英语化妆品广告语篇中名词化语法隐喻分析.doc

题目：英语化妆品广告语篇中名词化语法隐喻分析Analysis of Nominalization in EnglishCosmetic Advertising Texts：The Perspective of Grammatical Metaphor摘要【摘要】作为人类语言最普遍的特征之一，名词化一直是语言学家们关注的基本课题。名词化的使用一直被看作科技语篇的一个主要特点. 然而我们发现在广告语篇中名词化也是一个不容忽视的现象。因此，本文搜集了100篇英语化妆品广告语篇作为语料分析的对象，从系统功能语言学的语法隐喻角度出发，统计了名词化在这类语篇中的类型，并分析了名词化的概念功能，人际功能以及语篇功能。研究发现，在英语化妆品广告语篇中，名词化的主要类型为小句名词化，形容词名词化和动词名词化。在概念功能方面，名词化减少了广告的主观性，增强了消费者对产品的好感。在人际功能方面，名词化提高了产品的可信度。在语篇功能方面，名词化使广告语篇显得更加客观、简洁。【关键词】名词化； 语法隐喻；语篇； 功能Analysis of Nominalization in English Cosmetic Advertising Texts: The Perspective of Grammatical MetaphorAbstract【ABSTRACT】 As a universal characteristic of human language, nominalization is always an interesting subject for the linguists. Nominalization has always been considered as one important feature of scientific text. We can also find much use of it in advertising text. Therefore, this paper takes 100 English cosmetic advertising texts as the corpus of analysis, making a statistics for the classification of nominalization in the texts and analyzing its ideational function, interpersonal function and textual function from the perspective of grammatical metaphor in systemic-functional linguistics. Through research, we find that the subordinate clause nominalization, adjective nominalization and verbal nominalization are the three main types of nominalization in English cosmetic advertising text. In the aspect of ideational function, nominalization reduces the advertisings subjectivity and enhances consumers favorable impression. In the aspect of interpersonal function, nominalization improves the products credibility. In the aspect of textual function, nominalization makes the advertising text more concise and objective.【KEYWORDS】 nominalization; grammatical metaphor; text; functionContents1 Introduction11.1The Background of the Present Study11.2The Significance of the Present Study21.3The overall structure of the thesis22Literature Review32.1The Definition of Nominalization32.2Previous Studies on Nominalization32.2.1Research directions on Nominalization32.2.2Research Achievements on Nominalization42.3Theoretical Framework for Present Study63Analysis of Nominalization in English Cosmetic Advertising Texts73.1Classification of Nominalization73.2Ideational Functions of Nominalization83.3Interpersonal Functions of Nominalization103.4Textual Functions of Nominalization123.4.1The Function of Brevity123.4.2The Function of Objectivity134Conclusions and Limitations154.1Major Findings and Conclusions154.2Limitations and Suggestions16References17Acknowledgements18171 Introduction1.1 The Background of the Present StudyIn modern society, advertising plays an important role in peoples daily life. Every day hundreds of thousands advertisements make an impact on our lives. It is no exaggeration to say that our life is more or less influenced and changed by so much advertising around us. Advertising is a means of transmitting the information, and its ultimate purpose is to reach the effect of selling products to the consumers. It always uses every possible means to catch peoples attention and persuade them to purchase the advertised products, especially using the minimum time to make the greatest impact. In order to serve their purpose, they cannot afford to neglect the role of language in advertising. The language of advertisements is very special and charming. It is carefully chosen in order to have special effects. Therefore, it can be seen that there are some distinct characteristics of the language of advertising that make it different from other languages. In view of its importance and uniqueness, it is worth researching the language features of advertising texts.Advertising text has been studied from a variety of aspects, such as syntactical types, advertising modes, code switching, cohesion and coherence and so on. However, few scholars have studied the advertising texts from the aspect of nominalization though the research of nominalization and its relative problem has been the focus in the English linguistic study field. The previous studies both at home and abroad are mainly based on scientific and technological texts. As a matter of fact, there is much use of nominalization in advertising texts. So it is necessary to have a further study into nominalization in advertising texts to make people better comprehend and master this universal phenomenon.This paper mainly analyses nominalization in English cosmetic advertising texts from the perspective of grammatical metaphor in systemic-functional linguistics. The data of the study refers to 100 English cosmetic advertising texts which were collected from the famous English magazines of Vogue and Allure. The data will be analyzed by the way of theory elaboration and concrete analysis.The major purpose of this paper is to solve the following three problems: the types of nominalization in English cosmetic advertising texts; the meaning of nominalization in English cosmetic advertising texts; the effect of nominalization in constructing the English cosmetic advertising texts.1.2 The Significance of the Present StudyIt is meaningful to make a research of nominalization in English cosmetic advertising texts.First of all, the analysis of the language of advertising texts can not only help the advertisers design and organize the advertisement better for their products, and enhance the attractiveness and persuasion, but also help the consumers understanding of advertisement. Secondly, mastering the phenomenon of nominalization in English advertising texts of cosmetics is beneficial to us to analyze and interpret other texts of business English advertising. At the same time, it will make some contribution to the analysis of other type of texts.1.3 The Overall Structure of the ThesisThe thesis consists of four parts:Part one is intended to provide an introduction