A Study Of Cultural Differences Between Chinese And English Advertisement Humor From The Perspective Of Receptional Aesthetics

With the trend of economic globalization,more and more enterprises have been paying attention to the humorous advertisement for its special function.However,a humorous advertisement that is funny in one country may be boring or offensive in another one.This is because audiences with the different cultural backgrounds have different aesthetic expectations to the same advertisement humor.Receptional Aesthetics advocates the shift of research focus from the authors and the texts to the readers.In cross-cultural advertisement communications,the model of “admen--advertisements--audiences” happens to be similar to the main concepts of Receptional Aesthetics.This thesis selects 40 humorous advertisements,including 20 Chinese advertisements and 20 English advertisements from Chinese famous websites: Youku,Iqiyi.In addition,the criterion of the data collection is the relation with the humorous advertisements and cultural relevance.This thesis studies on the cultural differences between Chinese and English advertisement humor from the perspective of Receptional Aesthetics.First,the thesis makes a data analysis for 40 humorous advertisements and there are obvious differences between Chinese and English advertisement humor,as described below.Firstly,on the aspect of choosing topics of advertisement humor,Chinese admen are prone to choose the topics that are more conservative and traditional,such as family life and the defects of common people,whereas the English admen prefer the topics that are more open-minded such as sex.Secondly,on the aspect of choosing joking objects of advertisement humor,Chinese admen are prone to laugh at ordinary people and foolish persons while the English admen prefer to make fun of those who are in higher social position even the President,policemen.Lastly,on the aspect of spokesmen of advertisement humor,Chinese admen are more likely to use celebrities to realize humorous effects while western admen usually choose the common people as the spokesmen.Then,the author analyzes underlying causes for the differences from the perspective of Receptional Aesthetics.Finally,the thesis digs the realistic value of this theory and puts forward some strategies from three aspects: the role of readers,horizon of expectations and response--inviting structure.It is expected that the study could offer some reference and inspiration for the design of advertisements,particularly in advertisement humor and its related research.