Psychological Mechanism Of Fuzzy Rhetoric In Advertising Language

Advertising plays more and more important role in world commerce and in ourlives. It is part of our language and our culture. And the precise and exact language iscommonly considered the principal requirement of speaking and writing. Therefore,advertising language should be striking, precise, clarified and exact as well. At thesame time, fuzziness and ambiguity should be avoidable in advertising language.However, as the fuzzy sets thegry was put forward by American Professor L. A.Zadeh in 1965, and then fuzzy linguistics has developed, the fuzziness of language,fuzzy rhetoric and its expressing function in the communicative process are paid moreand more attention by most of scholars. So it will have a good effect to apply fuzzyrhetoric appropriately to advertising language, which can fully exhibit the peculiar artcharm of advertising language. There are five main fuzzy rhetorical devices used inadvertising language. They are phonetic fuzziness, lexical fuzziness, grammaticalfuzziness, figures of speech for showing fuzziness, such as, use of simile or metaphor,use of personification, use of pun, and use of hyperbole, and the use of punctuation.Advertising language is a unique language which has four salient features:trueness, flexibility, profitability and originality. The realization of these four featuresis closely related to the use of fuzzy rhetorical devices in advertising. Rhetoric ischaracterized by the study of the effective use of language in communication.Therefore, fuzzy rhetoric is to use the fuzziness of language to achieve rhetoricaleffect. Fuzzy rhetoric is a new subject, using the fuzziness of language to enhance theexpressing effect. It is closely connected with the psychological activities. The wholeprocess of fuzzy rhetoric is the process of psychological activities as well. Thisdissertation will demonstrate the psychological mechanism of fuzzy rhetoric inadvertising language from four perspectives: from the perspective of relevanceinference of utterance interpretation, from the perspective of the Principle ofEconomy and the Principle of Least Effort, from the perspective of associationfunction of human beings, and from the perspective of implication function of advertising language.From the perspective of relevance inference of utterance interpretation: Sperber& Wilson's ostensive-inferential communication gives the advertiser some inspiration.First, from the addresser, communication is the ostensive process; and from theaddressee, communication is the inferential process. Hence, in advertising language,the advertiser refers to the addresser; and the consumer refers to the addressee. Theinterpretation process of fuzzy rhetoric in advertising language is theostensive-inferential communication process between the advertiser, as the addresser,and the consumer, as the addressee. And this kind of ostensive-inferentialcommunication process is also psychological process. The interpretation of fuzzyrhetoric needs the ostensive-inferential communication.From the perspective of the Principle of Economy and the Principle of LeastEffort: As a matter of fact, the Principle of Economy and the Principle of Least Effortare closely connected with the economy of advertising language. The main purpose ofadvertisement is to disseminate information as much as possible; meanwhile, it alsoattaches great importance to economic profits. So the advertiser should pay muchattention to advertising language, which must be concise enough. In other words, anyredundant words should be crossed out. Both the Principle of Economy and thePrinciple of Least Effort are the reflection of human psychology. Economy has mainlybeen used with more precise functions: first, to explain how cognitive processes arelinked to utterance interpretation (processing efforts must be balanced by cognitiveeffects); second, to explain how communication may be successful (inferencescomplete the underspecified content of the utterance to obtain its intended meaning).Fuzzy rhetoric is one of the embodiments for the advertiser to use the Principle ofEconomy. Fuzzy rhetoric applied to advertising language is concise and implied,which meets the economic need for the advertiser.From the perspective of association function of human beings: Fuzzy languagereflects that the objective world is an organic connection and the relative things haveno definite boundaries. Therefore, fuzzy rhetoric can embody the relations withassociation function. And association is the process of bringing ideas or events together in memory or imagination. From psychological activities of association, itshould be a creative process. Association is a kind of main psychological basis ofpositive fuzzy rhetoric, because positive fuzzy rhetoric process is also a kind ofcreation. As an art form, advertising creation also uses the thinking way of association.So we often use the psychological mechanism of association to decode fuzzy rhetoricin advertising language.From the perspective of implication function of advertising language:Implication is a kind of writing style and also an art form. It can be used in advertisinglanguage, which is an important rhetorical device. Implication often has two meanings,one is literal meaning; the other, implied meaning. So implication exhibits fuzzinessas well. And fuzzy rhetoric is one of language implication devices. Languageimplication can cause a certain psychological reaction, which is called psychologicalactivities of the consumer.From all these four perspectives, the psychological mechanism of fuzzy rhetoricin advertising language can be fully demonstrated. The research about it will do a lotgood to advertising creation and the development of advertising language. At the sametime, this research is a new attempt to probe into the psychological mechanism offuzzy rhetoric.The dissertation is divided into five chapters as follows:Chapter 1 is the introduction, which first introduces fuzzy rhetoric in advertisinglanguage; then talks about the significance and objective of the study of psychologicalmechanism of fuzzy rhetoric in advertising language.Chapter 2 is literature review: fuzzy theory, fuzzy rhetoric and its psychologicalmechanism. Different scholars give different definitions to fuzziness. But they haveone point in common: the object in the real material world usually has no definiteboundaries and it has no determinacy. Fuzzy rhetoric is to use the fuzziness oflanguage to achieve rhetorical, effect. Fuzzy rhetoric is a new subject, using thefuzziness of language to enhance the expressing effect. The whole process of fuzzyrhetoric is the process of psychological activities. On one hand, fuzzy rhetoricactivities of the expresser, especially positive ones, are connected with such psychological activities as cognition, association and emotion, and so on. On the otherhand, the receiver is stimulated by fuzzy parole when receiving the information, andthus such psychological activities as association and emotion will be engaged in theinformation. So, all kinds of the modes of fuzzy rhetoric should have psychologicalbasis.Chapter 3 discusses fuzzy rhetorical devices applied to advertising language.First it introduces advertising language, such as, the definition of advertising, thefeatures of advertising language, and so on. Then it introduces fuzzy rhetoricaldevices in advertising language: phonetic fuzziness, lexical fuzziness, grammaticalfuzziness, figures of speech for showing fuzziness, and the use of punctuation.Chapter 4 is the analysis of psychological mechanism of fuzzy rhetoric inadvertising language. This chapter consists of four parts: firstly, from the perspectiveof relevance inference of utterance interpretation; secondly, from the perspective ofthe Principle of Economy and the Principle of Least Effort; thirdly, from theperspective of association function of human beings; lastly, from the perspective ofimplication function of advertising language.Chapter 5 is the conclusion of this dissertation. This paper demonstrates thatthere exist fuzzy rhetorical devices used in advertising language, At the same time,fuzzy rhetoric is closely related to psychological activities. As a matter of fact, thewhole process of fuzzy rhetoric is the process of psychological activities. However,the limits of this study also can be seen. This dissertation about the research ofpsychological mechanism of fuzzy rhetorical devices used in advertising language isjust an attempt. This research, especially psychological mechanism of fuzzy rhetoric,is very significant for the creation and the improvement of expression of advertisinglanguage. So it is valuable for future study.