An Analysis On Slogans From Stylistic Perspective

Slogan as a kind of modern media has gradually become an essential publicity tool in people’s daily life with frequent economic and cultural exchange among the world. The linguistic feature and mode of slogan are special. Languages in slogans are as accurate and concise as official documents, and also precise and informing as political papers. Slogan plays a guiding role in influencing public opinions and directing cultural transmissions. China’s great development in the21st century gains the country more and more opportunities for holding of the grand events. Events like2008Beijing Olympic Games,2010Shanghai World Exposition,2010Guangzhou Asian Games and2011Xi’an International Horticultural Exposition had all enhanced China’s status in the international stage. The appearance of slogan has bridged the grand events with public people by spreading more themes and dreams. The style of slogan is subsidized by official documents. So far, stylists have done a lot for the study of official written language, but unfortunately comprehensive and systematic research on the stylistic features of slogans was seldom referred in nowadays study. Therefore, there is an urgent need for the linguists to get a comprehensive description on slogans from the perspective of stylistic analysis, from which helps us get more ideas of slogan’s style and offer more efficient strategies for slogan creation.Corpus of this thesis is based on collections of slogans from Beijing Olympics, Shanghai World Expo and Xi’an Horticultural Expo. This thesis has the following main purposes:Firstly, this thesis is intended to give a detailed study of English slogans from grand events on the level graphology, lexica, phonology, syntax and context, according to the English stylistic theories;Secondly, this thesis is aimed to provide comparative studies between slogan English and official document English as well as traditional slogans and modern slogans, so as to reveal the unique stylistic features of grand events slogans;Thirdly, this thesis is mainly taken from the angles of differences among the editing and style, the target audience and the linguistic feature of grand events. The following questions assist a lot in designing and completing this thesis:1. As one of a sub-style of official document, whether stylistic features of slogan fully follow that theory of official document or not, and for what reason are differences caused?2. Comparing the traditional slogan to the modern slogan, especially slogans from grand events, are there any stylistic similarities or differences among them?3. By following the theory of English stylistics, do slogans’form and registers in different grand events seem alike, if any, and for what reason are differences caused?4. In China’s future grand events, what kind of creation strategies should be followed so as to deeply embody publicity function of slogan?The major findings of the thesis are concluded as follows:First of all, the study shows that the style of slogan is affiliated to style of official document. For the slogan’s style owns specialties in terms of graphology, phonology, lexica and context. Stylistic favors on concise and precise words and block-structured sentence make slogan a diversified text.Furthermore, striking differences exist between traditional slogans and modern slogans in editing style, target audience and linguistic feature. Fresh characteristics on the levels of graphology, lexica and phonology upon slogans in grand events arise, nowadays slogans are fashionable and tuneful, succinct and inclusive.Finally, stylistic features of grand events slogans respectively differ in field, mode and tenor. Similarities and differences occurred together in such kinds of slogans, which also fully embodies the function of language. From this way, the study indicates that English slogan is based on a function-motivated strategy, and creation of slogan should as well concern the register and function of languages.To state briefly, English slogan does not only have common features of official document, but is more concise and precise, it is involved in an international stage instead of a nation or a region. Slogan’s social significance arises with its participation in grand events and publicity for the events; meanwhile, it’s already become feedbacks from the function of language to society in inspiring people’s mind and elevating public culture and opinion.With China’s growing participations in international grand events, creations of far-reaching significant English slogans in accurate and efficient way, i.e. domestically directed opinions, foreignly spreaded culture, require more concern and consideration. More attentions should be delivered to stylistic research on slogans. This thesis has only made preliminary and tentative explorations on English slogans of grand events. The author does hope that more scholars can be inspired to do further researches on slogans and correspondingly, the results of the study can help for providing references for future researchers on their explorations into the stylistic features of slogan, as so to elevate the whole environment of English slogans from grand events in China.