1、 本科毕业论文 （ 20 届） 英语 歧义在广告中的语用价值研究 On Pragmatic Values of Ambiguity in Advertising 诚 信 声 明 我声明，所呈交的论文 (设计 )是本人在老师指导下进行的研究工作及取得的研究成果。据我查证，除了文中特别加以标注和致谢的地方外，论文 (设计 )中不包含其他人已经发表或撰写过的研究成果，也不包含为获得 或其他教育机构的学位或证书而使用过的材料。我承诺，论文 (设计 )中的所有内容均真实、可信。 论文 (设 计 )作者签名： 签名日期： 年 月 日 授 权 声 明 学校有权保留送交论文（设计）的原件，允许论文（设计）被查
2、阅和借阅，学校可以公布论文（设计）的全部或部分内容，可以影印、缩印或其他复制手段保存论文（设计），学校必须严格按照授权对论文 (设计 )进行处理，不得超越授权对论文（设计）进行任意处置。 论文 (设计 )作者签名： 签名日期： 年 月 日 I 摘要 歧义作为一种语言现象在任何语言中都存在， 它 指一种表达方式有两种或两种以上的理解意义。英语歧义包括词汇歧义、语音歧义、语法 /结构歧义及修辞歧义。本文从语用学的角度，结合语用学的言语行为理论、会话含义理论和语用预设等理论分析研究歧义在广告中的语用价值。歧义的巧妙运用是广告更灵活、恰当、高效又不失幽默地表达推销产品或服务意图，实现广告的目的。 关键
3、词 ：歧义；广告；语用价值 IIAbstract Ambiguity is a common linguistic phenomenon that one expression can be interpreted into more than two ways. It can be classified into lexical ambiguity, phonetic ambiguity, grammatical/structural ambiguity, and rhetorical ambiguity. Based on the Speech Act Theory, the Theory
4、 of Conversational Implicature, and Pragmatic Presupposition, this thesis analyses the pragmatic values of ambiguity in commercial advertisements. Proper use of ambiguity can make commercial advertisements more efficient, flexible, appropriate and even humorous way, thus achieve the purpose of sales
5、 promotion. Keywords: ambiguity; advertisement; pragmatic value III Contents Abstract . II 1. Introduction . 1 2. Ambiguity in Advertising . 1 2.1 Lexical ambiguity . 1 2.1.1 ambiguity caused by polysemy. 2 2.1.2 Ambiguity caused by homographic words . 3 2.2 Phonetic Ambiguity . 3 2.3 Grammatical Am
6、biguity . 4 2.4 Rhetorical Ambiguity . 4 3. Pragmatic Values of Ambiguity . 6 3.1Cooperation Principle and Politeness Principle in Ambiguity . 6 3.2 Humorous and Positive Value of Ambiguity in Advertising . 7 3.3 Pragmatic Presupposition in ambiguous Advertising . 8 4. Conclusion . 10 Bibliography .
7、 11 Acknowledgements . 12 1 1. Introduction About two thousand and three hundred years ago, the Greek scholar Aristotle first put forward the ambiguity problem. W.Empsons Seven Types of Ambiguity (1930), J.G.Kooijs Ambiguity in Natural Language (1971) are influential works of ambiguity study. Joseph
8、 F Kess Ronald A Hoppe (1980) clamed in their book Ambiguity in Psycholinguistics that ambiguity exists everywhere in language. Pragmatics studies the ambiguity in situational contexts which concern when and where the communication takes place and also the number and identity of the participants inv
9、olved. Pragmatic ambiguity arises when the speaker uses uncertain, vague, and indirect words to the hearer in a particular situation or context, so that it comes into being more than one kind of interpretations. Pragmatic ambiguity is widely used in our daily life, literature works, oral speech and
10、commercial advertising. This thesis mainly focuses on the pragmatic values of ambiguity in the commercial advertisements. As is well known, the purpose of advertisements is to make an impact on peoples minds, but time and space are limited, as is human attention. Actually the key to successful adver
11、tisement is to attract the customers eyes. And ambiguity has become an effective tool of making a good advertisement. 2. Ambiguity in Advertising In todays consuming society, we are surrounded by advertisements, and it is important to know how to read them if we want to keep some of our independence
12、 in making our buying decision. To make the advertisements more attractive, vivid, and impressive, ambiguity is widely adopted by businessmen. Four kinds of ambiguity are found in ads: lexical ambiguity, phonological ambiguity, grammatical ambiguity and rhetorical ambiguity. This thesis will pin dow
13、n the advertisers persuasive strategies by analyzing the ambiguity in advertisements as evidence of their intention to accomplish AIDA (to seize customers Attention, to excite their Interest, to simulate their Desire, and to cause them to take Action), convey convert information or win new buyers wi
14、thout alienating previous buyers. 2.1 Lexical ambiguity Since the semantics is defined as the study of meaning, more specifically, it is the study of the meaning of linguistic units, words and sentences in particular. So the 2 semantic ambiguity is the most common ambiguous phenomenon, in which the
15、lexical ambiguity occupies the most part of it for the sake of the variety of the lexical meaning. Lexical ambiguity mainly caused by polysemy, homonymy. 2.1.1 Ambiguity caused by polysemy A word which has more than one meaning is called polysemics. The different meaning in some degree has some rela
16、tions. They were all originated from one primitive meaning. For example, the word “head“, it can be interpreted as a body organ of human being, and it can also be understood as a “human being“. So to create ambiguous phenomenon by using these words may have the relevant sense and reference. The ambi
17、guous words often embody the products character combined with vivid, positive image. (1)“The unique spirit of Canada.“ This is an advertisement for a Canadian whisky. The reason for the word “spirit“ here causes the ambiguity is that it has two different meanings and each one in the situational cont
18、ext refers to the logical rules. One meaning is alcohol, or a strong alcohol drink. If understood as this, the ad describes the whiskys quality. The other way to understanding the ad is that the unique character, or feeling of the Canadians or the country. The spirit is courageous, and powerful, jus
