从关联理论看广告英语的中双关

Contents

Introduction .................................................................................................................. 2 1 Relevance theory and communication ........................................................................ 3 1.1 Relevance, cognition and ostension ......................................................................... 3 1.2 The function and features of relevance theory ......................................................... 4 1.3 Importance of context .............................................................................................. 5 2 Introduction of pun...................................................................................................... 7 2.1 Classification of pun ................................................................................................ 8 2.1.1 Homonym.............................................................................................................. 8 2.1.2 Asteismus .............................................................................................................. 9 2.1.3 Pun-metaphor ...................................................................................................... 10 2.1.4 Free-morpheme ................................................................................................... 10 2.1.5 Acronym.............................................................................................................. 11 2.2 Functions of puns in advertising ............................................................................ 11 2.2.1 Attracting attention.............................................................................................. 11 2.2.2 Making advertisements brief............................................................................... 12 3 Context and puns in the light of relevance theory .................................................... 13 3.1 Puns being situational ............................................................................................ 13 3.2 Used in headlines and slogans ............................................................................... 14 3.3 Involving the brand names of the product or service............................................. 15 Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 17 Notes ............................................................................................................................ 18 Bibliography................................................................................................................. 19

On the Relevance Theory and Puns in English Advertisement

Abstract: Advertising communication is human communication act. Many ads are often

not directly express the messages, but rather through an indirect way to express that. Pun is one of this indirect way. Advertising language require simple and short language, and then punning with short discourse being able to represent rich connotations. This article according to Sperber and Wilson's relevance theory, analyze pun in English advertising which is special language phenomenon. Based on the kinds of features and related knowledge of puns, the author attempts to use relevance theory to research common sense. This is not only a new perspective to rich advertising language study, and will deepen the pragmatic study.

Key words: Advertisement; Pun; Relevance Theory; Context

从关联理论看广告英语的中双关

摘要：广告交际是人类交际行为的一种。很多广告常常不直接表达所要传递的信息，

而是通过间接的方式来表达，双关语就是其中之一.广告语言要求言简意赅，双关修辞能够用简短的话语表述丰富的内涵。本文依据Sperber 和Wilson提出的关联理论，对英语广告双关语这一特殊语言现象进行剖析。基于双关语的功能和种类相关知识试图从关联理论的进行常识探讨。这不仅是一个新的视角，并以此来丰富广告语言的研究，同时也是将语用研究引向深入的动力。

关键词：广告；双关；关联理论；语境

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Introduction

In the age of information, advertisements have infiltrated into all works of life and become an important source of information as well as an indispensable part of our life. With China’s opening up to the outside world, especially after China’s entry into the World Trade Organization, more and more multinationals are doing business in China. Advertisements appear everywhere: on news programs that consumers access, in the entertainment they seek, on billboards as they commute, on Internet sites as they surf the Web, and even in their classrooms and office space. Advertisements impinge on consumers’ awareness greatly and affect their thoughts, attitudes, feelings and decisions potentially.

In considering the many and varied effects of advertising, a very central issue is how the information in an advertisement said, that is, how people understand and remember what an advertisement said. Science approaches to advertising research have been fragmented, and the second chapter would give more detail information. Spending money is usually serious business. People do not buy from clown.” But the arguments for the usefulness of wordplay are stronger than such doubts. Advertising space is costly. Economy is essential, and puns are highly economical. According to the theory of Peter Newmark, advertising belongs to the vocative text, as the main purpose is to sell the products[1].

In this paper, it is Sperber and Wilson’s Relevance Theory that will be used to analyze the puns in English advertisements. In pondering the title of this paper interpret, two questions came to mind: one is that although the English language provides its speakers with ample means for communicating with each other directly, why an advertiser chooses to use puns even though its ambiguity, the other is that how the communicative interpreted by the consumers correctly. Many scholars employ Austin’s Speech Act Theory and Grice’s Cooperation Principle to explain English puns. Relevance Theory suggests that communication is a process of ostensive-inference, a cognitive process for the audience to identify the communicator’s intent on the basis of Relevance Theory, why pun is used and how it is used to express the communicative exist intent are interpreted. The employments of

pun discussions on the effects of pun exist more in literature while less in advertising. The present paper, based on an analysis of the main categories and the discussions of the related knowledge in understanding pun, is an attempt to give some enlightenment to the understanding and study of pun in English advertising.

There are three parts in this thesis. Part one provides relevance theory and communication. In the second part two, the author puts forward introduction of pun. The third part covers context and puns in the light of relevance theory.

