Paralinguistic Strategies for Persuasion in Kenyan Commercial Banks Television Advertisements

Abstract

This study analyzes paralinguistic strategies in the discourse of Kenyan commercial banks adverts. It focuses on the inter action of language,imageandlayout,andexaminesadvertisingpersuasivetechniques.The study mainly focused on the use of language in banks advertisements and strategies employed by advertisers to manipulate and influence their customers. The analysis is based on Fair clough's three-dimensional framework. The focus is on consumer advertising, which is directed towards the promotion of some banks' products or services to the general public. The study established that advertising texts contain manipulative language that is loaded with paralinguistic techniques which invest on cultural, social and ideological values to in turn acknowledge some services and convince people to trust them. As a result, individuals seeking banks services need to subject the information given to critical thinking so that they can make decisions from an informed point of view.