A Case Study Of Meaning Construction In English Cosmetics Advertisements From The View Point Of Conceptual Integration Theory

When ads creation is based on consumer psychology and thinking habit, ad plot can be absorbing. Advertisinghas been studied with semiotics, pragmatics and rhetoric methods and it is considered as a process of encoding anddecoding or a reasoning process in these studies. However, an ad should be able to instantly attract audiences’attention and stimulate their purchase behavior. Thus advertising meaning construction is an interactive process, acomplex psychology interpreting process and a dynamic cognitive process. Therefore meaning construction incosmetics ads needs further research by adopting the cognitive linguistic method.A qualitative and deductive study will be done with some outstanding cases by way of observation andintrospection. We will elaborately explore the conception integration process, vital relation compression and applyingof optimality principles in these cases. The final purpose of the study is to provide a cognitive linguistic framework formeaning construction in ad, and give suggestion to ad designers in their creating work by using conceptualintegration thinking.After case study of18English cosmetics ad, we find that concept integration theory could provide a new angle formeaning construction and interpretation of cosmetics ads. Meaning construction process of an ad is also a cognitiveprocess, compressing elements and vital relations into an integrated picture according to the optimality principle. Andeight optimality principles could provide an optimization method for meaning construction in cosmetics ads, throughwitch we can get a more integrated and attractive ad.This thesis is organized into six parts: Chaptert one gives a brief introduction to the background information，research significance, research purpose and research questions of the thesis. Chapter two gives a review of research oncosmatics advertising and a literature review of methods used to study advertising at home and abroad. Chapter threehas given a detailed introduction of theoritical framework including theoretical background and operationmechanism. The core of this thesis are chapter four and five. In chapter four we introduced the data sources andresearch method of this thesis. In chapter five cosmetics advertisement cases are brought into the conerete analysisand are classified according to vital relations compression and opimality principles to carefully explore the integrationprocess in them. Chapter six is a summry of the analyses in the previous chapter. What’ s more, implications andlimtiations in the presents study and some suggestions to ad creation by the way of conceptual integration are putforward in this chapter.