UNIVERSITY OF GHANA DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH THE …

UNIVERSITY OF GHANA

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH

THE GRAMMAR OF ADVERTISEMENT: A MULTIMODAL

DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF CHARISMATIC CHURCH

PROGRAMME POSTERS

BY

LOUISA OSAFO-ADJEI

(10599614)

THIS THESIS IS SUBMITTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF GHANA,

LEGON IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENT FOR

THE AWARD OF MPHIL ENGLISH DEGREE

OCTOBER, 2020

University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh

ii

DECLARATION

With the exception of the references used in this work which have been

acknowledged, I hereby declare that the views that have been expressed here

are the product of my own research and no part or the whole of this work has

been submitted to any other institution for the award of any degree.

……………………………… Date: 25th September, 2020

OSAFO-ADJEI LOUISA

(STUDENT)

……………………………………… Date: …September 25, 2020

JOHN FRANKLIN WIREDU (PROF.)

(PRINCIPAL SUPERVISOR)

……………………………… Date: 30th September, 2020

ELIZABETH ORFSON-OFFEI (DR.)

(CO-SUPERVISOR)


iii

ABSTRACT

The study sought to examine how messages are organised in Charismatic church

programme posters in Ghana. Thus, it identifies and describes the number of

semiotic modes present on the posters used by charismatic churches in Ghana

and how these modes combine to create a grammar. The study examined twenty

charismatic church programme posters in Ghana using the visual grammar

approach to multimodality, which was developed by Gunther Kress and Van

Leeuwen (2006) and Generic structure potential of print advertisement by Yuen

(2004). Both qualitative and quantitative analysis were applied to the study.

The study revealed that there are two modes used in the construction of these

church posters; they were identified as the visual and the verbal modes. Verbal

resources used in the design of charismatic church programme posters (CCP)

are words, groups, and clauses. Words such as “Venue”, “Date”, “Time”, and

“Contact” were sometimes used on charismatic church programme posters

(CCPs) to draw the attention of audience to specific details. The nominal group

of words were used to name churches, events and theme of the events. In naming

churches, “Chapel” served as head of the nominal group of charismatic church

programme posters in most cases. “Ministries” was used 4 times and “Church”

2 instances. In labelling events and themes, the ‘head’ for labels of events

usually denoted convergence of huge number of individuals for religious events

(Convention, Crusade, and Summit). Visual modes realized interaction and

modality functions. The represented participants kept eye contact with the

viewers and smiled to demand social interaction with the viewers. Four patterns

were established as the grammar of Charismatic church programme posters.

Lead + Emblem + Announcement + Call- visit-information (LEAC), Lead +

Emblem + Announcement + Call- visit-information+ Tag (LEACT), Lead +

Emblem + Enhancer + Announcement + Call- visit-information (LEAEC), Lead

+ Emblem + Enhancer + Announcement + Call- visit-information + Lead

(LEAECL). The study concluded that there are two modes present on these

posters and there is indeed a grammar for advertisement. It is recommended by

the study that a similar study should be conducted on the orthodox churches to

confirm if they (orthodox churches) follow a grammar in creating their

advertisements.


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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

There have been numerous times in the period I enrolled for this programme

that I felt I could not move further, in most of those moments, it appears a

strength and understanding which does not come from man urges me on and

opens my eyes to deeper insights. This might have been the spiritual; it should

be God. I am forever grateful to this supernatural.

In the position as supervisors, Prof. J. F. Wiredu and Dr. Elizabeth Orfson-

Offei have immensely contributed to the success of this work, and their

directions and scholarly submissions have immensely contributed to the success

of this work.

I say thank you.

My appreciation will never be complete if I do not recognize the contributions

of my parents and the entire family. You have really supported me both

financially and spiritually and I say today that as far as I continue to have live,

I will forever be grateful to you.

And to my special course mates who helped me in one way or the other all that

I can say is God richly bless you all.


v

DEDICATION

To my parents—

I won’t say that I couldn’t have done this without you;

I will say that I am glad I didn’t have to.


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TABLE OF CONTENT

Contents Page

DECLARATION ii

ABSTRACT iii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT iv

DEDICATION v

TABLE OF CONTENT vi

LIST OF TABLES x

LIST OF FIGURES xi

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS xii

CHAPTER ONE 1

INTRODUCTION 1

1.0 Background to the Study 1

1.1 Religions in Ghana 2

1.2 Statement of the Problem 4

1.3 Aims of the Study 5

1.4 Research Questions 6

1.5 Delimitation 6

1.6 Significance of the Study 8

1.7 Organization of the Study 9

CHAPTER TWO 10

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE 10

2.0 Introduction 10


vii

2.1 Language and Religion 10

2.2 Empirical Review 11

2.3 Theoretical Framework 15

2. 3.1 Approaches to text analysis 15

2.4 Multimodal Discourse Analysis (MDA) 17

2.4.1 Visual Grammar 18

2.6 Generic Structure of Print Advertisements 25

2.7 Situating the Study 28

CHAPTER THREE 29

METHODOLOGY 29

3.0 Introduction 29

3.1 Research Design 29

3.2 Population, Sample, and Sampling Technique 30

3.3 Data Analysis Procedure 31

3.5 Conclusion 32

CHAPTER FOUR 33

ANALYSIS AND DISSCUSSION 33

4.0 Introduction 33

4.1.1 The Semiotic Modes Used in Charismatic Church Posters 33

4.3 Conclusion 66


viii

CHAPTER FIVE 67

A GENERIC STRUCTURE ANAYSIS OF CHURCH POSTERS 67

5.0 Introduction 67

5.1 The Generic Structure Potential (GSP) of Charismatic Church

Programme Posters 67

5.2 Patterned Arrangements 71

5.3 Conclusion 74

CHAPTER SIX 75

SUMMARY, CONCLUSION, AND RECOMMENDATION 75

6.0 Introduction 75

6.1 Summary of the Study 75

6.2 Findings of the Study 76

6.3 Conclusion 79

6.4 Recommendations for Further Study 80

APPENDICES 81

APPENDIX 1 81

APPENDIX 2 81

APPENDIX 3 82

APPENDIX 4 82

APPENDIX 5 83

APPENDIX 6 84

APPENDIX 7 85

APPENDIX 8 85

APPENDIX 9 86


ix

APPENDIX 10 86

APPENDIX 11 87

APPENDIX 12 87

APPENDIX 13 88

APPENDIX 14 88

APPENDIX 15 89

APPENDIX 16 90

APPENDIX 17 91

APPENDIX 18 91

APPENDIX 19 92

APPENDIX 20 92

REFERENCES 93


x

LIST OF TABLES

Table Page

1 Distribution of Titles 39

2 Noun groups used to name the g theme of the event 44

3 Frequency of occurrences of generic moves 68

4 Percentage of occurrences of generic moves 71

5 Frequency of occurrences of patterns 72


xi

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure Page

1 Structure of Religious Posters 12

2 Prominence of Noun Groups that Frame Events 43

3 Merging Theme and Name of Event 43

4 Themes and Names of Events 45

5 Modality 63

6 Low Modality 64


xii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

Ads Advertisement

CCP Charismatic Church Programme Posters

GSP Generic Structure Potential

MDA Multimodal Discourse Analysis

MD-SFG Multimodal Discourse Systemic Functional Grammar

VG Visual Grammar


1

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Religious posters are communicative artefacts which seek to inform people

about events. The current chapter introduces the study. The following sections

will review studies on religious discourse and multimodality to create a

background for the study, state the problem the study hopes to solve, and outline

the study’s focus by stating objectives, research questions, and aims of the

study. Additionally, the significance of the study is stated, and the chapter ends

with an organization of the study.

1.0 Background to the Study

Language in religion has been studied from different perspectives. Since the

1980s, studies and debates on religious language have centred on the form and

function of religious discourse (Crystal, 2016). In pursuing functional analysis

of religious discourse, interesting paths such as the link between religion and

language contact (Spolsky, 2003), critical discourse analysis of religious

discourse (Ajibade, 2012; Ayodji, 2013; Chibueze, Ordu, & Omoghie, 2017;

Dada, 2018; Hardin, 2019; Haynes, 2016), and analysis of the role of religious

language in other domains of language use have been prattled. If the assumption

that religion is the most unifying social construct globally and that religious

discourses are effective in wining audience were true, then, findings of studies

like Hughes (2019) that political discourses are increasingly utilizing religious

registers to attract votes is not farfetched. The assumption, nonetheless, points

to the need to carefully study the form of promotional discourses in religious

domains to provide a description of the linguistic resources used in the religious

domain.


2

Posters are among the leading mechanisms used to draw audience in religious

domains, and their use keep increasing (Ajibade, 2012). Generally, religious

posters have been studied from the functional perspective. For instance, critical

discourse analyses of religious posters and handbills respectively have shown

how male dominance is perpetrated (Ajibade, 2012) and how the texts are free

from ambiguities because a “narrow interpretative space and semantic

effervescence” (Dada, 2018, p.14) is created for interpretation of the text. To

the best of my knowledge, little is known about the ways in which resources are

combined in constructing religious posters, especially by churches in Africa,

though their use for ideological purposes is known (Dada, 2018).

The religious poster is a multimodal text, and as Mooney (2016) has noted, it is

crucial for studies on multimodal analysis of religious discourse to be conducted

because “Multimodality … draws researchers’ attention to a full repertoire of

communication or expression methods such as verbal, visual, kinetic, spatial

and aural” (Piejia, 2017, p. 11).

1.1 Religions in Ghana

Three main religions exist in Ghana. According to the Ghana Statistical Services

(2012), 71 percent of the population of Ghana are Christians, with about 29

percent being Moslems, African Traditionalists, or votaries of other religions.

Christianity dominates the religious sphere of Ghana, and posters of Christians

abound in Ghana. Thus, the present study focuses exclusively on Christian

posters. In selecting Christian posters, I acknowledge that other religious

institutions provide rich data sources for the study yet it is possible that the

rhetorical uses of posters contribute to the dominance of Christianity in Ghana.

Thus, the dominance in itself points to the need to study strategies employed in


3

the construct of such multimodal texts to attract audience. In Ghana, like in most

parts of the world, Christianity is not a homogenous religious group.

Two main categories of religious groups are identified in Ghana: (a) the

orthodox and (b) the Pentecostal/charismatic, or perhaps (a) Catholicism and

(b) Protestantism. Christianity in Ghana is said to have accompanied Christian

missionaries who arrived in Ghana in the 15th century (Amanor, 2004). This

contact created churches like the Methodist Church, the Presbyterian Church,

and the Anglican Church, which were mostly associated with European

countries that funded expeditions to Ghana, and Africa at large. Part of the result

is the birthing of the Pentecostal churches which believed in the manifestations

of the Holy Spirit, speaking in tongues.

Pentecostalism reached Ghana around 1917, and churches such as the Church

of Pentecost and Faith Tebernacle Church are noted to have represented the

move (Sallah, 2015). Charismatic churches emerged from Pentecostals, and

they were known for expressing the manifestations of the gifts of God and

emphasising faith. Sallah (2015) finds “Pentecostalism” and “Charismatism”

ares just terminological differences but refer to churches whose practices are

similar. “It must be pointed out that Pentecostal and Charismatic Churches are

churches characterized by the ‘spectacular’ such as casting out demons, ‘loud’

prayers, and clapping” (Afful & Tekpetey, 2011, pg. 10) but they differ in few

ways. Some differences between them are stated by Afful and Tekpetey (2011):

1. Pentecostal churches tend to have their preaching in local Ghanaian

languages while the Charismatic churches carry out their activities

mainly in English.


4

2. Pentecostal churches operate through a form of hierarchy, with the

highest position occupied by the chairman, who is an Apostle,

together with others such as pastors and evangelists, overseers, and

presiding elders. In contrast, Charismatic churches operate in the

form of individual ownership and, thus, have founders.

Charismatic churches in Ghana include International Central Gospel Church,

Action Chapel International, Royal House Chapel, and Action Faith Ministry

whereas Pentecostal churches include Church of Pentecost and Assemblies of

God. Since the charismatic churches are known for using English in interacting

with their audience, and posters are typically designed in English, it is logical

to see that they dominate in the use of poster advertisement

1.2 Statement of the Problem

The rise of multimodality in the construction of texts has been occasioned

mainly by the rise of communication technologies (Kress & van Leeuwen,

1996). These technologies have made it possible for different semiotic resources

to be used in the construction of texts for various purposes. In advertising, the

use of multimodal semiotic resources has been observed (Saichaie, 2011; Thuy,

2017) as integral to the construction of discourses and genres of advertising.

