An Interpersonal Metafunctional Analysis of Television Advertisements of selected Banks in Nigeria

Abstract

The study examined the interpersonal metafunctional meanings of Television Advertisements of selected Banks in Nigeria. Interpersonal metafunctional meanings reflect in advertising activities in our society and text makers always rely on it to get their expected result(s) of passing intended message to the target audience. This study explored the way interpersonal metafunctional meanings are used to relate events and activities of various banks to the world at large on television in order to attract customers’ attention and affect their attitude positively and earn high patronage from the viewers. The study adopted the three meta functions of Halliday’s  2004 theory to determine the kind of social relationship and indicate roles of the participants in the advertisements of selected banks. The data comprised of 9 purposively selected bank advertisements from 3 prominent banks used by both young and old people. The banks selected are: Diamond Bank, Ecobank and Fidelity bank. The study revealed that the indicative mood showed that the subjects in the adverts were majorly topical, while the themes helped in focusing and organising the advertising messages that were being communicated to the viewers and were majorly’ marked’ themes. Also, the result revealed that imperative mood were few in the adverts and this is not surprising since language of advertisements is that of persuading and declaring. The few examples of imperative mood are used to invite the target audience to do something or achieve something together.  The study concluded that indicative - declarative mood is predominant in the adverts and this is not unexpected as the language of adverts is to project what is available as it is to the target audience or potential customers.