The Use of Grammatical Elements to Achieve Persuasion in Advertising in the Print Media in Ghana

Abstract

Advertising is a type of communication whose ultimate goal is to persuade potential customers of the good qualities of products and services. There are various strategies that advertisers employ in order to persuade their customers to take purchasing decisions. One of them is the designing of an advertisement in which the pictorial images and other graphic designs are prominent. Another persuasive technique is the use of language to transmit the advertising message. In this regard, copywriters employ language in an attractive way to achieve persuasion in advertisements. It is worth postulating that although a number of persuasive strategies are available in advertising, language is integral in the communication of information. The focus of the current study was the use of grammatical elements in the English of advertisements by copywriters in the newspapers in Ghana for persuasive effect. The qualitative research design was employed and the study was underpinned by the Standard Theory of Generative Grammar. The current study proved that copywriters in the print media in Ghana employed imperative and declarative sentences, nominal phrases, the second person personal pronoun and modifiers such as adjectives and adverbs for persuasive effect. Keywords: Grammatical Units, Standard Theory, Advertising, Advertisement, Advertiser, Copywriter, English language, Print media, Persuasion, Communication. DOI: 10.7176/NMMC/85-05 Publication date: November 30th 201