A Study Of Pragmatic Vagueness In English Commercial Advertisements From The Perspective Of Adaptation Theory

Today, advertising is widespread in every corner of our daily life. In the previous studies, researches on advertisements have been conducted from different perspectives, such as philosophy, psychology, linguistics, etc. Under the guidance of Verschueren's Adaptation Theory, this thesis mainly discusses the employment of pragmatic vagueness of language in the practice of English commercial advertisements. This thesis is a qualitative analysis study which is based on more than 90 pieces of advertising samples. These data are mainly collected from web-based and printed English commercial advertisements. In this thesis, pragmatic vagueness is placed in the actual use of English commercial advertisements which helps to understand the features of slogans from lexical level, syntactic level and rhetorical devices and the various effects made by the strategies of pragmatic vagueness in advertising slogans. The goal of this study may give a guide for the creation, comprehension and appreciation of vagueness in English commercial advertisements and perfect the advertising design for advertisement-makers and improve consumers' comprehension of advertisements.Pragmatic vagueness, as an efficient linguistic strategy, is commonly adopted by advertisers to achieve communicative purposes. And, this thesis details that copywriters employ abundant linguistic devices which could stimulate pragmatic vagueness to realize this function by a large number of advertising samples. Chapter one introduces the definitions and relevant backgrounds of vagueness, pragmatic vagueness and English commercial advertisements. And Chapter two discusses the basic notions of Vershueren's Adaptation Theory. In Chapter three, based on the collected data, pragmatic vagueness is mainly analyzed from lexical level, syntactic level and rhetoric level. At the lexical level, a large number of examples about adjectives, adverbs, nouns and verbs are employed to interpret the pragmatic vagueness in English commercial advertisements. At the syntactic level, simple sentences, imperative sentences and interrogative questions are three main ways to explain pragmatic vagueness in advertising. At the level of rhetoric devices, this part expounds the pragmatic vagueness from various ways which center on alliteration, puns, contrast and antithesis. Moreover, this thesis focuses on the contextual adaptability of pragmatic vagueness from the adaptation of mental world, social world and physical world.After answering questions about why and how to employ the pragmatic vagueness in English commercial advertisements, certain effects produced by pragmatic vagueness of language have been discussed in Chapter four. The conclusion points out that if pragmatic vagueness is used properly by copywriters, it will make advertising language more vivid and humorous, objective and accurate, flexible and polite, then finally aesthetic to realize the intended persuasive effect. On the contrary, it will also make some negative effects when the pragmatic vagueness is used improperly.Pragmatic vagueness is a popular and efficient communicative strategy in English commercial advertisements. Under the guidance of Verschueren's Adaptation Theory, this thesis gives a comprehensive and thorough interpretation of collected advertising items. In conclusion, this thesis on pragmatic vagueness in English commercial advertisements from the view of Verschueren's Adaptation Theory may offer theoretical and practical values for the relevant future studies.