HUE UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES -------------------------- BUI TRUONG QUYNH THI EXPLORING PRESUPPOSITIONS IN ADVERTISEMENTS OF SMARTPHONES OF INTERNATIONAL COMPANIES MA THESIS ENGLISH LANGUAGE CODE: 8220201 SUPERVISOR: ASSOC. PHAM THI HONG NHUNG THUA THIEN HUE, 2022 ĐẠI HỌC HUẾ TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ -------------------------- BÙI TRƯƠNG QUỲNH THI KHÁM PHÁ CÁC TIỀN GIẢ ĐỊNH TRONG QUẢNG CÁO CỦA CÁC CÔNG TY ĐIỆN THOẠI THÔNG MINH QUỐC TẾ LUẬN VĂN THẠC SĨ NGÔN NGỮ ANH MÃ SỐ: 8220201 NGƯỜI HƯỚNG DẪN KHOA HỌC: PGS. PHẠM THỊ HỒNG NHUNG THỪA THIÊN HUẾ, 2022 STATEMENT OF ORIGINAL AUTHORSHIP The work contained in this thesis has not been previously submitted for a degree in any university. I certify that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, my thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made in the thesis itself.
i ABSTRACT This paper studied the presupposition used in the online advertisements of four international smartphone companies. In particular, it aimed to identify and find out the most common presupposition type found in smartphone advertisements of each company according to Yule’s theory. This research applied qualitative and quantitative approaches to collect and analyze the data. The data of this research were 25 advertisements relating to the launch of new smartphones or their features published on the NEWSROOM pages of the four smartphone companies, specifically Apple Inc., Samsung Electronics, Vivo, and Xiaomi, between January and December 2021.
The findings showed that existential presupposition was the most common presupposition type found in smartphone advertisements of each company. Specifically, there were 1940 presuppositions, of which 1404 were existential presuppositions, 34 factive presuppositions, 501 lexical presuppositions, and one non-factive presupposition. Furthermore, the implication for helping readers approach advertisements with greater knowledge were provided at the end of the study. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would first like to express my gratitude to my prominent supervisor, Associate Professor Dr.
Pham Thi Hong Nhung, for teaching me knowledge that supported a lot for my research. I admire her talent and patience; she has always been an inspiration to me, and her words and thoughts have always motivated me to achieve my goals. I am grateful to all of the lecturers in the MA course who shared their knowledge and a wide range of excellent resources with me throughout the lectures. They were valuable sources of information for me to begin my thesis.
In addition, thanks should be bestowed upon my family who always gave me valuable words of encouragement. Last but not least, it is impossible to extend my special thanks to Tram Doan who shared with me all the ups and downs and transmitted positive energy to me in every stage of the thesis. iii List of Tables Table 3. List of Advertisements and the date of publication.
The total frequency of presupposition types. List of types of presupposition found in the Apple Inc. List of types of presupposition found in the Samsung Electronics' Advertisements. List of types of presupposition found in the Vivo's Advertisements.
List of types of presupposition found in the Xiaomi's Advertisements. 43 iv List of Abbreviations E. P Lexical Presupposition NF. P Non- Factive Presupposition v TABLE OF CONTENTS Statement of Original Authorship .iii List of Tables.
iv List of Abbreviations. v Table of Contents. vi Chapter 1: Introduction. Rationale of the Study.
Aim of the Study. Scope of the Study. Significance of the Study. Organization of the Study.
4 Chapter 2: Literature review. Theory of Pragmatic Presuppositions. Definition of key terms. Review of previous studies.
Data collection procedure. Framework for analyzing data. Data analysis procedure. 27 Chapter 4: Findings and Discussion.
Presupposition used in advertisements. Types of presuppositions found in advertisements of smartphones. The frequency of presupposition types. 46 Chapter 5: Conclusion and Implications.
Contribution of this study. Limitations of the study. Suggestions for future research. 54 vii Chapter 1: Introduction This chapter serves as an introductory part of the thesis.
It addresses the rationale of the study, its research inquiries, scope, and significance. The organization of the thesis is also presented in this chapter. Rationale of the Study Language is the way by which people communicate with one another, build relationships, and create a sense of community. Therefore, in the language, there is always information or a message inside.
However, people often encounter misunderstandings with each other because of the sentence or words, which means sometimes it is not based on the context. In linguistics, pragmatics is considered the branch that deals with the ways in which the meaning of an utterance depends on the context of its use. In other words, pragmatics is the study of language meaning. Besides, a sub-discipline of pragmatics, the presupposition is a referring to the logical meaning of a sentence or meaningfully associated with or entailed by a sentence.
According to Yule, presupposition is something that the speaker assumes to be the case prior to making an utterance. It can be said that the presupposition itself is an implicit assumption about the background belief relating to an utterance. They also allow speakers to communicate more than one proposition with a single sentence and furthermore indicate which of the propositions communicate the main assertion and which provides a background for the main assertion. On the other hand, it cannot be denied that advertising has significance in modern society.
