Linguistic Deviation In Parodic Advertisements

At present, advertisements have penetrated every aspect of our modern life and have become an inevitable part in the modern society. In order to make the ads outstanding, unconventional language expression and various rhetorical devices are applied in designing advertisements. Currently, parody and linguistic deviation theory are becoming more widely used in designing advertisements. In simple words, parody is the innovative imitation of conventional expressions for the purpose of conveying new ideas. Linguistic deviation theory is the violation of the normal standards of language. The combination of parody and linguistic deviation in advertisements is no doubt to attract consumers and promote the sales.From the perspective of linguistic deviation, the advertisements using parody or parodic ads are analyzed in the paper. Two hundred parodic ads are collected:some are from the printed magazines, commercial or business newspapers, the periodicals or books. The rest are from the Internet advertising websites, the TV and the advertising texts on the electronic boards. These parodic ads cover various fields, like ads for food, clothes, vehicles, insurance, high-tech products and so on.Previous research from both home and abroad in parody and parodic advertisements is first reviewed. Then the definition and classification of linguistic deviation are given. On the basis of Leech’s classification of linguistic deviation, the collected parodic ads are classified into five categories:lexical deviation, phonological deviation, semantic deviation, graphological deviation and grammatical deviation. Each type of linguistic deviation has two or more sub-branches, which contribute to the analysis of parodic ads and help readers better understand the ads. In addition, parodic ads leading to the decline of sale are given the name of negative deviation. Brief definitions and standards of positive and negative deviations in parodic ads are given, so do the ways to get rid of negative deviation in parodic ads.The collected ads can be divided into ten aspects according to the nature of the ads: catering, clothing and accessories, entertainment service, transport and housing, household living necessities, cosmetics products, education and sports, high-tech products, banking and business and health service. Figures of parodic ads in each filed are drawn and the percentage of linguistic deviation in these fields are also given to provide facts for the study. Then, the functions of both parody and linguistic deviation in these ads are summarized. Some major findings of linguistic deviation in parodic ads are presented, too.The thesis aims at enriching the usage of parody and expanding the scope of linguistic deviation theory by analyzing the parodic ads. The combination of these two achieves a better manifestation of advertising language, presents a brand perspective for the parody and linguistic deviation theoretically and beneficially, and it offers some guidance for ad designers to create parodic ads of linguistic deviation.