A Multimodal Discourse Analysis of Five Selected Online Bank Advertisements
Njoku, Nneka Chinenye and Mbagwu, Ugochi Roberta
Department of English Language and Literature,
Alvan Ikoku University of Education, Owerri, Imo State, Nigeria
Abstract
Language remains an indispensable tool used in the advertisement world to communicate. Advertisements as forms of communication are goal oriented; they are used to manipulate the viewers or listeners’ emotions not for the sole aim of entertainment but designed to achieve their persuasive goal of selling goods and services. The covid 19 outbreak had a big impact on several industries and the banking sector is not an exception. It is an undeniable fact that current advertising landscape poses a challenge to agencies, all round the world; hence businesses can still experience great result with digital advertising values for those who stay at home. Thus, the problem still remains that people do not look beyond the fascinating coated language, images, colour, gestures, and facial expression among others which have in –depth meaning. This paper investigates the different multimodal elements employed by Banks in the advertisement of their products and services on Facebook. Five screen-shot advertisements of five banks from Facebook were sampled and subjected to descriptive analysis. The Banks are, Access Bank, United Bank for Africa (UBA), First City Monument Bank (FCMB), First Bank of Nigeria and Guarantee Trust Bank (GT). The study is hinged on Kress and van Leeuwen (2006) theoretical approach to multimodal discourse which is heavily anchored on the systemic functional linguistic orientation of Halliday’s (1975) view of language as a social semiotic inspired studies on multimodal socio semiotic. The analysis revealed that bank advertisements are characterized by verbal and visual resources which include images, bold prints, capitalization, gothic writing, figures of speech, phrases, lexical acronym, quotes, punctuation marks and other graphological devices. It also revealed that colour, gesture, facial expression among others is also significant for meaning making of online Bank adverts. The paper concludes that some of these multimodal elements are
embedded in the advert and they have persuasive effects on the audience even during the lock
down situation.
Keywords: advertisements, commercial banks, internet, multimodal discourse analysis,
persuasion
Impact Statement
This paper focused on Online Multimodal Discourse Analysis of five selected Online Bank Advertisements in Nigeria. The work set to find out if multimodal elements which are characterized by verbal and visual resources which include images, bold print, gothic writing and other graphological devices are embedded in online Bank adverts. The data analysis revealed that online Bank advertisements in Nigeria contain multimodal elements and the meaning in relation to the advert was analyzed. It was established from the result of the data analysis that these multimodal elements in Online Bank advertisements speak volume and may have persuasive effects on the audience even from a distance.
Author’s Profile
Njoku, Nneka Chinenye
Orcid No: https://orcid.org/0009-0004-1397-9120
Nneka Chinenye Njoku is a Lecturer in the Department of English Language and Literature at Alvan Ikoku University of Education, Owerri, Imo State, Nigeria. She holds a Masters degree in English Language, a Post Graduate Diploma in Education and a Post graduate (PhD) student in the University of Portharcourt, Rivers State, Nigeria. Her interest is in providing sound scholarship through research work and to promote reading culture in children. She is an Administrator, an Educationist, a writer and a Researcher. Her research interest include: Phonology and Phonetics of English language, Applied English Linguistics, Morphology & Syntax, Literary Studies.
Mbagwu, Ugochi Roberta
Orcid No: https://orcid.org/0009-0005-7143-7247
Dr. Ugochi Roberta Mbagwu is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of English Language and Literature at Alvan Ikoku University of Education, Owerri, Imo State, Nigeria. Her areas of interest include: Phonology of English, Phonetics, Practical listening skills and Applied English Linguistics.
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