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Language is the chief means by which humans communicate among themselves; it is also a veritable means of socialisation. In essence, language is an important arsenal used to influence others around us. Clive Johnson and Jackie Keddie (2011) assert that "the impact of what and how we communicate can be very profound for others". This paper examines the use of language in the advertising industry and posits that in advertising, not only is language used to inform or sensitize, but it is also used to deceive. Language has immense power, and its impact depends entirely on how we wield it. Advertising has a great influence on our purchasing decisions. Consumers are exposed to countless commercial messages everyday "persuading them to buy brand name products". This is achieved through certain contrivances, which the paper fully discusses. The searchlight of this paper beams on such questions as: does advertising tempt us into buying things we don't need; does it affect us subliminally in ways we can't control; how much latitude should marketers have in the kind of products they promote and how they advertise them; do consumers have some responsibilities in the process; what is the proper role of government, especially in protecting the consumers? In sum, the paper sets for itself the task of determining the "border line" between persuasion and deception, in the language of advertisement. It finds that through the subtle means of "appealing" and "persuading, certain deceptive contrivances and even outright falsehood are sued to hoodwink the consumer. The implications are that consumers are "tricked" to buy what they don't really need; advertisers "overstretch" claim on their products and services; and, finally the advertising, not the product itself, becomes the selling point. It also recommends among others that the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), Advertisement Practitioners' Council of Nigeria and such other regulatory agencies should be empowered to verify all claims in advertisements before such claims are published.

From the foods we eat and the houses we construct, to our religious practices and political organization, to who we can marry and the types of games we teach our children, the diversity of cultural practices in the world is astounding. Yet, our ability to visualize and understand this diversity is limited by the ways it has been documented and shared: on a culture-by-culture basis, in locally-told stories or difficult-to-access repositories. In this paper we introduce D-PLACE, the Database of Places, Language, Culture, and Environment. This expandable and open-access database (accessible at https://d-place.org) brings together a dispersed corpus of information on the geography, language, culture, and environment of over 1400 human societies. We aim to enable researchers to investigate the extent to which patterns in cultural diversity are shaped by different forces, including shared history, demographics, migration/diffusion, cultural innovations, and environmental and ecological conditions. We detail how D-PLACE helps to overcome four common barriers to understanding these forces: i) location of relevant cultural data, (ii) linking data from distinct sources using diverse ethnonyms, (iii) variable time and place foci for data, and (iv) spatial and historical dependencies among cultural groups that present challenges for analysis. D-PLACE facilitates the visualisation of relationships among cultural groups and between people and their environments, with results downloadable as tables, on a map, or on a linguistic tree. We also describe how D-PLACE can be used for exploratory, predictive, and evolutionary analyses of cultural diversity by a range of users, from members of the worldwide public interested in contrasting their own cultural practices with those of other societies, to researchers using large-scale computational phylogenetic analyses to study cultural evolution. In summary, we hope that D-PLACE will enable new lines of investigation into the major drivers of cultural change and global patterns of ...

The market economy, which is the driving force behind recent changes in the working dynamics of businesses and institutions, is compelling stakeholders in education to facilitate the acquisition of communicative competency in a second or foreign language as a means of preparing the workforce for mobile or virtual work. The CoMoViWo project, financed by the European Union s Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA), aims to improve the employability of graduates by developing literacy training for virtual communication. The innovative aspect of this project is the fusion of communication, technology and multiculturality in association with business enterprises. The present study focuses on the first phase of the project, whose aim is to obtain information concerning the real needs detected in mobility and virtual communication in the workplace. After a preliminary study of the literature it was found that one of the most common instruments for carrying out needs analyses was the questionnaire. Therefore, the questionnaire was taken as a tool for the present study. As a result of the fieldwork carried out in the elaboration and filtering of the items in the questionnaire, the validity of the instrument was verified. The questionnaires were then piloted in the different companies involved in the project. Analysis of the results provided the necessary feedback for the design of the prototype of intensive modules to improve the use of a foreign language in a virtual and mobile context in the workplace, which is the ultimate objective of the present project. ; García Carbonell, A.; Mac Donald, P.; Montero Fleta, MB.; Pérez-Sabater, C. (2015). Linguistic needs in virtual communication and labour mobility: CoMoViWo Project. Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences. 212:316-322. doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.11.380 ; S ; 316 ; 322 ; 212

Introduction -- Guangzhou's Linguistic landscape -- Shenzhen's linguistic landscape -- Linguistic landscape in smaller cities -- Hong Kong's linguistic landscape -- Macau's Linguistic landscape -- Language attitudes about linguistic landscapes -- One country, two systems -- Conclusion.