英语本科毕业论文：Analysis of English Puns in Advertising with Relevance Theory 目录.doc

本科毕业论文题目：Analysis of English Puns in Advertising With Relevance Theory 学院： 外 语 学 院 班级： 08级英语本科十一班 姓名： 邱 菲 指导教师: 侯 彩 静 职称： 讲 师 完成日期： 2012 年 05 月 20 日Analysis of English Puns in Advertising with Relevance TheoryAbstract: Nowadays, advertising has become an important part of our daily life. It is a special and effective tool to achieve advertisers ultimate goal that is to persuade consumers to buy their advertised products or services. In the process of creating advertisements, advertisers value the power and flexibility of language, so they often use more language skills to grab consumers attention, improve images and promote their products and services. Pun is one of most common rhetorical devices used in advertisements and weighs much more in communication for its special features: ambiguity and double contexts. The phenomenon of puns frequent application in advertising has aroused interest and this paper will try to examine it under Sperber and Wilsons Relevance theory by employing many examples. By analysis, how some kinds of puns attract consumers attention and the process of how puns achieve optimal relevance are revealed. The analysis of advertising puns can not only deepen the audiences understanding of advertising puns but also help the advertisers to make a better use of puns in advertisements.Key words: puns; relevance theory; forms of puns; puns interpretationContentsAbstract(English) (I)1 Introduction(1)2 Literature Review(1)3 Relevance Theory and Pun in Advertising(2)3.1 Pun(2)3.1.1 The Definition of the Pun(2)3.1.2 The Main Characteristics of Pun(2)3.2 Relevance Theory(3)3.2.1 Ostensive-inferential Communication(4)3.2.2 Principle of Relevance and Optimal Relevance(4)3.2.3 Processing Effort and Cognitive effect(5)3.3 Relevance Theory and Pun in Advertising(6)4 Case Analysis of Puns Interpretation in English Ads(7)4.1Forms of Pun in Advertising(7)4.1.1 Antanaclasis(7)4.1.2 Paronomasia(7)4.1.3 Syllepsis(8)4.1.4 Ambiguity(8)4.1.5 Brand Name Puns(8)4.1.6 Parody Puns(9)4.2 Case Analysis of Puns Interpretation in Advertising(9)4.2.1 Puns with One Intended Meaning(10)4.2.2 Understanding Puns with Rejected Interpretation Contributing to the Intended One(11)4.2.3 Understanding Puns with Double Interpretations Communicated(11)4.2.4 Understanding Puns with Intended Interpretations Contributed by Consumers Familiarity of Idioms(13)5 Conclusion(13)5.1 Summary of the Study(13)5.2 Implications of the Study(14)Bibliography(14)Abstract (Chinese)(15)1 IntroductionAlong with the quick development of economy, there is an increasing need of various products or services. In order to make these products or services highly marketable and attractive, advertisers uses more rhetorical figures to polish the advertising language. Pun is one rhetoric figure which is widely used by advertisers in advertisements. This phenomenon arises many scholars and consumers attention. This paper will study English puns in advertising under Sperber and Wilsons relevance theory.For scholars, relevance theory provides a new research to study advertisements. Based on relevance theory, this paper analyzes pun interpretation in advertisements to reveal how English puns attract consumers attention and the process of how puns interpretation in advertisements of how puns arrives optimal relevance when it is chosen as ostensive stimulus.Through analysis, the participants of advertisements will better understand the puns frequently application in advertisements. It is easy for them to associate the use of pun when they read or hear some related advertisements. This paper not only helps advertisers use pun in advertisements in a better way, but also makes consumers deeply understand advertisements and have pun from the interpretation of advertisements. In addition, it helps scholars to do further research into English puns in advertisements from the perspective of relevance theory.2 Literature Review There are many scholars both at home and aboard conducted some researches on advertising from different angles. These researches are valuable for scholars who are interested in advertising to do further study. In the west, Leech (1966) studies some linguistic features used in advertising, such as grammar, vocabulary, discourses and rhetorical figures. However, he doesnt have an further explanation of why these features can gain consumers attention. Cook (1992) tries to interpret advertisements as discourse in the book The Discourse of Advertising. He proposes that “the study of language must take context into account.”