The need to combine different semiotic resources in advertising genres has

arisen from the recognition that texts are able to appeal to the different senses

of audiences and this constitutes an important way of appealing to and

persuading such audiences. This functional dimension of the multimodal text

has been argued as an effect of the peculiar grammar that arises from the nature

in which the different modes within a multimodal text are combined (Kress &

van Leeuwen, 1996). The view of visual grammar as an important phenomenon


5

in multimodal texts has been a leading motivation of research into multimodal

texts. This has been the case, especially because of the fact that different texts

that have used a variety of semiotic resources are bound to give rise to different

visual grammars. It has, therefore, been the interest of researchers within

multimodality to examine the types of semiotic resources that are used in the

construction of multimodal texts as well as examine how the different modes

are combined to create functional texts that communicate to audience. This is

the broader research agenda that gives need to this study. The more specific

research interest is the description of the visual grammar of charismatic church

posters in Ghana. The massive growth of Christianity in Africa after contact

with European, the very frequent use of posters to draw audience, and the

combination of linguistic (English) and non-linguistic resources to me is an

interesting evidence of how the domain is worthy of study. Research that shares

in this interest have investigated hidden ideologies (Dada, 2018; Ajibade, 2012),

interpretation of lexico-semantic resources on the posters (Odoemenam, Ordu,

& Omoghie, 2017), names of the churches (Awukuvi & Isreal, 2018) but have

not examined how semiotic resources are combined in the construct of religious

posters and meanings accompanying the combination. The present study goes

beyond existing studies which devoted attention to aspects of the religious

poster in Ghana by examining the grammar of the charismatic church poster.

1.3 Aims of the Study

The overall goal of this study is to examine how charismatic churches in Ghana

use verbal, visual, kinetic, spatial, and aural resources in constructing posters.

To arrive at this goal, the study aims to provide answers to the following

research questions.


6

1.4 Research Questions

1. What are the semiotic modes used in charismatic church posters and the

meanings the modes communicate?

2. What is the generic structure potential of the charismatic church posters?

1.5 Delimitation

In order to achieve the aim of this study, it became prudent to draw boundaries

for the study, for as Johnstone (2012), puts it, “Every choice about what to count

as a text for analysis is a choice not only about what to include but also about

what to exclude” (p.12).

Considering the global influence of religion, a study of this nature could focus

on religious bodies globally. However, this study is limited to Ghana because

of the time allotted and the detailed analysis required and also, the researcher is

in Ghana thereby Ghana was selected for proximity sake. There are many

religions in Ghana today that use posters. This study is, however, limited to the

posters of Christian bodies because they abound in the use of religious posters

in Ghana. Omenyo (2006) has noted that the increase in patronage of

Christianity and its associated divisions is as a result of effective use of

advertising strategies. This suggests that the Christian posters serve as rich data

source for this study.

For measurable research outcome, the time frame for the selection of data is

limited to religious posters produced from 2016 to 2017 with a data size of 20

posters. The selected charismatic churches are Royalhouse Chapel

International, Explosive Faith Chapel International, Action Chapel, Living

Wave Chapel-worldwide, Perez Chapel, Lovegate Chapel Worldwide, El-Kana

Ministries International, The Love Family Incorporated, Grace Citadel Church,


7

Spiritual Revival Ministries, Fresh Fire Ministries, Lighthouse Chapel

International, Glory Embassy Ministries International, International Central

Gospel Church, Blazing Fire, Calvary Charismatic Centre, Fountain Gate

Chapel, and Living Waters Chapel.

Lastly, the term Grammar as used in this study deviates from the traditional

definition of the word as “the rules that govern the composition of structures in

a language.” In this study, Grammar is looked at from point of view of the

Generic Structure Potential of Print Advertisement (GSP) (cf. O’Toole, 1994;

Cheong, 2004; Halliday and Matthiessen, 2004. In this study, then, it is defined

as the arrangement of obligatory and optional elements within the text and the

order in which these elements are organized as a meaning-making process in

textual creation.

Finally, it is acknowledged that, in many cases, colours can aid in information-

giving, especially in poster advertisements (Malamed, 2015). However, we are

not discussing the use of colours because not everybody will react the same way

to the same colour. We react differently to colour. (Chapman, 2010). As she

explains it:

a colour that can evoke one reaction in one person may

evoke the opposite reaction in another, due to culture, prior

association, or even just personal preference.

Accordingly, it is not clear to us that the interpretation we attempt to give the

use of colours in the study will be wholly acceptable.


8

1.6 Significance of the Study

The findings of this study will make very significant inputs to existing

knowledge on religious discourse. For designers, especially those considered

novices in the design of the religious poster, the results will be an essential

guiding literature. For consumers, the literature will help their understanding of

how choices are made and how resources are combined to communicate to them

through the posters. In short, this study then will provide a more refined

understanding of religious interactions through posters and religious discourse,

in general (Dada, 2018).

Multimodality is a field that is yet to be fully theorized (Piejia, 2017). By

combining two of the existing approaches to the study of religious texts

constructed in Ghana, this study will make a theoretical contribution by adding

to the field of multimodality the perspective of how Ghanaians construct

religious posters.

One crucial criticism against multimodality has been the subjective nature of

the analysis conducted. Using the corpus approach to the analysis of multimodal

texts will add to the efforts to make analysis in the field more objective. This

will contribute to the methodology for conducting multimodal analysis as the

method is still less utilized. More so, it will be a useful guide to individuals who

hope to conduct a corpus multimodal analysis.

The field of advertising and persuasive language use will also benefit

immensely from the findings of this study. In the religious domain, it has been

established that advertising has really been an effective tool for drawing

individuals to the church. For this reason, other discourses such as the political

discourse have made efforts to employ similar strategies used in religious


9

advertisements to enhance theirs. Since the findings of this study will clearly

map out the grammar of the religious poster in Ghana, it will provide enough

resources for the benefit of advertisers.

1.7 Organization of the Study

There are six main divisions of this thesis. The first is Chapter One and it

provides an introduction to the study. In the Introduction, background of the

study is given, the problem this study hopes to solve is stated, and the aims and

the research questions that guide the conduct of the study are also stated. The

chapter ends by stating the research value and how the study is organized.

Chapter Two reviews related literature. The type of literature reviewed in the

chapter defines the subsections of the chapter: theoretical review, conceptual

review, and empirical review will respectively review literature on theories that

guide the analysis and discussion, key concepts of the study, and empirical

studies related to the current study. Chapter Three will outline the methods and

procedures used in conducting the study. In Chapter Four, the penultimate

chapter, religious posters sampled are analysed using multimodal discourse

analysis and the results are discussed in line with the objectives of the study.

The five chapter is a continuation of the analysis but this section will establish

the generic moves present in these posters using Generic structure potential.

The last chapter, Chapter six, presents a conclusion to the entire study and gives

some recommendations for further research.


10

CHAPTER TWO

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

2.0 Introduction

This chapter gives a review of related literature that will contribute to the

conceptualization of the major issues or phenomena underling this study. This

section of the study is divided into two. The first section looks at how language

is used in religion and the theoretical framework the study uses. The final part

of the review examines empirical studies conducted on religious discourse,

mostly on the religious poster.

2.1 Language and Religion

Language is the tool used to communicate in any form of trade. The success of

any form of trade is dependent on the extent to which one could tell what they

want to trade, who they wanted to trade with, and how much they would want

to trade that for. The religious bodies, for example, heavily rely on language for

‘trade’ purposes i.e. communicating the word of God to people. Linguists have

provided evidence that every discourse community has its unique way of using

language and, as Casan-Pitarch (2016) points out, religious bodies rely on

formal language usage.

According to Harrison (2007), religious language is any form of language used

by the religious bodies to communicate their religious beliefs and experiences.

Religious language covers sermons, prayers, religious songs, and sacred texts.

Such language is usually filled with figurative images and metaphors which aim

at persuading their audience (Roberts, 2014). In this regard, speakers in the

religious domain use language to persuade their audience to perform an action.


11

Etim (2006) also asserts that religious language is ambiguous and must,

therefore, be used in context to break its ambiguity. This means that language

used to talk about things in the religious domain is expected to work in its own

way to achieve an intended objective.

Donovan (1976) gives two definitions of religious language. He first explains

religious language as a prominent language which is used separately in some

special situations, such as Hebrew for Jews and Arabic for Muslims. Second, it

is the usage of special words like "Apocalypse, Incarnation, alms-giving, and

belief." Correspondingly, Elewa (2014) reiterates that religious language is

categorised by its dominant use of certain words such as “paradise, sacrifice,

end times, revelation” (p. 2). This means that religious language is the language

used to talk about or have anything done using language in the religious domain.

Religious language is, therefore, expected to work in its own way to achieve an

intended objective.

2.2 Empirical Review

Ajibade (2012) has investigated the representation of women on contemporary

church posters in Nigeria. By observing the use of graphic principles of layout

and visual placement, Ajibade (2012) that female pastors are differentiated from

males as being subordinates. The results show that the religious poster is a

communicative artefact that can be systematically studied. Even so, he

demonstrates that the West African sub-region puts religious posters to

meaningful use, justifying further the need for this study. The present study

builds on his understanding that layout and visual placement of represented

participants communicates vital information.


12

Aside from the principal objective of his study, Ajibade’s (2012) attempted a

description of the visual grammar of church posters (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Structure of Religious Posters

In describing the posters by structure, he has highlighted that the choice and use

of resources form a frozen pattern that defines the text even though he did not

analyze text to show this. The present study builds on his attempt by

systematically analyzing texts to define the generic structure potential and

grammar of the charismatic church posters.

Dada (2018) conducted a multimodal study of religious posters in Nigeria. He

explored hidden ideologies in the verbal and visual elements of religious posters

(what he calls handbills). He combined Kress and Leeuwen’s (1996) visual

grammar approach and Cheong’s (2004) analytical tools for multisemiotic print

advertisement and situated the study in the systemic functional framework to

discourse analysis. From the internet, Dada (2018) selected twelve posters of

programmes held from 2015 – 2017 of four Nigerian churches whose

headquarters were in Nigeria: Christ Embassy, the Redeemed Christian Church

of God, the Mountain of Fire and Miracle Church, and the Living Faith Church.


13

Also, posters he selected were those that advertised annual conferences of the

church: Higher Life Conference (HLC), Holy Ghost Congress (HGC), the

Annual Anointing Service (AAS), and the Shiloh Conference. The multimodal

corpus tool kit was used to analyze the data.

The result of Dada’s (2018) study is useful for this study, as it shows that colours

and images have functional roles in the visual design of posters in Nigeria and

West Africa. With this evidence that the charismatic church poster is a resource

for meaning-making, the present study goes beyond Dada (2008) by describing

the grammar of charismatic church posters in Ghana. The current study is also

situated in the functional linguistic framework as Dada’s.

Odoemenam, Ordu, and Omoghie’s (2017) study on lexico-semantic

interpretation of Pentecostal church posters is quite informing. Their aim was

to approach the interpretation of Christian advertisement from the stylistics

point of view. Halliday’s systemic functional grammar (SFG) was used as the

analytical framework. They found metaphor, imagery, and alliteration as the

figurative uses of linguistic resources on the posters. Odoemenam, Ordu, and

Omoghie noted further that simple noun phrases and simple sentences were

used on the posters. Due to the simplicity of the expressions, the majority of the

audience are able to interpret the themes.

Tamumobelema and Aikoriogie (2018) looked at the roles that referential

elements play in the titles of church print posters in Nigeria. Their study was

motivated by the idea that church posters are meant to persuade audience to fall

in tune with the ideology that these posters represent. Their aim for the study

stemmed from the fact that linguistic items, especially referentials, play a

pivotal role in the persuasiveness found on church posters. They found that


14

referentials facilitate accessibility of mental concepts which means they lesson

processing effort, making them instruments for persuasion. The results show

that linguistic resources used on the religious posters are for rhetorical purposes.

Moreover, their study highlights essence in the analysis of referentials.

Okyireh, Kankam, and Opoku (2020) examined how church marketing affects

church participation in the Efutu Municipality in Ghana. Their aim was to check

whether church marketing such as the ambience, signage, and buildings of

churches determines are persuasive devices to pull people to church. A cross-

sectional survey was used for the study with a sample size of 292, selected using

convenience sampling technique. They arrived at a conclusion that preaching

style and branding are significant in increasing church participation. However,

physical evidence such as church building, signage, and ambience does not

influence church participation. The finding that branding is a significant

indicator of church participation but signages are not is contradictory. Okyireh,

Kankam, and Opoku (2020) defined branding as part of the efforts to create an

image for the church. More so, signages are meant to guide individuals to a

place or an event, a role performed by religious posters. From this premise, an

observation that branding persuades target audience to attend churches implies

that posters do so to some extent. It will be useful, perhaps, for another study to

examine just the effects of posters on target audience.

