A Study Of Automobile Advertising Language-A Dynamic Adaptation-Based Approach

With the development of modern society, advertisements have penetrated into our daily life and have become an indispensable part of daily human life. Advertising language is the most important carrier of information in an advertisement, and it has been used widely in business world. As a result, advertising language has become a fixed register. Therefore, the study of advertising language is the key to the effective construction and interpretation of advertisements.The thesis is an investigation of the efforts that advertisers have made to adapt actively to the mental world of customers and passively to the social world of customers when advertisers produce automobile advertising language. This study is an empirical one because it is mainly based on the qualitative analysis of the data collected. And this study is, in fact, a pragmatic interpretation of these data. The data under investigation are mainly confined to the printed automobile advertisements in China. Besides, some of the data are collected from the Internet when necessary.Supported by Verschueren's Adaptation Theory, the author proposes that the production of advertising language is the realization of adaptation. Customers' being persuaded into purchasing some products is determined by the fact that the advertising language must adapt to the specific contexts. According to Dr Yu Guodong's classification of adaptation: active adaptation and passive adaptation, the author endeavors to construct a theoretical framework to account for the active adaptation in the process of producing advertising language, which is a dynamic adaptation between the linguistic choice of advertisers and the mind of customers. At the same time, advertisers cannot ignore the effect of the social world of prospective customers. The author analyses how advertisers adapt to customers' mental world actively by using rational appeal and emotional appeal in order to persuade customers into taking purchasing actions. Meanwhile, advertisers have to make negotiable linguistic choices to adapt passively to customers' social world. In the field of automobile advertising language, the linguistic choices related to rational appeal are made to adapt to the needs for safety, credibility, appearance and space and low price. The linguistic choices related to emotional appeal are made to adapt to personal needs for fashion and social status, and also to adapt to potential needs for environmental protection and health. Besides, advertisers have to make linguistic choices so as to adapt to the social settings and institutions and social culture.