預設在人們日常的言語交際中扮演著根本性的作用。由於對話雙方視預設內容為無爭議訊息使溝通得以有效且經濟地進行著。然而，若利用預設所具有的隱蔽、主觀、形式多樣、無爭議等特性，將發話者含有意圖的訊息潛藏於預設之中傳遞出去，預設則可能成為一種策略。本文即以中文廣告為例，分別從廣告者及讀者的角度探討預設的運用及效果。其他相關的斷言和隱含訊息也一併於文中討論。
從廣告者的立場而言，存在預設、事實預設、信念預設及狀態預設為最常採用的預設內容，符合一般消費者的心理原則。依據Levinson (1983)歸納的預設觸發語，分析不同的預設內容往往透過某些詞彙或句子結構觸發出來。廣告者運用直接或間接的方式將預設訊息和斷言訊息關連起來，若兩者之間的關係越不直接，則隱含訊息的傳達越是重要。此外，廣告者也可能在預設的部份違背斷言部份的適切性，使讀者產生非預期的趣味效果，增加廣告的吸引力。

從讀者的反應來看，透過問卷的方式觀察得知，讀者對於預設訊息與斷言訊息的接收程度相近，而對訊息真實性的質疑程度則有明顯差異。可見，廣告者可以運用預設將訊息傳遞出去而且不易被質疑。隱含訊息的接收度最為不易，可能受到讀者本身的經驗和背景知識不同所致。除了狀態預設外，讀者接收存在、事實及信念預設訊息的程度相近，但是對於事實預設的質疑程度最大。讀者對於預設、斷言、隱含訊息的接收或質疑程度，會受到廣告中預設與斷言關係的影響而不同。然而，讀者的性別並不會影響訊息接收上的差異，但是在訊息的質疑方面，女生顯得較不易質疑。至於廣告本身的性別傾向似乎也不會影響男女生讀者對訊息的接收或質疑。可見，廣告中預設訊息和斷言訊息的呈現方式才是主要影響讀者對於訊息反應的因素。

最後，從讀者對於廣告標語吸引力的反應發現，女生比男生覺得廣告具有吸引力；讀者對於預設和斷言為間接關係的廣告語比直接關係的廣告語認為有吸引力。此現象似乎和讀者對於訊息接收或質疑的反應有某種程度上的關連。

Presupposition plays a basic and important role in people’s daily communication. Because presupposed content is taken for granted by communicators, communication can be effective and economical. However, presupposition can be viewed as a strategy if a speaker, with special intention, employs its characteristics, i.e. implicit, subjectivity, variety, and non-controversy, and conveys the presupposed information to the listener. Taking Chinese advertisements for example, we’ll analyze the application and the effects of presupposition both from the standpoints of advertisers and readers. Other related information of assertion and implication will be discussed in the study.
From the standpoint of advertisers, the presupposed contents they employ the most are the existential presupposition, factive presupposition, belief presupposition, and state presupposition, which are fit for the psychological process of consuming. According to the classifications of presupposition triggers collected by Levinson (1983), different contents of presupposed information are often triggered through certain lexical items or sentence structures. Advertisers also relate presupposition and assertion directly or indirectly. If the relation tends to be indirect, it is more important to convey information by implication. Advertisers may also utilize the asymmetry between the presupposed part and felicity condition of the asserted part. It creates a fun effect that readers do not expect beforehand, and thus increases the attraction of advertisements.

From the standpoint of readers, through the questionnaire, readers perceive presupposed or asserted information with similar degree, but challenge them with significant differences. Therefore, advertisers can employ the presupposition to convey intended messages because of its high perception and low suspicion. The perception of implicated information is the most difficult because of readers’ experience and world knowledge. Except for state presupposition, readers perceive the other three presupposed contents with similar degree but challenge fact presupposition the most. Readers’ responses to presupposition, assertion, and implication vary with the relation between presupposition and assertion in advertisements. However, readers’ responses to perceiving information do not vary with gender or advertisements with different gender-tendency. However, females tend to challenge information less than males. It is obvious that the way of presenting presupposition and assertion is the main factor that will affect readers’ responses to information.

Finally, from the attractive effects of advertisements, it is found that females usually view advertisements as attractive. And the advertisements with indirect relation between presupposition and assertion are regarded as more attractive than those with direct relation. The phenomenon seems to have some kind of connection with readers’ responses to information.

