A Pragmatic Approach To Presupposition In Chinese Advertisements Of Female Products

Presupposition plays a basic and important role in people's daily communication. Because presupposed content is taken for granted by communicators, communication can be effective and economical. However, presupposition can be viewed as a strategy if a speaker, with special intention, employs its characteristics, i.e. implicit, subjectivity, variety, and non-controversy, and conveys the presupposed information to the listener.Taking Chinese ads(advertisements) of female products as samples, the thesis analyzes the information included in the Chinese ads so that to explore the application and the effects of presupposition both from the standpoints of advertisers and female readers. From the standpoint of advertisers, the presupposed contents they employ the most are the existential presupposition, factive presupposition, belief presupposition, and state presupposition, which are fit for the psychological principle of consuming. According to the classifications of presupposition triggers collected by Levinson (1983), different contents of presupposed information are often triggered through certain lexical items or sentence structures. Advertisers also related presupposition and assertion directly or indirectly. If the relation tends to be indirect, it is more important to convey information by implication. Advertisers may also utilize the asymmetry between the presupposed part and felicity condition of the asserted part. It creates a fun effect that readers do not expect beforehand, and thus increases the attraction of ads.From the standpoint of readers, through the questionnaire, readers perceive presupposed or asserted information with similar degree, but challenge them with significant differences. Therefore, advertisers can employ the presupposition to convey intended messages because of its high perception and low suspicion. The perception of implicated information is the most difficult because of readers'experience and world knowledge. Except for state presupposition, readers perceive the other three presupposed contents with similar degree but challenge fact presupposition the most. Readers'responses to presupposition, assertion, and implication vary with the relation between presupposition and assertion in ads. It is obvious that the way of presenting presupposition and assertion is the main factor that will affect readers'responses to information.Finally, from the attractive effects of ads, it is found that the ads with indirect relation between presupposition and assertion are regarded as more attractive than those with direct relation. The phenomenon seems to have some kind of connection with readers'responses of perceiving and challenging to information.The study is implicational both practically and theoretically. Practically, this study can give theoretical guidance to a better understanding of how presuppositions work and the applying of presupposition in ads in order to achieve their final goal of persuading the potential consumers to buy the products or services advertised. Theoretically, it might shed light on the significance of presupposition, and enrich the understanding of presupposition and the study of advertising language.