The language of newspaper advertising in Chinese.

摘要

The advertising language is an important backdrop to any consideration of advertising effectiveness. The present research aims to describe along the line of sociolinguistics, pragmatics, or psycholinguistics what the characteristics of the language of newspaper advertising in Chinese are, how the language in Chinese newspaper advertisements work and how customers are expected to interpret it.; The author considers some matters peripheral to the descriptive aim of his research: a glance at the definition and development of Chinese newspaper advertising. The author, after studying a number of Chinese newspaper advertisements, does not think the language of newspaper advertising in Chinese can constitute a register; however, Chinese in newspaper advertising has some prominent features that Chinese in other written context lack, such as salient topics and commonplace openings of advertising discourse, a combination of literary and vernacular styles, stock vocabulary and prescribed patterns, abundance of rhetorical devices, and block language. These prominent features make a Chinese newspaper advertisement recognizable. Meanwhile, the author devotes a detailed discussion to "Chineseness" by showing specific characteristics Chinese newspaper advertisements have which set them apart from newspaper advertisements in the West, especially in English, such as predominant use of four-character phrases and sentences, frequent use of matching couplets, special application of puns to transcribe foreign brandnames, and heavy dependence on Chinese cultural elements.; The present research shows that words can move people. The author has noticed persuasion through both reasoning and emotion in the language of Chinese newspaper advertisements.; The present research proves that an advertising claim can be misleading when it asserts something that can hardly be verified objectively, or when it implies something that can be mistaken as something asserted. However, the author considers that "misleadingness", of the advertising language and customers' "misinterpretation" go side by side because sometimes, customers interpret an advertising claim in the way they believe to be right (but actually not).; The present research constitutes the basis for a fuller understanding of the Chinese language in advertising of other media.