Study on Pragmatic Presupposition in Cosmetic Advertisements

Abstract

Pragmatic presupposition is one of the important language tools. This research uses Taobao application, extracts 150 cosmetics advertisements. Based on the classification of pragmatic presuppositions by Chen Xinren, this paper analyzes and classifies specific cosmetic advertising slogans from four aspects: fact presupposition, belief presupposition, state presupposition and behavior presupposition. The survey shows that the state presupposition appears most frequently in cosmetic advertising language. It is found that pragmatic presupposition is an effective language strategy, which not only makes the advertising language more concise and colorful, but also achieves the effect of euphemism because the concealment of pragmatic presupposition avoids straightforward expression.