An onomastic study of selected charismatic churches in Ghana has been

conducted by Awukuvi and Israel (2018). Motivated by the need to examine

how these names are formed and to identify naming patterns, Awukuvi and

Israel carefully observed and studied the text (names) from sign post and the

buildings of these charismatic churches. Thirty charismatic church names were


15

collected from churches in the Bosomtwe District in the Ashanti Region, using

purposive sampling. Charismatic churches were seen to use naming patterns

which have similarities with how people are named in Ghana. For their second

objective, they found four classes of names of charismatic churches: descriptive

(e.g. Caravan in Caravan of Grace Ministries), coinages (e.g. Love in

Lovehouse Chapel), commendatory (e.g. Christ is Lord in Christ is Lord

Evangelic Ministry), and possessives (e.g. Gods in Gods Wonderful Church).

The studies that have examined church posters in Ghana signal that the religious

posters are imported communicative constructs, but they have not focused on

extensively studying the poster as a communicative artefact. Okyireh, Kankam,

and Opoku’s (2020) survey examined the poster as part of the resources that

attract viewers to churches and Awukuvi and Israel (2018) studied church

names as used on posters. Since both studies suggest that posters have

communicative functions, the present study proceeds to show how various

resources on posters are used to realise the communicative goal of the poster.

2.3 Theoretical Framework

2. 3.1 Approaches to text analysis

According to Hockett (1958), communication has undergone a couple of

changes as the years pass by and attention has been given to the particular

conversations, the discourse in question, the discourse community, and even the

participants involved in the conversation. Due to the rapid development of areas

of interest in language, several approaches to text analysis have emerged. Some

of these theories include systemic functional grammar (SFL), and critical

discourse analysis.


16

Systemic functional grammar (henceforth SFG) is a theory of linguistics that

claims language can be seen as a system of choices (Butt, 2000). Language users

choose from a network of options in order to create a text, whether that text is

written or spoken. What is then conveyed, the meaning of the text, is dependent

upon the choices made by the speaker from the options within the language

system (Halliday & Matthiessen, 1996; Teo, 2000).

In SFG, every act of language is an act of meaning. This emphasis on meaning

has been the most attractive feature of SFG. As Butler (2009, p. 69) points out,

SFG is a theory of language that strives “to account for how language enables

human beings to communicate with one another in the ways they do”. The

theory this study adopts (Multimodal) can be said to be a subset of SFG since

the analysis of textual components found on a multimodal text is usually done

along the line of SFG. This way, the underlying conception of SFG shapes the

study but SFG is not necessarily the framework used. SFG was not selected

because it does not give room for the analysis of visual images which is a part

of the objectives of this study. The text for the current study has no

conversational paradigm, neither is it solely a written text; rather, it is a

combination of verbal text and visual.

Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) is a theory which studies discourse to

unearth hidden ideologies and uneven display of power. According to Huckin,

Andrus, and Clary-Lemon (2012) “Critical discourse analysis is an

interdisciplinary approach to textual study that aims to explicate abuse of

power” (p. 107). Van Dijk (2001) posits that the way social power, abuse,

dominance, and inequality are ratified and resisted by texts and talk in social


17

and political context is what CDA is interested in. Power and ideologies are the

key concepts found in the theory.

CDA was not used for this study, because its interest lies in power and

ideologies, which is not the objective for this study. That is, power dynamics

are present in the use of posters, but the aim of the study is not basically to

outline such power play in religious posters.

2.4 Multimodal Discourse Analysis (MDA)

The study of multimodal discourse analysis (henceforth, MDA) came to the

limelight through the efforts of Barthes (1977) but several attempts have been

made to theorize the field. Kress and van Leeuwen (1996 p. 96) defined MDA

as “any text whose meaning is realized through more than one semiotic

resource.” This definition easily lends itself to an approach of multimodal

discourse analysis that finds out how the text and image interplay to mean. The

semiotic resources do not just interact to bring meaning, but they come together

to form layers. This means that one can analyse a multimodal artefact for its

layers of meanings and how they are broadly structured to realize the generic

communicative goal of the text in view. MDA can be used to analyse any

document one can think of; and when it does, it does not recognise just verbal

communicative means such as written texts, but rather all means of

communication, be it vocal, aural, and/or visuospatial.

Due to the flexible nature of the theory, scholars are able to theorize it to

different areas from the original theory which looked at the interactions of

language and image. Forceville in 1996 studied conceptualized multimodal

metaphor, situating it in cognitive linguistics. Martinec (2000) and O’Halloran

(2004) also added the multimodal discourse analysis from a systemic functional


18

grammar perspective. A number of scholars have applied this theory in different

areas of study. Prominent among them are Stanton (2011) and Ventola (2011)

(three-dimensional space), Hood (2011) and Knight (2011) (paralinguistic

features), Feng and O’Halloran (2012) (picture and comic books), Gu (2006;

2009), Painter, Martin, and Unsworth (2013) (situated discourse), Kress and van

Leeuwen (1996) (visual grammar). Visual grammar by Kress and Van

Leeuwen, which is part of multimodal discourse analysis, was selected as the

framework of the current study because it situates discourse as the centre of

attention and theorizes how verbal and visual symbols are used in discourse.

The present study focuses on the poster as a piece of language in use and

examines how the verbal and visual resources are used on the posters. Kress and

van Leeuwen’s theory appears to be suitable for such end.

2.4.1 Visual Grammar

Semiotic resources are different and hierarchically arranged elements which

combine into meaningful wholes for communicative purposes identified in the

functional grammars as ideational, interpersonal, and textual. Just as syntax

describes how morphemes, words, and phrases combine into clauses, sentences

and texts, images, and position of texts, combine to form visual ‘statements’

(Kress & Leeuwen, 2006). Creators of visual designs choose colours, images,

shapes, icons, etc. and through the logic of spatiality, organize arrangement and

simultaneously create higher visual elements for communicative purposes

(Kress & Leeuwen, 2003). Visual grammar is Kress and van Leeuwen’s (2003,

p. 119) attempt to account for the explicit and implicit knowledge and practices

around a resource, [a visual design] consisting of elements and rules underlying

a culture-specific form of visual communication.


19

In their account, Kress and van Leeuwen (2006) underscored the crucial role of

culture, the social group under study, as their shared knowledge of meanings to

which they put the various resources to underline their grammar. As a result, all

attempts at describing visual grammar and the grammar of any kind require

identification of the social group, the way and manner in which they construe

meaning, and how they have emerged to accept certain resources to entail

certain communicative functions. Thus, the visual grammar framework affords

one the opportunity to describe visual designs from a socio-semiotic perspective

so that the social group under study and the way it makes meaning of visual

resources will be explored and determined as their grammar.

By following Halliday’s ideational, interpersonal, and textual metafunctions,

Kress and van Leeuwen (2006) have identified three metafunctions of visual

design, classifying the visual grammar (VG) into representational, interaction-

modality, and compositional metafunctions. The application of the theory to the

description of any visual text will thus require a succinct definition of the social

group first and proceed from these classifications. In doing this, the study starts

“With the question what is the group? What are its practices?” and from there

attempting to describe the grammar at issue, rather than adopting an approach

which says ‘Here is our grammar; do the practices and knowledge of this group

conform to it or not?” (Kress & Leeuwen, 2006)

Another key tenet of visual grammar is the declaration of the autonomy of

visuals from verbal texts (Kress & Leeuwen, 2006). The common-sense

explanation that visual communication preceded verbal communication in the

development of communication system for humans is proof of its autonomy.

That is, visuals were used alone for communicative purpose even before the


20

development of verbal mode of communication. Therefore, “the visual

component of a text is an independently organized and structured message,

connected with the verbal text, but in no way dependent on it – and similarly

the other way round” (Kress & Leeuwen, 2006, p. 18).

1. Representational Function

The Representational function is one of the three functions of visuals and it

maps into the ideational metafunction. Halliday describes the ideational

function to be the use of semiotic resources to construe human experience

(Halliday & Matthiessen, 1996). Although Halliday’s conception appears to

favour verbal resources, his theory accommodates other semiotic resources

since resources such as visuals are like verbal resources, as they are meaning

potentials. Like the ideational function, Kress and Leeuwen’s (2006)

representational function explains interactions and conceptual relations between

participants. Representational function may either be narrative or conceptual. In

conceptual presentations, participant representations are captured in terms of

their class, structure or meaning.

Analytical Processes: This is a conceptual representation that considers

participants as forming a part-whole association. When what is represented is

part of a bigger representation, the parts are taken as attributes and the whole

becomes the carrier. A typical example will be a poster (see appendices)

showing the direction to a church. In this case, the poster is the whole, the carrier

whose parts are the individual suburbs or towns.

Classificational Process: The conceptual representations may be a process of

grouping represented participants. Through the positions on both horizontal and


21

vertical axis, the participants are seen to be forming different classes. From this,

when certain pastors or singers are place higher on the vertical axis, a

superordinate class is construed in comparison to those who are lower on the

same axis. It is from such an analytical framework that Ajibade (2012)

unearthed the hidden ideology of male dominance in the posters of some

Churches in Nigeria.

Symbolic Process: Represented participants may be on the posters to mean

something or someone else. That is, their meaning is beyond what they actually

are. In such cases, we identify a symbolic process where the participants signify

concepts, issues, and phenomenon other than themselves. Symbolic processes

will guide analysis of represented participants that seem out of place on the

posters. For example, interpreting the cargo ship full of cargo (see CCP 12 in

appendix) as a symbol of ‘divine supply’ which endorses the theme of “All

Sufficiency” will be an analysis of the entity as a symbol.

So far, I have discussed the conceptual representation of the representational

metafunction, I turn to discuss the narrative. The narrative representations

encode enwrapping of actions and events, processes of change, transitory

arrangements (Kress & Leeuwen, 2006). Narratives assumes that represented

participants make certain utterances, construe their experience and these acts

are extrapolated from vectors formed in body contacts, colour coding, lines,

gestures together with accompanying words. For example, a thought bubble that

emerges as a line from the head of a participant shows that the participant is

undergoing a thought process, he is construing his experience through a mental

process. Similarly, verbal processes are seen in speech bubbles that follow lines

emerging from the mouth of the speaker. In the present study, such vectors will


22

be examined. For instance, microphones raised to the mouth will be vectors that

signal a verbal process.

2. Interactional and Modality

Visuals show the interaction between represented participants and consumers.

The two main participants in all visuals, represented participants and interactive

participants, could be engaged in three basic relations: (1) the relations among

represented participants, (2) the relationship between represented and

interactive participants, and (3) the relationship between the interactive

participants. The analysis of the data will examine these relations through

contact, distance, and attitude. Based on the eye contact the participants

maintain with viewers, an interactional relation between the represented

participants and interactive participants. As it were, the represented participants

engage the viewers when they gaze at them. The meaning of the relation is

heightened when the participants maintain a smiling face. When the participants

gaze away from the viewers, they could be interacting, directing the viewers to

something in their (represented participants’) view.

The size of the frame of the image also construes social distance which is

expressed on a relative scale of intimacy (Kress & Leeuwen, 2006). This will

provide a frame for interpreting the varius sizes of images of represented

participants. Why do some posters prefer to represent only the head of the

participants while others prefer to represent all the body? The understanding

that ones closeness to an individual determines the part of the individual that

lies in reach in crucial to Kress and Leeuwen’s scale of intimacy. Therefore, a


23

long shot is interpreted as construal of distal relation since it is from a relatively

far perspective that the full body parts of individuals lay in view.

Modality refers to the conceptualizations of the degree of reliability of

messages, whether they are credible, real, authentic, factual, and true. It shows

whether a given proposition is true or not (Halliday & Matthiessen, 1996). By

observing colour saturation, colour differentiation, colour modulation,

contextualization, representation, depth, illumination, and brightness, one can

tell the degree of realness of the posters under study.

3. Compositional Metafunction

The Compositional metafunction concerns the arrangement of elements found

within the visual space as well as the emphasis given to the representational and

interactive elements that compose the meanings of an image or verbal text. This

metafunction comprises three elements namely information value, salience, and

framing (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006). Information value deals with the

placement of elements and their values attached accordingly. The left and right

arrangement represents given and new information, top and bottom arrangement

resembles ideal and real information, and centre and margin arrangement is also

discussed in respect of culture context (Hu & Luo, 2016; Kress & Leeuwen,

2006; Peijia, 2018). Salience, on the other hand, shows that a hierarchy of

importance exists among the elements which are created through a variety of

sizes, the sharpness of focus, tonal contrast, etc. Framing discusses the

relationship between the degree of connectedness and the significance of

individuality or differentiation (Hu & Luo, 2016).


24

Point of Departure

These functions afore-mentioned will serve as a framework for the analysis of

the visual designs. In the analysis, I first explore the data to identify

representational metafunctions, then interaction and modality. I do not pursue

compositional function of the posters. This is because the systems of

information framing, salience, and value are not clear enough a conception of

the composition of texts. Peijia (2018) has observed that very informative items

may be placed on the top left part of a visual design and argues that this does

not aptly determine the value of information. Also, the charismatic church

posters are mostly relatively small texts in terms of textual space. Though it is

likely for names of churches which are known to be placed at the top of the

posters, their value to the audience is not defined by that. In the first place, it is

sometimes hard to tell whether the expected audience know the church or not.

