Pragmatic Functions And Motivations Of Vagueness In Advertising

Nowadays advertising plays an important role in today's business world and it has penetrated every corner of our life. As a way of transmitting information, advertising's role cannot be underestimated because in some sense it can influence the development of society and economy. More often, the advertisers will choose vague language for their own purpose and motivation in order to give consumers strong suggestion and achieve persuasiveness. So theoretical studies on language features of advertising help people improve both the understanding and designing of successful advertisements.Vagueness is a common phenomenon in human language. In recent years, research on vague language has been carried out both semantically and pragmatically. Vague language exists not only in our daily life but also in business world, especially in advertising. The thesis is based on the previous studies and makes an attempt to elaborate on the linguistic realization of vague language in advertising language from the pragmatic strategy and psychological factors as well.In this research, advertising and advertising language are introduced at first for better understanding, which focus on the definitions of advertising and advertising language. The features are also concerned which can not be ignored if we study the vagueness in advertising. Advertising, in its real sense, did not appear until the 17^th century in the west. Several scholars give different definition to adverting from different aspects. The main aim of advertising language is to persuade people to purchase products or services. So it is quite different from other language.To study vagueness in advertising language, it is necessary for us to understand some notions relative to vague language and its theoretical basis. In this study, vague language is analyzed from different perspectives. Different types of hedges are mainly introduced in the study of pragmatic functions of vague language in advertising. In this study, an analysis in the field of psychology is also expounded from the aspect of motivations. Motivations can be divided into two aspects according to the level of consciousness: conscious motivation and unconscious motivation. In this chapter, conscious motivation of using vague language is mainly discussed. Meanwhile, from the angle of CP, the pragmatic motivation of vagueness in advertising is also analyzed in this chapter.Finally, we conclude that the vague expressions in advertising are used by advertisers purposely. Analyzing vagueness and psychological factors is of great importance for the proper understanding of advertisements. The main motivation of advertisers will be uncovered through analyzing the usage of vagueness and its potential deception in advertising.The data chosen in this study is mainly from advertising slogans. The slogans are chosen as the main data because they are widely regarded as the soul of advertising. Examples chosen for analysis are mainly commercial consumer advertising for their high popularity.