A Study Of Warnings’ Functions From The Perspective Of Identification Theory

Warnings are very common in people’s daily life. As a speech act, warnings have changed a lot in recent years. Many warnings change from serious tones to those full of warmth, humor and euphemism. Besides the basic functions of warning and persuasion,warnings have other functions, such as information function and harmonious function. In the background of harmonious society, warnings are helpful in achieving harmony between man and man, man and society, and man and nature.Related researches show that present studies of warnings are mainly focused on collection of warnings, analysis of warnings’ features, comparisons of Chinese and English warnings. However, few studies of warnings are related to the aspect of rhetoric. Burke’s Identification Theory is an important part of new rhetoric. Identification is inheritance and development of Aristotle’s view of persuasion. Identification Theory is so inclusive that can be used in many fields. Therefore, the author intends to analyze how warnings’ functions are realized from Kenneth Burke’s Identification Theory and put forward suggestions for how to produce acceptable warnings.The research questions of the thesis are analyzing what functions of warnings and how they are realized, and then the author would provide suggestions for producing acceptable warnings from the Identification Theory. The thesis provides a new perspective of warnings’ further studies and enlarges the application field of Identification Theory. At the same time,the thesis can arouse people’s attention to warnings. This thesis mainly conducts a qualitative analysis. It qualitatively analyzes warnings’ definition, classifications, features, functions and Identification Theory’s definition, contents, forms. The warnings in the thesis are mainly collected from the Internet, parks, parking lots, campus and so on, which come to 105 pieces.At last, the author concludes that warnings have nine functions, warnings’ functions can be realized from identification strategies, and makers of warnings should choose appropriate language and apply some identification strategies.The paper consists of five parts. Chapter one introduces research background, questions,research method and data collection, research significance and purpose of the study, and the thesis organization. Chapter two introduces warnings in details. Chapter three presents the theoretical framework, that is, Burke’s Identification Theory. Chapter four intends to explain how warnings’ functions are realized from Identification Theory. Makers of warnings and audience are easier to achieve identification with identification strategies. Chapter five is a conclusion of the thesis. In this chapter, major findings, limitations of the thesis and suggestions for further studies are concerned. The author puts forward some suggestions for how to produce acceptable warnings.