ABSTRACT

Ambiguity appears in all languages and is very common in our lives. With the development of modern advertising, ambiguity is widely applied in the advertisements. This study focuses on analyzing the adoption and pragmatic functions of ambiguity in advertisements. English advertisements mainly apply phonological ambiguity, lexical ambiguity, syntactic ambiguity and pragmatic ambiguity to attract customers’ attention, convey convert information and coordinate the relationship between the customers and merchants effectively. My paper have classified ambiguity on the level of linguistics and studied applications of different ambiguity in advertisements. And my paper have also proposed the pragmatic functions of ambiguity in advertisements according to my study.

Key words: advertising; ambiguity; pragmatic functions

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

ABSTRACT

摘要

Chapter One INTRODUCTION-1

Chapter Two LITERATURE REVIEW-2

2.1 Ambiguity-2

2.1.1 Definition of ambiguity-2

2.1.2 Features of ambiguity-2

2.1.3 Classifications of ambiguity-4

2.2 Advertising-4

Chapter Three ANALYSIS OF AMBIGUITY IN ADVERTISING LANGUAGE-6

3.1 Phonological Ambiguity-6

3.1.1 Homophone-6

3.1.2 Homophonic phrases-6

3.2 Lexical Ambiguity-7

3.2.1 Polysemy-7

3.2.2 Semantic change-8

3.3 Syntactic Ambiguity-8

3.4 Utterance Ambiguity-9

Chapter Four PRAGMATIC FUNCTIONS OF AMBIGUITY IN ADERTISING LANGUAGE-10

4.1 Accomplishing AIDA-10

4.2 Conveying Covert Information-11

4.3 Coordinating the Relationship between the Customers and Merchants Effectively-12

Chapter Five CONCLUSION-14

REFERENCES-15