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.