A Study On Persuasiveness Of English Cosmetic Advertising Language From The Perspective Of Relevance Theory

With the ever-increasing international exchanges and globalized economy, newcosmetic products are swarming into the Chinese market from various places andcountries. Cosmetics are no longer the priority of some rich people in China but anindispensable part to everyone due to the rapid improvement of people’s livingstandard. Cosmetic advertising language as a typical form of "persuasive act" plays animportant role in this dynamic communication process. For this present study,cosmetic advertising language is only concerned with the three verbal parts: headline,body text and slogan excluding trademark and illustration, which are nonverbal forms.Since the development of discourse analysis in linguistic study, Sperber&Wilson’s Relevance Theory has become an increasing focus for linguistic researchersand scholars. The Relevance Theory claims that language communication is anostensive-inferential cognitive process and the principles governing the success ofcommunication is that both the parties involved have a best cognitive pattern, i.e.optimal relevance. On the one hand, the speaker sets his ostensive stimuli, on theother hand, the listener, produces the inferential context with his cognitive ability atminimal processing cost, then, try to understand the speakers’ communicativepurpose.In this thesis, the author adopts the Relevance Theory as the theoreticalframework. In order to carry out this study, the author collected forty pieces ofEnglish cosmetic advertising texts for the analysis of persuasiveness of cosmeticadvertising language by applying the Relevance Theory. Through analysis, the authortentatively points out that the Relevance Theory gives new guidance to the study ofcosmetic advertising language. Also, four cosmetic advertising appeals discussed inthis thesis can be practically used in advertisement writing, especially for cosmeticadvertising writing. Moreover, the author hopes this present study can help peopleespecially women identify the truthfulness of cosmetic advertisements better.