A Study Of Functions Of Pragmatic Presupposition In Chinese Cosmetic Advertising Discourse

Advertising is becoming an important social phenomenon as the development of global economy and the influence of information age. Advertising is a kind of persuasive language whose final purpose is to make consumers accept the advertised products or services and evoke them to take action of purchasing. And thus, advertisers or manufactures can make as much profit as possible. Successful advertisement designers will not sell products directly. Instead, they are good at dealing with language skills and techniques as well as psychology in the process of promoting their products. They would like to hide their purpose by using pragmatic presupposition skillfully in advertising language. Studying on advertising language can reveal advertisers’ pragmatic strategies and reflect the induced working mechanism behind the advertising. In other word, the study can help readers be aware of the reason why advertising has great influence on consumers.This paper aims to explore the realization of function from the perspective of pragmatic presupposition in Chinese cosmetic advertising discourse. There are three research questions:(1) What types of pragmatic presupposition are employed to realize the function of Chinese cosmetic advertising discourse?(2) What is the frequency of each type of pragmatic presupposition?(3) How is the function realized through the use of different pragmatic presuppositions?Based on the existing studies on the classifications of pragmatic presupposition conducted by scholars like Chen Xinren (1999), Wei Zaijiang (2002), as well as the characteristics of Chinese cosmetic advertising, the author tentatively classifies pragmatic presupposition into five categories:factive presupposition, belief presupposition, behavior presupposition, state presupposition and cultural presupposition. According to the110collected data of Chinese cosmetic advertisements, the author has conducted a survey on the proportion and distribution of the five types of pragmatic presupposition. Statistical analysis shows that state presupposition (35%) is the most commonly used presupposition in CCA among the five pragmatic presuppositions. The frequency of the different pragmatic presuppositions in Chinese cosmetic advertising is not an accidental phenomenon. Instead, it is a reflection of Chinese people’s psychological needs. In order to gain a further understanding on how each type of pragmatic presupposition is used to strengthen the power of advertising language, the author has made an analysis through which she finds that various perspectives are employed in different types of pragmatic presupposition. Chinese advertisers often expect to satisfy the readers’psychological needs by presupposing some facts like authority or celebrity endorsement; having a new understanding on cosmetics as well as consumers themselves:presupposing previous, present and future actions of consumers.The study has theoretical and practical implications. It can shed light on the function of presuppositions in cosmetic advertising, especially the pragmatic presuppositions. Besides, studies on the realization of function in Chinese cosmetic advertising are comparatively rare. It is hoped that the study can enrich the research on cosmetic advertising. Moreover, the study gives guidance to advertisers to create more effective and appealing advertisements and helps readers acquire the ability to comprehend and analyze the information in advertisements.