Abstract: Advertisement, as one means of marketing, is often adopted to promote the products. To make attractive advertisements, advertisers turn to rhetorical devices, among which puns are favored because of its concise language and rich connotation that perfectly meet the demand of advertisements. This paper is intended to make a study of puns with concrete examples and aims to find out how the puns are applied in English advertisements and how the intended meanings of puns are transmitted to receivers based on Cooperative Rule and Relevance Theory.
This study shows that puns in advertisements often violate the three maxims of Cooperative Rule that include the maxim of quantity, the maxim of quality and the maxim of manner in order to attract the customers’ attraction and stimulate their desire to buy the advertised goods. Based on Relevance Theory, the author analyzes puns according to how much cognitive effort people have to make during the process of interpreting them. In this way puns can be mainly classified into three types: trade-offs advertising puns, coordinate advertising puns and brand puns. And complying with Relevance Theory, the receivers gradually find the real meaning of a pun with relevant context, which is the process of seeking best relevance.
Key Words: pun; English advertisement; Cooperative Rule; Relevance Theory
摘 要：广告作为市场营销的一种方式，时常被商人所采用.为了制作更具吸引力的广告，广告商借助了修辞手段，其中双关颇受青睐，因为它语言简洁，内涵丰富，最符合广告的要求。本文旨在基于合作准则和关联理论的基础上，英语论文题目，结合实例，英语毕业论文，对双关语进行探讨,意在发现双关语是如何在英语广告语中得到运用以及包含在双关语中的真正意图是怎么被传达给受众的。
略论显示，广告中的双关语经常通过违背合作准则的三个原则：量的原则，质的原则和方式原则以达到吸引顾客眼球，激发顾客购买欲望的目的。基于关联理论，作者按照人们在释义双关语的过程中所需付出的认知努力的程度略论了双关语。这种情况下，双关主要被分为三种类型：取舍性双关语，并列型双关语以及品牌双关语。而受众往往在遵循关联理论的基础上并结合相关语境逐步推到出双关语的真正意思，这事实上是寻求最佳关联的过程。
关键词：双关；英语广告语；合作准则；关联理论
Nowadays advertisements are familiar to people and can be seen everywhere. They appear on TV programs people watch, in newspaper people read, over radio people listen to and more pervasively on Internet sites people surf. Since there are so many advertisements, then what’s the purpose of the people who makes them? Crystal and Davy (1983:222) say that there are two main functions in advertising: informing and persuading. However, these two functions are not of equal importance because of the fact that to inform is to persuade in essence in most cases. |
