Utterance Structures and Meanings in Nigerian Print Media Advertisement

Abstract

Language was traditionally concerned with what is said. A study of utterance was then a consideration of the speaker and his speech, or the actor and his action. There were, therefore, two parts of a sentence - the subject and the predicate. The subject represented the speaker or the agent actor, and the predicate - a stretch from the verb to the end of the sentence - represented the action or what the speaker said. A later development looked beyond what is said and shifted attention to how what is said is said. That marked the beginning of the consideration of the contribution of structure to utterance meaning. A new dimension has set in. Attention has shifted from the mere traditional view to what is said, how it is said, and the impact of what is said on the listener. This has created a strong link between linguistics and other fields of study. One of these other fields of study is advertising - the persuasive use of language to project the unique selling propensities of products and services. The study is concerned with how utterances are structured to achieve this.