A Study Of Pragmatic Function Of Fuzziness In Advertising Language

Advertisements play an important role in our modern life now. It has consciously promoted the sales and profits of the goods. Fuzzy language in advertisements makes special functions.The fuzzy concept is firstly proposed by George P. Lakoff in 1972. Fuzzy language which is useful in helping advertisers to achieve their goals has been widely used in communications. This thesis is based on contextual adaptation theory, fuzziness theory and relevant pragmatic principles.Many scholars have studied fuzziness, but few of them have studied it from pragmatic perspective with data collected from magazines. The author tries to do a research on the base of analysis to 120 advertisements.According to Verschueren's theory, Language using is a dynamic course, it must adapt to the context which can be clarified into two sub-categories:linguistic context and communicative context. The linguistic context consists of lexical context and grammatical context which can be subdivided into four parts. They are semantics, syntax, rhetoric, phonetics. The communicative context consists of utterance, mental world, social world and physical world.With the analysis of the collected data, the author found the necessity of fuzziness and its pragmatic functions. The relationship between the adaptation theory and fuzziness is also interpreted. After the qualitative and quantitative analysis to the data, the author found that fuzzy language makes the information transform smoothly, and the choice of advertising language is a dynamic course of adaptation. That is an adaptation to the physical world, social world and mental world of potential customers. Adaptation can make the communication polite, cooperative and face-saving.For years, the research perspectives of fuzziness have been limited to media news, court argument etc. Under the framework of adaptation theory, this thesis tries to analyze advertisements from a new perspective. This thesis is not only a study on fuzziness. Its analysis can prove the practical application of the theory of contextual adaptation. And in order to achieve their goals, the advertisers should strategically use the fuzziness.In the end the author suggests that fuzzy language has a special function in the advertisements, but we need to use it under its rules and pragmatic principles tactically in order to make a better effect.