| Since Zadeh put forward vagueness theory in 1965, more and more researches on the basis of vagueness have been done in many scopes. And in linguistics, much attention has also been shifted to the research on vague phenomena of language. The notion of hedges, a member of the family of vague language, was first introduced by G. Lakoff in 1972. Later, a lot of scholars such as Fraser, Brown & Levison, Hubler, etc. analyze hedges from different perspectives. In 1979, Wu Tieping's paper"On Vague"introduces theories on vagueness into China. Then more and more scholars at home begin their researches on vague terms and hedges. But studies of hedges in specific genres are relatively few and the research of hedging strategy is fewer. This thesis attempts to make a study of hedging strategy in advertising English. In the past two decades, most of the researches on advertising language are focus on its linguistic characteristics. However, the hedging strategy used in advertising language is seldom mentioned. Therefore the author explores features and pragmatic functions of hedging strategy in advertising English based on the relative domestic and abroad studies.Through statistic analysis of hedges in 149 English advertisements, it is found that 1) a large number of hedging devices occur in advertising English; 2) hedging devices to realize subjectivisation are seldom used; 3) different from other genres, in advertising English epistemic adjectives, adverbs, etc. seldom occur, while the verb"help", comparatives and superlatives, etc. are frequently used.The present study may contribute to the study of hedges and hedging, especially on the hedging research of the advertising language. And it may help to understand the strategies adopted by advertisers. |
