The Power Of Being Covert--Case Analysis Of English Ad Captions With A Modified RT Model

This thesis is devoted to a cognitive study of written English advertisementscaptions. Sperber and Wilson's Relevance Theory (RT) serves as the theoreticalfoundation. Combining Leech's Foregrounding Theory (FT) with the RT, the thesishas managed a modification to the RT and thus developed a working analysis model,based on which 29 sample captions culled from famous English magazines have beenanalyzed. The case analysis has made it possible to summarize the workingmechanisms of the English advertisements in terms of how the captions may graspreaders'attention, how the readers may work out the exact information of the captionsand why the admen often refuse to convey their messages directly and explicitly. Chapter One gives an overview of the whole thesis: the theories employed, theanalysis plan, data collection, methodology and the organization of the thesis text. Chapter Two is the Literature Review. As a start, previous studies on Englishadvertisements language, namely coding-decoding, and inference analyses, arereviewed. Then the main theory employed, i.e. the RT, is expounded in terms of itsdevelopment, general ideas and main concepts. Then a modification of the RT isproposed together with an explanation of the FT. Chapters Three and Four contain the analyses of the sample captions with themodified model. The analyses break into two groups: covert analysis in Chapter Threeand super-covert analysis in Chapter Four. The following issues are examined: thefactors inviting the reader's attention, the inference process involved and possibleconclusions from the inference, with a few pictorial illustrations. Chapter Five serves as the conclusion of the entire thesis. The workingmechanisms of the English ads are summarized. Then the thesis's possiblesignificance is proposed. Finally, the limitations and thus possible further efforts arepinpointed.