Abstract: As a common language phenomenon, fuzzy language is widespread in people’s daily life, which occurs in people’s daily conversations, speeches and lectures. As a mass media, advertisement plays a more and more important role in society. Therefore, advertisers find every ways to promote their products or services by using fuzzy language. As a component of fuzzy language, hedges are the most typical and common in all of the phenomena. Employing hedges is an effective approach to make the advertisement smooth and persuasive. The reason is that hedges can realize the linguistic vagueness and have the ability to make the advertising language more accurate, flexible and persuasive. By employing hedges, advertising can attract more consumers to purchase products or services to accomplish advertisers final goals—making profits. In this thesis, the author attempts to study hedges from a pragmatic perspective and associate hedges with the Cooperative Principle and Politeness Principle which are widely applied in English advertising. With the analysis of hedges in different advertisements, the author tries to let people understand the tricks played in advertising and have a clear understanding of every advertisement.

Key words: Fuzzy Set; Hedges; Cooperative Principle; Politeness Principle; Pragmatic Function

CONTENTS

Abstract

摘要

1. Introduction1

2. Literature Review and Theoretical Framework.1

2.1 Definitions of Hedges

2.2 Theoretical framework

   2.2.1 Cooperative Principle

   2.2.2 Politeness Principle 

3. Hedges in English Advertising..3

3.1 An Introduction to English Advertising

  3.2 Classification of Hedges

3.2.1 Approximators

3.2.2 Shields

4. Hedges in English Advertising from a Pragmatic Perspective....6

4.1 Cooperative Principle and Hedges in English Advertising

  4.1.1 Violation of Quantity Maxim

  4.1.2 Violation of Quality Maxim

  4.1.3 Violation of Relevance Maxim

  4.1.4 Violation of Manner Maxim

4.2 Politeness Principle and Hedges in English advertising

5. Pragmatic Functions of Hedges in English Advertising10

  5.1 Enhancing Persuasion

  5.2 Strengthening Flexibility

  5.3 Heightening attractiveness

  5.4 Contributing accuracy

6. Conclusion12

Bibliography.13

Acknowledgements14