Evaluating ‘Registerial’ Norms in Advertising Texts: A Systemic Perspective

Abstract

Language and social concerns facilitate every communicative text. Based on that, the study considered the advertising text, as a test ground to explore the relationships between language and socio-cultural norms as revealers of the Register of advertising. Considered for the investigation are ten advertisements of Guinness®, Peak Milk®, Gulder®, Coca cola®, Pepsi®, Stanbic IBTC®, etc., upon which Ideational, Interpersonal and Textual Metafunctions served as tools of analysis. Besides the report that Material Processes such as come to, reshaped, make, is wasting, etc. dominate the contents, a Behavioral Process of rests on also performs a role in the Register analysis. The study further reveals digitization (*945#), local language intrusion (Oga), personification (bourn = born), clipping (diff) as context devices in the business environment. There are also Register(s) of neologism (Pecadomo), poetic and sermonized texts to persuade recipients. As the investigation has revealed SFL as a viable processor of Register(s), it thus suggests that its application to other texts outside advertising might yield meaningful results. Such exercise could assist in the understanding of novel items that could contribute to language development