1 Relevance theory and communication

Contextual effects do not come free; they cost some mental effort to derive. The processing effort required to understand an utterance depends on two main factors. First, the effort of memory and imagination needed to construct a suitable context; second, the psychological complexity of the utterance itself. The processing effort needed to derive contextual effects is crucial, and this leads to the notion of optimal relevance. That is, an act of ostensive communication automatically communicates a presumption of relevance. The level of relevance presumed to exist takes into account the interests of both communicator and audience. This level is called optimal relevance. In real-life communication, it may not be within the communicator’s capabilities to achieve maximal relevance. Besides, on the addressee’s part, interpretation of utterance may not be necessarily maximally relevant, but merely optimally relevant principle

Relevance theory is referred to analyze language phenomenon. In view of Sperber and Wilson’s claim that their theory can be applied to human communication in general, it should work for advertising as well-at least in as much as advertising is a kind of communication.

1.1 Relevance, cognition and ostension

Sperber and Wilson’s Relevance Theory is palsied in this thesis as the theoretical foundation for the study. In the preface of Relevance: communication and Cognition, according to the theory represents that the purpose of their writing is to present a new approach to the study of human communication which is governed by the overall ,automatically turn toward information; hence to communicate is to imply that

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the information communicated is relevant. Thus Relevance Theory proposes a general approach to human communication and utterance interpretation from a cognitive prospective and within context, which are lack in previous studies on this topic. A concrete introduction of the theory is available in this chapter.

The principle of relevance is the principle that every utterance creates an expectation of relevance. Sperber and Wilson argue that the key to an explanation of human communication lies in the notion of relevance, a notion which is grounded in a general view of human cognition. As they point out, they point out, they aim to characterize a property of mental processes. The assumption is that human cogntion is relevance-oriented. Humans tend to pay attention to those phenomena which are most relevant to them. Relevance is defined in terms lf contextual effect and processing effort. An utterance can contextual effects in one of the three ways.

However, contextual effects do not come free; they cost some mental effort to derive. The processing effort required to understand an utterance depends on two main factors. First, the effort of memory and imagination needed to construct a suitable context; second, the psychological complexity of the utterance itself.

The processing effort needed to derive contextual effects is crucial, and this leads to the notion of optimal relevance. That is, an act of ostensive communication automatically communicates a presumption of relevance. The level of relevance presumed to exist takes into account the interests of both communicator and audience. This level is called optimal relevance. In real-life communication, it may not be within the communicator’s capabilities to achieve maximal relevance. Besides, on the addressee’s part, interpretation of utterance may not be necessarily maximally relevant, but merely optimally relevant. Relevance and understanding are two sides of a single coin.

1.2 The function and features of relevance theory

There are two different modes of communication: coded communication and astensive-inferential communication. From Aristotle through to modern semiotics, all theories of communication are based on a single model, which we call the code model. A code is a system which pairs internal messages with external signals, thus enabling two information-processing devices to communication.

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Sperber and Wilson’s analysis focus on the form of communication which they call ostensive-inferential communication. According to Sperber and Wilson, there are two models of communication: the code and the inferential model. Communication may involve these two models, but inference is most fundamental in the process of communication. In other words, a coding-decoding process is subservient to an inferential process. The two authors argue that communication is successful not when hearers recognize the linguistic meaning of the utterance, but when they infer the speaker’s, eaming from it.

In communication, the transfer and interpretation of language always take place in certain situation and are affected by the situation which is called context. Theses situation are the foundation for people’s social communication. The concept is forst employed by Malinowski. After him, may scholars such as Firth, Halliday, Chomsky etc., contributed a lot to the study of context. In verbal communication, what is of great use to utterance understanding is a series of assumption forming the hearer’s cognitive context. A context in this immediately, anecdotal memories, general cultural assumptions, beliefs about the mental state of the speaker, may all play a role in interpretation. Because of the features and functions of cognitive context, the importance of cognitive context to text can be noticed and the relationship between cognitive context and pragmatics is much clear. According to its outstanding position in pragmatics, cognitive context is called on to complement the literal meaning of a sentence. In line with the position outlined here, it would seem more appropriate to think of cognitive context as being part of interpretation of meaning. In other words, meaning is not an invariant; it is context-dependant. Once the terminal context is specified, what is conveyed by the utterances would be confirmed.

