1.1 Introduction
Newspaper is hardly ever known as views paper, it is remarkable how often a newspaper is known not for its news, but for its views, while news is sacred and opinion that evidently counts. Reading newspaper informs readers’ as well as enhances the readers’ literacy skills. News frequently is transient but views of opinion have the aura of certain permanence about them. It is in attempt to separate news from news that newspaper creates editorial columns as against the news columns. In contemporary society, newspaper society, newspaper business and editorials are becoming more vital and are widely read more than some other article in the entire newspaper. In most cases, it is primarily the reader who pays the closest attention to editorial contents and who are most likely to be influenced by them.
As a prelude to other parts of this study, this chapter will discuss the background upon which this study was initiated, the statement of problems that led to this study, the Aim and Objectives of the study. Others are Significance of the study, Scope of work, Research hypothesis and questions, Limitations of the Study and Definition of technical terms.
1.2 Background of Study
Advertising is a form of communication used to encourage or persuade on audience (viewer, reader or listeners) to continue to take some new action. Most commonly, the desired result is to influence consumers’ behavior with respect to a commercial offering, although, political and ideological advertising is also common. The purpose of advertising may also be to reassure employees or shareholders that a company is viable or successful. Advertising messages are usually paid for by sponsors and viewed via various traditional media: including mass media such as: newspaper, magazines, television commercials, radio advertisement, outdoor advertising or direct mail, or new media such as websites and text-messages.
Advertising has been defined as “a powerful communication force and a vital marketing tool helping to sell goods and services, images and ideas”…. (Wright, 2003:8). Similarly, Roderick (1980:4) defines advertising as “a message specified by its originator, carried by a communication system and intended to influence and/or inform an unknown audience.” Advertising may also be seen as “a group of activities aiming at and including dissemination of information in any paid product or service to compel actions in accordance with the intent of an identifiable sponsor” (Doughuge, 1985:8).
Advertising has a long history, with some options tracing its origin to the story of Adam, Eve and the serpent in the Bible (Okigbo, 1985:10 and Weffer, 1985:6). Wright (2000:4) however, opines that advertising started in ancient Babylon at about 3000BC when inscription for an ointment dealer, a scribe and a shoe maker were made on clay tablets.
Sandage and Fryburger (1963) argue that Egyptians first wrote runaway-slave announcements on papyrus at about 3200BC. In Africa, town crying and hawking were the earliest forms of advertising. These have survived in many Nigerian villages till date. With respect to media advertising, which is the focus of this paper Sandage and Fryburger (cited in Okeke, 2006:24) suggest that the first media advertising was done in London in 1477 when a prayer book was announced for sale, while the first newspaper advertising appeared in the Boston Newsletter in 1704.
The print media came into Nigeria in 1859 with the appearance of a Yoruba language newspaper “Iwe Iroyin” published by Reverend Henry Townsend at Abeokuta. The publication carried an advert in form of an announcement for the Anglican Church.
It is noteworthy that the earliest forms of newspaper advertising were crude and unsophisticated. But they not only help the local merchants to sell of his goods, or services, but also set a pace for the modern methods of advertising, which have over a long period of time undergone tremendous changes such that today, a lot can be written on the language of advertising in Nigeria. This is possible because advertising has become more professional, involving copywriters who exploit all the available linguistic devices to make their adverts not only persuasive, but also aesthetically appealing.
This paper therefore, attempts a linguistic analysis of the language of newspaper advertising in Nigeria, highlighting the phonological, morphological, syntactic and semantic features that make them attractive and persuasive.
1.3 Statement of Problems
The structure of language in advertising has a peculiar form. Many factors predispose the copywriter (i.e. one who writes advertisements) to choose his vocabulary this in some sense implies that copywriter does not have a free flow of lexical items.
It is worthy to note that some important points about newspapers is that they are businesses, and businesses need to make a profit. They can only do that if they have readers.
So newspapers have to provide us with the most up-to-date information: News features and also movie listings, the weather, sports scores, and so on. The greater the circulation, the more advertising a paper can sell which means more profits, but less space stones. Newspapers need to balance these needs.
It is however clear that the copywriter is restrained to the use of language in advertisement, and the owner of the advert has a primary motive of making profit out of the adverts. It is obvious that in good adverts language matters in this context; therefore, purpose of this study is to critically analyze the most suitable language for newspaper advertisement.
1.4 Aim and Objectives of Study
The aim of the study is to analyze the language of Newspaper Advertisements using Vanguard Newspaper as a case study. In achieving this aim, the following specific objectives were laid out as follows:
- To know how to construct adverts to attract readers or viewers.
- To distinguish the terminology to use in different adverts.
- To understand the need for long or short newspaper adverts.
- To be able to determine the right choice of language used in newspaper advertisement.
1.5 Research Questions
The study came up with research questions so as to be able to ascertain the above stated objectives. The specific research questions for the study are stated below as follows:
- Should adverts be short or lengthy?
- What makes you stop and look at the adverts?
- What kind of adverts do you place on newspapers?
- What kind of caption should be given to adverts?
- What kind of message should be driven out through advertisement?
1.6 Significance of Study
This study will be able to unveil some of those hidden facts about the use and choice of languages used in newspaper advertisements, and also bring about a more refined advert outputs.
This research study will highly relevant to the readers, and especially to the world of journalism in the way and manner in which adverts are to be constructed and be placed on newspapers for public consumption.
The study will also help to ensure that the choices of languages of newspaper adverts are properly selected so that those who pay for the adverts will be satisfied with the publications, and that the readers’ attention will be captured at the sight of such adverts.
1.8 Scope of Study
The scope of the research is focused on Language Analysis of Newspaper Advertisements. This study is basically limited in space to the Vanguard Newspaper of Nigeria, and also to the world of publication and journalism.
1.9 Limitations of the Study
During the course of this study, many things militated against its completion, some of which are:
- Time Constraint: The time frame given to accomplish this project was very short due to school academic calendar and it was carried out under pressure which made the researcher not to implement some necessary features.
- Research material: availability of research material is a major setback to the scope of the study.
- Frequent power failure: This made the researcher append more money on fuel to ensure sustainable power.
- Financial Constraint: Insufficient fund tends to impede the efficiency of the researcher in sourcing for the relevant materials, literature or information and in the process of data collection (internet, questionnaire and interview).
1.10 Definition of Terms
Advertisement: A public notice or announcement
Announcement: To make publicly known
Newspaper: A printed publication containing news, advertisement and correspondence.
