Cultural Approach To The Study Of Chinese And American Advertising Languages

With the development of economy and social culture, advertisement has become an important and inseparable part of people's daily life. It is not only a marketing tool but also a social actor and a cultural artifact. Most researchers at home and abroad have provided good linguistic description of advertising language, that is, they have analyzed the linguistic forms in detail from different angles. In this dissertation, I would elaborate on cultural factors which influence Chinese and American advertising languages. The purpose of this dissertation is to help establish and strengthen the cultural awareness in language learning and using, especially in the process of using and translation of advertising languages.Culture is a complicated concept. However, all of the definitions of culture admit that culture in fact contains three levels. The first level concerns material. The second one concerns institutions and conventions. The third one concerns the spiritual level. And the last level is what this dissertation concerns.Based on this classification, world views in Chinese and American cultures, inevitably, have to be discussed firstly for its guiding role from the perspective of spiritual function. Chinese culture is characterized by the monism viewpoint and the American culture is characterized by the dualism viewpoint. In Chinese philosophy, there is a famous proposition —"Tian" and human are in oneness in which "Tian" refers to nature; on the contrary, in American culture, it is believed that it is the supernatural power from God that creates the universe, which is what the first page of the Bible tells Christians. The separation between nature and human emphasizes human's power and knowledge, and highlights the role of science and technology and enterprising spirits. These differences between Chinese culture and American culture in worldview have a very conspicuous reflection in advertising language.Way of thinking, one of the significant parts in human culture, is the most sophisticated presentation of human culture. Scholars studying in the field of intercultural communication often label Chinese thinking mode holism or...