1.3 Importance of context

In communication, the transfer and interpretation of language always take place in certain situation and are affected by the situation which is called context.These situations are the foundation for people’s social communication. In verbal communication, what is of great use to utterance understanding is a series of assumption forming the hearer’s cognitive context. A context in this immediately, anecdotal memories, general cultural assumptions, beliefs about the mental state of

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the speaker, may all play a role in interpretation. Because of the features and functions of cognitive context, the importance of cognitive context and pragmatics is much clear. According to its outstanding position in pragmatics, cognitive context is called on to complement the literal meaning of a sentence. In line with the position outline here, it would seem more appropriate to think of cognitive context as being part of interpretation of meaning. In other words, meaning is not an invariant, it is context-dependant, Once the terminal context is specified, what is conveyed by the utterances would be confirmed.

Pun isn’t recognizable from the linguistic form alone. Its recognition depends on an interaction between the linguistic form of the advertisement, the shared cognitive information and the cognitive principle. For the consumer to understand an advertising pun, he has to first associate what he sees with the immediate context of the situation. This process of association yields some basic cognitive environments: the consumer perceives some properties embedded in and beyond the advertisements. Then he begins his second step, searching for proper interpretation. This stage can be characterized as a process of matching the basic cognitive environment with a shared world. The search for an interpretation is the search for relevant contextual assumptions.

Pun is highly context-dependent. Sperber and Wilson suggest that there are three main ways of accessing contextual assumptions :(a)from the interpretation of previous utterance;(b)from encyclopedic memory;(c)from the physical environment in which the utterance takes place. In a given situation, some assumptions will be more easily accessible than others, and will therefore require less processing effort. Some scholars are of the opinion that the use or understanding of puns may vary from person to person due to their different education levels. According to them, punning is connected with sophistication and wit.

However, the production and recognition of punning in advertising is not necessarily restricted to persons with higher education and not necessarily bound by national boundaries.

The characterization of relevance in terms of contextual effects and processing effort involves a reformulation of the very notion of context. Sperber and Wilson

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reject the idea of a context given to interlocutors beforehand, and opt for a more dynamic view of context as constructed during the conversation. Instead they propose a much more dynamic view of context as a construct that has to be established and developed in the course of interaction in order to select the correct interpretation:” a context is a psychological construct, a subset of the hearer’s assumptions about the world. Each new utterance, through drawing on the same grammar and the same inferential abilities as previous utterances, requires a rather different context”[7]The previous contextual features form the initial context that is the supporting element for the processing of new information and the creation of further contextual attributes. The assessment of relevance is not the goal of the comprehension process, but rather a means to the end of comprehension.

2 Introduction of pun

Discourse than what has been expected, whose studies have never been more complete. How it is adopted in advertising to facilitate the linguistic communication and ultimately serve to reach the intended purposes, and cognitively cast influences upon the advertiser’s expression and the audience’s interpretation of the utterances in discourse is still a wonder which is worth making an attempt to have a through understanding.

Punning is one of the rhetorical deveces used very often in the English language. Over a long period of time, especially over the past 20 of puns. In professor Wen Jun’s Adictionary of English Figures of Speech, puns are fall into five categories and provide some methods in advertisements [2].

What we see in an advertising considerably helps shape our expectation about what it will communicate as well as our strategies for interpretation. In advertising, there can be little doubt that the primary intention behind an advertisement is to make people buy. Consterdine, for instance, describes advertising as a means of informing customers about products and services and persuading them to buy [5]”. Similarly, Pateman points out that “the point or purpose with which any individual advertisement is produced, is of course, to sell products [6]”. The fact that advertising in the last resort always aims to sell a product has another important consequence: it is

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that any evaluation of the commodity which the message might contain will always be positive.

A pun can be defined as “a use of words that have more than one meaning, or words that have the same pronunciation but different meanings, so what you say has two different meanings and makes people laugh.” Generally speaking, there are two kinds of puns. One is called homonyms, and the other homophones. The former means that a word has several meanings, whereas the latter means that several words sound the same. Both homophones and homonyms can be phrases rather than single words.

2.1 Classification of pun

Pun falls into five categories, namely homophonic pun, paronomasia, antalaclasis, sylletic pun, asteismus.

