Analysis Of Hedges In English Advertising From Pragmatic Perspective

Hedge is a phenomenon of the fuzziness in language. Many scholars analyzed hedge from different aspects. As advertising plays a more and more important role in our society, many scholars have begun to focus on the advertising language. Because it has special purpose, advertising language has its distinguish features. Scholars also find there are many hedges used in English advertising. Some of them made the research from different perspectives. On the basis of their research, this paper will study and analyze the hedges in English advertising from pragmatic perspective. This paper tries to answer these three questions1) Whether hedges are widely adopted in English advertising?2) Why hedges can be widely adopted in English advertising?3) What pragmatic functions are mainly realized with hedges in English advertising?Forty seven advertising samples are chosen randomly from English magazines in this paper, and based on the data, the author performs both a quantitative and a qualitative analysis. On the basis of the quantitative research, it is found that hedges are widely used in English adverting. This thesis is carried out mainly based on the theories of vagueness, hedges, cooperative principle, politeness principle, and speech act theory. According to these theories, hedges show positive and negative functions in English advertising. But in this thesis, positive functions are mainly discussed. They are1) work emphatically;2) reinforcing flexibility;3) contributing accuracy;4) achieving politeness;5) saving face.The body of this thesis consists of six parts as follows:Chapter One is an introduction to the whole thesis. Chapter Two presents a literature review dealing with different researches of hedges between western countries and China. Chapter Three deals with research design. It begins with research questions, then introduces the data collection and then describes the research methodology. Chapter Four mainly deals with the analysis of hedges in English advertising language. Chapter Five is the essential part of this thesis, comprising two main parts. First part gives pragmatic analysis of hedges in English advertising under the theory of CP, PP and Speech Act.The second part analyzes pragmatic functions of hedges in English advertising language, and in this part, positive function and negative function are both put forward. Chapter six comes to the conclusion of the whole thesis. It includes summary of major findings, limitations of the present study and suggestions for further research.The exploration of hedges in English advertising from pragmatic point of view promotes further study of them from different perspectives. More importantly, advertisers are able to fully appreciate hedges in advertising language so that they can employ hedges in a better way for promoting their products or services. Advertising English teachers can introduce hedges to the course and teach students how to use hedges appropriately to achieve their communicative intentions.