A Study Of Irony In English Advertisements From The Perspective Of Relevance Theory

With the rapid development of economy, all sorts of advertisements have alsoemerged. In order to attract the attention of the target audience, advertisementdesigners will take various kinds of language strategies in their advertisements toconvey efficient messages in the limited time and space. As a kind of speciallanguage phenomenon, irony is becoming more and more popular among theadvertising designers together with its unique pragmatic functions.According to Relevance Theory, communication is a process which aims topursue relevance. The study makes classifications of ironies in Englishadvertisements, and based on the interpretation procedure “explicatureconfirmation—mutual manifestation activation—pursuing optimalrelevance—acquiring of communicative intention”, picks12advertisements thatcontain irony and makes qualitative analysis of how the target readers understand theinformation under the guide of Relevance Theory. The study explores the mainfactors for successful use of ironies from the perspective of cognitive linguistics andthe pragmatic function of ironies in advertisements.Through the study, it has been testified that ironies could bring more effectivecommunication effects to both the advertising designers and the audience, as claimedby He Pinghua. Although the advertising designers frequently adopt this kind ofspecial language strategy in their advertisements, the original communicationintention during the communication process will not change. And more attentionshould be paid to pragmatic functions of ironies because of the risk. Hence, properuse of ironies in English advertisements is very important.A detailed study of ironies in advertisements from the cognitive-pragmaticperspective has been conducted in the thesis. It is hoped to shed some light on thelinguistic studies on ironies and the designing and appreciation of advertisementswith ironies. The thesis is also expected to provide some guidance and support forconsumers’ better understanding of ironies in advertisements and reasonable consumption.