Thus, due to the issues with the compositional function, this study will not

attempt analysis via such understanding.

The present study will examine the posters to identify conceptual

representations. The represented participants will be observed to see whether

they are symbols, they represented classes, or are analytical processes. For

analytical processes, the study will look for constructs like maps that carry

attributes of parts. For symbolic representation, the study will investigate the

data to see whether the participants represent other things, ideas, concepts, or

phenomena. Since churches do not only use represented participants to denote

symbols, but signs, colours, artefacts, and animals such as the dove, cross and

blood may be used on posters for various religious symbolizations. The analysis

will examine how participants are placed on the poster to identify


25

classifications. How the participants are categorized will in itself communicate

to viewers. The analysis will not just identify the classes but will proceed to

give plausible explanations for why it is so. This is important in determining a

frame of reference for representing individuals on religious posters.

The study shall proceed to analyze the interaction and modality. The analysis

will consider contextualization as a very important marker of modality. If a

background context shows a church gathering, it adds to the degree of realness

of the poster because it shows what is very likely to occur.

2.6 Generic Structure of Print Advertisements

Generic structure potential was proposed by Halliday and Hasan (Halliday &

Hasan, 1985; Hasan, 1996). Yuen (2004) upgraded this theory which has been

embraced immensely for the analyses of print advertisement. It seems that, over

the years, Halliday and Hassan’s GSP has been used to describe only verbal

communication and does not take account of visual and non-verbal

communications. Scholars such as Ventola (1979), Slate (1994), Halliday and

Hasan (1985), and Ventola (1987) used this theory to analyze casual

conversation, gossip, and service encounter respectively.

In 2004, Cheong Yin Yuen’s generic structure of print advertisements

(henceforth, GSP) was used to determine the major elements and also identify

the constructed ideational meaning in advertisements (Yuen, 2004). This has

been embraced over that of Halliday and Hasan since Yuen’s theory broadens

the horizon by adding visual and non-verbal communication. Though this

theory entails a lot, the arrangements of elements in terms of obligatory and

optional elements are the only sections that are of interest to this study. The


26

tenets that will help in establishing a grammar for print advertisement as

proposed by Yuen are explained below:

(1) Lead

The Lead is an obligatory visual element which is “interpersonally most salient

through choices in size, position and/or colour” (Yuen, 2004, p. 165).

Display

The display, on the other hand, refers to the visual display of the product or

service in the poster which may be overt or covert (Oyebode & Unuabonah,

2013) or either “explicit where a concrete, tangible product is shown or implicit

where it is not or where there is no tangible product to display, e.g. many

services” (Yuen, 2002, p.171 as cited by Eskens, 2014).

(2) The Emblem

The emblem is another obligatory element which must be present in all ads, and

it is realized visually by the logo of the product/service and linguistically by the

brand name of the product/service (Yuen, as cited by Eskens, 2014).

(3) Announcement

The Announcement is a non-obligatory element. The name of the event is

usually the announcement. This is captured as the title which informs the

audience that the event is either an outreach, a conference, a crusade, or a

summit.

(4) The Enhancer

The enhancer in the data usually gives further information or clarifies the

message in the Announcement in general.


27

(5) Tag

Pieces of information about a product or service that the Enhancer fails to

capture are found in the Tag. In this study, Tag is an additional information that

is said to be the last thing the audience reads (Yuen, 2004) and it carries a

persuasive element which dawns on the emotions of audience as to what they

will gain when they partake in the event. The Tag is realized in written text in

the form of imperative and declarative sentences.

(6) Call-and-Visit information

The Call-and-Visit information is a non-obligatory move. It usually contains

additional information about a product or service. It is basically contact

information, such as an address, telephone number, and venue, which serves as

additional information to viewers (Yuen, 2004).

Yuen (2004) states that quite a number of the elements are non-obligatory,

because advertisement as a genre usually changes, adapts to new trends in the

environment, and has dynamic adaptability. GSP may be captured as Lead^

(Display) ^Emblem^

(Announcement) ^ (Enhancer) ^ (Tag) ^ (Call-and-visit-information). The

elements that are found within the brackets are optional elements while those

outside the brackets are said to be obligatory elements. The elements mentioned

herein will be of immense importance to the current study, as they will serve as

a guide in establishing a grammar for charismatic church programme posters.

The features of each of the GSP discussed in this chapter will be re-examined,

as they will be applied to the charismatic church programme posters analysis in

Chapter Four.


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2.7 Situating the Study

The choice of multimodal discourse analysis as the theoretical framework for

this study is because of its ability to analyze a number of elements that come

together to create meaning within a particular text. Language is seen not as the

only medium of communication but one of the lot. Other mediums such as

images, pictures, colours, positions of elements etc. are also accounted for as

meaning-making avenues (Kress & van Leeuwen, 1996). This makes it possible

for various elements employed in the composition of posters to be analyzed.

Therefore, it is found as the best alternative for studying posters. However, this

study does not adopt this theory in its entirety because the focus of this study

does not cover all the elements that make the theory but selected elements. The

elements that will be the focus of the research are images, textual presentations,

and the meanings they contribute. Again, the analysis of this study emphasises

on the grammar that these posters create and no theory could better help than

Yuen’s generic structure of print advertisement (GSP) therefore this study

adopted it.


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CHAPTER THREE

METHODOLOGY

3.0 Introduction

Chapter Three is a discussion of methodological approaches used for the study.

The chapter discusses how the study was conducted, and how the data were

obtained and analysed. Specifically, the research design, population, sample

size and sampling technique, coding of the data, as well as data analysis

procedure are discussed.

3.1 Research Design

The mixed methods design was used for this study. There are three main

approaches of conducting a research. These are the qualitative approach, the

quantitative approach, and the mixed methods approach (Tashakkori & Teddlie,

2003). The qualitative approach observes phenomenon naturally and aims at

providing explications from the observations. Typically, the qualitative design

involves careful and long duration observation of a phenomenon. It has been

argued that this approach is best suited for the social sciences because it allows

researchers to carry out observation of human behaviour. The advantages of

using this method include the chances for the observer to provide a detailed

explanation of a phenomenon, but this approach is not selected for the study.

Whereas the interpretation of the posters, the meanings of the semiotic resources

draws on the qualitative methods, the study also requires highly objective

quantitative methods such as frequency distributions of choices to determine the

generic structure potential of the posters. therefore, the mixed method is most

suited for this study.


30

For the current study, a mixed approach is crucial because it will help me to

answer the research questions of the study. The mixed methods approach is used

to describe the blend between qualitative and quantitative methodologies in a

single study (Bamfo & Atara, 2013; Bryman, 2006).

The study focuses on describing in detail the semiotic modes present in the

charismatic church advertisement posters. Thus, the qualitative approach was

used in carefully investigating the modes that are present on the artefacts. Using

only numerical values could not help in providing an explanation for the modes

present on the posters.

In order to establish the pattern typical of posters, it appeared necessary that

quantitative approaches be used, so that the generic moves identified could be

established either as optional or obligatory. These obligatory moves could only

be objectively established through numerical measurements. Further, the

grammatical patterning of the generic moves could not be well established

unless there was objective measurement of the patterns on the various posters

studied. Thus, the quantitative approach calls for a representational sample of

the posters whose generic move patterns could be measured with the aim to

generalize the grammar of charismatic church posters. In brief, there could have

been much difficulty in establishing the grammar of the posters, should the

qualitative methods have been used.

3.2 Population, Sample, and Sampling Technique

The population comprised the posters of all charismatic churches in Ghana.

Accra was taken as the research site because of the common knowledge that

majority of the headquarters of all charismatic churches are situated in Accra.

That is, the most prestigious branches of charismatic churches arguably are their


31

headquarters, and since such branches are found in Accra, it appeared

appropriate to study posters from such branchesAlso, among public bill boards

on major streets, charismatic church programme posters seem to dominate

religious advertisements.

The purposive sampling technique was used to select twenty churches out of an

uncountable number of charismatic churches in Accra. For the purposes of

currency, the posters studied were those publicised from 2016 to 2017. The

purposive sampling method was used in sampling posters for the analysis. It has

been noted that, in establishing standards for a language, the prestigious variety

is selected and studied (Ferguson, 1997). In establishing the grammar of the

charismatic church programme posters, I purposively selected ten churches that

are considered popular or well-known and ten other churches that are considered

as somewhat popular.

These well-known churches are headed by famous pastors like Mensah Otabil,

Dag Haward Mills, Kakra Baiden, Sam Korankye Ankrah, Bernard Elbernard,

Eastwood Anaba, R. Obeng and Charles Agyinasare. Ten posters, one for each,

were therefore selected from advertisements carried out by the branches these

founders attend. The other ten posters were also selected from the somewhat

popular churches, and this was done in order to have a fair representation of the

findings.

3.3 Data Analysis Procedure

For easy identification, the data was coded. The code for each data was

Charismatic Church Programme (CCP, for short) and this code was followed by

a number tag (for example, CCP I, CCP 2…CCP 20).


32

At the first section of the analysis, the data was analysed using qualitative

approach to identify and describe the modes that are present on the posters.

Visual grammar was the analytical tool used. Again, this section looked at the

components of each semiotic mode identified

The second section further analysed the data using the Generic Structure of Print

Advertisement (GSP). The creation of a grammar/ pattern for the posters was

established based on the frequency of occurrence of each of the generic moves.

3.5 Conclusion

This chapter has looked at procedures used in conducting this study. The

chapter has highlighted the research design, population, sample and sampling

techniques, and data analysis procedure of the study. Chapter Four would

analyse the data and discuss the results.


33

CHAPTER FOUR

ANALYSIS AND DISSCUSSION

4.0 Introduction

This chapter is the analysis and discussion of data collected. The chapter

describes the grammar of charismatic church programme posters. The modes

used on the posters are first analyzed. This is followed by the manner in which

the modes combine to communicate. The analysis is followed by discussions

intended to relate the findings of the current study to existing studies.

4.1.1 The Semiotic Modes Used in Charismatic Church Posters

Information was presented in the posters through verbal and visual modes. The

verbal mode is represented by written texts comprising the name of the church,

programme, invitation, date, venue, and the theme while the visual mode

comprises images, colours, and elevated texts. This section analyzes and

discusses the results, starting with the verbal mode.

A. Verbal Mode

The objective of the analysis here is to describe the nature and function of

linguistic resources in the grammar of charismatic church programme posters.

Linguistic resources are ranked hierarchically from the morpheme, word, group,

to the clause. According to Halliday and Matthiessen (1996), the clause is the

basic unit of exchange; however, words and groups do have communicative

potentials. The analysis in this sub-section keeps in view this hierarchy and

communicative potentials. I observed that the posters used words, groups, and

clauses at various levels for different communicative purposes. In terms of

organization, words (which are used to communicate essential information such


34

as details of the event, names churches, represented participants) are first

analyzed as word-level representation of verbal texts.

a. Word

Words signal essential information relating to the venue, time, contact, and the

theme events. These words which are mostly nouns (Date, Time, Venue,

Contact and Theme) are followed by the specific date(s), time, and contact of

key persons, venue, and theme of the event (e.g. 1). Since the words are

followed by colons, it is possible to analyze these as reduced clauses. The date

for this event is …; the time for this event is …; the venue for this event is … are

good paraphrases for such. This analysis would follow Dada’s (2018) argument

that charismatic church programme posters reduce clauses perhaps to provide

textual space for other information. However, instead of words, most of the

posters (see CCP 3, 5, 7, 9, 10, 12, 14, 15, 18, 19) use either icons representing

time, venue, date, contact (e.g. 2, snapshot of CCP 5) or write the detail of the

event without any signals (as seen in e.g. 3, snapshot from CCP 16).

1.

2.

3.


35

There is a diversity in how details are signaled. The posters may use words as

signals (example 1), prefer icons (example 2) or may not signal the details at all

(example 3). This also highlights the presence of choices in signal of detail and

shows that over time, what signals a detail can be eliminated and meaning of

the text will not be severely impacted. When they are present, the resources used

to signal details usually precede the specific detail (e.g., Venue: SDA

Conference Hall) and hardly succeed the detail. The signal and detail cannot be

interchanged (as in SDA Conference Hall: Venue). The observation that words

are restricted to certain positions to realise specific functions on the posters

contributes to the response for the first research question which aims at

identifying the meaning making resources used on the posters and how they are

used to mean.

In addition to the use of words to signal details of events, charismatic church

programme posters use words to specify the profiles of represented participants.

The place the participants hail from (e.g., Ghana, U.S.A., UK, South Africa –

e.g. 6), their role in the event (Speaker – e.g. 4), relationship with the event

(Host, Guest – e.g. 5), and relationship to the church (General Overseer – e.g.

5) are profile details encoded through words.

4.


36

5.

6.

7.