19、t like the flavor of whisky. (2)“A Deal with Us Means A Good Deal to You.“ This is found from a giant advertising board hanging on a shopping center. The second word “deal“ combined with “good” means much, many, “a lot to you“, while the common use of the word is used as a verb “doing a business wit
20、h others or handle something.“ The company aims at stressing that if the customers do shopping in the mall, they will get a great of benefits, a satisfactory shopping. Is it very attractive? (3)“Less bread. No jam.“ This is a public service advertisement of the London Transport in 1981. The advertis
21、er uses the two distinct meanings of “jam“ to realize the ambiguous phenomenon. On the one hand, “jam” is a kind of sweet fruit jam and spread on the bread; on the other hand, “jam” refers to “traffic jam“. Then the “bread” is associated with money as in “breadwinner“. Then the ad can be interpreted
22、 as “Less money, less traffic jam“. (4)“Why dont you take one home to mother.“ 3 The US Boeing airplane company made it during the Christmas Days Festival. It seems unbelievable to bring a Boeing 747 home as a Christmas gift. But ambiguity is attributed to the word “take“, because it can also mean u
23、sing a form of transport. So the main purpose of this advertisement is to persuade people to go home by plane. 2.1.2 Ambiguity caused by homographic words Homonym refers to the phenomenon that words having different meanings have the same form, i.e., words of different meanings are identical in soun
24、d or spelling, or in both. When two words are identical in spelling, they are homographs. When two words are identical in both sound and spelling, they are complete homonyms. For instance: (5)“Im More satisfied. Ask for more.“ is an advertisement for cigarette whose brand name is “More“. Two words “
25、more“ here are complete homonyms, for the first is the brand name, and the second one is a numeral word. There are many similar ads in Chinese, such as “要想皮肤好，早晚用大宝 “， and “春兰，盛开在妩媚的春天 “. “早晚 “ on the on hand means “in the morning and evening“, on the other hand it means “sooner or later“. “春 兰 “ is
26、 the brand of air condition. Meanwhile, it is also a kind of flower flourish in spring. These are all examples of ambiguity caused by homonymy. 2.2 Phonetic Ambiguity Phonetic ambiguity is mainly caused by homophones, variation of stress and tone. Such ambiguity often appears in spoken English, for
27、instance, “flower/flour, heir/air“. This kind of ambiguity used in advertisements can lead people to thinking about another familiar word in the context according to the pronunciation, and it is also easy to show the special quality of the products. (6)“We have courses to make grown man young and a
28、young man groan.“ People will be confused about this advertisement if he or she only hears it from the radio or somewhere else. But take a second think of it, it is an ads of a gym. The word “grown” and “groan” are homophones. The ambiguity used here may be very suitable and vivid to show benefits o
29、f sports and the scene where people are doing exercises so hard that they sweat and groan. (7)“More sun and air for your son and heir.“ “sun and hair“ sounds the same as “son and heir“. This is an advertisement of a travel agency to attract tourists. For its subtle idea, the ad is connected with the
30、 parental love. It calls for the love to children. 4 It seems that the sun and the air of the sea are benefit to their childrens growth. Why not have a try? (8) “Trust us, over 5000 ears of experience.“ This is an ad for promoting hearing aid, intending to impress people as a well established produc
31、t. “5000 ears“ indicates its 2500 users (customers) of the product, which is the fact. While “5000 years“ is not the fact at all, only an illusion of long history created deliberately by homophones. 2.3 Grammatical Ambiguity Grammatical ambiguity, also known as syntactic ambiguity, attains in those
32、sentences in which strings of words can be grouped in different ways or in which words can have different grammatical functions depending on the inferred relations among them. In more simple term, syntactic ambiguity arises from different grammatical analysis of a sentence or a phrase as a result of
33、 different attitudes toward the syntactical functions of some lexical items in the phrase or sentence Grammatical ambiguity is also widely used in the advertisements, and its pragmatic functions are as important as the other two kinds of ambiguity. (9)“Wanted! A man wanted to wash dishes and two wai
34、tresses.“ This job-offering advertisement is really the example of the grammatical ambiguity. The word “and” do account for it. Whether the restaurant wanted a man to wash dishes, and two women waitresses relatively or a man can both wash dishes and do as two women waitresses is unclear. A quite num
35、ber of people will think of the later. Then they may also praise the bosss humorous idea. (10)“3-year-old teacher need for pre-schoo1. Experience preferred.“ Here is also a want ad for finding a pre-school teacher who is requested to take after 3-year-old children. But for the first look, it may als
36、o mean the school is searching a 3-year- old teacher. It is really difficult to understand. Though the grammatical ambiguity can make the ads amazing and interesting, there are also some shortcomings. The advertisers should know about the culture of the native consumers whether they could understand its implicit meaning or accept it. 2.4 Rhetorical Ambiguity Rhetorical ambiguity involves misapprehension due to the multiple meanings caused by a rhetorical device such as pun. No matter what results in this misapprehension,
