ADVERTISEMENT SLOGANS OF SELECTED SOAPS AND DETERGENTS IN NIGERIAN MARKET: A PRAGMATIC ANALYSIS

Abstract

Central to pragmatics is to understand the strategies or mechanisms that aid interlocutors to work out hidden, indirect or implied meanings of an utterance or a whole text. However, this study investigated the language of advertisement with specific attention to the slogans of selected products in the Nigerian market. In the study, four slogans of soaps and detergents were sampled and analysed using some pragmatic principles: Speech Acts, Cooperative Principle and its maxims and Implicature. This study is a descriptive qualitative research. The data were sourced from the internet. Findings reveal that the slogans performed three types of speech acts: Assertive, Directive and Commissive respectively to communicate the advertisers’ intended messages. Also, the advertisers predominantly employed the Assertive Act to fascinate the potential customers. Furthermore, the advertisers deliberately flouted the maxims of quality, quantity and manner to manipulate and influence the decision of the potential customers to gain support and patronage from them and this generated implicatures.