‘Speaker’ (a role-denoting term) and ‘Host’ (a relationship-to-event denoting

term) are used to profile the represented participants in example 4. ‘General

Overseer’, a compound noun that shows the participant’s relation to the church

is used together with ‘Host’ and ‘Speaker’ to profile participants in example 5.

Names of countries the participants are based, UK, U.S.A., South Africa, and


37

Ghana also describe the participants in example 6. In example 7, ‘Host’ and

the place the guest is based (U.S.A.) describe the participants.

Words relate somewhat with visuals to profile participants. From the examples

(4 -7), the designers of the posters use colours, font types, and styles to designate

similarities in the category of words. In example 6, the position, and bold fonts

of the words that denote place of origin show that these words are offering the

same kind of profile description information in the text. Since visuals are used

to signal similarities in the kind of details presented, it is possible to determine

agreement relations in the choice of descriptive terms. That is, the choice of a

relationship to event term (e.g. 7 Host) for one participant appears to require a

word in the same category (i.e. Guest) to describe other participants. In example

6, at the same position (i.e., beneath the names of the participants), with the

same fonts (upper case, bold), the descriptive words U.S.A., UK, GHANA, and

SOUTH AFRICA agree as place-denoting category of words.

There seems to be a mismatch between the semantic class of words some posters

used to profile participants. For examples 4 and 5, the pairing of role-related

description (Speaker) with a relation-to-event term (Host) at the same places,

with same font styles creates a disagreement in the descriptive terms used. That

is, since the participant profile term, Speaker, encodes the activity the individual

will perform in the event, the grammar of most posters suggests a requirement

of related descriptive terms like ‘listener’ and ‘Music by’ to ensure agreement.

Example 7 also shows a mismatch: Guest would have been preferred as a

classification pair for Host but not U.S.A., a description of the place as a match

for Host, which is a description of the individual’s relation to the event. Aside

from adding that words are semiotic resources are used to profile participants,


38

the observation here also highlights the tendencies of deviation from the use of

words that might distort the meaning the designers intend to communicate.

From the results, one participant may be profiled with a word and others will

not be profiled by similar descriptive words. For instance, the General Overseer

profile describes one participant but there is no counterpart of such term to

describe the other participant. Awukuvi and Israel’s (2018) observation that

charismatic churches thrive on the charisma of the originating leader could be

the reason for the tendency for a descriptive word to be given solely to the

founder and not the other represented participants (see CCP 12, Bishop and Rev

Mrs. Agyin-Asare [FOUNDERS]). Also, considering that mostly all

represented participants speak at the events, the descriptive term, Speakers, may

be used as a general description to avoid mismatches in the choice of terms to

profile participants (see CCP 16). Therefore, in answering the first research

question, the finding here highlights underlying meaning potential of

descriptive words and shows tendencies of potential barriers in using such

potentials to communicate certain meanings.

In terms of the arrangement of these lexical items in relation to other lexico-

grammatical resources, words that signal detailed information, unlike those that

profile participants, have a fixed position. The descriptive words profiling the

participants may either precede (Host: Rev Clement Anchebe) or proceed the

name of the participant (Archbishop Nicholas Duncan William [Host] – e.g. 7).

The availability of choice is seen in the use of words to profile participants

which is contrary to the use of words to signal details. This shows how the

resources are differently combined to make meaning on the posters.


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Lastly, words are used as titles of participants. The titles used include Apostle,

Archbishop, Bishop, Dr, Minister, Pastor, Prophet, Rev, and Rev Dr. From the

20 posters studied, Rev emerged as the most frequently used title (see Table 1

below).

Table 1: Distribution of Titles

Title Poster Number

Apostle CCP 10, CPP 11 2

Archbishop CCP 4, CCP 12 2

Bishop CCP 4, CCP 12, CCP 16, CCP 20 4

Dr. CCP 10, CCP 12 2

Minister CCP 2, CCP 3 2

Pastor CCP 3, CCP 5, CCP 14, CCP 15, CCP 20 5

Prophet CCP 10, CCP 11 2

Rev CCP 2, CCP 7, CCP 12, CCP 13, CCP 15, CCP

16, CCP 17, CCP 18 , CCP 19

9

Rev Dr CCP 3, CCP 12 2

I take interest in the use of Dr as a title on some posters (see Rev Dr Peter

William Nyamekye in example 5 above). It is used on four posters, which is

relatively higher compared to the frequency of use of purely religious

designations like Apostle and Archbishop, which are used only twice. I think

this use of Dr highlights the recent interest of charismatic church leaders in

academic titles, or perhaps their interest in pursuing further education to enrich

their knowledge. In any case, a pastor who has obtained a doctorate could be

associated with depth in knowledge. Archbishop and Bishop are also less often


40

used because they reference highest ranked individuals in the discourse

community. Their use, therefore, could promote the event, since individuals will

be happy to see the highest ranked individual at the event. The observation of

rhetorical uses of titles leads to the two discourse functions of words I deduced

from the analysis of words so far.

From the results, the classification function emerges as one discourse function

of words on the posters. Words classify participants. Descriptive words may

categorize local from non-local participants (example 6). I observed that when

all represented participants are based in Ghana, place is not a preferred

description (example 4 and 5), even if they are from different regions of Ghana.

However, when some of the participants are not locally based, place becomes

an important descriptive term. Also, titles classify represented participants.

Since titles denote ranks, their use distinguishes the participants. Embedded in

the classification role of words is the promotional discourse function.

Representing non-local participants could promote the program as being of

international repute, which could attract Ghanaians who have been reported as

having special taste for foreign goods such as foreign clothes (Amankwah,

Howard, & Sarpong, 2012), imported products (Opoku & Akorli, 2009), and

accent (Meyer, 1998; Shoba, Dakom & Orfson-Offei, 2002).

b. Group

The noun group is the most typical group of words used on the posters of the

charismatic churches. The noun group is used to offer information relating to

the name of the church, the theme of the event, and the name of the event.


41

Naming Churches

For names of the churches, the noun group is a proper noun. The head nouns of

the noun groups that name churches are Chapel (9 of them), Ministries (4),

Church (2), Centre (1), Altar (1) and Family (1). The frequent uses of ‘chapel’

to label charismatic churches differentiates the second wave of charismatic

movement from the first wave. The first wave includes denominations which

prefer ‘Church’ as a label, e.g. Baptist Church, Apostolic Church, Church of

Pentecost (see Afful & Tekpetey, 2017 for list) but from the data, the second

wave charismatic churches prefer ‘Chapel’ to distinguish themselves from the

‘pentecostal’ churches.

Nouns which designate the distinctive names of the churches were used as

premodifiers of the head nouns. These nouns include Royalhouse, Perez,

Lovegate, El-kana, and Lighthouse. They attribute special qualities to the

church.

Postmodifiers of the head nouns are space-denoting nouns. From the data,

International and Worldwide are often used as postmodifiers in the noun group.

Since International and Worldwide symbolize the span of spread of the church,

it appears that these churches locate their sphere of influence as global, even

when they have only one branch.

Framing Events

The name of the events is realized by the noun group. These noun groups

include All Sufficiency Conference, Dying to Self-Conference, Easter

Convention, and Marriage Summit. The head noun is usually an abstract

conception of gathering, such as convention, summit, and retreat. Using these


42

nouns suggests that the target audience is expected to understand that the poster

invites them to a social gathering. The kind of social gathering involved is,

however, specified by the pre-modifiers, which are represented by examples

like

Marriage in Marriage Summit

Easter in Easter Convention

Holy Ghost in Holy Ghost Convention

Eagles in Eagles Conference

Divine in Divine Encounter

All Sufficiency in All Sufficiency Conference

Dying to self in Dying-to-Self Conference

It is noted from these examples that pre-modifiers may reference a specific

religious event such as Easter or describe the specific area of need the program

hopes to offer solution such as Marriage.

The names of the events are presented as very crucial information on the posters.

The nominal groups realizing names of events usually take bigger fonts, brighter

colours either as the theme or the name of the event highlighted more than the

themes. “Font or typography exists to honor content” (Bringhurst, 2004, p. 19),

as it indicates seriousness attached to a specific meaning-making potential

(Samara, 2007). From the collage in Figure 2, event names like Convention of

Saints, Financial Empowerment Summit, Eagles Conference, Miracle

Marriage Retreat, the Light 2017 Pastors and Leaders Conference, All

Sufficiency Conference, Youth Week are variously highlighted through

relatively bigger fonts and brighter colours.


43

Figure 2: Prominence of Noun Groups that Frame Events

This makes the names of events an important part of the grammar of the

charismatic church programme posters. Since they are often one of the most

salient verbal texts, they can be analyzed as the topic or subject of the

multimodal artefact. From such analysis, the themes can be seen to be about

these named events. That is, though the noun groups that name events are

meaningful wholes, they relate with other verbal resources.

Themes of Events

Themes were often signaled by words and realized by the noun group. For a few

posters, the names of the events were thematic enough to prevent a use of

themes. That is, the theme and name of the event merge (CCP 10, 13 and 18).

The collage in Figure 3 exemplifies this

Figure 3: Merging Theme and Name of Event


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These posters use the nouns that typically denote gathering (Crusade, Retreat),

which suggest name of the event but add premodifiers that suggest the subject

the event will address. From the poster on the right, there is a plausible

interpretation that the subject of the crusade will be a call to Abura-Konkonuru

to live for Christ.

For most of the posters, the themes were separately conceptualized from the

names of the events. Table 2 gives examples of noun groups used to give the

theme of the event.

Table 2: Noun groups used to name the g theme of the event

No. Poster Premodifier Head Postmodifier

A. Liberty in the spirit to impact our world

B. Next Move

C. Battle of the Gods

D. Yonder Heights

E. Power Of the Alter

F. Ministry Of the Holy Spirit

G. Keys to unlocking your financial wells,

wealth and wisdom

H. Double Portion

As Table 2 shows, the heads of the noun group that states the theme are mostly

nouns denoting properties that individuals can attain such as ‘liberty’, ‘power’,

and ‘keys’. These properties are, however, general and necessitate the frequent

use of modifiers for specifications. The premodifiers which were adjectives

quantify the expected property the audience will acquire. For example, Double


45

Portion and Yonder Heights (e.g. D and H) quantify ‘portion’ and ‘heights’

respectively. Post-modifiers which were prepositional phrases often indicate the

source of the property denoted by the head of the noun group. For example, Of

the Altar (e.g. E) shows the source of Power, In the Spirit shows the source of

Liberation (e.g. A). The post-modifier may also show the kind of property. In

the noun group Keys to Unlocking your Financial wells, Wealth and Wisdom,

the underlined post-modifier indicates the type of Keys by designating its

function.

The collage in example 11 is an example of noun groups used to realise the

theme of the event.

Figure 4: Themes and Names of Events

From the data, noun groups used as the theme are often placed closer to the

theme (see Figure 4). In some cases, the name of the church, title of the event,

theme of the event, date, time, and venue form one single clause. This is

exemplified in CCP 2 (see Appendix A) as follows:


46

8. EXPLOSIVE CHAPEL INTERNATIONAL Presents A 7 DAY

EASTER CONVENTION on the theme “COME NOW AND LET

US REASON TOGETHER, SAITH THE LORD” (Isaiah 1:18).

It can be seen from the discussion so far that the groups used as meaning-making

resource on charismatic church posters are noun groups. They are used to name

the charismatic churches, frame the events, and state the theme of the event. The

analysis has shown that the heads of the noun groups that reference the title of

the event denote gathering (convention, summit, crusade), while those that

reference the theme denote resources (keys) that the clients may need.

SENTENCE

The only sentence type found in the posters was the imperative. However, it

must be mentioned that sentences are not commonly used in the posters we

examined. Indeed, among the twenty posters studied, only two such occurrences

are noted. The sentences we observed are presented below:

9. Come and experience the power of the Alter (CCP 8)

10. To support, please call or WhatsApp +23305*** (CPP 10)

In both cases, the independent clauses are imperative. The use of the imperative

signals that the viewers are directly being spoken to by the posters. Whereas

example 12 invites viewers to the event, example 13 directs viewers to a contact

detail.

We will end this section by noting that, in answer to the first research question:

“What are the semiotic modes used in charismatic church posters and the

meanings the modes communicate?” the following findings were made:


47

a) The word, the group, and the sentence are the three verbal resources used

on the posters. In terms of frequency, the group which usually designates

name of the church, title of event, and theme of the event is the most

frequently used verbal resource.

b) The group is also used quite often on the posters to signal details and

profile participants. Clauses are rarely used on the posters.

c) The only sentence type used is the imperative. The first sentence

contained two independent clauses which are directives. The second

sentence contained one independent and one dependent clause. As

noted, the independent clause is also a directive. In other words, both

sentences contain clauses whose primary communicative function is to

give directives to the viewers.

