Pragmatic Study of Vagueness in Cosmetic Advertisements from the Perspective of Adaptation Theory 顺应论视角下中外日化用品广告中模糊语语用研究开题报告

1. 研究目的与意义（文献综述包含参考文献）

1. introduction1.1research background with the rapid development of economy and the continuous expansion of manufacturing industry, there are more and more products and services advertisements pouring into market, which has caused a fact that consumer choices are becoming more and more diversified. therefore, many businesses consider making products and services widely known as their priority. advertising is the most effective and widely used means to achieve marketing purpose of businesses. through advertisements, people can learn basic information of products and services. in the digital era of exploding quantities of data, consumers can get information of products quickly and conveniently, in that they may make purchases without deliberation and they may be tempted by compelling advertisements.nowadays, advertisements are not presented by mere a simple slogan. language used in advertisements has its own unique characteristics, about which scholars from home and abroad have studied a lot. it can be seen that vague language is commonly deployed in advertisements. advertising requires its content to be authentic, at the same time, it needs to persuade people to buy its products. if advertising designers want to achieve that purpose, sometimes they will not use precise language,instead they will skillfully use vague words to arouse consumers interest and stimulate their desire. in both english and chinese commercials, there are indeed a large number of advertisements containing vague language.because of its vagueness, commercial advertising language is showing its advantages in communication. appropriate use of vague language in commercial advertising can not only effectively convey the function of the product, but also impress the audience with its peculiar language charm, so as to achieve the purposeof the advertisement, that is, to attract consumers attention, to stimulate their interest, and to cause them to purchase. for consumers, some vague slogans may induce consumers to buy, but when the goods are bought back, they may not be as good as expected. for advertisers, it is necessary to grasp the degree of ambiguity, otherwise it may be counterproductive.1.2 research purposebased on previous studies of other scholars from home and abroad, this thesis is aimed at studying the pragmatic use of vagueness in advertising language, and make an analysis of its effects from both positive and negative perspectives.1.3 significance of the researchadvertising has penetrated into every aspect of people's lives and become ubiquitous nowadays. it not only provides necessary information or guidance for people to buy products, but also becomes a common way of daily entertainment, affecting peoples lifestyle, ideology and cultural accomplishment.advertising is a form of communication that is payable and comes from an identifiable source of intermediary, designed to convince the recipient to take some action now or in the future. therefore, the most important function of advertising is to attract consumers. it is generally accepted that advertising content should be true and accurate, but not contradictory to vague expressions. therefore, proper use of vague language can make advertisements more clearly persuasive and publicized, and enhance the originality of advertisements and the construction of corporate image. therefore, the vagueness of advertising language is worth studying. 2.literature review 2.1vaguenessvagueness is unavoidable in human communication. there are some reasons that can account for that phenomenon. first of all, there are a large number of vague words inlanguage system, and the usage of vague words makes language vague. but if we do not use those vague words, our communication will inevitably become difficult to continue. secondly, human life is complicated and sociable where emotional expressions are nuanced, which greatly increases the complexity of speech expression, accounting for the fact that it is also impossible for definitely accurate speech expression. thirdly, verbal communication will become more complicated because of communication environment, theme, purpose, personnel and other factors. speech expression sometimes needs to be precise, but more often it is language vagueness that can make communication go on smoothly.vague language refers to a kind of special language with indefinite extension and vague meaning. compared with precise language, it has greater flexibility and it is more generalized. the flexibility and generalization is mainly reflected in the extension of language. what is vagueness? many people think that vague language itself is derogatory, such as describing poor sight, scribbled writing and so on. the oxford english dictionary describes the meaning of "vague" as follows: not clear in a persons mind; not having or giving enough information or details about something; suggesting a lack of clear thought or attention; not having a clear shape. therefore, most people equate vague words with ambiguity. but with the emergence of vague mathematics, vague logic, vague linguistics and other disciplines at home and abroad, the meaning of "vague" gradually becomes neutral.in the 1960s, professor la zadeh published fuzzy sets and proposed fuzzy set theory: usually, boundaries of objects in the real physical world is not precisely defined. for example, as for whether bacteria belong to animals, the division is vague. fuzzy theory has attracted great attention from scholars in different fields. according to fuzzy theory, there is often a lack of precise boundaries and nodes between various categories of objects, so people will unconsciously use fuzzy concepts and fuzzy judgments to learn the nature of objective things in the process of exploring the world. since then, fuzzy theory has been widely adopted in various fields, especially in the field of linguistics. a series of disciplines such as fuzzy linguistics, fuzzy rhetoric, and fuzzy psychology have emerged. in china, fuzzy theory was first introduced by professor wu tieping in the 1970s. "in a certain sense, we can say that human natural language cannot exist without vague words" (wu tieping, 2000: 364). it can be seen that there are a lot of semantically vague words in language. in advertising, these vague words can make people imagine and produce better rhetorical effects. generally speaking, vague language has four characteristics: exact content and flexible form; affirmative qualitative expression; uncertain quantitative expression; clear essence and vague description.cao congsun (1989) and jiang youjing (1991) proposed the concepts of vague lange and vague parole based on the difference between langue and parole proposed by saussure. the former refers to the ambiguity of language, which exists widely in natural language; the latter refers to utterances, a product of communication, which people can perceive in language applications, and the meaning of such utterances is uncertain but it does not affect communication. chen zhian and wen xu (1996: 29) summarized the relationship between the two as: "vague langue is the basis for generating vague parole, but vague parole does not necessarily appear as vague langue, and non-vague langue can also constitute vague parole. zhong shouman and wang ling (2000) classified vague words in advertisements into phonetic vagueness (homology related), vocabulary vagueness (vague adjectives, verbs and quantifiers) and sentence vagueness (vague statement, interrogative and ellipsis). yang mei (2008) built a corpus of tourism advertisements and found that vague nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and vague quantifiers are often used as a means of language fuzzification. xing jiping (2007) studied the literary value of vague language in advertising, and pointed out that the pragmatic function of vague language can be both positive and negative. liao donghong (2005)explored the aesthetics of vague rhetoric in advertisements and pointed out that the proper consumption of vague words can produce a sense of aesthetic in terms of rhythm, sentence structure, connotation and image. although scholars from home and abroad have studied a lot about vagueness in advertisements, there are still some shortcomings. first, research goals are too broad. the object of many studies includes both chinese and english advertisements, and the medium of advertisement dissemination is not distinguished. second, the research is mostly based on the "cooperation principle" and "politeness principle", while ignoring advertising as a marketing tool requires some market theoretical analysis of its effectiveness. third, many researches are scattered and subjective observations of advertising slogans, and lack of support for data such as frequency.2.2commercial advertisements advertising is an important means of introducing and promoting goods. the american marketing association's definition of advertising is: "advertising is carried out by specific advertisers in a non-personal manner with persuasive information such as products, services, or planning topics through a variety of media through paid media."as a specific business form, commercial advertising shoulders the commercial mission of stimulating consumption and promoting sales, and at the same time it is carrying out social, ideological, cultural, and moral concepts. therefore, advertising is not only a utilitarian and profit-oriented economic behavior, but also an ideological and cultural social phenomenon. due to the social and cultural attributes of commercial advertisements, commercial advertisements inevitably pass certain value judgments and value pursuits when expressing and describing concepts of products, so the process of viewers watching advertisements is an infected, affected, and demanded process. moreover, due to the advancement of the internet and multimedia technology, the speed, range and repetition frequency of advertising in modern society have undergone subversive development. advertising is permeated every day and every aspect of our life, so the impact of advertising on the audience is cumulative, so this influence cannot be underestimated. at the same time,information about goods, services and enterprises conveyed by advertisements also reflects the development of human civilization.wang lili (2015) believes that enterprises have two direct purposes for advertising. one is to promote marketing and sell their products or services more, faster, longer, and more frequently. the other is to shape the corporate image in the long run. the usage of vague language in commercial advertising is of great benefit to advertisers and consumers, but it will also have a certain adverse effect.2.3adaptation theoryadaptation theory was originally a concept in biological evolution. it was introduced into pragmatics by verschueren, a famous belgian linguist, thus language adaptation theory emerged. verschueren (2000) proposed the influential theory of linguistic adaptation in understanding pragmatics. he held the opinion that the process of using language is the process of selecting language; and the use of language requires some adaptation from the context, language structure, etc., according to different levels of psychological awareness. the theory of linguistic adaptation believes that the reason why we can make various appropriate choices in the use of language is that language has three characteristics: variability, negotiation, and adaptability. there are a lot of vagueness in language, such as "high, low", "far, close", "beauty, ugly", etc. vagueness is a common feature of all natural languages in the world. the usage of vague language in advertising is the result of language choice and adaptation. therefore, from the perspective of adaptation theory, it is more explanatory and persuasive to study the vague phenomenon in advertising language. (zhang na, 2011)referenceschannel, j. (2000). vague language. shanghai: shanghai foreign language press.o guinn, t.c., allen, c. t., semenik, r. j. (2004). adverting and integrated brand promotion. dongbei: dongbei university of finance economics press.sun, d.d. (2018). an analysis of pragmatic vagueness in english commercial advertisements from the perspective of the adaptation theory (master dissertation). xian international studies university, xian.sun, r. (2010). fuzzy language in english advertising and its translation strategies.shandong foreign language teaching, 6, 76-81.verschueren, j. (2000). understanding pragmatics. beijing: foreign language teaching. zadeh, l.a. (1965). fuzzy sets. information and control, 8, 338-353.曹聪孙（1989）， 模糊语言学研究进境，《天津师范大学学报（社会科学版）》，4：34-37。

