Analyzing The Persuasiveness Of Advertising Language From The Perspective Of Relevance Theory

The Relevance Theory of Sperber and Wilson regards human language communication as an ostensive-inferential cognitive process, namely the process of cognition and mutual manifestness of the cognitive environments. The parties involved in the communication cooperate successfully as both of them have the best cognitive pattern, i.e. relevance. On the one hand, the speaker sets in his utterance ostensive stimuli to achieve his information intention and communication intention. On the other hand, the listener, by using the Relevance and the ostensive information provided by the speaker's ostensive behaviors, produces the context with his inferential cognitive ability, and chooses the explanation of the best relevance from various semantic expressions. Obviously, the context under the Relevance Theory remains changeable, uncertain and dynamic.Advertising language is a special kind of communication form, aiming to draw the consumers' attention in a twinkling. The present paper is based on the study of the commercial advertising and holds that, as a special communication activity, the information intention and persuasion intention of advertising are equally significant. The ultimate goal is to persuade the customers to buy the products advertised. Language plays an important role in perform the function of persuasion. So far, scholars have made great contributions in the study of advertising from the perspective of semiotics and linguistics. However, there is still some room left for improvement. Many scholars have mainly based their analysis of advertising...