Interpersonal Meaning In Cosmetic Advertising Texts

Interpersonal meta-function means that language is used to interact with other people, to establish and maintain relations with them, to influence their behavior, to express our viewpoint on things in the world, and to elicit theirs. The purpose of the present research is to probe into the interpersonal meaning in Chinese cosmetic advertising texts from the approach of Systemic-Functional grammar. In this dissertation, cosmetic advertisements refer to those advertisements aiming to publicize cosmetics. The discourse discussed in this dissertation is cosmetic advertising text, not including headings, slogans and other items (brand name, address, telephone number, prices, etc.).This dissertation aims to discuss linguistic characteristics of cosmetic advertising texts and discover how the advertisement attracts the consumers to buy cosmetics by carrying out interpersonal meaning analysis in cosmetic advertising texts from functional grammar approach. It also tries to prove that Systemic-Functional grammar put forward by Halliday is an effective methodology for conducting discourse analysis, which may broaden the relevant theoretic studies through application in specific field. Apart from that, for the practical purpose, some illumination can be practically achieved in English advertisement writing, especially for cosmetic advertising texts. Besides this, we hope that through the present research people can wisely identify the truthfulness of the cosmetic advertising texts.Halliday puts forward three functional components of meaning, ideational, interpersonal and textual, which can be realized throughout the grammar of a language. He proposes that interpersonal meaning can be achieved through mood and modality system. But it is noted that other linguistic resources also have the potential in realizing interpersonal meaning. Li Zhanzi puts forward other linguistic patterns to realize interpersonal meaning, such as tense, pronoun system, direct quotations and evaluations. In our analysis, evaluation can be seen as an effective means to convey interpersonal meaning. Huang Guowen classifies cosmetic advertising texts as "Problem-Solution" discourse pattern, which is composed of four parts, namely, situation, problem, solution and evaluation. Guided by Halliday's conceptual framework and Li Zhanzi's interpretation of interpersonal meaning, we are going to conduct the research from threeaspects to illustrate how interpersonal meaning is realized in each part in cosmetic advertising texts, namely, mood system, modality system and evaluation system. The research will be conducted on 100 pieces of Chinese cosmetic advertising texts that have been randomly collected through different sources. 44 pieces of cosmetic advertising texts have been got directly from throwaways handed out by the cosmetic counter ladies, 46 pieces from beauty magazines, such as MMt^iMt 0ffrfflA> MMt-^/MW, etc, and 10 pieces from the beauty websites. Since it is very difficult to get adequate original English cosmetic advertising texts, this thesis just focuses on the analysis of Chinese data.By examining interpersonal meaning in our target texts from the above three aspects, the present study demonstrates the close relationship between interpersonal meaning of language and various lexical categories. It is found that by the manipulation of different mood structures, especially declarative mood structure, the cosmetic advertiser always tends to give information rather than demand action of the reader;modality is used to indicate the writer's attitude and confidence;finally, evaluation has been realized linguistically to perform two functions in cosmetic advertising texts, namely, expressing opinions and maintaining relations. We also find that linguistic features exhibiting in cosmetic advertising texts reflect the alternation of the advertiser's social role. On one hand, when the advertisers are trying to predict the problem people may encounter during their skin care process and provide the solution to the problem, they prefer to communicate with the potential consumers with a probing, negotiatory and sincere mood;on the other hand, when the advertisers express their willingness to provide better services for the potential consumers or exhibit their products' ability of improving skin, the advertisers become more confident, which accordingly shows that the advertiser changes from a direct information-giver into an indirect action-demander step by step. With the development of discourse, the advertisers can shift gradually from a weak position to a strong one and they will become more and more confident of their cosmetic products and services. Finally, they can achieve the goal of sale promotion.Based on the above elaboration and analysis, it can prove the usefulness of functional grammar in discourse analysis. Our attempt to analyze interpersonal meanings in cosmetic advertising texts can be complementary to the previous research on advertising. It is a pity that I am not able to collect adequate English sample texts. Thesample texts in two languages may contribute to a comparative analysis of interpersonal meanings in cosmetic advertising texts since there are many cultural differences between western countries and China, which must be of much significance.