Analysis Of Advertising Communication Within The Framework Of Relevance Theory

Advertising, as a common social phenomenon, has attracted many scholars'attention and it has been studied from different perspectives. Currently, the study of advertising has been carried out from the semiotic, stylistic, discourse, and pragmatic perspectives. Since Sperber and Wilson published their book Relevance: Communication and Cognition, a great number of scholars turned their minds to the application of Relevance Theory to the study of communication.In the light of Relevance Theory, communication is an ostensive-inferential activity. From the addresser's point of view, communication is an ostensive behavior, while from the addressee's perspective, it is an inferential behavior. It is a process in which the addresser achieves contextual effect, resorting to the ostensive stimuli and context, so as to infer the addresser's communicative intention.Advertising communication refers to the communication activity between the advertiser and the target audience. This thesis attempts to analyze the ostensive and inferential process of advertising communication within the framework of Relevance Theory and offers some suggestions on advertising design. In the process of advertising communication, the advertisers first insert ostensive stimuli in the advertisement to attract the target audience. These ostensive stimuli work as a guide with which the public could acquire optimal relevance and contextual effect. The audience's task is to interpretate the advertiser's communicative with the help of the ostensive stimuli and the information stored in their minds so as to finally interpretate the advertisement successfully.On analyzing advertising communication within the framework of Relevance Theory, the author put forward some suggestions on the design of advertisement. When the advertisers design an advertisement, they should first of all provide an ostensive stimulus to make their informative intention manifest to the audience and to guide the audience to acquire certain contextual effects. Furthermore, the advertisers should take the audience's cognitive environment into consideration. Taking such factors into consideration, the designers could then design creative advertisement that can ensure the success of advertising communication.The author hopes that this thesis will offer a new perspective to the study of advertising communication, thus helping the audience understand the advertisements better and the advertisers create proper and splendid advertisement as well.