A Study On The Speech Act Characteristics Of Commercial Advertising Slogans

This thesis studies the speech act characteristics of commercial advertising slogans.500 pieces of commercial advertising slogans are collected and analyzed in both qualitative and quantitative methods.In Searle's speech act theory,all speeches are classified into five taxonomies: assertives,commissives,directives,expressives,and declarations.In qualitative analysis, these five taxinomies and requirements to them are referenced to determine the speech act characteristic of every single piece of these 500 commercial advertising slogans.It is found that assertives,commissives,directives,and expressives all appear in commercial advertising slogans.And there are also slogans which are(assertives+commissives),or (assertives+commissives+directives).In this research,SPSS is applied to make a quantitative analysis,and the result of which shows that speech acts of assertives,and those of(assertives+commissives) are employed in a similar frequency,and they are more frequently employed than speech acts of commissivces,those of directives,and those of expressives.Probable reasons for frequency differences of different speech acts in commercial advertising slogans are also explored.Speech act of assertives and commissives can strengthen the rational appeal and emotional appeal of advertising,and assertives are more employed than commissives because the physiological needs of human being comes before the psychological needs.