A Contrastive Study Of The Problem-Solution Pattern In English And Chinese Advertisements

The Problem-Solution pattern can be well applied to many different genres,for example,the news,scientific discourses and advertisements,etc.Many scholars at home and abroad have done lots of research about the application of the Problem-Solution pattern to various texts.As a kind of important text genre,the advertisement has permeated into every walk of our life and it has huge influence on our daily activities.The paper conducts contrastive research on Problem-Solution pattern in English and Chinese advertisements aiming at finding some similarities and differences between the English and Chinese advertising languages.The research in the paper is based on the theory of Winter’s Problem-Solution pattern and clause relations.The research value is resourceful and it can help the advertising designers create suitable advertisements to appeal to consumers from the respective countries.Besides,the study of American and Chinese advertising language can help us have a better understanding about the English and Chinese language characteristics and the ways of people’s thinking and constructing texts in the two countries.Through analyzing the fifty English and fifty Chinese advertisements,the writer finds that the Problem-Solution pattern can be well applied to the analysis and composing of advertisements both in English and Chinese.It is found that the Problem element and the Response element in the P-S pattern are obligatory both in the English and Chinese advertisements.The Situation element is also important in Chinese advertisements while in English advertisements it is not always necessary.The Chinese advertisements usually start with the Situation element while the English advertisements start with the Problem element.The nouns,verbs and the adjectives are three common parts of speech that can be used to signify the Problem,Response and Evaluation element in the two advertising languages.The phenomenon of multi-layering is not common both in the English and Chinese advertisements.The participant-linking of Problem and Response can appear in both English and Chinese advertising languages.