Homophonic pun refer to an amusing use of words with the same pronunciation, but different spellings. In modern English, there are exist a large number of words that happened to share the same pronunciation with different meanings. Paronomasia is to use two or more words, which sound similar or nearly the same and make double senses, to form a pun. Antalaclasis refers to those puns that have one word used teice or more times yet have different meanings for each time. Sylleptic pun is similat to antalaclasis, but the word used as a pun occurs only once with two or more different meanings, In sylleptic puns, more information is conveyed with fewer words. This kind of pun of astesmus is based on the ambiguity of the same word or expression. It’s usually used in a dialogue. 2.1.1 Homonym

As Greig points out that “all plays on words, good or bad, depend for their effort on the conjunction of similar sound with different meanings, and require us to attend to both sound and meaning”[7]. Both homonyms and homophones in words can be used to create puns, but they have different natures. Polysemy refers to one word that has different explanations which are semantically related with each other. For example, the word “govern” can mean “to rule” or “to control or determine”. Whereas， homonymous words are different word items with the same phonetic form and spelling. They not only differ in meanings, but also are unrelated[8]. Let us see the

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word“prop”. When it is used as a noun, it can mean “a support place to hold up something heavy or “any small article that is used on the stage in the acting of a play.

Eg.1 then there was the man in the restaurant. “You are not eating your fish,” the waitress said to him. “Anything wrong with it?” “Long time to sea,” the man replied.

“Long time to sea” is a common expression between friends who have not met for a long time. The reply “Long time to sea”, is the man’s ironic way to express his complaint. It implies the fish was stale, for it had been out of the sea too long. The words “see” and “sea” are homophones. The same pronunciation /si:/ forms the homophonic pun. 2.1.2 Asteismus

Cuddon believes that there is a kind of pun named “Asteismus”, that is, the latter utterance is corresponding to the former one, but the correspondence diverts to the original meaning[9]. When referring to language itself, puns usually have more than two meanings. Speaking, “Asteismus” is distinguished from “ambiguity” in nature. “Ambiguity” is a natural limitation of language, which has nothing to do with the pragmatic intention. People’s speech acts should try to avoid ambiguity to ensure communication to proceed smoothly. On the other hand, asteismus puns are a kind oflanguage art that people pursue on purpose and are creative. In other words, asteismus puns rhetorically exploit ambiguity; and puns are the final goal, not the means. Asteismus puns have two embodiments: ellipsis and expansion.

Eg. Next to myself，1likeVedonis.

Vedonis is a brand name, and “next to” can be interpreted either physically or more abstractly. If the audience takes the more abstract interpretation, she will recover “after myself, I like Vedonis underwear.” But the audience will think that it is strange to say this about underwear, for it is more common to say such a thing about one’s mother, husband or child. Considering that it is an advertisement for underwear, which one wears next to one’s skin, the audience will find a physical interpretation also possible.

2.1.3 Pun-metaphor

Pun-metaphor is by no means the same with pure metaphor in that the former one involves at least two subjects while the latter involves only one [9]. For example,

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when a Hong Kong newspaper stopped publication in 1981,one news headline read: The Sun Sets for Last Time This headline compares the “publication-stopping” to the “eternal sunset”, and at the same time, the name of the newspaper is “Sun ”, so that the punning effects areachieved. If this premise did not exist, the headline would simply be a metaphor. Pun-metaphor, moreover, has strict requirements for context, and sometimes it recurs to the other forms of the pun.

Eg. 1 The costliest perfume in the world.

This advertising is translated from Chinese “世界上最贵的香水”. Then the customers also associate buying this perfume with being rich. If using the lower price can buy the same product, the customers will buy the lower one. Obviously, the advertisers want to give customers some information that buying this perfume prove the rich one.

2.1.4 Free-morpheme

Generally speaking, punning is just discussed on the word level. In fact, on the Level of morpheme, punning also exists.

Eg. Joe was painting in the class of the great Magister---you know his fame. His fees are high; his lessons are light---his highlights have brought him renown. The compound word “highlight” is used to describe the representation of lightin painting, and it can also be divided into two free morphemes: “high” and “light ”.“Light” with the original meaning “rays” may switch to an adjective: “easy”. So“highlight” ,in this specific context, has some other meaning---the fees are high butte lessons are easy. 2.1.5 Acronym

Sometimes, spelling of English can have some punning effects when the abbreviations of some phrases happen to form another meaningful word. For instance, the politicians in favor of Reagan’s policy of “global war”, called it by a good name of “SAFE” (Shield against Fatal Encounter/Shield America from Everything), as they believed the project would bring safety to the United States. It is not difficult to find some other interesting example: “SANE”---Strategic Anti-Nuclear Effort, and“MAD”---Mutually Assured Destruction, et.

