A Study On Conceptual Metaphors In English Commercial News From Perspective Of Relevance Theory

Based on Sperber and Wilson's Relevance Theory,this paper intends to analyze the interpretation of metaphors in English commercial news,in an effort to find out their pragmatic functions in commercial news.According to Relevance Theory,in interpreting metaphors,the audience would derive a range of contextual assumptions based on their encyclopedic knowledge,for the best context in pursuit of optimal relevance and finally obtain the reporters' intended meanings.Therefore,the process of metaphor interpretation can be viewed as the process of searching for optimal relevance.The results of my general study show that in English commercial news,there are six typical conceptual metaphors.Among them,Person metaphor is the most frequent one in occurrences,followed by Plant metaphor,War metaphor and Building metaphor. The case studies show that optimal relevance and ostensive-inferential model can best account for the interpretation of metaphors in commercial news.As ostensive stimulus, the metaphors attract the readers' attention and focus it on the informative intentions of the reporters.The findings in the study can be applied to English language teaching,especially writing and related reading areas.