A Study of Interpersonal Metaphor in Selected Nigerian Herbal Medicines Advertisements in English

Abstract

Advertisements of herbal remedies seek to educate the public about the significant social concerns and problems, draw attention to the products and encourage consumers to take action by purchasing the items. "Man's power" is viewed as a concept used by Nigerian advertisers of herbal medicines to cure man-related manhood diseases for active performance during sexual intercourse. This descriptive, qualitative and quantitative study aims to linguistically analyse the use of interpersonal metaphors in the advertisements of 10 herbal products (Men Super Herbal Booster and Men Activator, Marathon Herbal Power Formula, Ecomms Empire, Pawaful M.K Oil, Herbs Tea Kiosk, New Era Consult, Man Up, FLP Wellness, Jalin Herbal Nigeria, and Kondo Bitter) in Nigeria. The analysis was carried out using a synthesis of Halliday's (1984) Interpersonal Grammatical Metaphor and Charteris-Black's (2004) three inter-related stages of metaphor analysis: identification, interpretation and explanation. The findings show that metaphors of mood and modality are found in the ads. Interpersonal Grammatical Metaphor is realised by the use of incongruent means of expressing meaning. The choice of words in the Herbal Medicines Advertisements (HMAs) shows that creativity in producers is deliberately deployed in the form of neologism and contingency vocabulary to catch attention and convey persuasion as well as create mental pictures of the products' effectiveness.