[财务管理]金艳杰论文正文.doc

苏州大学本科生论文Chapter 1 Introduction1.1 SignificanceNowadays, advertising is playing a very significant role in our daily lives, which is one of the greatest motivations for us to buy certain products or services. “Every day and for most of our lives we see and hear many advertisements. Even if you dont read a newspaper or watch television, and walk around the streets with eyes down, you will find it impossible to avoid some form of publicity” (Dyer 1982: 3). Advertising nearly appears everywhere and its effects on us are so deep-rooted that we say “no advertising, no life”. With the rise of peoples living standard, people especially women attach great importance to their physical appearance. As a result, cosmetics industry begins to flourish and cosmetics advertisements become an important part in our daily lives. In order to give publicity to their products or services, advertisers are in great need of using some rhetorical means to attract customers attention. “Advertisers may never have studied rhetoric, but they employ many of the strategies of this ancient art to influence the attitudes and actions of those who are exposed to the advertisements” (CorbettConnors 1999: 2). Among these strategies, Aristotles persuasion principles are very popular and widespread. It is a fact that Aristotles Rhetoric is regarded as the foundation of western classical rhetoric. In this masterpiece, the knowledge of persuasion and appealing strategies, such as “ethos”, “logos” and “pathos”, are illustrated in a systematic and rational way. In modern society, persuasion is adopted in nearly all fields of society, which supports social communication, advertising and other forms of publicity. As a result of the great significance of Aristotles persuasion principles and the popularity of the cosmetics advertisements, it is necessary for us EFL learners to understand these appeals and know how to analyze English cosmetics advertising.1.2 ObjectiveMany researchers study English cosmetics advertisements from linguistics, culture, and translation and so on. This paper wants to research it from another distinct angle-Aristotles persuasion principles including “logos”, “pathos” and “ethos”. It is hoped that this study can give some suggestions to advertisers about how to attract audiences attention by applying these persuasion appeals and teach EFL learners how to understand English cosmetics advertisements. Moreover, it is also hoped that this study would be advantageous to future research of English cosmetics advertisements.1.3 OrganizationThis thesis is composed of five chapters. The first chapter is introduction, which states the research significance and purposes of this study; Chapter 2 is about the literature review, which provides a short retrospection of the previous research on Aristotles persuasion principles and cosmetics advertisements; Chapter 3 is the theoretical framework which consists of the definition of Aristotles persuasion principles and some specific ways of the application of these three appeals; Chapter 4 is about the analysis of the different ways of these three appeals applied to the selected advertisements; Chapter 5 is the conclusion, which includes the summary, limitations and recommendations of this research. Chapter 2 Literature Review2.1 Previous Studies on Cosmetics AdvertisingIn this part, the author will critically review the literature concerning the definition of the advertising and Aristotles persuasion principles as well as the related studies on ethos, pathos, logos and cosmetics advertisements.Owing to the development of the cosmetics, there are a lot of researches on cosmetics advertising from different angles including interpersonal meaning, critical discourse analysis, stylistics, social culture and language arts and so on.From the aspect of interpersonal meaning, Yang Luoqian (2006) analyzes the cosmetics advertisements from the approach of Systemic-Functional grammar. The author aims to discuss linguistic characteristics of cosmetic advertising texts and discover how the advertisement attracts the consumers to buy cosmetics by carrying out interpersonal meaning analysis from functional grammar approach. From the critical discourse analysis angle, Zhou Jin (2010) analyzes the advertising language of the collected cosmetic advertisements in order to illustrate the ideology of the consumers and advertisers. Therefore, the thesis finally aims to reveal how cosmetic advertisements influence and persuade the potential consumers to buy the products.From the stylistics angle, Wu Yan (2008) analyzes cosmetics advertisements systematically on the basis of General Stylistics and Functional Stylistics. The analysis consists of three fields including language description, discourse analysis and context factors so as to discover how the advertisers promote their products with the usage of effective language.In addition, from the perspective of social culture, Tang Xuehua (2007) compares English cosmetics advertisements and Chinese cosmetics advertisements. Through the comparison between English and Chinese cosmetics advertisements, the purpose of the thesis is to find the cultural differences between them and illustrate the close relation between advertisements and the culture.Last but not least, from the angle of language arts, Zhang Lu (2010) probes into the voice, vocabulary, grammar, rhetoric, Pragmatics of cosmetic advertisements in order to discover the formation of cosmetic advertisement language arts. In addition, this thesis is also combined with linguistic, cultural analysis of cosmetic advertising. Thus, it is hoped to arouse peoples awareness of the language character and art style of cosmetic advertisements.These researches investigate cosmetics advertisements from different angles, which will help readers understand cosmetics advertising well. However, these studies do not analyze the application of persuasion principals in the cosmetics advertising. The final aim of advertisements is to persuade audience into buying the products or services. Therefore, it is greatly meaningful to probe into the use of persuasion principals in advertisements. 