A Study Of Vagueness In Chinese And English Advertising Language

In today's commodity economy times, advertising infiltrates any corner we live in. Therefore, studying advertising language is of certain significance. The perspectives of studying advertising language are diverse; however, because of the proposing of modern vague thought and the development of vague linguistics, more and more scholars are studying vague language. Therefore, based on the former studies and with the hope to pave a new way, the study intends to adopt Verschueren's Adaptation Theory to analyze the vagueness in Chinese and English advertising language.To ensure the validity and reliability of this thesis, the writer collected a large quantity of proper advertising language. All of the advertising language can reflect the creation norms of advertising language in the modern society. The thesis is composed of four chapters.Chapter one is a literature survey of the studies on advertising language and vagueness. A retrospection of the development of the studies on advertising language from home and abroad is conducted in the beginning. Scholars like Leech, Guy, Wang Junyuan etc. contribute to the advertising language studies by summarizing the syntactic features, stylistic features and so on in their monographs. With the development of vague linguistics, scholars like Lacoff, Wu Tieping etc. study vague semantics, vague rhetoric and so on. Although some scholars have done researches about the combination between advertising language and vagueness in recent years, they have not formed their own research system. The study intends to do further research about the subject.Chapter two deals with the theory foundation for the study– Adaptation Theory. In this chapter, the points of view of Adaptation Theory are summarized: a process of using language is a process of making choices of language; language has three properties: variability, negotiability and adaptability; analyzing language should consider four aspects: contextual correlates of adaptation, structural objects of adaptability, dynamics of adaptability and salience of adaptation processes. The chapter points out how to combine the theory with the research subject, that is the vagueness in advertising language.Chapter three is devoted to the study of vagueness in Chinese and English advertising language from the perspective of Adaptation Theory. This thesis adopts the study methods of descriptive analysis and qualitative analysis. In this chapter, the vagueness in Chinese and English advertising language is analyzed from four aspects: vague sound, vague word, vague sentence and vague rhetorical device. It is found that using vagueness in advertising language has its motivations, discussed from individual perspective, cultural perspective and social perspective. And the functions of using vagueness in advertising language are generalized.In chapter four, the conclusions got from the analysis of vagueness in advertising language are adopted to give some implications for vagueness in advertising language writing, comprehension and teaching. After understanding the motivations and functions of using vagueness in advertising language, advertisers can create better advertisements and audience need to form a set of strategies inwardly on vagueness in advertising language. Meanwhile, this chapter gives some suggestions to teaching.The writer hopes that the study can offer a new angle for studying vagueness in advertising language. Further studies still need to be undertaken to deepen our understanding of vagueness in advertising language. It is also hoped that the findings will provide insights into the relative field.