References
Abbeduto, L. and Rosenberg, S. 1985. Children’s knowledge of the presuppositions of ‘know’ and other cognitive verbs. Journal of Children’s Language. 12:621-41.
Ackerman, Brian P. 1978. Children’s comprehension of presupposed information: logical and pragmatic inferences to speaker belief. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology. 26:92-114.
Austin, J. L. 1962. How to Do Things with Words. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Bock, J. Kathryn. 1977. The effect of a pragmatic presupposition on syntactic structure in question answering. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior. 16: 723-34.
Carrell, Patricia L.1977. Empirical investigations of indirectly conveyed meaning: assertion versus presupposition in first and second language acquisition. Language learning. 27-2:353-69.
Chen, Xin-ren 陳新仁. 1998. Lun Guanggaoyongyu zhong de Yuyong Yushe 論廣告用語中的語用預設. (On pragmatic presupposition in advertisements) Waiguoyu 外國語. 5:54-57.
Chen, Zong-ming. 陳宗明. 1993. Hanyu Luoji Gailun 漢語邏輯概論 (An Introduction to Mandarin Logic). Beijing: Renmin chubanshe 北京: 人民出版社.
Clark, H. H. & C. R. Marshall. 1981. Definite reference and mutual knowledge. In Aravind Joshi (eds.) Elements of Discourse Understanding. 10-63. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Dyer, Gillian 1982. Advertising as Communication. London: Methuen.
Fillmore, C. J. 1971. Verbs of judging. In C. J. Fillmore & D. T. Langendoen (eds.) Studies in Linguistic Semantics. 273-89. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
Gazdar, G. 1979. Pragmatics: Implicature, Presupposition, and Logical Form. New York: Academic Press.
Geis, M. 1982. The language of Television Advertisements. New York: Academic Press.
Green, Georgia M. 1996. Pragmatics and Natural Language Understanding. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associaties Publishers.
Grice, H. P. 1975. Logica and conversation. In Cole, P. and Morgan, J.(eds.) Syntax and Semantics 3: Speech Acts. 41-58. New York: Academic Press.
Harris, R. J. 1974. Memory and comprehension of implications and inferences of complex sentences. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior. 13:626-37.
Harris, Richard J. and Monaco, Gregory E. 1978. Psychology of pragmatic implication: information processing between lines. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. 107-1: 1-22.
Hawkins, J. A. 1978. Definiteness and Indefiniteness: A Study in Reference and Grammaticality Prediction. London: Croom Helm.
Hornby, Peter A. 1974. Surface structure and presupposition. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior. 13: 530-38.
Hou, Rui-long. 侯瑞隆. 1997. Guanggao Yuyian Xinli 廣告語言心理(Advertisement, Language, Phychology). Henan: Henan renmin chubanshe 河南: 河南人民出版社.
Hutchinson, L. G. 1971. Presupposition and belief inferences. In Papers from the 7th Regional Meeting, Cihicago Linguistic Society. 134-141. Chicago: Chicagi Linguistic Society.
Just, Marcel Adam & Clark, Herbert H. 1973. Drawing inferences from the presuppositions and implications of affirmative and negative sentences. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior. 12:21-31.
Karttunen, L.1973. Presuppositions of compound sentences. Linguistic Inquiry. 4: 169-93.
Karttunen , L. 1974. Presupposition and linguistic context. Theoretical Linguistics. 1: 181-94.
Keenan, E. L. 1971. Two kinds of presuppositions in natural language. In C. J. Fillmore & D. T. Langendoen (eds.) Studies in Linguistic Semantics. 45-54. New York: Holt.
Kempson, Ruth M. 1975. Presupposition and the Delimitation of Semantics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kiparsky, P. and Kiparsky, C. 1971. Fact. In Danny Steinberg & Leon Jackobovits (eds.) Semantics, an Interdisciplinary Reader. 345-69. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lakoff, R. 1982. Persuasive discourse and ordinary conversation, with examples from advertising. In Tannen, D (ed.) Analyzing Discourse: Text and Talk. 25-42. Washington DC: Georgetown University Press.
Langendoen, D. T. & Savin, H. B. 1971. The projection problem for presuppositions. In C. J. Fillmore & D. T. Langendoen (eds.) Studies in Linguistic Semantics. New York: Holt.
Leech, G. N. 1981. Semantics. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Trans. By Li Rui-hua (李瑞華) 1985. Yuyixue (語義學): Shanghai waiyu jiaoyu chubanshe (上海外語教育出版社).
Levinson, Stephen C. 1983. Pragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Li, Charles N. and Sandra A. Thompson. 1981. Mandarin Chinese: A Functional Reference Grammar. California: University of California University Press.
Natsopoulos, Dimitris. 1987. Processing implications and presuppositions by schoolchildren and adults: A developmental cross-linguistic comparison. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research. 16-2: 133-64.
Oh, Choon-kyu and Dinneen, David A (ed.) 1979. Syntax and Semantics11: Presupposition. New York: Academic Press.
Schmidt, R. and Kess, J. 1986. Television Advertising and Televangelism: Discourse Analysis of Persuasive Language. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Scorille, R. P. and Gordon, A. M. 1980. Children’s understanding of factive presupposition: an experiment and review. Journal of Children’s Language. 7:381-99.
Sellars, W. 1954. Presupposing. The Philosophical Review. 63:197-215.
Stalnaker, R. C. 1974a. Pragmatic presuppposition. In M. K. Munitz & P. K. Uger (eds.) Semantics and Philosophy. 197-214. New York: New York University Press.
Stalnaker, R. C. 1974b. Assertion. In Peter Cole (ed.) Syntax and Semantics 9: Pragmatics. 315-32. New York: Academic Press.
Tanaka, Keiko. 1994. Advertising Language: A Pragmatic Approach to Advertisements in Britain and Japan. London: Routledge.
Thomas, Jenny. 1995. Meaning in Interaction: an Introduction to Pragmatics. British: Longman.
Wilson, D. 1975a. Presuppositions and Non-truth Conditional Semantics. New York: Academic Press.
Wilson, D. 1975b. Presupposition, assertion, and lexical items. Linguistic Inquiry. 6-1:95-114.
Zhang, Yi-sheng and Wu Ji-guang. 張誼生&吳繼光. 1974. Luelun fuci ‘cai’ de yufa yiyi 略論副詞‘才’的語法意義 (On the grammatical meaning of the adverb ‘cai’). 58-71. Shao Jing-min (ed.) 邵敬敏 編. Yufa Yanjiu yu Yufa Yingyong 語法研究與語法應用 (Grammar Study and Grammar Application). Beijing: Yuyan xueyuan chubanshe. 北京:語言學院出版社.