The Analysis Of Pun In Advertising-from The Perspective Of Conceptual Blending Theory

Pun, as one kind of figures of speech, is widely employed in advertising. Some scholarshave done researches on puns in advertising from various aspects, such as linguistics,translation and so on. But most researchers study the definition, classification, functions andfeatures of the pun, while few study puns in advertising from the perspective of cognitivelinguistics. The present research is intended to conduct an analysis of the pun in advertisingby means of conceptual blending theory in cognitive linguistics. The thesis attempts toanswer the following three questions:1. How to explain puns in advertising by means of conceptual blending theory?2. What are the cognitive mechanisms of understanding advertising puns?3. What are the cognitive conditions of explaining puns in advertising?Conceptual blending theory evolves from mental spaces theory, which was firstproposed by Fauconnier in1985. The conceptual blending theory involves four mental spacesand its process of interpretation can be regarded as the mapping of four mental spaces, whichare input I1, input I2, blend space and generic space.The32advertisements in this thesis are mainly collected from three books, namely“Three Thousands of Advertising English”,(Cui Gang,1993)“Graphic Ideas in Advertising”（Xiao Jie,2008）and “Photography&Design”（Peng Niansheng&Fan Hancheng,2002）.And they are mainly printed advertisements, which consist of writing format and writing pluspicture format. Those advertisements involve various aspects of people’s daily life. In thethesis, the author will analyze21advertisements involving words or sentences and11advertisements including picture and words.Through the analysis and discussion of the puns in advertising by conceptual blendingtheory, the findings can be revealed as follows: 1. Process of interpreting puns in advertisements can be viewed as the mapping of themental spaces, which include four mental spaces: input I1, input I2, generic spaceand the blend space. Pun usually has at least two meanings (double meanings),which are viewed as input I1and input I2; then through generic space, input I1spaceand input I2space can be chosen partially to project into the blend space and thenthe emergent structure--the meaning of puns in the advertisement can be generated.2. Upon the cognitive mechanism of interpreting pun in advertising, it involves thedouble contexts (double linguistic contexts and double non-linguistic contexts), thesimilarity between the double contexts (the similarity of the double linguistic andnon-linguistic contexts) and conflicts of the double contexts (the conflict of doublelinguistic contexts and the non-linguistic contexts). What is more, in order to betterunderstanding the puns in advertising, people should have the same cognitive andcultural modes, which are cognitive conditions of interpreting pun in advertising.Therefore, the present research can not only help the advertiser effectively and directlycommunicate advertising meanings to the audience, but also make readers and audiencesunderstand the advertiser’s meaning expressed in the advertisement more clearly.