2.2 Pun on Homonymy
“Homonymy refers to the phenomenon that words with different meanings have the same form, i.e, different words are identical in sound or spelling, or in both. When two words are identical in sound, they are homophones. When the words are identical in spelling, they are homographs. When two words are identical in both spelling and sound, they are complete homonyms.” The follow instances will explain that:
“ ‘VIPs’ an atomical comfort.
Variable Impact Pressure Sole”
The advertisement of sportshoes uses the homophonic word “VIPs”. As we know, VIP usually stands for “ very important persons”, while, here, it stands for “Variable Impact Pressure Sole”. It implies if you use VIPs, you will be a VIP. The word “VIPs’ motivates the audiences’ vanity and induces them to buy the product.
“Trust us. Over 5000 ears of experience.”
It is an advertisement for audiphone. The literal meaning is that the product has experienced a lot of texts. While “ears” and “years” are a pair of homophone. So it implies that the product has a long history and has high quality.
“Goodbuy
Winter!
100% cotton knitwear $40”[10]
It is an advertisement for the sale of winter clothes. The advertisement seems to people that it s a good and cheap to buy cotton knitwear. But when the audiences read “goodbuy winter” together, they will understand the good use of pun. “Goodbuy winter” sounds the same as “goodbye winter”. The advertisement use homophone to show two meanings: it is a good business to buy the cotton knitwear now, and winter has passed away. Naturally, people will associate the situation happening every year that when they say goodbye to winter, the clothes will have a great discount and it is good time to buy them.
“More sun and air for your sun and heir.”[11]
The advertisement is for a bathing beach. The advertiser uses homophone skilfully, sun vs. son, and air vs. heir. The advertiser encourages people to bring their son and heir to the bathing beach to get sun and air to keep fit. Each couple hopes their son and heir will be healthy all their life. Pun makes the advertising language sound sweet, fluent and persuasive. 2.3 Pun on Parody
“Parody is a piece of speech, writing of music that imitates the style of an author, composer, etc in an amusing and often exaggerate way.”[12] Pun on parody uses the outfit of saying, apothegm, proverb or idiom to form new meanings. English has a lot of well-known phrases, idioms and sayings. They are important part of everyday language spoken by the English speakers, and have become one of the aspects of the English culture. The advertisement designers are sharp-minded and imaginative. They change a part of the expressions and put their ideas into them to achieve sensational effect. And most of them achieve a remarkable success. The transformations are not only eye catching, but also easy to be accepted by the common, who will do according to the tradition. As the sayings of idioms have been one part of the tradition, the people will be easily persuaded by the advertisement works of this kind. So pun on parody is popular in advertisement.
“A Mars a day helps you work, rest and play.”[13]
It is the slogan of Mars chocolate company. Looking at this advertisement, people will associate it with two idioms: “An apple a day keeps the doctor away” and “ All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”. From the meanings of the two idioms, the watchword tells people that a Mars’ chocolate a day will make you not be a dull boy (make you wise) and keep the doctor away (keep fit).
“Try our sweet corn, you’ll smile from ear to ear.”[14]
It is taken from the advertisement for a kind of sweet corn. The word “ear” has double meanings: the organ of hearing and the seed –bearing part of a cereal. Te idiom “ from ear to ear” also is a pun. One meaning is that people are satisfied with the product. The other one is that the consumers eat one ear by another. So the advertisement implies that the sweet corn is very delicious, and you will enjoy it and eating one by one. How can people refuse such delicious food?
“All is well that ends well.”[15]
This is an idiom, but here, it is taken from an advertisement of a cigarette. “End”, as a verb, means “finish”, while, as a noun, means “cigarette butt”. The sentence means that if the cigarette ends are good that the cigarette is good. |