2.2 Functions of puns in advertising

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The first task of the adman is to make sure that his advert is noticed. Also, In terms of hierarchy of effects models, effective advertising is, first of all, to catch the audience’s attention and create awareness about the advertisement .Once the readers’ attention has been caught, the advert should also hold their attention and convince them that the subject of the particular advert is of interest to them. It is assumed that puns are used pragmatically in advertisements with a multiplicity of functions. On the basis of the data collected from written printed advertisements, the present study concludes that puns have the following pragmatic functions that are to be illustrated respectively.

2.2.1 Attracting attention

The first reason why the advertiser prefers puns is that they attract attention. Attracting attention is the first and most important requirement for the advertisement. If a consumer has interest in reading an advertisement, then it means that the advertisers have got a better opportunity to influence his or her buying decision. As stated in the earlier part, headlines should draw attention. If the headline or slogan fails to draw readers ’attention immediately and forcefully, they won’t read thetext. The appearance of the headline alone is often the attention-getting device. It is printed in larger type than the rest of the advertisement. Headlines frequently use capital letters with italics and other punctuation such as quotation, question and exclamation marks. Headlines are usually short, one to six words on a single line, since readers can easily grasp a few words at one glance. Puns attract attention also because they contain ambiguity. They frustrate initial expectations of relevance and create a sense of surprise.

The humor contained in puns is another factor that attracts the audience’s Attention By offering an amusing pun, the advertiser provides his audience with the desired entertainment, and thus makes them feel congenial towards the product which he is promoting. He simultaneously overcomes some of the distrust which the audience feels towards him. The humor is its reward for more processing effort made during the process. The advertiser expects the audience to appreciate the wit and intelligence and then cultivate more favor of and more confidence in the product. Please look at the advertisements below which are considered the good examples of

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attracting attention.

Eg. Mind your own business. Move it to Milton Keynes.

It is especially important for advertisers to divert an audience’s attention away from a message which is either expected or boring. According to Tanaka, a pun attracts attention because it produces ambiguity which requires more time for processing and gets the audience more involved in the processing. An advertiser is particularly concerned with the problem of attracting and holding an audience’s attention, for it is possible that an audience does not notice the advertiser’s message at all. Puns function as the ostensive stimuli, which remain the most economical and efficient means to attract attention. 2.2.2 Making advertisements brief

Another reason why the advertiser prefers puns is that they are brief, which conforms to Economy Principle contained in the relevance theory. In communication, humans always expect to achieve the best communicative effect with the minimum processing effort. According to what is mentioned above, puns are often employed in headlines or slogans because headlines or slogans need to say something unique about the product or service. They should command attention, be more memorable, and be brief. Tanaka maintains that the use of puns is highly labor-saving because the audience only processes one word or phrase to get two or more meanings. Leech also proposes that “ When the message conveyed is short and pithy and the meaning is unabridged, the encoding and decoding will be both time-saving and labor-saving”

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However, he also proposes that it may easily lead to ambiguity owing to the limited

message. When the amount of the message contained is too small, it is likely to produce ambiguity.

Eg. Ask for More.

Version: 摩尔香烟，我更满意；再来一支，还吸摩尔.

This advertising set two pun example of Moore cigarette in advertising language. They cleverly use the double meaning of the word more: one used as a verb means “more, more”; the other used as a brand name when is capital. This advertising make it easy to remember this brand of “More cigarette” and to give customers an deep impression. The using of pun make the advertising easy to understand the meaning

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and get the customers’ deeper impression.

3 Context and puns in the light of relevance theory

Relevance is just like beauty in the eye of the consumers. Great advertisements usually have an element of novelty, positive feelings, and meaning. If your advertisements do not reach out to people, then people won’t reach for your products.

3.1 Puns being situational

Puns usually play between two contexts, switching one for the other. Just because of context, puns could work well although it has a polysemous nature. This part will illustrate the importance and role of context in pun.

According to relevance theory, three cognitive effects may appear between the new information and the existing contextual assumption: strengthening existing assumptions, contradicting existing assumptions and combining with existing assumptions to yield contextual implication. This phenomenon is more obvious in puns because punsters tend to use words that people think common to express uncommon meaning. When listeners and readers find their assumption not proper in a context, they will try to adjust their cognitive context to consist with the contemporary context. Of course it will need the addressee’s extra effort By using these functions of pun, advertisers use pun to attract the attention of the potential consumers and persuade them to make purchase action, Advertisers using puns in their advertisements intend their ads to be humorous, witty thought-provoking, and memorable. And context plays a significant role in the course of achieving those effects.

