On Indirectness in English and Chinese Advertising Language from the Perspective of Semiotics

Abstract

In this economic society, advertising has overwhelmingly penetrated every corner of our life. As a way of transmitting information, advertising's role cannot be neglected. As for advertising, language is the most inevitable part, which is worthy serious research. In the field of linguistics, many scholars have achieved outstanding achievement on advertising language from various perspectives. However, it's still scare that analyzing advertising language from the semiotics perspective, especially focusing on the indirectness of advertising language, which is a common phenomenon in advertising, since indirect expressions are euphemistic, leaving some room for people to imagine and consider, and showing respect on them, it is easier to achieve better effects. Semiotics as the study of signs concerns the exchange of messages and the systems of signs that underlie them. The discipline of semiotics may be used to predict what the advertisement may mean to the audience, to determine if the words or visual material will be understood by the public in the way that the advertiser wish. The theory and concepts of semiotics may also be used to analyze the structure of advertising language so as to obtain a better understanding how it works.