Discussion: Verbal Resources Used on Charismatic Church Posters (CCPs)

Verbal resources used in the design of charismatic church programme posters

(CCPs) are words, groups, and clauses. In terms of frequency, the results of the

study show that words and groups are more frequently used than clauses. These

words and phrases are used for referential purposes and they combine to

exchange information about the name of the church, the name of the event, and

invitation details. Since the unit of exchange in grammar is mostly the clause

(Halliday & Matthiessen, 1996), this is a special use of words and groups.

Tamumobelema and Aikoriogie’s (2018) observation that the use of referential

elements to exchange information aids persuasion by reducing the time needed

to process a clause is confirmed by the results of this study. That is, instead of

using a clause such as that in example 12 (repeated as 15) to communicate the


48

central message of the events, the designers use referential elements, words, and

groups which are relatively easy to process.

11. EXPLOSIVE CHAPLE INTERNATIONAL Presents A 7 DAY

EASTER CONVENTION on the theme “COME NOW AND LET

US REASON TOGETHER, SAITH THE LORD” (Isaiah 1:18).

Also, it shows that CPPs primarily seek to give information since the words and

groups are used to offer vital information about the programme to viewers.

Since sharing information is central to its needs, words such as date, theme, and

contact are used as signals to direct the target audience to the information they

intend to share.

CCPs use words to signal detailed information, to profile participants, and as

names of represented participants. The words “Venue”, “Date”, “Time”, and

“Contact” are sometimes used on charismatic church programme posters

(CCPs) to draw the attention of audience to specific details. When these words

are used, they have modestly elevated style and fonts to draw viewers’ attention.

In their place, icons signifying these details are sometimes used. From the

analysis, the frequent use of words to profile participants appears as an essential

part of CCPs. There are traces of evidence from the analysis to support the

understanding that verbal texts do highly combine with visual acts in meaning-

making (Bateman, 2008, 2014; Bateman & Schmidt, 2012; Jewitt, 2014d; Kress

& Leeuwen, 2003, 2006; Norris, 2013; O‘Halloran, 2011) because the words

denoting profiles of participants are distinguished through visual resources.

The profile of the participants is defined by their role in the event (speaker,

singer), their relationship to the church that is organizing the events (hosts,

guests), and their place of origin (Ghana, U.S.A.). For the last category, the


49

results show that only countries were used to profile participants so that posters

whose participants were all Ghanaians do not use such profiling. This confirms

the observation that charismatic churches are overly concerned with being

recognized as ‘international’ (Awukuvi & Israel, 2018). The results further

show that the profiles, ‘General Overseer’ and ‘Founder’, are used to exorcise

leaders of charismatic churches (which confirms a similar finding of Dada,

2018), display power dynamics among represented participants (as Ajibade,

2012 found in studying posters of Nigerian churches), and attract the attention

of viewers through the charisma of the founding leaders (as Tamumobelema &

Aikoriogie, 2018 have observed). The results reflect the choice and arrangement

of names in Ghana. Specifically, Christian names come first, followed by an

indigenous family name. The observation that ‘Rev’ is the most frequently used

title (used 11 times out of 29 titles) and the less frequent use of others, especially

‘prophet’ (2 times), which is used in the charismatic space in Ghana, is

surprising.

From the analysis, the noun groups are used basically to name churches and

events, and state the theme of the events. In naming churches, “Chapel” serves

as the head of the noun group of charismatic church programme posters in most

cases. “Ministries” (4 instances) and “Church” (2 instances) followed. The

observation that charismatic churches in Ghana deviate from the use of ‘church’

as the headword of the noun group is noted by Tamumobelema and Aikoriogie

(2018), who mentioned that such is done to “match and identify their

(charismatic churches) motive and identity” and to ‘catch’ attention. But

juxtaposing them by churches like the Roman Catholic Church, Methodist

Church, Anglican Communion, and Presbyterian Church, I suggest the naming


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is strategic. As I have argued, these churches in their rhetoric constantly show

their deviation from the churches they ‘broke away’ from. Therefore, labelling

themselves as ‘chapel’ which is a synonym of ‘church’ connotes the same space

of worship and denotes their difference from the traditional. The observation of

the emergence of terms such as ‘Altar’ and ‘Family’ (as seen in the results)

indicates another face of spread of churches. New churches emanating from

second wave charismatic churches will obviously not prefer the term ‘chapel’.

The use of nouns which are names of the churches as modifiers of the

headwords is worthy of consideration. Since the headwords (e.g. Chapel,

Church, Ministries) are generic, premodifiers distinguish them into the kind of

ministries or chapels they are. Also, some churches coin new words as the

premodifiers. Lovegate and Royalhouse are coinages which give specific names

to the churches, designating the place as a place of entry for love and a home

for royals respectively. This could attract viewers who are in need of the ‘love’

or ‘royalty’. Perez and El-Kana as premodifying nouns are metaphorical, as

they relate to settings in the bible. Some churches used adjectives (Charismatic,

Fresh, Explosive) as premodifiers. Charismatic obviously defines their origin,

belief, and practices. Postmodifiers are space-denoting expressions that show

the span of the spread of the church’s influence. Tamumobelema and Aikoriogie

(2018) have noted that though some of these churches have just one branch in

Ghana, their choice of international space-denoting qualifiers, betrays their

aspiration for global worshiping spaces. In addition to that, I think this is a

rhetorical process the churches use to attain members from Ghanaians who are

noted for their taste for foreign resources.


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The results reveal that there is much investment in terms of linguistic resources

in naming of churches. Okyireh, Kankam, and Opoku’s (2020) finding that

church branding influences audience decision to be members of the church is

not farfetched. However, when they clearly state that “signages … do not

influence church participation,” they ignore their definition of branding: the use

of logo, signs, symbols and names of churches to differentiate churches. Noun

group is used in labelling events and themes. The heads of the noun groups for

names of events usually refer to convergence of people. These are often

premodified by nouns and/or adjectives that show the kind of convergence (e.g.

Holy Ghost in Holy Ghost Convention).

The final use of a noun group is to refer to the theme of the event. From the

results, the headwords of noun groups realizing themes can be grouped into

three, following Dada (2018): those depicting spiritual warfare (Battle, Liberty,

Power), higher life in Christ (Keys, Heights, Portion), and supernatural

transformation (Ministry, Move). Unlike the nominal groups used for the

various communicative functions, those used to state the theme of the events

often use postmodifiers to assure victories in the spiritual warfare (Battle of the

Gods, Liberty in the spirit to impact our world), to define highlife as a total

package of prosperity and general wellbeing (Keys to unlocking your financial

wells, wealth and wisdom). The results of this study corroborate the findings of

Dada that charismatic churches employ warfare-related concepts to construct

themes of events. Moreover, the results show that the themes of the events (and

sometimes names of events) usually have the biggest font sizes and are centered

and emboldened – taking prominent visual features. Giving themes prominence

is essential, as it underscores why the advertisement is placed. That is, it


52

highlights the event which the viewers are called to. Giving prominence to

themes and sometimes names of events affirms Brighurst (2004) assertion that

variations in font are useful resources for ‘honouring’ content. It is possible for

a poster to combine both the theme and the name of the event but this was found

only in few cases.

B. Visual Mode

This section analyses the form, meaning, and function of visual resources used

in the grammar of charismatic church posters. Kress and Van Leeuwen’s (2006)

visual grammar guides this analysis. Their model identifies three metafunctions

of the visual act: representational, interactional-modality, and compositional. I

first analyze the representational metafunction and proceed to the interactional-

modality. The compositional metafunction will not be considered in this study.

As I have argued in line with Peijia (2018), the framework that defines a

function of a semiotic resource based on its information value, salience and how

it is framed needs to be reviewed. I do not intend to show that placing a pastor

on the right or left side of the poster communicates certain information. Again,

colours will not be considered as there are differences in the interpretations of

colours from society to society.

1. Representation: Narrative and Conceptual

Visual acts represent interactions and conceptual relations between the entities

on the posters who are generally referred to as represented participants. Visual

acts use vectors which are equivalents of ‘action verbs’ to designate interactions

and relations (Kress & Leeuwen, 2006). The presence or absence of vectors

defines two types of representations: narrative and conceptual, respectively.

Narratives represent “unfolding actions and events, processes of change,


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transitory spatial arrangements” whereas conceptual representations construe

“participants in terms of their class, structure or meaning in terms of their

generalized are more or less stable and timeless essence” (Kress & Leeuwen,

2006, p. 59). A vector is a shape formed from gestures, body contacts, lines that

define unfolding actions, events and processes. Among the six narrative

processes—action (actor, goal, phenomenon), reactional (reactor,

Phenomenon), speech (Sayer, Utterance), Mental (Senser), Conversion (Relay),

and Geometrical Symbolism (absence of participants, only a vector).

In the posters we studied, only the Action and Verbal processes are used by the

CCPs under study.

Action Process

Action process is the dominant narrative process of the posters and it was used

by 13 posters (CCPs 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 10, 12, 14, 15, 16, 18, and 19). For action

processes, the leaders are presented as actors who perform actions represented

by a vector. That is, participants are seen as doing something and vectors such

as participant’s clothes, body contacts, and horizontal/diagonal lines show the

action they perform. In example 12 the shoulders of the participants create

vectors that connect to the participants to suggest that they are interactants in

the process. Because there are no participants aside from those who are linked

together by the vectors, the image shows that there are actors but the goal of

their action is not known. In such a case, the action is considered a non-

transactional action. The process involved is seen in the use of line vectors. The

theme, double portion, forms a vector as it connects to Jamie Ngwale (e.g. 12).

The process of presenting is, therefore, at play.


54

12.

13.

For example, 13, the hand of the participant creates a vector by connecting the

name of the event with the participant to show the process of presentation. Here

also, the goal is not known.

Vectors such as participant’s clothes, and body contacts link the represented

participants as interactors. The hand which joins the name of the event in 13,

for instance, creates a vector. Usually, the vectors originate from the host who

serves as the principal actor who connects the remaining participants as

interactors (see examples 12. The activity the actor engages in is generalized as


55

the presentation on the theme of the event and the other participants join the

host to that same end. Themes are positioned strategically in relation to actor

and interactors to imply the activity they will be engaged in. Like speech

bubbles and mental bubbles in dialogue boxes which signal mental and verbal

processes (Kress & Leeuwen, 2006), names/themes of events are placed in line

with the mouths of the hosts to provide clues to the implication that they will

engage in some kind of presentation.

Verbal Process

Verbal processes were also used on the posters. The hand of the participants,

when raised in the direction of their mouth with a microphone, creates the vector

that represents verbal process. I exemplify this with example 14, the

microphone in the hands of Pastor Dag Heward-Mills is a vector that construes

a speech process but the object of the speech is not overtly defined. His

description as a pastor suggests that he will make an oral presentation or

teaching/preaching. The last participant, Alicia, is also engaged in a speech

process but the object of speech is a song which is indicated by the profile

description “Music by”.

14.


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Action and Verbal Processes

The action and verbal processes may form a complex process. In example 14,

Pastor Dag Heward-Mill’s right hand forms a vector through its connection with

the right hand of Pastor Frank Barey. Pastor Frank Barey’s stretched left hand

forms a vector with “Cathedral of Praise” which links with Pastor David

Sumrall’s right hand. The clothes, shoulder, and hands of Sumrall also form a

vector that links Alicia Williamson Garcia. The point is that, the participants are

connected through vectors and become interactants. But the goal of the

interaction is not known; it is perceived to be the audience who will receive the

presentation. The verbal process of Alicia, which is to sing at the event, and the

implied verbal process of Dag, as a speaker, reveal that the participants are

interconnected as actors to engage in verbal processes.

a) Conceptual Representation

The conceptual representation, which is the second type of representation, has

three processes: classificational, analytical, symbolic (see Chapter Two for

discussion). When the participants on the poster are categorized, they form a

conceptual representation. From the data, the classificational and symbolic

conceptual representations are employed in the design of charismatic church

posters (CCPs). I will first analyze the classificational process.

I. Classificational Process

The classificational process refers to the overt or covert grouping of participants

and issues on the poster. When other participants accompany hosts, the

represented participants on all the posters were overtly classed. Hosts of events

are usually conceptualized as the highest rank (superordinate) on the posters.


57

Hosts are placed (1) at the centre of the text, with other participants, usually

invited guests, surrounding the hosts (see CCP1, 2, 12, 16); (2) elevated on the

same horizontal plane as the other participants (see CCP 10 & CCP 15); or (3)

at the top position in a diagonal arrangement of the participants (see CCP7 &

CCP19). There are few instances of multilevel classifications (Kress &

Leeuwen, 2006) on the posters (CCPs). In such classification, the host is

superordinate, guest pastors who are also ranked higher are taken as

interordinates, and other represented participants (from the church or from the

same locality where the event is organized) serve as subordinates. An example

of this is in 21.

15.

