Characteritics And Functions Of Deictic Expressions In Advertising Discourse

This thesis is intended to make a descriptive and analytic study of deictic expressions in commercial advertising English and their possible functions, based on the theories of deixis in pragmatics (Levinson, 1983, 2004 and Yule, 1996).Advertising has become a very specialized activity in modern times. It is the most common example of persuasive language evident in people's immediate environment. In many respects, it is the most honest and frank type of propaganda. Advertising is also a very structured form of applied communication, employing both verbal and non-verbal elements. As any act of communication takes place in a situation, the proper interpretation of the language in advertising communication is dependent on its concrete situation, or context.Deixis anchors the text in a concrete situation. It is the single most obvious way in which the relationship between language and context is reflected in the structures of languages themselves. It introduces subjective, attentional, intentional and, context-dependent properties into natural languages and is a much more pervasive feature than normally recognized. The meaning of deictic expressions is defined exclusively by reference to the elements in the communication process. Words like I, we, you, this, that, here, now, and then point to aspects of the situation, and have a different meaning in each situation.Deixis is generally organized in an egocentric way. All deictic expressions depend, for their interpretation, on the speaker and hearer sharing the same context. However, when it is not a face-to-face conversation, when the speaker and the addressee are not in the same place at the time of speaking, then the egocentricity may be violated, or there is a deictic projection. The selection of proximal or distal deictic terms not only depends on the physical distance between the referent and the deictic center, but also reflects the pragmatic distance between the speaker and the addressee or between the speaker and the referent.Three categories (person, time, space) of deictic expressions in advertising discourse are examined in the present study. In carrying out this research, 500 display advertisements of five categories (cosmetics, automobiles, electrical household appliances, food, and insurance and investments) are collected from current (2006, 2007) American, British and Canadian magazines (100 for each category). First, the three categories of deictic expressions in all the 500 advertisements are investigated as a whole, and then comparisons are made between the five categories of advertising copies.Statistical results show that deictic expressions in English advertising discourse have the following characteristics: First, person, time, and place deictic expressions are pervasively used in advertising discourse. Secondly, among all the five types of advertisements in the present study, more first person and second person pronouns like I, we, and you are used than third person pronouns he, she, they and it, with second person pronouns being predominant. Thirdly, as for time deixis, more proximal forms like now and today are used than distal forms like yesterday, tomorrow or then; and the present tense are used overwhelmingly more frequently than the future and past tenses. Fourthly, place deictic expressions are relatively less used in advertising discourse than person and time deictic expressions. Finally, there is also a general tendency associated with place deixis like what is found for time deixis. That is, the proximal adverb here, and demonstratives this and these are used more frequently than the distal forms there, that and those.On the basis of the frequency and distribution of deictic expressions, this thesis explores the possible functions of them in advertising discourse. One of the functions is that, through the proper use of person deictic expressions, the advertiser can engage a large number of people in an interactive communication and, at the same time, make the advertisement sound special to each of them, thus greatly shortening the psychological distance between the advertiser and the audience. The other function is that proximal place and time deictic expressions make an advertisement valid in different places and over a long period of time and, at the same time, create immediacy of time and space and empathy between the advertiser and the potential customer. The proper use of deictic expressions makes an advertisement adaptable to virtually any potential customer and any circumstance, and durable in effects.