A Relevance-Adaptation Theoretic Approach To The Genre Of Advertisement

According to Sperber and Wilson's Relevance Theory, communication is an ostensive-inferential process and the communicator's presumption of relevance decides his/her choices of linguistic styles. According to Verschueren's Adaptation Theory, communication is an adaptation process and pragmatics is a general cognitive, social and cultural perspective on linguistic phenomena in relation to their usage in forms of behavior; using language consists in the continuous making of linguistic choices in terms of variability, negotiability and adaptability. Combining the respective advantages of the two theories, this thesis proposes a Relevance-Adaptation Theoretic model, which claims the following five points:First, the goal of communication is for the sake of optimal relevance. In the process of communication, the speaker's task is to convey what is relevant to the hearer, and for the hearer, s/he has to find the proper interpretation that is of optimal relevance. Second, adaptation is a dynamic process of achieving optimal relevance. Third, speaker's presumption of relevance decides his choice of language, which is manifested on different levels of linguistic structures: phonetic and phonological, morphological, syntactic and discoursal. Fourth, in the process of dynamic choice, choices of language and context (physical world, social world and mental world) are interadaptable. Only when choice of language is adapted to the context of different kinds, can the effect of optimal relevance be achieved in communication, and vice versa. Last, relevance-adaptation is also a process of choosing pragmatic strategies.Based on the Relevance-Adaptation model, this thesis makes a pragmatic exploration to the genre of advertisements. It is found out that before the production of an advertisement, the advertiser must first form his presumption of relevance, which is then made manifest to the potential consumers through ostensive stimulus of many kinds. As such, the informative and communicative intentions of the advertiser can be realized. Advertisements can be taken as the result of structural adaptation at phonetic, phonological, morphological, syntactic and discoursal levels, as well as a result of pragmatic adaptation in that popular informal forms, polite expressions, indirect language, fuzzy diction and impressive rhetorical devices are frequently employed to serve the special needs of ads. Besides, the production of advertisements can be taken as a process of adaptation to the contexts, including situational context, social context, and psycho-cognitive context.Application of Relevance-Adaptation Theoretic model to the analysis of advertising genre may be of help, more or less, in the advertisers'production of advertisements as well as the consumers'interpretation of them.