of the research, including the background of the study, the significance of the study and the overall structure of the thesis.Part two is literature review. In this part it mainly provides the definition of nominalization, then a brief introduction to a variety of research directions on nominalization and the research achievements on nominalization. In the end comes a theoretical framework for the present study of nominalization in English cosmetic advertising texts.Part three is the body of the thesis. It focuses on the analysis of nominalization in English cosmetic advertising texts from the perspective of grammatical metaphor in systemic-functional linguistics. In this part, ideational functions, interpersonal functions and textual functions are studied in English cosmetic advertising texts.Part four is the conclusion. It summarizes the major findings of the study. It also puts forward the suggestion for future research. 2 Literature ReviewThis part gives an introduction to the definition of advertising and nominalization. Then the studies on nominalization will be reviewed before the introduction of the theoretical framework for the present study.2.1 The Definition of NominalizationThe phenomenon of nominalization has been studied by many researchers. Scholars from different linguistic schools present different points of view towards nominalization. Therefore, there are different definitions of nominalization in linguistics.According to A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics: David Crystal. This is the sixth edition. It is published by Wiley-Blackwell., nominalization refers to: “the process of changing words from other word classes into nouns，or the derivative process of transforming a clausal pattern into a noun phrase”.Chomsky (1968) believes that nominalization is a process by which a stem, verb phrase, or sentence is transformed into a nominal.”Thompson (1982:575) argues: “Nominalization is the grammatical processes by which a verb, a verb phrase, a sentence, or a portion of a sentence including the verb functions as a noun phrase.”As the main emphasis of the study is different, researchers have different opinions about nominalization. But the definition has its own value and has something in common, that is, nominalization is the grammatical process which enables things to emerge as nouns.2.2 Previous Studies on Nominalization2.2.1 Research Directions on NominalizationNominalization is a universal characteristic of human language. The study on nominalization has a long history. To a certain extent，it can date back to the ancient Greek. At that time, Plato and Aristotle classified word classes into two parts: nominal element and verbal element, and discussed the transformation between these two elements (Liu Guohui, 2000:5). Jespersen (1937) was the first scholar who researched nominalization under grammatical frame and a set of problems caused by nominalization. He gave us a systematic explanation of nominalization. Chomsky (1968) focused his research on transformational-generative grammar. He pointed out that deep structure and surface structure are connected with each other by the way of grammatical change. In Language and Mind, Chomsky (1968:107) mentioned: Nominalization must reflect the features of deep structure. In systemic-functional linguistics, Halliday (1994) believed that nominal structure is a kind of grammatical metaphor. He thought noun ought to be used to reflect the process or character which should have been embodied by adjective and verb. In cognitive linguistics, Langacker (1991) pointed out three types of nominalization: lexical nominalization, factive nominalization and sentential nominalization. 2.2.2 Research Achievements on NominalizationDiverse studies of nominalization have been made, and every perspective gets high achievements. The followings are some of their achievements.Traditional grammar considered nominalization was the abstract noun. Nominal structure was the combination of “headword”+ “modifier”. They merely regard nominalization as the phenomenon of word class transformation, which is only restricted within verb and noun. In A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language, Quirk (1985) discussed many problems concerning nominalization. He defined nominalization as “the systematic corresponding relationship between a noun phrase and a subordinate clause”. Quirk also pointed out that word class transformation should be distinguished from nominalization. “Word class transformation” is in the category of morphology, while nominalization is in the domain of syntax (Quirk, et al, 1985:1782-1783).In the first half of the 20th century, Bloomfield, the representative of structural linguists, pointed out the standard of distinguishing word class from grammatical category. Structural linguists didnt give a clearly definition of nominalization. They put forward to the method of classifying the word class“immediate constituents analysis”. Structuralisms considered that nominalization was made up of the “the heads” and “the modifier”. The characteristic of nominalization was determined by the headwords. They mainly put researchs emphasis on the form rather than the meaning. Therefore, they only analyzed the surface structure, neglected the meaning and other elements functions in the structure. In the transformational-generative grammar, Chomsky refers to the concepts of surface structure and deep structure. In his opinion, surface structure is transformed from deep structure by the way of transformational rules. He (1968:17) also pointed out that deep structure and surface structure were connected with each other through grammatical change. Chomsky (1968:107) considered that nominalization must reflect the characteristics of deep structure. So he thought that deep structure conveys the meaning