Puns In English Commercial Advertisements--The Application Of Relevance Theory And The Models Of Consumer Behavior

This thesis is intended to give an adequate analysis of puns usage in English commercial advertisements within the framework of Relevance Theory in pragmatics and the models of consumer behavior.It reviews the studies of advertising language from the point of view of semiotics and linguistics and finds that analyzing advertising language simply from the perspective of language proves too narrow in scope. So the thesis tries to combine the theories of pragmatics with sociology for its theoretical foundation.The pun is a kind of rhetoric skill often used in commercial advertisements, which serves as a study carrier in this thesis. The features, functions and especially the specific forms of puns with combined elements are investigated; three types of puns with different punning effects are concluded in the theoretical framework of contextual effects and processing efforts of Relevance Theory; and branding in puns is also studied in the thesis.This thesis attempts to relate the central notions of Relevance Theory with those of consumer behavior, and with the goal of offering some fresh ideas about advertising language, especially puns, to advertisers.