Advertising is an 'integral part of twentieth-century consumption' and an "important form of representation in the contemporary world" (Nava et al. It has usually invaded people's daily lives, and it sometimes appears that we are oblivious to its presence. For instance, regardless of location, people may quickly access advertisements via 1 newspapers, posters, the internet, television, and social media. Advertising acts as a bridge between a company or product and its target market.
As such it is often viewed as an indispensable tool to create competition with other competitors in the market. However, it is a fact that one company cannot directly claim that its products are more potent than another company's products. This means they have to adopt the language of their advertisements to convey these messages implicitly. Therefore, the presupposition is an effective means to serve advertisements in order to attract people to purchase the products.
In the current digital era, where news breaks around the clock and consumers rely largely on the Internet to stay current, smartphones are regarded as a vital tool for individuals in most parts of the world regardless of age, gender, nationality, career, social status and religion. Each year, millions of smartphones are introduced by various companies around the globe. Each phone model manufactured is believed to reflect the image, message, strategy, and characteristics of its respective company. The advertisements of smartphones thus are expected to deliver all these values often projected as being revolutionary and unique to the public.
Accordingly, it is necessary to explore how presuppositions are made use of to do this task in advertisements of smartphones. This study, therefore, seeks to merge the presupposition and advertising domains by analyzing data from one sort of media language, online advertising, for the reasons indicated above. Consequently, this research was conducted to shed light on presuppositions in the advertisement of smartphones of international companies. Aim of the Study This research aims to decipher the types of presuppositions used in the advertisements of four international smartphone companies.
It also identifies the most common presupposition type in each company's smartphone advertisements. Research Questions It is hereby proposed that the study would elevate this field of interest by seeking the answers to two research questions: 2 Question 1: What types of presupposition are used in the advertisements of four international smartphone companies? Question 2: What is the most common presupposition type found in smartphone advertisements of each company? 1. Scope of the Study There are many types of smartphones in the market. They come from different companies and brands.
Advertisements of these smartphones also vary in presentation. They can be in print (e. in newspapers, magazines, leaflets, brochures) or in more of visual, audio type (e. on television, internet, mobile devices), in simple mode (e.
words only) or in richer multimodal modes (e. image, sound together with words). For the feasibility of this study, the current research is based on data collected from the advertisements on the Newsroom websites of four of the world's most popular smartphone companies, namely Apple Inc, Samsung Electronics, Vivo, and Xiaomi. These advertisements are mainly related to the introduction of smartphone products and new features of smartphones launched in 2021.
Significance of the Study In terms of theory, the finding will help find whether the application of Yu’s (1996) well known, long-established theory of presupposition, especially classifications of presuppositions are applicable once used to analyze current advertisements of modern smartphones. Moreover, practitioners in media information or advertising are anticipated to benefit from the findings. That is the writer and developers of advertisements will be able to understand their own products from a linguistic perspective and see whether the implications delivered through their advertisements are really getting through as intended. 3 On the other hand, the findings will also help public readers understand better the possible implications underlying every advertisement and raise their awareness of the unwanted impact of advertisements so as to become better informed consumers.
Organization of the Study The thesis is organized into five chapters. This chapter presents the basic concepts of the study, including the rationale of the study, the aims of the study, the research questions of the study, the scope of the study, the significant of the study and the organization of the study are also presented. Chapter 2 Literature review. This chapter critically reviews theories, key terms and studies relevant to the current research.
It is aimed to provide a theoretical framework for the study and for data analysis later. Gaps in literature are identified to establish the space for the research questions. Chapter 3 Research methodology. This chapter describes the methodology utilized in the study.
It includes the research design, data collection, theoretical framework, data analysis procedure. Chapter 4 Findings and discussion. This chapter presents the results of the surveys. It describes and interprets the findings in direct response to the research questions formulated.
Chapter 5 Conclusions and implication. This chapter summarizes major findings of the study. Following the results, relevant implications are made. 4 Chapter 2: Literature review This chapter provides a critical review of theories fundamental to the current research before reviewing previous relevant studies.
Then defines key terms of the study including advertising, advertisement, online advertising, website advertisement, utterance and implicature. Theory of Pragmatic Presuppositions 2. Pragmatics In linguistic research, the term pragmatics is frequently used to refer to the study of meaning interpretation. Here are some definitions of pragmatics provided by famous scholars.
Leech (1983:6) defines pragmatics as the study of meanings in the context of speech. It indicates that people can distinguish the implications of their utterances based on the context of the communication by applying pragmatics. As a result, different contexts affect how words are used. According to Crystal (1985), pragmatics is the activity of studying language from the point of view of users, especially of the choices made by senders to the addressees within a social setting, as well as the impacts of their language use on other people who are also involved in the communication process (p.
Fasold (1990) briefly defines pragmatics as “the study of the use of context to make inferences about meaning” (p. As said by Christie (2000), pragmatics insists “a theoretical framework that can account for the relationship between the cultural setting, the language user, the linguistic choices the user makes, and the factors that underlie those choices” (p.