(2001, 5) Sperber and Wilson (1986) put forward relevance theory in their book Relevance: Communication and Cognition. Many scholars are interested in the connection between relevance theory and advertisements. Then Tanaka (1944) analyzes covert communication in advertising. He claims that pun is used in covert communication to avoid social responsibility In china, some scholars have done some researches on advertising from relevance theory. Lin Xinhua (2000) studied the classification and double contexts of puns. He states that advertisers usually use pun in advertisements because it can activate consumers background information and make them enjoy the interpretation of puns in advertisements. Zhan Jinhui and Meng Lins co-edited paper (2001) analyzes the various forms and translation of puns in English advertisements. They put that translation is difficult because advertisers should maintain double meaning of a pun.3 Relevance Theory and Puns in Advertising3.1 Pun3.1.1 The Definition of the Pun The “pun” comes from the Latin word “paranomazein” which means “calling by different name”. We also call it paronomasia. The Oxford Advanced Learners English- Chinese Dictionary gives a definition which is “the clever or humorous use of a word that has more than one meaning, or of two words that have different meanings but sound the same.” (2004:1393) In the Webster's Third International Dictionary, pun is defined as a “humorous use of a word in such a way as to suggest different meaning or applications, or of words having the same or nearly the same sound but different meanings: a play on words.” (1989:832)From the definitions above, we can draw the conclusion that (1) by using phonetic and semantic conditions, a pun deliberately makes words have two or more meanings; (2) pun is used as one rhetorical figure which can bring some language effects, such as humorous effect. 3.1.2 The Main Characteristics of Pun Pun has two characteristics: (1) the utterance may have different meanings because of the words which have same (similar) pronunciation with different meanings; (2) each pun has a double context.3.1.2.1 Ambiguity The first characteristic is ambiguity which is the important quality of a pun. In everyday communication, people try to avoid ambiguity, but people intentionally create ambiguity when using pun. For example,(1)What kind of money do girls like the most? Matrimony. This example is a homophonic pun. It borrows the sound of “money” to attract attention. The ending element “mony” of the word “Matrimony” sound similar with the word “money”. Matrimony means marriage. Everybody knows that girls usually want to marry a boy who is handsome and rich. They expect to change their economic and social statuses through marriage. This pun is very ironic. (2) Trust us. Over 5000 ears of experience.This is a hearing aid of advertising. This ad is a homophonic pun. Ear is the homophone of the year. In order to make the words familiar to consumers, this sentence also uses the structure of “years of doing something”. The advertiser wants to use this pun to put that their product have a good quality which has been tested by a great number of customers with hearing problem, and the company has a long history in this field.3.1.2.2 The Double Context Another characteristic is that it contains a double context. According to Li, “there are three elements in analyzing and composing a pun: a double context, a hinge and a trigger.”(Li Xinhua, 2000) A hinge is the pun itself. A trigger refers to the intention and background hiding behind the pun. A double context means that two contexts make sense respectively when both are separated.3.2 Relevance TheoryThis paper adopts Sperber and Wilson's Relevance theory as the theoretical foundation to study the advertising language. In 1986, Dan Sperber and Deirdre Wilson put forward relevance theory for the first time in the book Relevance: Communication and Cognition. They argue that the key to an explanation to human communication lies in relevance. According to Sperber and Wilson, relevance governs the communication process. Humans pay attention to some things relevant to them rather than others. They want to read or hear the things they care about, so only when they think the information is valuable, they pay attention to it. In ostensive-inferential communication, the speaker produces an ostensive stimulus which creates a presumption of optimal relevance; then the audiences process the speakers utterance and get an interpretation in line with the principle of relevance.3.2.1 Ostensive-inferential CommunicationOstensive-inferential communication is an overt communication. Sperber and Wilson give an definition of ostensive-inferential communication as the following:“The communicator produces a stimulus which makes it mutually manifest to communicator and audience that the communicator intends, by means of this stimulus, to make manifest or more manifest to the audience a set of assumptions.” (Sperber and Wilson1986: 63) There are two types of information provided by ostentation:(1) “Informative intention: to make