2.2 Previous Studies on Aristotles Persuasion PrinciplesAristotle, great philosopher, educator and scientist, has a profound influence on the development of Western rhetoric. In his masterpiece Rhetoric, he states three main principles of persuasion：ethos (ethical appeal), logos (rational appeal), and pathos (emotional appeal), which are still in use in the design of advertisements today and are effective in persuading the audiences to buy products or services.Ethos means the rhetors believability and trustability. Aristotle pointes out that ethos could be the most powerful one among these three appeals because “all of an orators skill in convincing the intellect and moving the will of an audience could prove futile if the audience did not esteem, could not trust, the speaker” (Hu Shuzhong 2002: 30). In Chinese rhetoric, ethos has also been placed at a very important position. Chinese culture “attaches great importance to internal values and self-cultivation, pursues the ideal personality and places moral character above academic learning” (Yao Ximing 2006: 82). Aristotle classifies ethos into three components: phronesis(intelligence, good sense), arte(virtue), and eunoia(good will). (May 1988: 2) Afterwards, three psychologists Irving L. Janis, Harold H. Kelley, and Carl I. Hovland (1983) point out that ethos involves the rhetors intentions, expertness, and trustworthiness, which are corresponding to good will, good sense, and virue. Hart (1977) extends the list of these characteristics to good will, acknowledged power, trustworthiness, competence, similarity to audience (or identification), etc. Sattler (1974) puts forth two kinds of thought in the research of the history of ethos. The first kind regards ethos as individual personality and the second treats ethos as social habit or convention. According to Aristotle, pathos means appeal to the receivers emotion or sensibility. Aristotle argues that a person is often prompted to do something or accept something by his or her emotions. Aristotle makes an explicit description of the influence of emotions on our decisions. According to him, “the same thing does not appear the same to men when they are friendly and when they hate, nor when they are angry and when they are in a gentle mood; in these different moods the same thing will appear either wholly different in kind, or different as to magnitude”. (Yao Xinming 2006: 86) “Since it is our will ultimately that moves us to action, and since the emotions have a powerful influence on the will, many of our actions are prompted by the stimulus of our emotions” (Corbett 1971: 99). As for pathos, Campbell (1963) put forth seven particular “circumstances” which have remarkable influence on the pathos including probability, plausibility, importance, proximity in time, connection of place, relation to the persons concerned and interest in the consequences. Aristotle (1991) defines logos as the logic structure of the demonstration and the logicality of the speechs language. The rhetor persuades the audience by the demonstration process which should be logical and authentic. When we argue, we reason either deductively (draw conclusions from affirmative or negative statements) or inductively (make generalizations after observing a number of analogous facts). In logic, the deductive mode of arguing is commonly referred to by the term that Aristotle used, the syllogism. In rhetoric, the equivalent of the syllogism was the enthymeme (Hu Shuzhong 2002:29). In conclusion, a successful advertisement also employs ethos to gain the trust of the audience, uses pathos to arouse the interest of the audience and utilizes logos to persuade the audience into accepting what is being advertised.2.3 Previous Studies on Advertisements from Aristotles Persuasion PrinciplesConsidering the importance and the effectiveness of Aristotles persuasion principles, a lot of advertisers apply these three appeals into the advertisements. Thus, there are many researches concerning the application of three appeals and the effects on the audience. Despite the differences in the kind of advertisements, these studies are useful to this paper about the application of three appeals in the cosmetics advertisements. Du Wen (2009) studies 300 Chinese real estate advertisements on the basis of the qualitative and quantitative analysis and proves the effectiveness of three appeals, especially pathos in these selected advertisements. The ways of application of Aristotles persuasion principals illustrated in his thesis can be beneficial to this study. He Yuhong (2008) also demonstrates that with the application of Aristotles persuasion principles, the advertisements will become more impressive and persuasive to the potential customers. The author proves the effectiveness of the three appeals through analyzing some certain examples. Yang Xiangwei (2010) discusses Aristotles persuasion theory in advertisements based on linguistics, psychology, western classical rhetoric and mass-communication theories. Through the analysis of 24 advertisements, the author discovers the regularity of Aristotles persuasion principles distributed in advertising, and find out the ways how the advertisers use Aristotles persuasion principles to achieve their persuasion aims. To sum up, Du Wens research selects Chinese real estate advertisements as the target and makes a specific study of the ways of application of three appeals from qualitative and quantitative analysis. He Yuhong just chooses 6 examples of advertisements to analyze Aristotles three appeals, which