Abstract:The present thesis tries to explore pragmatic fuzziness in advertisements from the view of Verschueren's Linguistic Adaptation Theory. Based on a great number of English advertisement examples, the author analyzes pragmatic fuzziness from the four perspectives of the concept of adaptability: the structural adaptability, the contextual adaptability, the dynamics adaptability and the salience adaptability. The thesis aims to arouse people's attentions to the employment of fuzziness in advertisements and equip them with better operation of fuzziness in advertising.

Key words: linguistic adaptation theory; advertising language; fuzziness

CONTENTS

Abstract

中文摘要

1. Introduction2

2. Literature Review.4

2.1 Previous Studies on Fuzziness in Advertising Language

2.2 An Introduction to Verschueren's Adaptation Theory

2.3 Advertising Language

3. An Analysis of Fuzziness in Advertising Language.16

3.1 Structural Adaptability

3.1.1 Phonetic Level

3.1.2 Lexical Level

3.1.3 Syntactic Level

3.2 Contextual Adaptability

3.2.1 Adaptation to Mental World

3.2.2 Adaptation to Social World

3.2.3 Adaptation to Physical World

3.3 Dynamics Adaptability

3.4 Salience Adaptability

4. Conclusion17

Bibliography.18

Acknowledgements19