Abstract

    With the rapid development of economic society, as a means of transmitting information, advertising has become an indispensable part in people’s daily life. Advertising serves as a tool to communicate with customers, to introduce the products to them, then trigger their desire to purchase the products. The language of advertisement has some special features that are worth studying. This thesis aims to analyze the ambiguity in advertisements by means of Speech Act Theory. It discusses the phenomenon of English ambiguity of various kinds. It illustrates the application of ambiguity in English advertisements. Through the analysis, we find that ambiguity is widely used in English advertisements. Ambiguous advertisements leave deeper impression on customers and make advertisements more appealing, which are conducive to promoting sales.

Key words: speech act theory  illocutionary act  English advertisement  ambiguity

摘 要

    随着经济社会的快速发展，广告作为传播信息的载体，已经成为我们日常生活中不可或缺的一部分。广告可以激起人们的购买欲望，因此，广告语言有着一些特殊的品质值得我们去学习。本文以奥斯汀和塞尔的言语行为论为理论基础，就英语广告中的歧义运用进行了分析。文章通过分析, 发现歧义现象在英文广告中普遍存在，歧义的广告语更能给顾客留下深刻的印象，增强产品的说服力，从而更有利于商品的销售。

关键词：言语行为论 言内行为 英语广告 歧义

1 Introduction
Advertisement becomes an indispensable part in people’s daily life, which is presented through various media such as TV, newspaper, internet, etc. In the modern society, advertising has become a flourishing industry and receive more and more attention from the whole world. Therefore, advertisements are designed more exquisite to stimulate people’s desire to purchase the products. To assess an advertisement is good or not, the language is the key standard. The language of ambiguous advertisements is unique which has more than one meaning. This kind of language enables the advertisements to arouse people’s curiosity to learn more about products, then finally to promote sales. With the theoretical basis, this thesis aims to study the various kinds of ambiguous English advertisements to help people having a better understanding of the usage and structure of English advertisements.