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). 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. 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.
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.
Therefore, in Nigeria where the research was carried out, the activities that was conducted is to semantically analyze the language advertisement in Daily Trust and Vanguard Newspaper.
1.3 Statement of Problems
Investigation revealed that 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 advertisement in Daily Trust and Vanguard Newspaper. In achieving this aim, the following specific objectives were laid out as follows:
- To identify whether or not the language used in advertisement are easily understood;
- To determine what constitutes nouns or noun phrases and verbs or verb phrases;
- To find out the kind of messages passed by the advertisers and the specific language used in advertisement; and
- To identify the type of language used, the kind of language used in advertisement in Daily trust and vanguard news papers.
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:
- Is there any relationship between semantics and advertisement?
- What are the languages used in advertisement are easily understood?
- What constitutes nouns or noun phrases and verbs or verb phrases?
- What is the kind of messages passed by the advertisers and the specific language used in advertisement?
- What is the type of language used, the kind of language used in advertisement in Daily trust and vanguard news papers?
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. The study gives a clear meaning of semantics by analyzing language advertisement in daily Trust and Vanguard news papers.
This study will be of immense benefit to other researchers who intend to know more on this study and can also be used by non-researchers to build more on their research work. This study contributes to knowledge and could serve as a guide for other study.
1.8 Scope of Study
The scope of the research is focused on the Semantic Analysis of Language Advertisement in Daily Trust and Vanguard Newspaper.
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.
