<b>Euphemism: The commonplace of advertising culture

Abstract

Politeness is a concern and necessity in advertising because of sensitization goals to be achieved in the midst of cultural, legal and competitive challenges. Thus, this study examined the utilization of euphemistic devices that facilitate mild persuasion in advertisements. Ten advertisements served as the data of investigation. The theoretical explication rested on Barthesian denotative and connotative annotations and Halliday's transitivity concepts. The study revealed concealments in forms of the socio-cultural affiliation and association (solo), domination (power, the Hero), distinction (made of more), and superiority (Indomitables). Also, personification and personalization (bigger boy; your world), self-worth (greatness), borrowing (Naija), and transfer of professional meaning (credit card) functioned as replacements for seemingly inappropriate lexicons. Advertisers hide behind the metaphor (a taste of black), discrimination (choose greatness), and comparison (more, bigger) to expedite recipients' response. Therefore, as euphemisms are everyone's linguistic behavior, the study suggested that their analyses and applications need to follow a similar course. That might assist language users to curb communication crises.

Explicating Choice of MTN® Advertising Frameworks in Nigerian Print Media

“…Following Halliday (1976), as the remark is still much relevant today; systemic linguistics regards choice as an intrinsic content of the clause and the context of its setting. It means that a language user makes choices to construct grammar out of similar available linguistic elements in the universe, as supported with socio-cultural norms of receivers (Zhang & Shavitt, 2003;Zhang, 2014;Dalamu, 2018c). In respect to that, the idea of the paradigmatic order has come to play, as a framework that creates a thin line between the items chosen and the items that are not chosen.…”

Textual Artifact of Advertising: A Thrust of Halliday’s Mood System Resources

“…Nonetheless, it is left for addressees to accept or reject the message of the addresser. I might illustrate that command by drawing from a situation where the euphemized Drink responsibly is on the assumption that every consumer of Guinness is expected to drink an average of two bottles of the beverage in a day (DALAMU, 2018c). However, a consumer might drink four bottles per day.…”

Decoding Encoded Yorùbá Nomenclature: An Exercise of Linguistic Competence and Performance

“…Thus, the author will not considerably flex his muscles on either of these options because a number of debates have been held via the local electronic media on the matter and tangible corrections have been made several times that Aláùsá is a place where walnut trees grow and yield fruits. Still on the same line of thought, it is pertinent to state clearly that language is for the people to communicate with one another and not a reversal of it (Dalamu, 2018b). So, that persuasion allows people to dictate forcefully what language is, and operations that the language is meant to perform for interactants.…”