Indirectness In Advertising Language

ln this economic society in which information is prevailing, ads are found hereand there, and play a very importaIlt role in our daily life. More and more importanceis attached to the research of advertising language due to the fact that the art oflanguage can help establisI1 good image for corporations or manufactures by variouskinds of language signs, the functions of which are to build an ideal advertisingatmosphere, to attract people's attention. to make them believe, and to make them buy."Advertising is based on tlle art of language which is a pillar of advertising art." Sofar, many scholars have n1ade researches on advertising language from the viewpointsof sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, communicative linguistics and culturallinguistics. However, oIle common phenomenon in advertising language hasn'taroused people's proper attention. That is, indirect expression in advertising language.It's known to us that tlle ultimate aim of commercial advertising is to promote thesales of goods. To attain this goaI, advertisers should persuade consumers. makingthem believe that they wiIl be benefited if they use the advertised goods in the way thead tells. There are two types of persuasion f one is direct persuasion, the other indirectpersuasion. Thc former is direct, but casy to give an obligatory impression on readers,. arousing the feelings ofunl1appiness or disgust among them, the Iatter is euphemisticand oblique. leaving much spare room for readers to imagine and showing more- respect on them, so it's much easier to be accepted. In my opinion, therefore,indirectness appropriately if employed in advertising language, will produce muchbetter advertising effects.Indirectness and advertisin8 lan8ua8e have much in common and indirectnesscan serve advertising in some ways. This present paper will illustrate this point ofview from four angles f roles of indirectncss in advertising, two common ways toexpress indirectness, suggestion on overcoming the weak points of indirectness andprospect for indirectness. This paper is divided into four parts.Part One desGribcs the roles of advertising in a modern society and the importanceof advertising language.Part TWo gives an analysis of advertising language researches made by previousscholars, and makes a survey of the achievements and wcak points in the studies ofadvertising language from the viewpoints of socoilinguistics, content analysis,semiolo8y and stylistics.Part Three introduces the application of indirectness in advertising language,Which is the major part of this paper It is divided into fOur sections f Section Onecovers the theoretical bases and roles of indirectness in advertising langUage, SectionTwo dcscribes the classifiGation of indirectness, Section Three introduces two' common ways to express indirectness in advertising language, namely,presuppositions and puns. As presuppositions have the features of hiddenness,lv4. indirectness, advertisers intentionally use them in ads to Promote product saIes. Withhomonym or homophone in puns, puns are eupllemistic and humorous to express- meanings in an indirect way. As a result, puns are popular among advertisers. Punscorrectly used in ads can arouse readers' thinking and interest, and enhance theirimpression on the promoted produCts and make them buy, Section Four puts fOrwardssome suggestions about overcoming the weak points of indirectness.Part Four concludes the research of indirectness in advertising language. Theresearch is obviously contributive to sales promotion. But up to IIo W the train thoughtof the research is not well developed, the viewpoints employed in the research are Ilotnovel. the researcl1 ren1ains to lay stress mainly on the study of words and sentences -ratl1er than on a macro-consideration of adve11ising language as a whole. Nowattention has to be attached to the question f How is indirectness understood andaccepted effectively by consumers? Th...