed that the inter-personal relationship between interlocutors defined by age, sex, rank, status, religious affiliation, marital status, level of education and ethnicity affected code choice in discourse situations.
Advertising is a genre of mass media communication which unearths the exceptional qualities of pr... more Advertising is a genre of mass media communication which unearths the exceptional qualities of products and services in a persuasive fashion. It is also a form of marketing communication through which business organizations inform the general public about new or improved commercial endeavors. Advertising in modern time comprises varied component parts (visual imagery, graphic and color designs, print and auditory techniques.); however, language plays an indispensable role in the transmission of the message. Language has an immense influence on human beings and the way they behave. The language of advertising influences the reasoning, thinking, feeling and the general attitude of the audience. Copywriters, like poets, choose their words carefully in order to achieve a particular rhetorical effect. They use language in such a way that they attract attention, arouse interest or desire and create need. Language forms an integral part of advertisements. The current study focused on persuasive elements in the English employed in advertisements in newspapers in Ghana. The study investigated the extent to which Aristotle's three artistic proofs (logos, pathos and ethos), figures of speech and grammatical elements in the English of advertisements in the Ghanaian newspapers were employed by copywriters for persuasive effect. The current study was underpinned by three theories, namely, Aristotle's Rhetorical Theory, Conventional Figurative Language Theory and the Standard Theory of Generative Grammar. These theories lent support to the three thematic trends of the study. The qualitative research design was employed given the interpretive nature of the analysis of the corpus. The current study did not involve human subjects as data sources because the corpus was from written documents. The purposive sampling method was employed owing to the subjective nature of the process of data collection. The qualitative content analysis approach was adopted as the analytical framework for the study. This made it possible for the coding of categories of the textual data based on the themes, patterns and trends that emerged. The findings of the research revealed that copywriters in the Ghanaian newspapers employed Aristotle's three artistic proofs, figures of speech and grammatical elements in the English of advertisements for persuasive effect.
Asian Journal of Humanities and Social Studies, 2016
This paper explores the relationship between students’ scores in English Language (EL) in senior ... more This paper explores the relationship between students’ scores in English Language (EL) in senior high school (SHS) and those they obtain in Communicative Skills (CS), a course at the university level based on English for Academic Purpose (EAP). Over the years, students’ performance in CS, which is geared towards sharpening students’ language skills, has become a major concern to both students and lecturers at the University of Cape Coast. Nonetheless, current literature on CS is bereft of connecting students’ output in EL with that of CS. This study therefore attempted to bridge this lacuna by employing statistical analysis of students’ entry grades in EL and the grade they subsequently obtain in CS to extrapolate the link between their scores in EL and CS. The analysis shows that although there is a positive correlation between students’ score in EL and CS, that correlation is not significant, suggesting that other factors like students’ attitude and lecturers’ teaching style and c...
A group of people living and working together in close proximity enforced by an institution like ... more A group of people living and working together in close proximity enforced by an institution like the university communicate with one another both formally and informally. Language is the means of communicating information and it is also the channel of establishing and maintaining relationship with other people. Language is also a medium of meaningful interaction among individuals in a social context (Gregory, 1978). The University of Cape Coast community is multilingual. The population is made up of students and workers drawn from the heterogeneous ethnic regions of Ghana. The linguistic situation is such that many different languages co-exist and individuals speak more than one language. The current study revealed that due to the multilingual nature of the University of Cape Coast various language choices are made in communication. The choice of language also involved a switch from one language to another or the mixing of languages.
A vast majority of known languages have mechanisms which enable the speaker to express time (Comr... more A vast majority of known languages have mechanisms which enable the speaker to express time (Comrie, 1985). Among these languages most of them also express time with a verb, and more specifically, with various verbal tenses (Smith, 1991). The verbal tense, a grammatical category which differs significantly from one language to another may also be considered a grammaticalization of time; in other words, chronological time is expressed with,
Little is known about persuasive effects of figures of speech in the English of advertisements in... more Little is known about persuasive effects of figures of speech in the English of advertisements in Ghanaian press. In the current study, we focused on this persuasive effect of figures of speech in the English employed in advertisements in newspapers in Ghana. Since advertising is a genre of mass media communication which unearths the exceptional qualities of products and services in a persuasive fashion, it is also a form of marketing communication through which business organizations inform the general public about new or improved commercial endeavors. Therefore, language plays an indispensable role in the transmission of the message. The language of advertising influences the reasoning, thinking, feeling and the general attitude of the audience. The study reported about in this article was underpinned by the Conventional Figurative Language Theory, utilizing the qualitative content analysis approach as the analytical framework. The findings revealed that copywriters of the Ghanaia...
