Linguistic politeness strategies in bank advertisements: a case study of Kenya commercial bank
Abstract
This study investigates the linguistic realizations of politeness strategies and how they act as
persuasive devices in Bank advertisements. The objectives are to identify linguistic politeness
strategies used in Bank advertisements and illustrate how these linguistic politeness strategies
persuade the target audience in the Banking industry. The work uses the principles of Politeness
Theory by Penelope Brown and Stephen C. Levinson (1987) to explain how advertisers
manipulate language in order to persuade their target audience to get products from their banks.
The study analyses Bank advertisements within print media. The results of the analysis show that
advertisements in the banking industry employ a variety of positive linguistic politeness
strategies.
Publisher
University of Nairobi