Abstract:
ABSTRACT
This study analysed the present situation of digital advertising in Côte d'Ivoire
and examined the inducement characteristics of the advertising discourse
associated with online products on websites that dominate the digital market.
The general objective of the study is to analyse the panorama of online shops
in Côte d’Ivoire by interrogating the discourses associated with the products
displayed on the dominant commercial websites. Data from questionnaire, a
semi-structured interview and corpora comprising texts from the websites
were analysed. The analyses showed that Jumia.ci Afrimarket.ci Vendito.ci
Shop.pdastoreci.com Kaym.ci ci. Cdiscount Afrikdiscount Shopabi.ci
Kenneu.net Idjanshoper.net Liora.ci, Fnac, Kiabi, Glovo, Djassa, Oplace.ci,
Babinet.ci, Locanto and Babiken.ci were the websites that dominate the digital
market in Côte d'Ivoire. However the most popular websites among
respondents were Jumia.ci, Afrimarket.ci, Afrikdiscount.ci and ci.Cdiscount.
The study showed that Jumia.ci is popular amongst 93.7% of respondents
while Afrimarket.ci has a popularity of 74.7%. Afrikdiscount.ci and ci.
Cdiscount have a popularity of 32.9% and 22.6% respectively. The study also
showed that in addition to the image of the products on sale on these
commercial sites, the content and nature of the advertising message play a
decisive role in the decision making of the Internet user. Moreover, the
analysis of the corpora made up of the advert messages of the four dominant
sites (Jumia, Cdiscount, Afrimarket and Afrikdiscount) showed that the
effectiveness of the use of sales pitch in advertisement on the internet depends
on the speaker’s capacity to position himself/ herself as the subject in his/her
speech ( Benveniste,1974). This phenomenon is demonstrated through some
shifters, modalities, subjective adjectives and axiology (Jakobson, 1963;
Ducrot, 1984; Maingueneau, 2003; Charaudeau, 2008; Amossy, 2009;
Kerbrat-Orrechioni, 2009). The study further discovered that the persuasive
power of the sales pitch depends on the appropriate combination of these
linguistic elements. The study suggested that each of these linguistic elements
can constitute a domain of study for future research. Since this research is
associated with linguistic elements in advertisements involving electronic
communication (internet), it was finally suggested that this study could serve
as a basis for designing a programme to train students in communication
studies or any other group of individuals in the domain of advertisement who
want to learn French for Special Purposes.
