Abstract

In the modern world, advertising plays an important role in commercial field and penetrates in all aspects of our daily life. Though advertising requires precision and accuracy in the content, language itself is fuzzy. Fuzziness is a basic attribute existing in all kinds of language patterns. The application of fuzziness not only expresses the communicative intention of advertising but also makes advertising more attractive and persuasive. This thesis explores fuzziness in advertising from the perspective of Austin’s speech act theory by analyzing different kinds of examples. It is aimed at showing the significance of the application of fuzziness in advertising as well as making people better understand fuzzy advertising. At the same time, people can take full advantage of fuzziness and give full play of the role of it in advertising. 

Key words: fuzziness; advertising language; speech act theory

Contents

Abstract

摘要

1. Introduction-1

2. Literature Review-2

3. Linguistic Realizations of Fuzziness in Advertising-3

3.1 Semantic realizations-3

3.2 Syntactic realizations-4

4. Fuzziness Employed by Speech Act Theory in Advertising-4

4.1 Fuzziness in advertising from the perspective of locutionary act-5

4.2 Fuzziness in advertising from the perspective of illocutionary act-6

4.3 Fuzziness in advertising from the perspective of perlocutionary act-7

5. Significance of the Application of Fuzziness-9

5.1 The political significance-9

5.2 The economic significance-10

5.3 The cultural significance-10

5.4 The communicative significance-11

6. Conclusion-11

Works Cited-13