ABSTRACT

Advertising is a distinct form of communication and the language used for communicating adverts is distinctive and alluring. Advertising as a form of communication requires a lot of imagination, creativity and logical thinking for it to be effective and successful. The aim of this study is to analyse how GSM network providers employ stylistic features in advertising to the target audience. The study explores non-verbal elements such as slogan, colours, logo, celebrity endorsements, pictures, social media sites, contact details that were used by GSM network providers in their advertisements. The research also investigates stylistic features such as: graphology, foregrounding, lexico-semantics, syntactic, phonological and devices such as imperative verbs, positive adjectives, nouns, adverbs and personal pronouns, personifications in the four major GSM network providers in Nigeria. The research revealed that persuasive elements are eminent in advertising language. The findings of this study contribute to the field of research into or in advertising as it examined language, stylistic features and the effects of GSM network providers’ advertising on the target audience.

KEYWORDS: Advertising, Language, Communication, GSM Network Providers, Stylistics, Newspapers.