manifest or more manifest to the audience a set of assumptions.” (Sperber and Wilson1986: 58) (2) “Communicative intention: to make it mutually manifest to audience and communicator that the communicator has the informative intention.” (Sperber andWilson1986: 61) The speaker intention is to change the mutual cognitive environment. In ostensive communication, the speaker employs proper stimulus to make the hearer or reader know his or her attention. Sperber and Wilson think that ostentation communication and inferential communication are the same process, but seen from two different aspects. The communicator is connected with ostentation and the audience with inference. In order to achieve a successful communication, the communicator must attract the audience's attention by creating a stimulus and guarantee the stimulus optimal relevance; and the audience task is to recover the speaker's intentions consciously. 3.2.2 Principle of Relevance and Optimal RelevanceSperber and Wilson define the principle of relevance as “Every act of ostensive communication communicates a presumption of its own optimal relevance.” (Sperber & Wilson, 2001:158). Sperber and Wilson think that communication is relevance-oriented and relevance plays an essential role in the whole process of communication which involves two participants: communicator and audience. In addition, relevance is the result of the interaction of stimulus of the communicator and cognitive environment of the audience.For the communicator, with the principle of relevance, they choose a proper stimulus to have an effect on the audience's cognitive environment and attract the addresser's attention. If the stimulus cannot work, it shows that the stimulus is irrelevant to communication and finally it leads to the failure of the communication. For the addressee, relevance principle guides them to better understand the utterance which implies that the addresser often tries to be relevant and find out relevant information. In this way, the addressee gains the addresser attention and finally makes a successful communication.In the process of communication, the level of relevance degree considers the interest of both the addresser and the addressee. What addresser wants to achieve is not the information that is maximal relevant, but merely optimal relevant. What audiences want to get the interpretation of an utterance is not maximally relevant, but merely optimally relevant. In light of the close relation between the principle of relevance and the optimal relevance, Sperber and Wilson claim that an act of ostensive communication communicates: Presumption of optimal relevance: “(a) the set of assumptions which the communicator intends to make manifest to the addressee is relevant enough to make it worth the addressee's while to process the ostensive stimulus. (b) the ostensive stimulus is the most relevant one the communicator could have used to communicate.” (Sperber & Wilson, 2001:158).Sperber and Wilson think that the addresser's responsibility is to choose a proper stimulus which can activate the right assumption existed in the addressees cognitive environment. If the addressee can not get its implied communicative intention and achieve adequate contextual effect, the utterance will be unacceptable in meaning, and this will in contradict with the definition of the principle of relevance above. Generally speaking, whether an utterance is optimal or not in the communication, this is measured not only by the amount of effort spent, but also by the optimal distribution between the effort and the effect. That is to say, if an utterance has adequate contextual effects, the addressee needs only to make the smallest effort to understand that utterance, which has the optimal relevance. If not, the utterance cannot be seen as the optimal relevance of that communication environment. Thus, when the addresser makes an ostensive stimulus, what the addressee always hopes is to have the optimal relevance.3.2.3 Processing Effort and Cognitive effectRelevance is a matter of degree. The degree of relevance depends on two factors: cognitive effect and processing effort. “(1) Cognitive effect: results from an interaction of new and old information. (2) Processing effort: involved in interpreting an utterance and can be described as the mental effort.” (Sperber and Wilson 1986) Sperber and Wilson define relevance as a function between effort and effects:“Extent Condition1: an assumption is relevant in a context to the extent that its context is large. Extent Condition 2: an assumption is relevant in a context to the extent that the effort required to process it in this context is small.”(Sperber and Wilson 1986.158)Newly presented information processed in a context of existing assumption is important to relevance. To improve a context is to have some effect on that contex