| 21st century is the era of information,therefore,how to acquire and comprehend information matters a great deal.News thus becomes an indispensable component in national progress,social development and even individual life.And according to its noticeable status,news headlines become an important means to attract readers' attention.Besides,during the process of news editing,the application of pragmatic presupposition can help the news readers approach news editors' aim.Until now,scholars have investigated the application of pragmatic presupposition and its functions.However,currently fewer scholars turn to accountable linguistic theories to interpret pragmatic presupposition.In addition,there is still a dearth of researches on interpretations of pragmatic presupposition from the perspective of Relevance Theory.What's more,in recent years,the studies on news headline language in terms of pragmatic presupposition have sprung up,but the relevant studies on pragmatic presuppositions in news headline language from the relevance perspective are scant.This thesis adopts Sperber & Wilson's(1986)Relevance Theory as the theoretical basis,attempting to explore the application of pragmatic presupposition in English news headlines.Besides,three questions are put forward:1.What are the pragmatic presuppositions found in English news headlines?2.How are the pragmatic presuppositions in English news headlines interpreted by Relevance Theory?3.What contextual effects does pragmatic presupposition have in English news headlines in relevance context?In order to answer the above questions,the author collects in total 300 pieces of English news headlines from China Daily time span March to May in the year of2015,then manages to identify,classify and count the pragmatic presuppositions contained in the collected data.Meantime,typical examples are analyzed when necessary.The major findings of this study are as the following: Firstly,pragmatic presuppositions are applied in a great portion based on collected data,and they mainly cluster around the following six kinds,namely,factive,behavior,state,belief,culture,and pun presupposition.Secondly,pragmatic presuppositions can be interpreted appropriately by means of ostensive-inferential communication and optimal relevance.And under the guidance of Relevance Theory,pragmatic presuppositions not only canfacilitate news editors to convey information to the readers effectively,but also help the readers comprehend information successfully,and finally reach certain contextual effects.Thirdly,according to the collected news headlines,pragmatic presuppositions involved distribute quite unevenly: the application of factive and state presupposition is relatively more in terms of frequency,while culture and pun presupposition less.In addition,in relevance context,pragmatic presuppositions,to different degree,have the contextual effect of expanding the amount of information;the application of factive and state presupposition relatively can enlarge the convincing effect of news;and some of the pragmatic presuppositions function as creating suspense and increasing attractiveness of news.This study not only provides a new insight for studying pragmatic presupposition,especially a new interpretation of pragmatic presuppositions in news headline language,but also enriches the application of Relevance Theory.Meantime,it can also facilitate news readers to understand English news headlines better and more effectively,and improve their corresponding ability to appreciate them. |
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