In example 15, Bishop and Rev Mrs. Agyinasare, who are centered, presented

in a bigger size than the remaining participants, and positioned higher than all

represented participants, occupy the highest level of the class of represented

participants1 (superordinate). Archbishop Duncan Williams and Dr. Mensah

Otabil, who are also placed on top of the two diagonal arrangements

respectively on the left and right, are classified differently, closer in terms of

1 The wife is also lower in rank than to the Bishop Agyinasare


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height to the host forming the interodinate class. Rev Steve Mensah, Rev. Dr.

Ampiah Kwofi, Bishop Tackie Yarboi, and Bishop Addae Mensah respectively

form lower to low class participants.

II. Symbolic process

The symbolic sub-type of conceptual function involves instances where certain

participants who ‘seem out of place’ represent a concept or an idea. What they

represent may be directly seen as an attribute of participant through some

qualities she or he carries. Some attributes may be suggested. That is, the carrier

of the attribute will imply a certain symbol.

Suggestive symbols are used on CCPs. Certain entities are put on the posters as

representation of the central message of the event. An example of such symbols

is the image of Jesus on the cross (CCP2) which represents the pain as well as

hope for the Christian, representing the “Easter Convention” message which

concerns the doctrine of man’s reconciliation with God through the death and

resurrection of Jesus. The army with spears and shield (CCP8) suggests the

release of reinforcement for a ‘supernatural engagement’, war on behalf of

individuals who will attend the event. For CCP 1, the theme of the event, “All

Sufficiency Conference,” is represented by the cargo ship in the background

that contains cargo which will provide sufficient resources.

In addition to images serving as symbols, the costume of the participants gives

the represented participants and the events a ‘businessman’ attribute. Most of

the participants are in shirts and tie, sometimes in suits, depicting business-like

qualities. For ten of the posters (CCP 1, 2, 5, 7, 8, 11,13, 15, 19, 20), an official

dress comprising a tacked in shirt, which may be accompanied by a jacket,


59

and/or a tie are the costume choice of all the participants. In the case of six of

the posters (CCP 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18), a few participants wore traditional

clothes and others wore ‘official’ dresses. It was only in three instances (CCP

4, 9 and 17) that participants wore traditional dresses. The dominance of the

formal dress presents the participants as functioning in a business-like position.

It also shows that charismatic churches have emulated the western way of life.

Since a fairly high number of posters had participants who wore both foreign

and local clothing, we can conclude that there is a blend of culture. It is

commonly known that the priesthood apparel is attributive of the office of the

wearer. This is, however, hardly worn by the participants. Only three

participants on three different posters (CCP 4, 12, 16) used the cassock. Two

possible reasons may explain this practice. These charismatic churches are

usually break-away churches. That is, the leaders usually depart from orthodox

and pentecostal churches to found their own churches. Some of these leaders

were not ordained priests before they founded their ministries and, as such, do

not identify the cassock as a marker of priesthood. Also, there is a thought that

charismatic churches are nothing but business institutions and the leaders’

dresses could be evidence in support.

As regards the representation function of the image act, two types of

representations have been found on charismatic church posters (CCPs). The first

is narrative representation and the second is conceptual representation. Out of

six narrative processes that Kress and Leeuwen, 2006 identified, only two

(action and speech) were found on the posters under study. The next section

analyzes the interaction-modality function.


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2. Interaction and Modality in Images

Represented participants – entities on the visual design – interact with the

viewers, interactive participants. Contact, social distance, and attitude are the

three systems that combine to create and maintain interaction. Contact is

expressed by gaze. The size of the frame (close shot, medium shot, and long

shot) expresses social distance (intimate, social, and impersonal). Attitude may

either be subjective or objective. When the images on the poster are presented

in a way that allows the viewer to perceive it from a defined perspective, the

attitude is subjective. The images are objective when everything about the

participants is shown so that the viewer has the liberty to view the participant

from the perspective, he (viewer) prefers. In addition to interaction, modality

which shows the degree of realness of the text through context and background

is also central in the creation and maintenance of interactions.

a) Contact

In all the posters, the represented participants gaze directly at the viewers, which

creates a connection between the represented participant and the viewers. The

participants in the collage (e.g. 16) look directly in the direction of the viewers.

That is, there is eye contact with the viewers.

16.


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By maintaining eye contact this way, a vector is created that refers to the

imaginary viewer as ‘you’. Their facial expression of “smile” suggests that “the

viewer is asked to enter into a relation of social affinity with them” (Kress &

Leeuwen, 2006). The gaze at the viewers further shows that the represented

requires the participants to relate with them to reach the objective set as a theme.

For a few posters, the participants’ gaze is indirect (e.g. 16 – CCP 13 & 14).

17.

They look away from the viewers which could me that they are offering the

interactive participants a chance to look at what they (the represented

participants) see or have experienced. That is, it serves as an offer to the viewers

though the content of the offer is unknown.

b) Social distance

The angle from which the shots are taken also shows the level of closeness

construed between the viewers and the participants. Physical distance which is

construed in terms of degree of proximity to an individual determines the part

of the individual that typically falls in his view and inputs the construal of social

distance. This defines the three main shots: (1) long shots where the greater part

of the body of the participant, from the head to the legs, shows; (2) short shots

where only the head of the participant shows and the (3) medium shots where

the chest and the head show. For the majority of the posters, the medium shot is


62

used to represent participants (CCP 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 18,

19, and 20).

For three of the posters (CCP 17, 14 & 8), the participants are presented in the

long shot to designate impersonal social relation (see example 18). Because one

has to be spatially distal to perceive the full body of an individual and since such

distance means the person viewed cannot be touched by the viewers, a distal

relation is construed in the use of long shots. For one poster (example 19), only

the head of the represented participant is presented, creating an intimate relation

with the interactive participants.

18.

19.


63

Modality: Contextual

Contextualization concerns the presence or absence of setting and its

contribution to the realness of the text. It shows modality by scalar

representation of detailed background (Kress & Leeuwen, 2006). The first

poster in Figure 5) uses the church gathering and a participant engaged in a

verbal process as the background. This naturally gives a sense of realness, as it

creates very well the background setting of the advertised event, a typical

religious gathering.

Figure 5: Modality

The second poster, the one on the left (CCP19), also has a high level of

modality, as it situates the event in a background of a huge gathering.

The background images of some posters create a metaphor of the theme.

Background images of the posters in Figure 5 are cases in point. These

background images are settings that reflect the themes: “all sufficiency

conference” has a cargo ship supplying what will make attendees ‘all sufficient’

(first figure on top left corner, Figure 5), the bright light in the background that

moves from the center creates a metaphorical context for the theme “The Light

2017” (second figure on top right corner), the palace-like structure creates a


64

metaphorical context for “His Excellency” since individuals addressed as such

dwell in palaces (first picture on the second role), and unless marriages are

miracles, it will be difficult for it to be evergreen, as the background of the last

poster in the collage shows.

Figure 6: Low Modality

These contexts, unlike those that are representations of actual Christian events,

are too real. In other words, though there might be the provision of themes, it is

never possible for all the needs of people to be sufficiently supplied by a cargo

ship.

Discussion of Visual Modes

Visual modes are used to enact two narrative processes of the representational

function: action and verbal processes. The verbal processes designate the

primary role of the represented participant: speaking and singing. This matched

the descriptive terms such as speaker and music by that was used to profile the


65

participants. The action process does not have an object but combines with the

verbal process and the presence and placement of the theme to suggest

presentation as the action process. This is the first study, to the best of my

knowledge, to have reported narrative processes used on charismatic posters.

There are conceptual representations on the CCPs. Represented participants are

classified. Hosts are usually the highest in rank among the participants. This

finding confirms Ajibade’s (2018) finding that participants are usually

distinguished by classes. The finding, however, contradicts that of Ajibade’s

since all the females represented on the posters are ranked higher than most of

the participants.

There are both attributive and suggestive symbols on charismatic church

posters. From the results, the represented participants’ business-like dress

makes them appear “more like a religious entrepreneur than a pastor” (Hackett,

1998). The background images conveyed symbols that reflected the themes of

the events. Images of religious gatherings were used as attributive symbols.

They symbolize massive religious gatherings. For some posters, the background

texts suggested the provision of the resources stated in the theme. These were

suggestive symbols.

Aside from the representational function of visual mode, visual modes realize

interaction and modality functions. The represented participants keep eye

contact with the viewers and smile to demand social interaction from the

viewers. Added to the fact that a social type of distance is created in the choice

of medium shot, CCPs employ visual resources to invite audiences to socialize

with the leaders. This observation relates to the absence of clauses that invite

participants in most of the posters; the visual grammar of the represented


66

participants uses interactive means to invite viewers. The results of the study

confirm Hou and Lou’s (2016) observation that facial expressions in visuals

lead the viewers to see what the represented participants see and feel the way

they also feel if they attend the advertised program; hence, viewers see the

possibility to relate with them.

Context also shows high modality for only two posters but mid modality for

most of the posters, and some have low modality. For the two, the church setting

with audience present is used as a background. This is realistic, as it defines

typical religious events. Most posters use metaphorical backgrounds that relate

to the theme of the event, showing some kind of possibility meaning. This

observation is important, and since those with high level modality brand their

churches in the background, the finding supports that of Okyireh, Kankam, and

Opoku (2020) that branding the church influences viewers interest to join the

church. Those in high level modality use context to differentiate themselves

from others.

4.3 Conclusion

We will end this discussion here by noting that this section sought to answer

research question one. This chapter analyzed and discussed the results of the

first research question which is to describe the grammar of charismatic church

posters. Words, groups, and clauses are verbal texts used on CCPs. Considering

the metafunctions representational and interactive-modality, the visual modes

have also been analyzed and discussed. It is clear from the analysis and

discussion that mostly, the visual modes support the key communicative load

of the verbal but in some cases, the reverse is also true.


67

CHAPTER FIVE

A GENERIC STRUCTURE ANAYSIS OF CHURCH POSTERS

5.0 Introduction

The final part of the analysis which answers the second research question uses

generic structure potential to describe the rhetoric of charismatic programme

posters.

5.1 The Generic Structure Potential (GSP) of Charismatic Church

Programme Posters

This chapter of the analysis is based on Yuen’s (2004) Generic Structure

Potential (GSP), which is devoted to stating clearly the pattern of arrangements

of each of the variables of GSP as found in the posters. The GSP for print

advertisement are Lead, Emblem, Announcement, Enhancer, Call-visit-

information and Tag.

The Lead is an obligatory visual element which is most salient through choices

in size, position, and/or colour. From our analysis, images (pictures of host

pastors) serve as the lead for the posters. The Emblem is another obligatory

element which must be present in all advertisements and it is realized visually

by the logo of the product/service and linguistically by the brand name of the

product/service. The name of the event is normally the Announcement. This is

captured as the title which informs the audience that the event is either an

outreach, a conference, a crusade, or a summit. The Enhancer usually gives

further information or clarifies the message in the Announcement in general.

The enhancer is represented in the posters as additional information that gives

more information about the announcement. The Tag is invariably presented as


68

one-liners in small print and is usually non-salient (Yuen, 2004). Tag provides

additional information purported to be the last thing the audience reads (Yuen,

2004). Last but not least, Call-and-visit information is basically contact

information, such as an address, telephone number, and venue which serves as

additional information to viewers (Yuen, 2004)

In order to establish a pattern, the frequency of occurrence of each generic

structure needs to be tabulated and represented on a graph. The componential

features (+) and (-) are used to indicate the absence or presence of the variables

on the poster.

Table 3: Frequency of occurrences of generic moves

Poster Generic Potential Structure

Lead Emblem Announcement Call-visit-

Information

Enhancer Tag

CCP 1 + + + + ₋ ₋

CCP 2 + + + + ₋ ₋

CCP 3 + + + + ₋ ₋

CCP 4 + ₋ + + ₋ ₋

CCP 5 + + + + ₋ ₋

CCP 6 + + + + + ₋

CCP 7 + + + + + ₋

CCP 8 + + + + ₋ +

CCP 9 + + + + ₋ ₋

CCP 10 + + ₋ + ₋ ₋

CCP 11 + + + + + ₋

CCP 12 + + ₋ + ₋ ₋


69

CCP 13 + + ₋ + ₋ ₋

CCP 14 + ₋ + + ₋ ₋

CCP 15 + + + + + ₋

CCP 16 + + + + ₋ ₋

CCP 17 + + + + ₋ ₋

CCP 18 + + + + ₋ ₋

CCP 19 + + ₋ + ₋ ₋

CCP 20 + + + + ₋ ₋

Total 20 18 16 20 4 1

Graph 1: Frequency of occurrences of generic moves

From Table 3, the Lead is the first variable and it is present in all the posters.

GSP has argued that the Lead typically captures the interest of the target

audience. It could be projected that the pictures of men of God are used as the

first item in the patterning of the posters to capture the interest of the target

audience.

Lead EmblemAnnouncem

entEnhancer Tag

Call-visit-information

Series 1 20 18 16 4 1 19 0

Column1

Column2

0

5

10

15

20

25


70

Call-visit-information is a generic move that is also present in all the posters

as represented in Table 4 (above). This provides information on the venue, dates

etc.to viewers to enable them to patronize what is being advertised.

