Some Linguistic Features in Print and Electronic Advertisements in Nigeria

Abstract

The use of language often determines the success or failure of any advertising drive; therefore, the linguistic details of advertising texts are carefully structured to communicate the right message to the right people at the right time. This paper examines the linguistic features in print and electronic media advertisements in Nigeria to establish linguistic creativity in this field. The data for the study were collected from Nigerian national newspapers, magazines, radio, and television commercial advertisements for products and services. The findings show a plurality of advertising techniques and linguistic features such as synthetic personalization, referential indirectness, use of pidgin, caveats, code-mixing and how figurative usage impinges on the meaning of advertisements. The paper concludes by recommending that advertisers in Nigeria should be more honest by emphasizing contextually relevant and unobtrusive advertisements intended to help rather than inundate consumers.