Irony And Its Pragmatic Application In Advertising

This study is to propose a theoretical framework and analysis of irony and its pragmatic application in advertising from the perspective of the relevance theory.. To understand irony in advertising, a certain mutual consent should be established between the advertiser and addressees of the advertisement, provided the addressee understands the message, otherwise irony is easily missed due to the divergence of the assumptions and attitudes of the participants of the communication process. We maintain that irony is highly context-dependent. From the analysis of the print advertisements, we also see that irony in advertising can be employed in a variety of ways to achieve the goal of persuasion. Strong signals for the indication of ironic mode can be important in view of the delayed delivery of the message and the anonymity of the addrcsser and the addressee in the case of mass conununication. We find that in the recognition of irony in advertising, incongruities play an important role. Very frequently, discrepancy with expectations concerning the genre advertising makes the reader look out for an ironic mode. When we analyze irony in print advertisements, relevant theory is applied to explain this pragmatic phenomenon. We also pay attention to irony's overlapping and interaction with other figures of rhetoric, such as metaphor and pun. Different codes, namely, pictorial and verbal codes, work together towards creating the meaning of message in advertising. Generally, pictures are more ambiguous in their meaning than words and, consequently, would allow more idiosyncratic readings. Generally speaking, irony has a self-reinforcing effect but can be very different from the other advertisements and may even make fun of their technique. Deviation always attracts attention and if an advertisement stands out, so does the product. Yet, the exploratory experiment conducted in this paper shows that not all advertisements containing irony is successful.