On The Interpretation And Translation Of Puns In English Advertisements

Based on Relevance Theory, proposed by Sperber and Wilson in 1986, this thesis aims to analyze the role of pun as ostensive stimulus and interpreting process of it in the English advertisements, which explain why puns are popular with the advertisers and widely employed in the advertisements.Advertising is a special type of communication and its goal is to attract the attention from the audience and persuade them to purchase the product. Pun is one of the rhetorical devices most frequently employed in the advertisements for it creates humor, attracts audience's attention and adds persuasive force to the message, which are consistent with the requirements of the advertisements, namely AIDA principle, whereby the language of advertising must attract the Attention of the prospective buyer, maintain her/his Interest, create a Desire, and get her/him into Action.In terms of relevance-theoretical framework, the author analyzes the interpreting process of puns in English advertisements. According to the difference in interpreting process, the author illustrates puns with corresponding vivid examples under four circumstances. From the analysis, it is pointed out that the advertiser should guarantee the pun is an optimal relevant stimulus that is worth the audience's attention and processing efforts. Besides the audience should resort to optimal relevance to infer the advertiser's intended interpretation. Furthermore the extra processing effort involved to solve the pun helps to retain the audience's attention for longer time and thus make the advertisement more memorable. While working out the puns, the audience obtain pleasure and satisfaction and therefore have a deep impression of the advertisement, and ultimately of the product advertised.Moreover, this thesis applies the principle of optimal relevance into the choice of strategies for puns translation in advertisements. Six strategies are proposed, i.e. retention, recasting, imitation, compensation, transliterating and omission, illustrated with vivid and impressive examples.