Advertisements are fashioned in diverse forms, but in most of them, language is absolutely essent... more Advertisements are fashioned in diverse forms, but in most of them, language is absolutely essential. Although visual images, graphic and color designs and other techniques constitute aspects of print advertising, it is the language of the advertisement that enables consumers to identify a product and remember it. Indeed, language has a powerful influence on readers and their behavioral patterns. The English Language is employed in the print media in Ghana as a means of communicating information about goods and services with the goal of persuading the consuming public to take purchasing decisions. In the current article, I applied Aristotle’s Rhetorical Theory to the analysis of persuasive elements in the English used in advertisements in Ghanaian newspapers. The qualitative research design was employed in the study as the corpus was solely from written documents. The findings of the study demonstrated that copywriters in the Ghanaian print media employed Aristotle’s three artistic ...
International Journal of Linguistics and Communication, 2016
The goal of advertising is the persuasion of a customer of the merits of a particular product or ... more The goal of advertising is the persuasion of a customer of the merits of a particular product or service. Whatever the strategy advertisers employ in order to influence the consumer, language is the main carrier of the message. Among the components of advertising (visual images, words, logos, brand names, graphic designs and so on), words play a key role since by them the audience is able to grasp the advertising message Nga, 210) . In advertising, copywriters use English words to project the product or service they are bringing to the audience's attention in the most attractive fashion. Copywriters use English quite distinctively; they sometimes employ the descriptive style of writing to present their messages. The rationale is that description makes the information more intriguing and engaging for the audience. The primary objective of description in advertising is to frame an image of a product in the minds of the consumer through sufficient details and allow them to experience the product through their five senses. Description in advertising creates a dominant impression, an overall attitude, mood or feeling about a product or service. In the current paper, the writer has analyzed the descriptive elements in the English used in an advertising text in a newspaper in Ghana. The theoretical framework that was adopted was Fairclough's (1992) Three-Dimensional Model Theory and the qualitative research design was employed for the study. The descriptive features that were realized in the selected advertisement (henceforth advert) were sensory details, figurative expressions, modifiers and picturesque vocabulary. The description of the advertising text was effective, in that, it left the reader with a clear impression: a craving for the Castle Milk Stout alcoholic beverage that was advertised..
The current study focused on the effect of interpersonal relationship on code choice in discourse... more The current study focused on the effect of interpersonal relationship on code choice in discourse situations in the university community of Cape Coast. The study also looked at the nature of the linguistic situation and the kinds of code choice in the university. It revealed that the university community of Cape Coast is multilingual and the kinds of code choice are: unmixed codes, code mixing and code switching. The research target population comprised: students, lecturers and the non-academic staff. The present study employed a sociolinguistic approach and it was conducted within the framework of ethnography of speaking and sociology of language. The study also adopted the ethnographic research design and the instruments used for data collection were: observation, questionnaire and interview. The findings of the research revealed that the interpersonal relationship between participants in discourse defined by age, sex, rank, level of education and ethnicity affected code choice.
Advertising is a type of communication whose ultimate goal is to persuade potential customers of ... more Advertising is a type of communication whose ultimate goal is to persuade potential customers of the good qualities of products and services. There are various strategies that advertisers employ in order to persuade their customers to take purchasing decisions. One of them is the designing of an advertisement in which the pictorial images and other graphic designs are prominent. Another persuasive technique is the use of language to transmit the advertising message. In this regard, copywriters employ language in an attractive way to achieve persuasion in advertisements. It is worth postulating that although a number of persuasive strategies are available in advertising, language is integral in the communication of information. The focus of the current study was the use of grammatical elements in the English of advertisements by copywriters in the newspapers in Ghana for persuasive effect. The qualitative research design was employed and the study was underpinned by the Standard Theory of Generative Grammar. The current study proved that copywriters in the print media in Ghana employed imperative and declarative sentences, nominal phrases, the second person personal pronoun and modifiers such as adjectives and adverbs for persuasive effect.
Time is a concept which is related to our perception of reality. A vast majority of languages hav... more Time is a concept which is related to our perception of reality. A vast majority of languages have mechanisms which enable the speakers to express time. Many languages have grammatical means that make it possible for users to express the time when an action or event occurs. Among these languages, most of them also express time with a verb, and more specifically, with various verbal tenses. The verbal tense, a grammatical category which differs significantly from one language to another, may also be considered a grammatical component of time. Verbal tense can provide us with a particular kind of insight into our perception of chronological time which is expressed with and within the tense of the verb. Tense is concerned about how events are located, perceived and referred to along the past-present-future timeline. Aspect is about the manner in which a verbal action is experienced or regarded. In general linguistic approaches, tense and aspect are treated as complementary ways of e...
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Papers by Richard Torto