A Study Of The Construction Coercion Approach To The Mismatched Argument Structure Constructions In Advertisement Copies

There are novel expressions violating either the basic syntactic rules or the common semantic logic in advertisement copies. Expressions as such are normally named mismatches. Mismatches are widely and deliberately applied by copy designers in advertisements so as to attract consumers’ attention and excite their consuming motivation. Constructional grammar seeks for the general mechanism of particular syntactic structure and language applications from the perspective of human cognition, which makes it suitable for the explanation of mismatches. However, few studies relating to advertisement copy language have examined mismatches from the perspective of constructional grammar theory.In view of this situation, this thesis attempts to adopt the construction coercion theory in analyzing the construal mechanism of mismatched argument structure constructions in advertisement copies and identifying the pragmatic functions of such kind of phenomena. As reliable language materials have a close bearing on the validity and reliability of the present study, this thesis have chosen Reader’s Digest as the language material source. Totally1065pieces of advertisement copies from28issues of Reader’s Digest from2006to2012are collected. Among them,678pieces of valid advertisement copies are detected and226pieces of mismatched argument structure constructions are finally identified.After examining the most typical mismatched argument structures, this thesis thus discovers:in advertisement copy design, mismatches may occur from transitive constructions, resultative constructions and caused-motion constructions. Mismatches are essentially mismatch between syntax and semantics, and they arise when the participant roles of verb fail to fuse with the argument roles of construction. That particular lexically profiled component’s disqualification for the verb’s participant role is the direct cause for the failure of fusion between participant roles and argument roles.The constructional meaning of the target construction is determined by the general construction. Such a relationship depends on the metaphorical/metonymical link between the general construction and the target construction. Construction coercion is essentially the decisive force that the general construction exerts on the target construction through metaphorical/metonymical link. The construction coercion effect forces people to construe the target construction within a metaphorical/metonymical model, in which the unqualified language components upgrade to be a qualified verb participant, making the fusion between participant roles and argument roles possible.In some extreme situations, the profiled language components may violate the most basic syntactic rules. In this case, the construction coercion combines with the lexical category theory to coerce these components into shifting their lexical category, which enables these components to possess multiple lexical categories. This coordinates the violation caused by these ungrammatical components to the basic syntactic rules. After this, those ungrammatical constructions can then be involved into the construal model that has been introduced. For those mismatches in non-ASCs, we can firstly transcribe the constructions into ASCs. And then we can solve them under the ASCs mismatches construal model.After the discussion of mechanism of mismatched ASCs’ construal, this thesis discovers that mismatched ASCs in advertisement copies have significant pragmatic functions. Primarily, language represents the way human beings conceptualize the outside world, and well-designed advertisement mismatches can guide consumers to take precedence in conceptualizing the preinstalled advertisement information by copy designers. The mismatched advertisement copies can attract buyers’ attention, so that the product information can be promoted. Secondly, Mismatched ASCs are uncommon expressions that defamiliarize the language context with which consumers are familiar. Thus the advertisement copies become novel, special and remarkable, which guarantees that advertisements can break and delay the consumers’ habitual perception and appreciation weariness simultaneously so as to achieve better advertising effect. Besides, the construal of mismatches calls for the category system function and encyclopedia knowledge of human beings, which can facilitate people in understanding cognitive economy principle and guide copy designers in creating more successful advertisement copies compatible with that principle. While creative advertisement design has been widely regarded as the key to the success of an advertisement, mismatched advertisement copy is definitely their best embodiment.This thesis is an empirical study of mismatched argument structure construction in advertisement copies based on the construction coercion theory. The study is significant in both the theoretical and practical sense. By implementing the construction grammar theory in actual language application study, this thesis examines the applicability of a particular linguistic theory. Meanwhile, the interpretation of mismatched advertisement copies offers consumers a better comprehension of novel advertisement expressions and assists advertisement designers in innovating advertisement copy design.