陈治安，文旭（1996），模糊语言学研究的回顾与展望，《上海外国语大学学报》，5：30-33。

蒋有经（1991），《模糊修辞浅说》。

2. 研究的基本内容、问题解决措施及方案

1.Research TopicVagueness is unavoidable in human communication. Xing Jiping (2007) studied the literary value of vague language in advertising, and pointed out that the pragmatic function of vague language can be both positive and negative. Zhang Na (2011) pointed out that the usage of vague language in advertising is the result of language choice and adaptation. The thesis is aimed to make an analysis on pragmatic value of commercial advertisements from the perspective of adaptation theory.2.Research MethodsMajor research methods include document research, experimental summary method and qualitative research.1)Document Research. It is of great importance for the author of the thesis to learn about the research topic in a comprehensive way, which involves research situation at home at home and abroad, research findings and limitations, relevant system info and so on. With the help of document research, paying attention to research topic can avoid detours and further ascertain main direction.2)Experimental Summary Method. Based on the facts of practice on business negotiations, it is an imperative to summarize the phenomenon of pragmatic failure, dig into extant empirical materials, and raise them to the level of theory so as to guide business negotiation to perform well. The key lies in seeing through the appearance to perceive the essence, which leads to rational consideration.3）Qualitative Research. The author is aimed to delve into true business dialogue text to analyze major factors which exert great influence on business negotiation, so much so that pragmatic strategies can be brought into full play.