Analysis On Conceptual Metaphors In The Chinese Advertisements Under The Guidance Of Relevence Theory

Metaphor exists everywhere and it is very commonly used in the advertisenmt. However, in the Chinese advertising market, how about the frequency of metaphors'application? What kind of characters could be found in the Chinese advertising? How does the metaphor guide people to understand it? Among different advertisements, what about the understanding process under the guidance of Relevance Theory?…With these questions, this paper would analyse the Chinese advertisements which are collected from the top 500 companies and want to find something useful.The author has chosen collected 351 pieces of advertisements from the top 500 companies in the world according to the name list from the Fortune in 2009, which can be divided into five categories, such as Househoid Appliances, Foodstuffs, Services, Automobiles, and Drug and Health Products. Among these,301 pieces of metaphorical advertisements has been found.According to Lakeoff, conceptual metaphor can be divided into Structural Metaphor, Orientational Metaphor and Ontological Metahor. In the Chinese advertisements, the characteristic form of "A is B" is quite rare. And also, the form of Structural Metaphor takes a much larger percentage than the rest.According to some concepts about metaphor and advertising communication, the advertisements could be used as a kind of ostensive stimuli to attract more and more consumers. Meanwhile, the weak implicature can further stimulate the minds of consumer. Optimal relevance could be achived by recovering an array of implicatures conveyed by metaphor. The advertising party all look forward a kind of metaphorical effect in their advertisements. Nowadays, the understanding of metaphor is becoming more and more natural and complete.