基于关联理论分析英文商业广告中模糊限制语 的语用功能

CHAPTER ONE  INTRODUCTION

1.1 Research Questions

Within  the  framework  of  Relevance  Theory,  this  thesis  mainly  investigates  the pragmatic  functions  of  hedges  in commercial  advertising  from  a  cognitive  point  of view. To be more specific, the present study seeks to answer the following questions: 

1)  What  pragmatic  functions  can  be  realized  by  the  use  of  hedges  in  English commercial advertising? 

2) How are the pragmatic functions of hedges in commercial advertising realized within the framework of Relevance Theory?

3)  How  can  hedge  and/or  hedging  strategies  be  effectively  used  to  serve  a particular pragmatic function in commercial advertising?

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1.2 Rationale of the Research

As  a  kind  of  strongly  goal-oriented  communicative  activity,  commercial  advertising attempts  to  use  all  means possible  to  attract  consumers,  and  one  of  the  most significant means is language. The focus of this paper is on the inherent property of fuzziness of language that gets exploited in the language of commercial advertising. 

Previous  researches  on  advertising  language  have  largely  neglected  the  use  of hedges  since  scholars  tend  to take  hedges  and  hedging  strategies  as  a  linguistic phenomenon that may make an utterance less powerful and less persuasive and thus seldom  occur  in  advertising  language.  However,  the  reality  of  their  existence  in advertising language  proves  that  for  one  reason  or  another,  advertisers  are  making deliberate use of them, and this leads us to believe that the appropriate use of hedges have  positive  pragmatic  functions  and  can  create  certain  kind  of appeal  towards consumers, thus making the advertising more effective.

Up to now, quite a few researchers have approached hedges from the perspective of semantics, pragmatics and discourse analysis, but fewer scholars have attempted to study  hedges  from  a  cognitive  point  of  view.  This  paper uses  Sperber  and  Wilson’s Relevance Theory as theoretical framework and attempts to account for the cognitive processes  of  the  production  and  interpretation  of  an  advertisement  and  hopefully  to provide  some  guidance  for advertisers  to  better  analyze  and  understand  consumers’ perception mechanism so as to make advertising more effective.

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CHAPTER TWO  LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Previous Studies on Hedges in Advertising Language

Various researchers have attempted a study on the pragmatic function of hedges found in advertising contexts. A review of previous studies that have been carried out in this area is given below, followed by a summary by the author.  

2.1.1 Study on Hedges in Advertising English by Pedro A. Fuertes-Olivera et al

In their study on metadiscourse in advertising English, Pedro A. Fuertes-Olivera et al (2000) base their analysis on the assumption of advertising English functioning as a balance  between  informing  and  manipulating (Pedro  A.  Fuertes-Olivera et  al,  2000: 1291) and hold that metadiscourse transcends its propositional content and functions to enable the speaker to use the language indexically (Pedro A. Fuertes-Olivera et al, 2000:  1292).  They  emphasize  the  importance of  shared  knowledge  between  the speaker  and  hearer  and  the  specific  context  where  it  appears  for  the pragmatics  of metadiscourse to work. 

The use of hedges in advertising English is put forward in their study as one kind of  interpersonal  metadiscourse  (Pedro A.  Fuertes-Olivera  et  al,  2000:  1296)  (as opposed to textual metadiscourse) as has been suggested by Hyland and as one way of softening  the  persuasive  strategies  employed  in  advertising  texts.  They  argue  that hedges function to foreground the information that the speaker attempts to convey to the  reader  in  order  to  persuade  by overcoming  the  problem  of  possible  opposition from  consumers,  and  to  aid  the  speaker  in  achieving  the balance  between  the informing and manipulating functions of advertising English to lessen the distrust on the  part  of the  consumers.  Hedges  under  study  in  their  paper  include  what  is categorized in current research as approximators, which represent the speaker’s lack of  commitment  to  the  propositional  content  of  the  advertising text  or  the  truth  of his/her predication. Intheir schema, hedges such as can, maybe, sort of, etc. are thought to have  the  pragmatic  function  of  making  indirect  reference  to  the  qualities  of  the products  and  are  employed  to contribute  to  the  interpersonal  relationship  between copywriters  and  readers. 