and surface structure conveys the sound, and he also confined surface structures function of explaining the meaning. From Chomskys opinion, we knew that generative grammars study of nominalization was mainly about its internal structure at the level of syntax. They explained the deep structure of noun phrase by transformational rules. But Chomskys view also bears deficiency, that is, he only took the process of nominalization as the process of syntactic change, completely neglecting the connection between nominalization and context( Liu Guohui，2004).In cognitive linguistics, Langacker (1991) put forward three forms of nominalization: lexical nominalization, factive nominalization and sentential nominalization. According to these three parts, Langacker (1991:22-50) had a specific discussion on nominalization. He discussed the problems as follows: the problem of meaning shift in the transformational process of nominalization, the problem of periphrasis, and the problem of patterning (also predictability). These three problems are the most significant problems of nominalization. Based on the discussion, Langacker wanted to find the basic rules of nominalization. Langacker also studied the regularity or patterning of nominalization. One morphological pattern may express several semantic relations. In a word, Langacker believed the existence of regulations within nominalization. Cognitive analysis can explain the difference and restriction of nominalization at the level of linguistic morphology and syntax.To sum up, scholars from different linguistic schools have made a thorough research about nominalization. Their research achievement provided much inspiration and stimulated interest in the study of nominalization. For example, more scholars have diverted their attention into the nominalization in technological texts. Yet people seldom study nominalization in business English advertising texts. Therefore, in this paper, we will mainly study the nominalization in English advertising cosmetic texts.2.3 Theoretical Framework for Present StudyIn systemic-functional linguistics, grammatical metaphor is considered to connect with nominalization most closely. Halliday explained nominalization from the perspective of grammatical metaphor. Halliday (1994:44) claims that human cognition is developing in the direction of thingness, that is, processes always incline to turning into entities until finally nouns appear to refer to these entities. He takes nominalization as the most powerful resource for creating grammatical metaphor (Halliday, 2000:352). In his opinion, nominalization is a kind of grammatical metaphor, and noun is used to indicate the process or attribute which should have been indicated by verb or adjective (1994:352). Halliday (1994) also pointed out that nominalization inevitably can cause semantic changes, which include three aspects: semantic function, grammatical function and grammatical category. In the aspect of function, nominal metaphor occurs in the form of thing, while in the field of grammar it occurs in the form of noun, which makes it(nominal metaphor) have the attribute of noun.(Fan Wenfang，1999). He termed the semantic expression close to the situations change as “congruent form”, while the semantic expression indicating the situations change complicatedly is named as “metaphorical form”. In other words, he termed the nominal structure as “metaphorical form”, and the corresponding verb or adjective expression as the “congruent form”. In grammatical metaphor, the meaning expressed by a normal grammatical form (congruent form) is expressed by another grammatical form (metaphorical form). There is also a great research on functions of nominalization from the systemic-functional perspective. Nominal groups with complex and multi-level modification can make the description more accurate. Nominalization can also add another semantic dimension to the original one. When a clause or prepositional phrase is condensed into a nominalized expression, the Subject may be lost, and thus, there is no component taking responsibility for the validity of the expression, and it becomes difficult to argue about the validity of the expression. That is to say, nominalization can exclude the reference to an Agent or external cause, so that the process is self-generated and the result is unbiased. Hallidays theory of systemic-functional grammar is one of the most influential theories in the world. It contributes to the development of linguistics and provides a new perspective for the study of nominalization. Therefore, in this paper, we apply the theory of grammatical metaphor to analyze nominalization in English advertising texts of cosmetic. 3 Analysis of Nominalization in English Cosmetic Advertising TextsIn the following sections, nominalization in English cosmetic advertising texts will be analyzed from the aspects of ideational function, interpersonal function and textual function.3.1 Classification of NominalizationThe first step is to study the classification of nominalization. Generally speaking, there are three types of nominalization. The first type is verbal nominalization, which refers to changing the central verb of the verb phrase into a corresponding noun. Meanwhile, other sentence elements should change accordingly.The second one is adjective nominalization. It is also a means to enrich English expressing methods. Through nominalization, we generally transform the adjective into a noun which conveys abstract conception.The last type is subordinate clause nominalization. It refers to the process of changing subordinate clause into noun phrase.So in this paper, the type of nominalization in English cosmetic advertising texts is classified according to such three types. It refers to 100 English cosmetic advertising texts which were collected from the famou