Hedges And Their Pragmatic Functions In English Advertising

Hedge is a phenomenon of the fuzziness in language. As a member of the family of fuzzy language, hedge was introduced and analyzed first by G. Lakoff in 1972. Fraser, Brown & Levinson, etc. analyzed hedge from different aspects. Scholars in our country also did some researches on some functions of hedge since 1980s. But the research of fuzziness in advertising is very little and the research of hedges in advertising is fewer. From the pragmatic perspective, this thesis carries on a comparatively comprehensive study on the application of hedges in English advertising and their pragmatic functions by using Cooperative Principle and Politeness Principle.After the author has analyzed what causes the fuzziness of language, this thesis introduces different categorization of hedges. According to E. F. Prince et al, from pragmatic aspect, there are two types: approximators and shields, their difference is whether it affects the truth-value of proposition. This thesis also analyzed four semantic features of hedge. They are cancellability, indefiniteness, indirectness and markedness.Hedge is an important means to realize the linguistic vagueness. Because of the special function of advertising, hedges are favored by advertisers. Through analysis of hedge in advertisements, the author has found other reasons for the existence of hedges in advertising: advertisers'lacking information/confidence; consumers'needing no specific information; advertisers'wanting to avoid absolutization; and the two features of adverting—being purposeful and attractive. So the application of hedges helps to embody the features of advertising to realize its aim.Lastly, by using the Cooperative Principle of Conversational Implicature Theory and the Politeness Principle, the author analyzes the pragmatic functions of hedges in advertising. Usually, hedges'violating of one maxim is just in order to obey another maxim of the Cooperative Principle, and the use of hedges observes the maxims of the Politeness Principle. The author has found that hedges can achieve the pragmatic...