International Invention Journal of Medicine and Medical Sciences

117-126

Authors: Adeniji Olayinka Olushola

Broadcast advertising is observed to be an extremely effective form of marketing but its application to medical services and equipment raised some curious concerns when the ethics of the medical profession are applied. Observations at the BT Diagnostic and Health Centre in Ikeja revealed a direct canvass for patronage by the hospital through an electronic device with captivating language to attract patronage from the public. This study investigated the language features used to convey information to patients in order to persuade them to patronize medical equipment and services. The research design was content analysis and Urbanlife Television was the instrument for data collection. Twenty medical services and equipment advertisements were randomly selected and subjected to content analysis. The theoretical framework for the study was sociolinguistics. Findings revealed a dominant use of nouns and long noun phrases, adjectives, pronouns, adverbs and adverbials, simple present and present continuous tense, short sentences, avoidance of negatives, repetitions and functional sentence types for conveying informative and persuasive messages to patients in order to retain their attention and patronage while being attended to. The study concluded by supporting the call for the removal or review of restrictions on medical equipment and services advertisement especially in the electronic media to advance the awareness of the public on the latest trends in medical services and equipment. Keywords: Medical services, Equipment, Advertising language, Urbanlife Television.