广告语言中的文化预设

An Analysis of Cultural Presupposition in English and Chinese Advertising

民族文化的个体特征经过漫长的历史积淀无不结晶于其语言层面之上,而广告作为一种特殊的语言文体,字里行间蕴藏着丰富的文化内涵。广告语生成和理解所涉及的文化内涵一旦成为这种特殊语言交际活动的前提条件,它便成为广告语中的文化预设。文化预设体现出的是一种社会文化的定型思维与行为模式,它将某种文化信息(历史宗教、典籍习语、修辞、心理取向等)隐含在广告语言中,在令消费者获得各种商品和服务信息的同时,也在无形中给受众带来文化上的洗礼与美的享受。

The individual features of a certain national culture are inevitably mirrored in its language. As a kind of special linguistic style, advertising also reveals, between the lines, rich cultural connotations. Once the cultural connotations involved in the formation and understanding of advertising become a prerequisite for this special language communicative activity, they turn into cultural presupposition in advertising. Cultural presupposition, reflecting the stereotyped thinking and behavior patterns in a social culture, mounts in advertising language some cultural elements, e.g. history, religion, classic idioms, rhetoric, mental orientation and euphemism, which not only provide information about a variety of goods and services for consumers but also make advertisement audience culturally and esthetically baptized.