An Analysis of the Imperatives Used in Gikuyu Radio Advertisements

Abstract

Advertising has moved from merely making a product or service known to consumers to an art characterized by persuasion of consumers to choose certain products or services. Radio advertisers must focus on influencing the consumers in the short time available during a radio advertisement. The persuasion is mostly attained through language use. This study focused on the use of imperatives as a persuasive device in radio advertisements aired on Kameme FM. The question that sought to be answered was: what type of imperatives are used by advertisers of Kameme FM to appeal to the listeners to choose certain products and services? This study successfully identified and classified the imperatives used in Gikuyu advertisements aired on Kameme FM as attention focusers, contact group, acquisition of product and negative imperatives. It was also revealed through the study that in order to improve on the extent of appeal and create urgency to get the product or service, advertisers use imperatives with today and now. Advertising has also been accused of using language to exaggerate and manipulate consumers in an attempt to appeal to them. This study sought to understand how listeners interpret imperatives in order to verify this assumption. Using Relevance Theory, the study focused on how imperatives are interpreted by listeners and to what extent these imperatives persuade the listeners of Kameme FM to prefer certain products and services. Although imperatives are known to carry the illocutionary force of commanding, the study revealed that listeners of Kameme FM associate imperatives used in radio advertisements as suggesting to them and inviting them to try the product or service as opposed to commanding them to buy. The illocutionary force that is carried by imperatives is dependent on the comparative power of the addresser and addressee as well as the value of the act to each of them. Moreover, imperatives only generate compulsions accordingly when in the right context but not automatically by linguistic practice. Therefore, this study established that imperatives were also persuasive to consumers who confessed through interviews that they would try or buy a product because of the appeal the imperative carried and because they found value in implementing the directive carried by the imperative.