Similes And Metaphors In English Magazion Ads

Tropes can be found frequently in English language and arts. The application of trope can greatly increase the effect of expression and the vitality of description of a language can be obtained. At the same time people can have rich imagination. Tropes are widely used in English advertisements. It is used to promote the feature of a product, spread information about the product or to describe people feeling after using the product. In this way not only the vitality and gusto are increased, but also the fame of the product can be raised. The purpose of promotion and marketing can be reached as well. The investigation on tropes appearing in English advertisement are very meaningful in the respect that it can help us in the design and writing of advertisements, research on the psychology and social function of advertisements, investigation on social linguistics and raise our linguistic competence.The language of advertising is a prominent genre of text in which many kinds of tropes occur. However, without some understanding of semiotics it is very difficult to account for tropes. This paper investigates two main tropes namely simile and metaphor in English magazine advertisements from the perspective of semiotics.Advertisement sign is a major kind of sign. As a sign, advertisement represents the way of thinking and culture; at the same time it is also constructing the whole social sign system constantly. And the habit of consumption and psychology are reconstructed. We will apply the theory of semiotics frequently in the process of writing an advertisement. Thus the relationship between advertisements and semiotics is very close. Semiotics provides theoretical support for the development of sign. And the development of sign also shows the feature of semiotics. So advertisement and sign is a whole that can not divide.Sign is the carrier of advertisement. The process of advertisement creation is the process of naming goods with sign. Sign is of its features and significance in advertisement communication. The basic assumption here is that meanings in print advertising media are communicated by signs; no matter they are linguistic or graphic. Thus semiotic analysis can account for the meanings of print advertisements and the ways in which they work. According to the Swiss linguist de Saussure, signs construct our perception and understanding of reality. He sees the sign as having two inseparable components: the signifier and the signified. The signifier is a semiotic vehicle expressing the sign, the signified is the concept that the signifier evokes in our mind. The American philosopher Peirce classifies signs into three major categories, namely symbols, icons, and indexes. A symbolic sign signifies its referent by convention, with an arbitrary connection between the signifier and the signified. An iconic sign resembles its referent。And an indexical sign points out or stands for something in existentialrelation to its referent.The purpose of the investigation is to see if the two tropes occur in independent phrases the same as they occur in complete clauses in English magazine advertisements. It is concluded that semiotics is generally applicable to the two tropes in English magazine advertisements and that every type and subtype of a trope assuming the form of a complete clause can also take the form of an independent phrase.