The Study of Pragmatic Presupposition on Advertising Language

【Abstract】With the development of linguistics, linguists examine the advertising language from the perspective of the relationship of language and context. Under such conditions, pragmatic presupposition becomes naturally the tool to study advertising language. The paper will discuss the applications of pragmatic presupposition in advertisement,which can help us have a better understanding of its functions.

【Key words】advertisement; advertising language; pragmatic preposition

1. Introduction

Nowadays, advertisement is glutted in modern life. Although the advertising language is one of the persuasive speech acts which are short, it contains a large amount of information. Thus, how to convey the useful information in short advertisements with the help of pragmatic presupposition, to persuade effectively the potential customers is the purpose of advertisers and the practical significance of the present study.

2. Pragmatic presupposition

When it comes to talking about pragmatic presupposition, it is necessary for us to refer to the definition of pragmatic presupposition. Keenan believes that pragmatic presupposition refers to the relation between a speaker and the appropriateness of a sentence in a context. However, some scholars may have different terminologies to describe it. Yule states that presupposition is something the speaker assumes to be the case prior to making utterance. (Yule, 1996: 25) In the different definitions, there is still having something in common that is the felicity and mutual knowledge or joint assumption. So we can catch a glimpse of the function of pragmatic presupposition.

3. The applications of pragmatic presupposition in advertising language

Belief is profoundly significant to human society and individuals. The beliefs of individuals are diversified. The way people see the world is always influenced by many factors such as environment, philosophy of the world or view of life. This kind of strategy often used in pragmatic presupposition of advertising language. There is an example which tries to shake the old beliefs in customers’ hearts. It is an advertisement of Chinese product. 给敢于护肤的真男人。――妮维雅男性护肤系列( Lan Chaowen, Zhou Linyan, 2013: 132) This advertising language is very innovative and attractive for it changes a traditional idea that only female would protect their skin and promotes their new view and belief that male should be brave to buy products to protect their skin like female. It is the advertisers who make their efforts to successfully combine the advertising information with audience’s need by belief presupposition, thus they can gradually touch the inner world of the consumers.

“Human behavior is the action which people take in response to stimulus and is the external manifestation of their attitude and view. There is a close relationship between human behavior and human psychology, culture background, beliefs and emotions.”(Wang Cong, 2013: 88) The behavior presupposition is the common phenomenon in pragmatics. Behavior is the last step for people to take after outside stimulus and self-thinking. Please look at the advertisement: Do you compromise volume for your color? New Nexxus Dualiste volume shampoo and conditioner give you both. So there’s never a reason to compromise. See what your hair can do. (Nexxus, Elle-2009-Oct) The advertisement presupposes the consumers can not satisfy the volume and condition of many shampoo from the question. This is a kind of target behavior presupposition. If the consumers buy the products, their products will meet perfectly the needs of them. The target behavior presupposition in advertising language is like the warm reminding, which can motivate the behavior of purchasing.

4. Conclusion

From this paper, we can have a better understanding of the functions of the pragmatic presupposition in the advertising language. With the development of commercial society, it is profound for us to master the strategies of presupposition to succeed in making attractive advertising languages. In spite of the great efforts made in this paper, there exist certain limitations. The data and scope of advertising language collected is limited. In addition, we should keep the critical thinking way to find more examples to fully show the two sides of presupposition.

References:

[1]Yule,G.Pragmatics[M].Beijing:Beijing Foreign Language Research and Education Press,2000.

[2]蓝超雯,周林燕.男性汉语化妆品广告用语的语用预设初探[J].鸡西大学学报.2013(1):132-136.

[3]王聪.英语化妆品广告语中的语用预设分析[D].吉林大学硕士论文.2013.