FemaleCommodityAdvertisingAnApplicationofthe.docVIP

Female Commodity Advertising：An Adaptationist Account By Ding Yong Under the Supervision of Professor Chen Xinren Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Arts English Department School of Foreign Studies Nanjing University April 2008 Acknowledgements First and foremost I am deeply grateful to my supervisor, Professor Chen Xinren, always a truly encouraging and inspiring teacher, who deserves my greatest gratitude for his unfailing support, detailed advice and insightful guidance in the process of writing the thesis. Without his generous assistance, the completion of the thesis would not have been possible. Moreover, I owe my special thanks to Professor Zhou Dandan and Professor He Ning whose enlightening lectures have furnished me with so much fundamental knowledge in different fields. I also express my heartfelt thanks to my schoolmates for their kindness and help in the course of my study, and in particular, to Han Zongxu and Liu Yanhua for helping me collect some relevant materials. My sincere thanks also go to my parents for their unlimited love and encouragement, especially at times of difficulty and frustration.  Abstract Jef Verschueren’s Adaptation Theory (1999) claims that using language must consist of continuous making of linguistic choices, consciously or unconsciously, for language-internal and/or language-external reasons. Making of linguistic choices is based on the inter-adaptation between the linguistic structures and contextual factors as well as communicative intentions. As a persuading act, advertising contains all sorts of tactics. Because of special gender consideration, the female commodity advertisements show particular feminine features different from those of other advertisements. This thesis approaches advertising language from a pragmatic perspective. Within the theoretical framework of Linguistic Adaptation Theory, the stu