The Interpretation Of English Advertising Communication: A Relevance-theoretical Approach And High-Context And Low-Context Communications

Sperber and Wilson first proposed Relevance Theory in the book Relevance: Communication and Cognition (1986).Traditionally, language communication is seen as an encoding and decoding process, but Relevance Theory makes a breakthrough at this point and believes that language communication is a kind of relevance-oriented ostensive-inferential activity. The communicative modes and communicative principles constructed by Relevance Theory widely affirmed by scholars at home and abroad and it has been proven to have the explanatory power to communication.For recent years, the research and application of Relevance Theory has got achievements in many aspects of linguistics, which proves this theory to be more applicable and scientific. At the moment, Relevance Theory has made its contributions in the study of English teaching (reading comprehension, listening comprehension, oral English teaching), interpretation of humor, translation and communication. In the previous study of advertising, many researchers pay their attention to the study of the language of advertisements, the translation of advertisement from one language to another and advertising communication. However, only a few of them placed stress on the interpretation of English advertising communication from the part of Chinese audiences, and this study will have its significance to help English learners to learn the language expressions and Western cultures from the English advertisements.This thesis attempts to analyze advertising communication with a relevance-theoretical approach and finds its explanatory power to the understanding of advertising communication. With the rapid development of globalization, many English advertisements come into our eyes with new style, beautiful sight and succinct language, and they have great artistic merit and culture value. For the English learners, it is of great use to study English advertisements because it can enlarge the learners'language knowledge and cultural knowledge. According to Relevance Theory, the process of ostensive-inferential communication can be analyzed from the advertiser and audience respectively. On the opinion of advertiser, advertising is a kind of ostensive communication. The goal of advertising is to clearly express their intentions, and finally convince customers to buy the products. On the audience'opinion, advertising is also a kind of inferential communication. That is, the task of audience is to infer the advertiser'communicative intention with the help of advertiser's information so as to interpret the advertisements successfully. On the whole, the especially practical concern of advertising communication is how advertisers communicate advertisement messages to the audiences and audiences interpret the advertiser's intentions.English advertisements mirror the culture of English-speaking countries greatly, and many English learners are keenly aware of the cultural differences'great influence on the interpretation of English advertising, so this thesis introduces the High-Context and Low-Context (HC and LC for short) cultures to analyze the cultural differences of advertising communication. Edward. T. Hall, an American anthropologist, proposed the notion of high and low context culture firstly in his book Beyond Culture (1976). HC communication is often indirect and implicit, and it is more aware of their surroundings whereas LC communication tends to be direct and explicit, and it is more prone to verbal forms of expression. So HC and LC cultures will influence the process of an ostensive-inferential communication. It not only influences the language expression of the advertiser, but also affects the inferential process of the audience. So it will finally help us to better understand the English advertising communication combined with Relevance Theory.Besides the introduction and conclusion, this thesis is divided into three chapters. A brief introduction is made of the origins and main ideas of Relevance Theory, the organization and significance of the study. The first chapter starts with an overview of Relevance Theory and the pervious studies in China and West. The second chapter firstly reviews on advertising and then discusses the application of Relevance Theory on advertising communication. The third chapter introduces HC and LC communications to the analysis of cultural differences on advertising communication and elucidates the relationships between Relevance Theory and HC and LC communications and the importance of combining the two theories to the interpretation of advertising communication. In the end, this thesis concludes the practical meanings and its contributions and the advantages and disadvantages of the study, and then makes sure the future research direction and improvements.