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2.2 Summary

From  the  overview  of  previous  researches  and  studies  that  have  been  done  on  the subject of hedges and/or hedging strategies in advertising, we can see that in terms of quantity they have been quite few compared to those that have been done on hedges that are found in other types of contexts, for example, political discourse, interviews etc. 

Of those researches that have been carried out on hedges in advertising contexts, few are intended to approach hedges and/or hedging strategies from a cognitive point of view. The research by Pedro A. Fuertes-Olivera et al on hedges in advertising has laid the focus on the pragmatics of hedges as metadiscourse. Ivana Bu?ljeta Banks and Patrick De Pelsmacker have studied the effect of hedges in advertising in relation to degree of the consumers’ involvement. Fu’s study has treated hedges in advertising as a  type  of  interactional  metadiscourse  and  has  been  carried  out  from  a pragmatic perspective. From the literature review above, we can thus observe a lack of focus on approaching hedges in advertising from a cognitive perspective. 

For  the  above-mentioned  reasons,  the  author  attempts  to  carry  out  the  present study  on  hedges  in commercial  advertising  from  a  cognitive  perspective  by  using Relevance Theory. 

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CHAPTER THREE THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK .................. 11

3.1 Taxonomy of Hedges .............. 11

3.1.1Taxonomy of Hedges Proposed by Different Scholars ......... 11

CHAPTER FOUR ANALYSIS OF THE PRAGMATIC FUNCTIONS OF HEDGES IN COMMERCIAL ADVERTISEMENTS BASED ON RELEVANCE THEORY.. 19

4.1 Different Types of Hedges in Commercial Advertising ................ 19

4.1.1 Approximators ............. 19

CHAPTER FIVE CONCLUSION ........... 45

5.1 Major Findings .................. 45

5.2 Limitations of Present Research .............. 47

CHAPTER FOUR  ANALYSIS OF THE PRAGMATIC FUNCTIONS OF HEDGES IN COMMERCIAL ADVERTISEMENTS BASED ON RELEVANCE THEORY

4.1 Different Types of Hedges in Commercial Advertising

This section will demonstrate that an utterance can prove more preferable and accurate when it is hedged, carrying a meaning more relevant to the addresser's intention than when it is not. Let's take a close look at the five categories of hedges that are found in advertising texts.

4.1.1 Approximators

Approximators  are  words  and  expressions  that  affect  the  truth-condition  of  a proposition, changing or even cancelling its original meaning. They are used to hedge the degree of the addresser's commitment to the assignment of the advertised product to a certain category. 

Approximators function to adapt a term to a non-prototype situation (adaptors) to indicate that a term is rounded-off or approximate representation (rounders), restricting the proposition it modifies to a certain scope. Adaptors include words such as some, almost, sort of, somewhat, to some extent, a little bit, etc., and are often used to show that a proposition is nearly precise but the speaker is not absolutely certain. Rounders include words like about, roughly, something between…and…, approximately, around, more than, etc., and are often placed around some figures and used to measure things so that  they  give  the  hearer  a  limitation  or  a  range  to  estimate  the  precise  figures.  In contrast  with  shields,  approximators  point  to  "fuzziness  within  the  proposition content"(Prince et al, 1982:85) and, as its name suggests, represent approximation of a claim to the idea that the addresser has in mind. 

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CHAPTER FIVE  CONCLUSION

Hedges are pervasive in everyday conversations. Their fair abundance in commercial advertising  contexts  leads  us  to believe  that  they  serve  a  variety  of  pragmatic functions.  Hedges  constitute  an  important  element  of  the advertiser’s  persuasion attempts in presenting his/her beliefs in the advertised product. An understanding of the variety of pragmatic functions that they serve in advertisements and the cognitive mechanism  underlying  the  realization  of those  functions  has  important  implications for both the advertisers and consumers. 

Hedges  in  advertisements  are  a  symbol  of  a  discrepancy  between  an  utterance and a thought that the advertiser has on his/her mind and they function to signal to the consumers not to process the utterance in its literal sense, and to instruct them towards the  optimally  relevant  interpretation  of  the  advertisement.  That  is  why  of  all propositional  forms  that  the  variability of  language  has  made  available,  hedges  and hedging  expressions  have proven  in  our  corpus  to  be  the  most  relevant  one  that  the advertiser could have chosen in a particular context in order to convey the intended message. 

reference(omitted)