The Application Of Phonetic Metaphor In Advertisements

As we know, human language is first reflected by means of sounds. Besides, metaphor is pervasive in everyday life. Thus, it is of vital importance to recognize, understand and effectively apply the combination of sound and metaphor-phonetic metaphor.The term "phonetic metaphor(PM)" was first proposed by Ivan Fonagy in his why iconicity in1999. But he only explained it from the viewpoint of the iconic relationship between sound (or acoustic ways) and meaning-the iconicity or similarity of the sound (signifier) and the meaning (signified) associated with the sound. And he didn’t give a detailed and comprehensive explanation on it. Ever since domestic scholar Li Hong introduced this term to China, many domestic scholars have shown great interest in it and paid their contributions to its development. However, most of their studies are focusing on the description of the phenomenon of the use of phonetic metaphor without giving a further systematic clarity. Looking back the studies done at home and abroad, it is not difficult to find out that this newly developed area hasn’t been given enough attention and further explorations.Nowadays, advertising language is more and more colorful and compelling, the purpose of which is to attract the customers’attention and interest to stimulate their actions. PM can enable advertising language to be briefer, more witful and humorous, which enhances its persuading power and advertising appeal greatly. Thus, it is a necessary trend to combine PM with ads. Thus, this paper, based on Lakoff and other scholars’definition of metaphor and Langacker’s explanation of symbolic unit as well as the previous studies on phonetic metaphor, is aimed to offer a more comprehensive classification of phonetic metaphor. And with examples in ads, the author tries to analyze the mechanism of PM in ads, the principles as well as the functions of PM in ads in the hope that more linguists from home and abroad will pay more attention to PM and do more research on it so that phonetic metaphor can be better understood and applied to enrich our language and life.The whole thesis can be divided into five parts:Chapter one is a brief introduction to the whole thesis. Chapter two is a literature review part which mainly deals with the theoretic basis of PM and the development of PM at home and abroad; and in this part a definition of PM is given based on the author’s understanding. In Chapter three, the author, based on Li Hong’s classification of words in lexicology, tries to give a more systematic and comprehensive classification of PM and elaborate the forms of PM reflected in advertising language. Chapter four mainly talks about the pragmatic applications of PM in ads with mechanism, principles as well as functions of PM in ads illustrated. Chapter five gives the whole thesis a conclusion.