Pragmatic Presupposition in the Headlines on WeChat Official Accounts from the Perspective of the Adaptation Theory

Abstract

The research data for this paper is the headlines of official accounts on WeChat, and the author will analyze the pragmatic presupposition in these headlines from the perspective of the theory of adaptation. The paper tries to present how pragmatic presupposition adapts to the linguistic context, the mental world, the social world and the physical world, and based on this, the writer further discusses the functions of pragmatic presupposition in the headlines of the WeChat official accounts. It is found that presupposition has both positive and negative functions. On the one hand, positive functions are mainly presented from the two aspects of the passage itself and the readers. To be more specific, the main positive functions for the passage itself include simplifying headlines, and setting a suspense, and positive functions for the readers mainly include shortening the distance between the readers and the author, and creating a sense of humor for readers. On the other hand, one of its major negative functions is that pragmatic presupposition can sometimes mislead readers.