The next generic move in the pattern arrangement is the Emblem. The emblem

is represented on the posters by the church logo. The logos usually authenticate

the other information that the designers hope to put across. According to our

analysis, two of the posters did not have emblems on them. It must be mentioned

that, without the logo, there is a higher possibility that the audience will consider

the advertisement as one which is not put up by an authentic body. This is a

situation which may affect the credibility of the posters.

After the poster has been authenticated by the presence of the emblem (logo),

the next information invariably is the Announcement. The main aim of the

poster is to carry information to their audience, and this is done through the

Announcement. It is, therefore, not surprising that this move is found in all the

posters.

Lastly, Tag and Enhancer are generic moves that were sparingly present in the

posters. These variables have font sizes that are relatively smaller compared to

that of the other modes. These variables give further information to the

Announcement by making the information more explicit. However, whatever

information intended for these variables to communicate is embedded in the

announcement, this explains why these moves are rarely used. For further

clarification of the generic moves, percentages of the generic moves are shown

in table 4.


71

Table 4: Percentage of occurrences of generic moves

Generic Move Percentage

Lead 100

Emblem 90

Announcement 80

Call-visit-information 100

Enhancer 20

Tag 5

5.2 Patterned Arrangements

After identifying the presence and absence of each generic move, the following

were the patterned arrangements found on the posters.

• Lead+ Emblem +Announcement+ Call-Visit-information + Tag →

LEACT

• Lead +Emblem +Announcement +Enhancer +Call-visit-information →

LEAEC

• Lead +Emblem +Announcement +Call-Visit-information → LEAC

• Lead+ Emblem+ Announcement +Enhancer+ Call-visit-information+

Lead → LEAECL

In Pattern One, the Lead comes first, followed by the Emblem,

Announcement, Call-visit-information, and Tag. This shows that the

arrangement follows the order of prominence: the more prominent move occurs

first.


72

For the second structure, there is an introduction of a variable that was not

present in the first pattern i.e. Enhancer. The enhancer clarifies the message in

the announcement by making the message more specific.

The third pattern has just four variables i.e. Lead, Emblem, Announcement and

Call-visit-information. This pattern goes straight forward to give the audience

the direct message without restating or enhancing it. It shows the lead which

raps the audience’s attention and goes straight ahead to bestow identity of the

advertisement (logo). It also gives the name(s) of the event (announcement),

and finally, it gives the audience the opportunity to call in or visit their website

or venue(s) during the said time of the programme.

Unlike the first three patterns, Pattern Four is quite unique because it has a

double Lead. This means that the posters which have this pattern are highly

persuasive because of the most important and persuasive variable, the Lead. The

Lead is the variable that draws the attention of the audience the most. Again,

the Lead is said to be the variable that carries a level of credibility and expertise

on the topic being advertised. Thereby, having a double credibility is enough to

sell the product.

Table 5: Frequency of occurrences of patterns

Pattern Frequency Poster Number

LEACT 1 CCP 15

LEAEC 1 CCP 4

LEAC 11 CCP 1,2,3,5,6,7,8,10,11,17,20

LEAECL 7 CCP 9,12,13,14,16,18,19


73

The frequency of occurrence of each of the patterns is seen in Table 5. It can be

established that the pattern Lead+ Emblem + Announcement + Call-visit-

information (LEAC) occurred eleven (11) times, Lead + Emblem +

Announcement + Call-Visit-information + Tag (LEACT) and Lead +Emblem

+Announcement +Enhancer +Call-visit-information (LEAEC) are patterns for

two posters i.e.: one for each, and Lead + Emblem + Announcement + Enhancer

+ Call-visit-information + Lead (LEAECL) is a patterns for seven posters.

However, looking at all the patterns, they were all built on LEAC (Lead

+Emblem +Announcement +Call-Visit-information), which makes LEAC the

root pattern that all posters must have before any other variable can be added to

the poster. Thereby, the grammar of charismatic church programme posters can

be said to be

• Lead + Emblem + Announcement + Call – Visit – information + Tag →

LEACT

• Lead + Emblem + Announcement + Enhancer +Call – visit –

information → LEAEC

• Lead +Emblem +Announcement + Call – Visit – information → LEAC

• Lead+ Emblem+ Announcement +Enhancer+ Call-visit-information+

Lead → LEAECL

However, Lead + Emblem + Announcement + Call-Visit-information (LEAC)

is the obligatory structure, which disputes with that of the proponent of GSP

who posited that the Lead is the only obligatory variable in a poster.


74

5.3 Conclusion

We will end this discussion here by noting that this section sought to answer

research question two. This research question looked at the order of the generic

moves present on the posters and I found that four patterns were present:

• Lead+ Emblem + Announcement + Call-Visit-information + Tag →

LEACT

• Lead +Emblem +Announcement + Enhancer + Call – visit – information

→ LEAEC

• Lead + Emblem + Announcement + Call -Visit-information → LEAC

• Lead + Emblem + Announcement + Enhancer + Call – visit –

information + Lead → LEAECL


75

CHAPTER SIX

SUMMARY, CONCLUSION, AND RECOMMENDATION

6.0 Introduction

This chapter is the final chapter of the current study, and it summarizes the study

by highlighting the objectives of the study, theoretical framework used, and the

methodology. Key findings of the study and conclusions drawn in view of the

findings are also discussed in the present chapter. Further, recommendations for

further studies are provided.

6.1 Summary of the Study

This study has been conducted as a result of the need to provide the grammar of

charismatic church programme posters. The first chapter looked at the problem

statement, which highlighted the dominant use of multimodal artefacts by the

ever-increasing number of charismatic churches to communicate and invite the

public to events. It was necessary to study how multimodal forms combine to

serve the persuasive needs and to determine the entrenched features these

posters have evolved with. The aim of the study was to investigate how

messages are organised in charismatic church programme posters in Ghana. In

addition to the statement of the problem, the background to the study, the

research questions, significance of the study, and delimitation of the study were

discussed.

In order to situate the study in the multimodal discourse, literature was

reviewed. The literature first provided a discussion of the key concepts such as

language and religion, multimodal, visual grammar, and Generic Structure of

Advertisement (GSP). Empirical studies were also reviewed.


76

The third chapter of the study presented the methodology for the study.

Specifically, the chapter discussed the data size, data collection procedure, and

sampling technique used. Chapters Four and Five presented the analysis and

discussion. The last chapter, which is Chapter Six, presents a summary of the

entire work, findings of the study, conclusions, and recommendations of the

study.

6.2 Findings of the Study

The study revealed that there are two modes used in the construction of these

church posters; they were identified as the visual and the verbal modes. This

finding confirms the findings of Williams (2006), who indicates that two modes

are present in the posters: the visual and the written text. Hiippala (2012) also

identified that multimodal artefacts largely have these two modes.

The verbal mode was communicated solely through written text. Verbal

resources used in the design of charismatic church posters (CCP) are words,

groups, and clauses. These churches usually use words to signal detail

information, to profile participants, and as names of represented participants.

Words such as “Venue”, “Date”, “Time”, and “Contact” are sometimes used on

charismatic church programme posters (CCPs) to draw the attention of the

audience to specific details.

The nominal groups were used solely to name churches, events, and theme of

the events. In naming churches, “Chapel” serves as Thing (head) of the nominal

group of charismatic church programme posters in most cases. “Ministries” (4

instances) and “Church” (2 instances) followed. That charismatic churches in

Ghana deviate from the use of ‘church’ as Thing is noted by Tamumobelema


77

and Aikoriogie (2018). Tamumobelema and Aikoriogie (2018) suggest that

such is done to “match and identify their (charismatic churches) motive and

identity” and to ‘catch’ attention.

Nominal groups were used in labelling events and themes. The head for labels

of events usually denote convergence of huge number of individuals for

(religious) events (Convention, Crusade, and Summit). Classifiers were used in

classifying the events with the classifiers: Holy Ghost, Easter (2x), Youth Week,

Financial Empowerment, Marriage (2x), Divine, Exploits and Vision. The

classification was usually done according to the purpose of the event (marriage,

financial empowerment), type of Christian event (Easter).

Lastly, nominal groups were used for the themes of the events. Following Dada

(2018), the headwords of nominal groups realizing themes were grouped into

three: those depicting spiritual warfare (Battle, Liberty, and Power), higher life

in Christ (Keys, Heights, and Portion), and supernatural transformation

(Ministry, Move). The results of this study corroborate the findings of Dada

(2018) that charismatic churches employ warfare-related concepts to construct

themes of events.

The verbal processes construed designate the primary occupation of the

represented participant (speaking and singing). Represented participants were

classified. The hosts were usually the highest in the rank of the categories. This

finding agrees with Ajibade’s (2012) finding that participants are usually

distinguished by classes. Also, it was found that there are both attributive and

suggestive symbols on charismatic church posters. According to the results, the

represented participants’ business-like dress makes “the leader looks more like

a religious entrepreneur than a pastor” (Hackett, 1998). Thus, the suggestive


78

images reveal a hidden meaning in charismatic religious leaders. Attributive

symbols are seen in the background texts of some CPPs.

Visual modes realized interaction and modality functions. The represented

participants kept eye contact with the viewers and smiled to demand social

interaction with the viewers. Added to the fact that a social type of distance is

created in the choice of medium shot, CCPs employed visual resources to invite

audiences to socialize with the leaders. This observation relates to the absence

of clauses that invite participants in most of the posters. The visual grammar of

the represented participants uses interactive means to invite viewers.

The GSP of the charismatic church advertisement was established. Lead,

Emblem, Announcement and Call-visit-information were generic moves that

appeared on all the posters while Tag and Enhancer were sparingly used.

In terms of the structural arrangement of the generic moves, the posters were

found to follow a pattern. The patterns found are as follows:

• Lead + Emblem + Announcement + Call – visit – information (LEAC)

• Lead + Emblem + Announcement + Call – visit – information (LEAC),

Lead + Emblem + Announcement + Call – Visit – information + Tag

(LEACT)


information (LEAEC)


information + Lead (LEAECL)


79

Out of twenty posters analysed, LEAC was used eleven (11) times, LEAECL

was the structure for seven (7) other posters, LEACT (1), and LEAC (1). The

grammar of the Charismatic church programme posters were, thus, established

as Lead + Emblem + Announcement + Call-visit-information (LEAC).

This pattern is followed by all posters, indicating that this is an established order

of charismatic posters. It is also very much required that any other generic move

that joins the structure must come after the Call-visit-information but not before

it. The Tag and enhancer are optional in charismatic advertisements and when

they are used, they take the final positions in the hierarchical arrangement of the

modes on the artefact.

6.3 Conclusion

The section of the study used GSP to find the grammar of charismatic church

programme posters. The study found that there exist two broad modes which

are visual and verbal modes. The modes were presented in both visual images

and text. The visual images were presented in the form of pictures of pastors

and their guests while the text was primarily conveyed using written texts to

convey the names of the churches, venues, themes of the programmes, and date

scheduled for a programme. The GSP of the posters were established as Lead +

Emblem + Announcement + Call-visit-information (LEAC), Lead + Emblem +

Announcement + Call –Visit - information + Tag (LEACT), Lead +Emblem +

Announcement +Enhancer +Call-visit-information (LEAEC), Lead+ Emblem+

Announcement +Enhancer+ Call -visit-information+ Lead (LEAECL). Lead +

Emblem + Announcement + Call-visit-information (LEAC) appeared to be the

root on which all other structures were built.


80

6.4 Recommendations for Further Study

The present study was carried out within a stipulated time frame, thereby

limiting the study to the grammar of advertisement found in Charismatic church

programme posters.

It will be useful if a similar study is carried on the orthodox churches’

programmes to ascertain whether some variations do exist or they also follow

the grammar identified by this study.

Again, it will be of immense importance if a similar study uses not only posters

as this study did but also add audio visual church programme advertisements to

see how/what grammar is created.

Lastly, a study on identity construction of the images found on these posters

will not be out of proportion since most of these posters have the images of

either the head pastor or other pastors and their wives.


81

APPENDICES

APPENDIX 1

CCP 1

APPENDIX 2

CCP 2


82

APPENDIX 3

CCP 3

APPENDIX 4

CCP 4


83

APPENDIX 5

CCP 5


84

APPENDIX 6

CCP 6


85

APPENDIX 7

CCP 7

APPENDIX 8

CCP 8


86

APPENDIX 9

CCP 9

APPENDIX 10

CCP 10


87

APPENDIX 11

CCP 11

APPENDIX 12

CCP 12


88

APPENDIX 13

CCP 13

APPENDIX 14

CCP 14


89

APPENDIX 15

CCP 15


90

APPENDIX 16

CCP 16


91

APPENDIX 17

CCP 17

APPENDIX 18

CCP 18


92

APPENDIX 19

CCP 19

APPENDIX 20

CCP 20


93

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