A Study On The Pun In Advertising Based On The Figure-Ground Theory

In the current society, the rapid development of the market economy leads to the fierce competition of commodities. The development of the mass media has made all kinds of advertisements prevalent in our daily life. This thesis will make a further study of the interpretation mechanism of pun in advertising with Figure-Ground theory. Based on the aim of this thesis, the author will mainly focus on three research questions:1. From the perspective of Figure- Ground Theory, what’re the functions of puns in advertising?2.How many levels are there in the pun of advertising based on the Figure- Ground Theory? 3. How to interpret puns in advertising based on the Figure- Ground Theory?This thesis contains five parts. The first part introduces the background, purpose and the whole organization of the study. The second part is the literature review. Chapter three is the theory basis, which contains the interpretation mechanism of the Figure-Ground theory and the study method, namely, research questions, data collection and data presentation. Chapter four is the principal part of the whole thesis. This part analyzes the relationship between Figure-Ground theory and pun in advertising. Chapter five is the conclusion, which contains the study result, limitation and the suggestions for further study.Since this thesis mainly involves in the advertisement analysis, so both Chinese and English data are adopted to this thesis. What’s more, the resources of data mainly are the Chinese and English advertisements which come from books and magazines. As to the reseach method, the author chooses the qualitative and quantitative, and the author even makes a questionnaire to make the thesis more subjective. And the language used to analyze the advertisements selected in this thesis is English.On the basis of the present study, the author concludes that there are mainly two functions of puns in advertisement, namely the prominent function, which means the puns in advertising are the figures, so they make the advertisements much more specific; the other function is the supportive function, which means that the figures can not exist without the gorunds, so in order words the advertisements are the support to the puns. Next, the pun in advertising has three levels of Figure-Ground organization: the first level is the decomposition level, the relationship between advertising language and common language; the second level is the punning level, the relationship between pun in advertising and the context; the third level is the connection level, the relationship between advertising meaning and common meaning. Based on the audience’s previous understanding, the first level can activate the second level, and the ultimate meaning can be gained through the connection level.