A Study On Metaphor In English Advertisements From The Perspective Of Speech Act Theory

A successful advertising idea not only visually attracts people,but also deeply impresses and attracts the audience with its unique language expression,stimulating their value identification or strong motivation to purchase.A good copy of advertising is often inseparable from the exquisite language expression.It is inseparable from the proper use of rhetorical devices.As a commonly used rhetorical device,metaphor plays an important role in the creation of advertising copy.However,metaphor usually expresses the meaning out of words,not the literal meaning.Therefore,how to interpret the meaning of words contained in metaphor also determines the effect of advertising persuasiveness.The theory of indirect speech act proposed by Searle in 1979 solves the problem of the relationship between literal meaning and illocutionary meaning,and puts forward eight analysis principles for the interpretation of the meaning of metaphorical indirect speech act.Therefore,this study attempts to use the eight metaphorical principles of Searle to analyze metaphorical phenomena in English advertisements from the perspective of the theory of indirect speech acts.The purpose of this study is to explore how metaphors express the meaning of words and expressions in a literal sense so as to understand the metaphorical expression in advertisements profoundly and understand the effect of “persuasion” in advertisements.The sampling criteria and linguistic data analysis of this study were based on English magazines such as Fortune,Times,Forbes,Business Week,and Advertising Times,as well as the widely advertised advertisements on the Internet.And select a metaphorical sample of advertisements to try to answer the following research questions:1.What are the manifestations of the metaphor of indirect speech acts in advertisements?2.How do metaphors in English advertisements convey the meaning of illocution through literal meaning,so as to realize the effective transmission of information?The study found that the metaphorical discourse in the advertising example would have certain illocutionary behavior.Advertisers use metaphors to create good advertisements and make use of the variability of language expressions to impress people and achieve“persuasion”.The reader can explain and understand metaphor through Searle's eight principles of metaphor,and then understand the advertiser's utterance meaning.This study aims to analyze the metaphors in advertising from the perspective of speech act theory,by analyzing the application of metaphor in advertisements,the theory is applied to advertisements,providing an accurate and in-depth understanding of advertising language foradvertising readers.Moreover,the application of speech act theory in advertising analysis is not only for readers,but also for advertisers and language learners.