Abstract:
Television advertisements use both verbal and non-verbal language to pass across their messages. Many scholars have criticized adverts for making viewers become worshipers of commodities available in the market. Adverts are also thought to be responsible for making teenage girls to admire some of the behaviours portrayed in the commercials. The reaction of secondary school teenage girls in Kenyan urban schools to the verbal and non-verbal language of Television adverts is not known. The current study aimed at describing the language of television advertisement and blinding out the reaction of teenage girls to the language of TV adverts. The literature review includes works on the general effects of Television. works on the effects of the adverts and works on the language of television advertisement. The population sample of the study was 50 girls from 10 secondary schools in Nairobi province. The adverts used were 10 purposively selected by the researcher, recorded and shown to the respondents who answered the questions asked, by use of an interview schedule. The data elicited from this process was thereafter analysed using qualitative and quantitative methods of data analysis to come up with inferences. explanations and conclusions. The study was limited to TV adverts as they cater for both verbal and non- verbal language. Austin's Speech Act theory and Gumper's theory of lnteractional Sociolinguistics constitute the theoretical framework employed in this study. The findings of this research were that adverts used special verbal stylistic devices such as repetition. hyperbole. advert claim. figurative language, slang, comparatives and superlatives. Adverts also used special non-verbal stylistic devices including: facial expressions. gestures. repetition, body movement, demonstration. advert claim and hyperbole. These verbal and non—verbal styles influenced the response of the teenage girls to the advertisements. The findings of this study contribute to the study of linguistics in general and the field of pragmatics in particular by giving an analysis of how language affects individuals.