will not be very convincing. In addition, Yang Xiangweis study also selects limited examples, but his analysis is very comprehensive and all-around. Chapter 3 Theoretical Framework3.1 Definition of Advertisements:The word “advertise” is derived from the Latin word “advertere” which means a method used to attract peoples attention to a certain thing and make them buy the goods or service.The American Marketing Association (AMA) defines “advertising” as “the non-personal communication of information usually paid for and usually persuasive in nature about products, service or ideas by identified sponsors through various media.” (Hou Xiaohua 2002: 14) According to the above definitions, it is seen that advertising is a communication between the producer and the receiver. The aim of the advertiser is to promote the sale of certain products, service, and ideas and so on. When it comes to cosmetic products, such as day cream, night cream, colored lip-oil and so on would appear into most peoples mind. However, in fact the scope of cosmetics is larger than these. According to Websters Third New International Dictionary, cosmetics is defined as “a preparation, except soap, to applied to the body for beautifying, preserving or altering the appearance of a person or for cleansing, coloring, conditioning or protecting the skin, hairs, nails, lips, eyes or teeth.” 3.2 Definition of Aristotles Three Rhetorical AppealsRhetoric is a theory which originated from the period of ancient Rome and Greece. The word “Rhetoric” suggests public speaking in the western world of that period. (Hu Shuzhong 2002: 2). Classic rhetoric is mainly related with the skill of public speaking in a country which worships democracy, where the citizen was ordered by the legal system to give a persuasive discourse for the governments decision that whether he can get the land asked for by himself (Chandler 1978: 26). According to Aristotle (1954), there are two kinds of constraints: artistic proofs and non-artistic proofs. He names five kinds of non-artistic proofs: laws, witnesses, contracts, tortures, and oaths, which may be used in arguing but they are not in the scope of the present study. The three artistic proofs are ethos (human character and goodness), pathos (names and causes of various human emotions) and logos (logical reasoning). These three proofs can be applied in advertisements in order to persuade potential customers, which will be discussed in detail in the following part of the thesis.As pointed out by Aristotle, ethos refers to the way the rhetor makes the audience to trust him, and also the rhetors triumph in convincing the audience that he is credible. Pathos means the way the rhetor can arouse the feeling of the audiences which is advantageous to his will and render them act according to it. Logos means the logic structure of the demonstration and the logicality of the speechs language (Aristotle 1991:ix).3.2.1 Ethos- Ethical AppealThe first rhetorical appeal is ethos, which means the rhetors believability and trustability. In the process of the persuasion, the more credible the rhetor seems to be, the better the effect is. This is because if the audience believe or trust the rhetor, they will think that what is publicized by the rhetor is authentic. According to Hu Shuzhong (2002: 30), “all of an orators skill in convincing the intellect and moving the will of an audience could prove futile if the audience did not esteem, could not trust, the speaker”.Aristotle is the first scholar who systematically studies ethos. According to him, to establish ethos a speaker must own three qualities: phronesis, good sense or practical wisdom; arte, good moral character; amnd eunoin, good will toward the audience. Aristotles view that ethos is the most potent means of persuasion has been supported by many contemporary rhetorical scholars (May 1988: 2).Good sense suggests that the rhetor must prove that he is an intelligent and acknowledgeable person who is quite acquainted with what he is talking about.Virtue suggests that the rhetor must manifest that he is a sincere and reliable person with moral merits.Good will suggests that the rehtor must demonstrate that he tries to persuade the audience for their benefits rather than his own purpose. 3.2.2 Pathos-Emotional Appeal“In seek of a deeper and stronger commitment to readers, ads appeal to the whole person, to our full humanity, both to the head and to the heart, to reason and emotion” (Brierley 2002: 137). Therefore, the message of advertising copy should appeal to both the reason and the emotion of people. Actually, this is decided by the complexity of human beings; they are creatures that naturally respond to reason and emotion. “In the whole human, what we call ason and what we call emotion are integrated. A responsible rhetoric does not separate our thoughts from our feelings; it unites them by addressing the whole person in terms of that persons experiences and the judgments they support” (Yao Ximing 2006: 87). Hence, as the persuasive means of ads message, both emotional appeal and rational appeal, will be discussed in this section.According to Aristotle, pathos means appeal to the receivers emotion or sensibility. Aristotle argued that a person was often motivated to do something or accept something by his or her emotions. In the second book of his Rhetoric, he made an explicit study of human-beings emotions because he was aware that people are also emotional creatures. Emotions play a vital role in humans cognitive system. Emotional identification is essential to the success of advertisements. Advertisements should promote peoples pleasant feelings, for “in pleasure our minds expand,” and “we become extremely suggestible and are likely to see everything in a favorable light” (Pope 1983: 243). Emotional appeal helps lessen the commercial atmosphere in ads.