Creating New Brand Identities: A Stylo-Rhetorical Study of Car Appellations in Nigeria
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.4314/gjl.v2i2.28Keywords:
Car Rebranding (CR), Car name (CN), Epithet, AdvertisingAbstract
This paper analyses twenty-six appellations of some popular cars in Nigeria. The data were gathered through visits to some retail car dealer shops in Nigeria, the participant observation method and a questionnaire. Analysis of the data shows that the appellations are a form of material honorifics which capture the youth’s sentiments for such car qualities as size, speed, durability, efficiency, luxury and affordability. Analysis also shows that car rebranding discourse practice is an evaluative epithet, a socio-historic documentation and a rhetoric of competition, distribution, endorsement, and demeaning humor, which portrays the youth’s passionate sentiment concerning fashion in automotive technology. The paper demonstrates how the discourse practice explicates the grammatical notion of epithet and the concept of branding/rebranding, as an aspect of the rhetoric of advertising. It indicates that car rebranding practice significantly affects the purchase behaviours of car owners in Nigeria. It concludes that Nigerian youths are as effective in linguistic innovativeness as automotive marketers in making car products appeal to emotions.References
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Graham Hankinson and Philippa Cowking ,1996. The Reality of Global Brands. Berkshire: McGraw-Hill.
Miššiková, Gabriela. 2003. Linguistic Stylistics. Filozofická fakulta UKF Nitra.
Moilanen, Teemu and Seppo Rainisto, 2008. How to Brand Nations, Cities and Destinations: A Planning Book for Place Branding. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Nadia, Kaneva. 2011. Nation branding: toward an agenda for critical research. International Journal of Communication 5: 117–141.
Rampton, Ben, 1995. Crossing: Language and Ethnicity Among Adolescents. London and New York: Longman.
Taiwo, Edun, 2011. The Re-Branding Nigeria Project: doing the first things first. Research Journal of Internatıonal Studıes 19 (June).
Whyman, Leisy Thornton, 2012. Youth Culture, Language Endangerment and Linguistic Survivance (Bilingual Education and Bilingualism). UK: Multilingual Matters.
Agba, Michael, Sunday Agba, A. M. Ogaboh, Ekwuore M. Ushie, Azalahu
Francis Akwara. 2009. Poverty, food insecurity and the rebranding question in Nigeria. Canadian Social Science Vol.5 No.6: 1-9.
Agha, Asif, 1998. Stereotypes and registers of honorific language. Language in Society 27:2:151–193.
Akande, Akinmade Timothy, 2012. Globalization and English in Africa: evidence from Nigerian hip-hop lyrics. New York: Hova Publishers.
Akande, Akinmade Timothy, in press. Code-switching in Nigerian hip-hop lyrics. Language Matters.
Algeo, John and Katie Algeo, 2000. Onomastics as an interdisciplinary study. Names 48.3/4 (September/December): 265-274.
Alim, Samy, Awad Ibrahim and Alastair Pennycook, eds. 2008. Linguistic Flows: Hip Hop Cultures, Youth Identities and the Politics of Lannguage. New York: Routledge.
Babalola, Emmanuel Taiwo and Taiwo Rotimi, 2012. Code-switching in contemporary Nigerian hip-hop music, in E. T. Babalola and T. Afeez, eds., Critical Perspectives on Language, Literature and Communication studies: Festschrift in Honour of Siyan Oyeweso. Nigeria: Obafemi Awolowo University Press. Pp. 55-68.
Baker, Bill. 2007. Destination Branding for Small Cities: The Essentials for SuccessfulPlace Branding. Portland: Creative Leap Books.
Beller, Charley. 2012. Epithets: reference, prosody and implicature. Retrieved 15th October, 2012 on: http://mind.cog.jhu.edu/grad-students/beller/epithetsMS.pdf
Dinnie, Keith, 2008. Nation Branding: Concepts, issues, practice. Oxford, UK: Butterworth-Heinemann.
Fitzsimons, Grainne M., Tanya L., Chartrand and Gavan J. Fitzsimons, 2008. Automatic effects of brand exposure on motivated behavior: how Apple makes you ‘Think Different’. Journal of Consumer Research, 35 (June): 21–35.
Florek, Magdalena. 2005. The country brand as a new challenge for Poland. Place Branding 1.2: 205-214.
Graham Hankinson and Philippa Cowking ,1996. The Reality of Global Brands. Berkshire: McGraw-Hill.
Miššiková, Gabriela. 2003. Linguistic Stylistics. Filozofická fakulta UKF Nitra.
Moilanen, Teemu and Seppo Rainisto, 2008. How to Brand Nations, Cities and Destinations: A Planning Book for Place Branding. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Nadia, Kaneva. 2011. Nation branding: toward an agenda for critical research. International Journal of Communication 5: 117–141.
Rampton, Ben, 1995. Crossing: Language and Ethnicity Among Adolescents. London and New York: Longman.
Taiwo, Edun, 2011. The Re-Branding Nigeria Project: doing the first things first. Research Journal of Internatıonal Studıes 19 (June).
Whyman, Leisy Thornton, 2012. Youth Culture, Language Endangerment and Linguistic Survivance (Bilingual Education and Bilingualism). UK: Multilingual Matters.
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Published
12/01/2013
How to Cite
Olaosun, I. E. (2013). Creating New Brand Identities: A Stylo-Rhetorical Study of Car Appellations in Nigeria. Ghana Journal of Linguistics, 2(2), 41–54. https://doi.org/10.4314/gjl.v2i2.28
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