Pragmatic Analysis Of English And Chinese Advertising Puns

Nowadays, more and more linguists have paid attention to advertisement. Theyhave been studying it from different perspectives. This thesis adopts Sperber&Wilson’s Relevance Theory, explaining puns in advertisement. Punning, whichinvolves polysemous words to employ two or more meanings, is favored andfrequently used by the advertisers. Why do advertisers prefer puns in advertising? It isbecause of its cognitive characteristics. On the basis of the former studies, thisdissertation analyzes many typical advertisements based on Relevance Theory.First, this thesis introduces the purpose of the thesis, data collection and researchmethod. Then, it introduces previous studies on puns and advertising in China andabroad. In addition, it introduces some of the key concepts of the theoreticalframework---Relevance Theory. And then, the thesis analyzes the characteristics ofadvertising puns. In order to achieve the advertisers’ persuasive purpose, theadvertisers frequently employ pun as the ostensive stimuli to attract the audience’sattention. Based on RT, this thesis analyzes how puns help the audience to acquireoptimal relevance and recover the informative intentions and understand theadvertisers’ communicative intentions. Efforts are devoted to exploring how relevancegoverns the whole communication process. At last, two findings are introduced:First, for the communicator, pun can be regarded as a proper stimulus because itcan catch the customers’ eyes, they’re economical and humorous. Secondly, for theconsumers, it seems that pun interpretation needs extra effort and a little morecomplicated than other rhetorical devices in the advertisements, but they will feelsatisfied and humorous when they understand the wit and the wisdom of the advertiser.Thus, they will leave a deep impression on this advertisement. The thesis alsosuggests that puns have the following functions: puns can convey much moreinformation than other rhetorical devices; leave the audience a deep impression tostrengthen memory; carry forward national spirit and culture; persuade the potentialcustomers to purchase the products or the services and make positive associations. The analysis of puns in advertising can not only deepen people’s understandingof them but also enable the advertiser to make better applications of puns inadvertisement.