THE FUNCTIONS OF HEDGES APPEARING IN SKIN WHITENING SUPPLEMENT ADVERTISEMENTS ON FACEBOOK FANPAGES

Abstract

The objective of this research was to study the functions of hedges appearing in the skin whitening supplement advertisements on Facebook Fanpages which have the numbers of likes and followers more than 50,000 users, in a total of 31 fan pages, including 266 advertisements. The hedges were tested to identify language forms according to the concept of the Crompton [1] and classify types of the hedges according to the concept of grammatical structure of Vijin Panupong [2]. At any rate, the researcher analyzed the functions of the hedges by using the context of advertising messages of white skin food supplement to communicate mainly to see the fuctions of hedges appearing in the advertising texts. The results of the research indicated 3 functions of the hedges appeared in the advertising context of white skin food supplements including 1) The function of reducing intelligibility and commitment to messages, appeared 264 times (66.33%) 2) The function of indicating prediction or possibility of messages, appears 122 times (30.65%) 3) The function of reducing violence of messages and avoiding conflicts from consumers and competitors, appears 12 times (3.02%). Advertisers used hedges in presenting information to generate business benefits for themselves. This research would like to represent a variety of functions of hedges appeared in the advertising context that tends to be increasingly diverse. This leads to being capable of knowing the facts and tricks of advertising contents and news in the present age. Moreover, it helps consumers realize and consider before you want to buy via social media