Eg.1 More sun and air for your son and heir

This sentence translate from Chinese“这里有充足的阳光,清新的空气,一切为了您的子孙”后代. But this advertisement refers to the context that is referred to the bathroom of beech. It is difficult to link “son and heir” with the bathroom of beech. The sound of “sun and air” is similar to “son and heir”, so the “son and heir” is full of meaning.

Double context determines that the addresser and addressee need to select a context which he or she thinks can properly interpret the words, this interpretation

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may be the intended meaning of the addresser. Or it may violate the intention of the addresser. Anyway, they each have the right to select a context and interpret the meaning.

Eg. 2 Check?out my figures

This sentence translate from Chinese “看看我的数字”. Figure of the pun in the United States has been put to use. Because it not only refers to “digital” or “chart”, but also refers to the women’s body, it is a lot of magical effect. Like if a girl took a pile of data to show you, tell you “That's a nice figure.\you said is also a pun, can be interpreted as, \figure\you really mean is \great shape. Here take note, figure when the figure solution when the most singular? And when the numbers or charts, usually used in the plural figures. Where people clearly say that the plural of figures, you are deliberately interpreted as singular figure, clearly is To account for cheap people said.

Relevance Theory provides the best framework for analyzing the role of puns in advertising, especially in regard to the question of processing effort. Even though puns require greater processing effort than straightforward utterances, extra contextual effects are yield which outweigh the greater effort. In other words, puns achieve Optimal Relevance way to achieve a full range of contextual effects. Wordplay in advertising can be analyzed in terms of the interpretation process involved.

3.2 Used in headlines and slogans

Based on the data analysis, a pun is a most popular used figure of speech in advertising. It is often used in headlines or slogans because they need to say something unique about the product or service. They should command attention, be more memorable, and be brief. These are examples of memorable headlines. Headlines frequently use a play on words. Headlines should draw attention; 80% to 90% of readers never read beyond them if the headlines are boring.

Eg.1The Sun Sets for Last Time.

This headline compares the “publication-stopping” to the “eternal sunset”, and at the same time, the name of the newspaper is “Sun”, so that the punning effects areachieved. If this premise did not exist, the headline would simply be a metaphor. Pun-metaphor, moreover, has strict requirements for context, and sometimes it recurs

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to the other forms of the pun.

Eg.2 Deliciously simple. Simply delicious.

Although there are only two simple adverbs and adjectives repeated in this advertisement, it is imprinted deeply in the reader’s mind of the characteristics of the food. It is delicious and convenient.

Eg.3 I’m more satisfied.

The well-known American More cigarettes have been making best use of a pun in its advertisement. The word “more” has two interpretations: one is “additional number or amount” and the other is “the cigarette brand More”. This advertisement reflects the intelligence and humor of the adman.

3.3 Involving the brand names of the product or service

Based on the data analysis, a pun is a most popular used figure of speech in advertising. It is often used in headlines or slogans because they need to say something unique about the product or service. They should command attention, be more memorable, and be brief. These are examples of memorable headlines. Headlines frequently use a play on words. Headlines should draw attention;80% to 90% of readers never read beyond them if the headlines are boring.

Eg.1 Make Time For Time.

The Time magazine made this advertisement for its own promotion. Homonym is adopted. As is easily seen, the word “time” is used twice and two meanings areexpressed----the first“time”is“时间”in Chinese and the second is the name of themagazine. This advertisement which calls upon the people to find time to read the magazine is most impressive due to its use of the pun that not only saves space, but also makes it easy to remember.

Eg.2 Spoil yourself and not your figure.

This advertisement for the Weight-Watcher ice cream, which is made for people on a diet, successfully employs a pun to advertise the product in a decent way. The pun lies in the word “spoil”. “Spoil oneself” means “enjoy oneself to heart’s content”, while “spoil not one’s figure” implies that one will not put on weight by having the ice cream.Naturally the pun makes people accept the ice cream without mentioning the phrase “put on weight” or“become fat”, a taboo for all beauty lovers.

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Eg.3 An Apple for everybody keeps worries away. Version A:电脑选苹果，烦恼远离. Version B:天天有苹果，烦恼远离我.

In this advertisement of a computer, the word “apple” has two meanings: one refers to the fruit “apple” and the other “the computer brand”. At first sight, the reader knows that the advertisement comes from the saying “An apple a day keeps a doctor away”, which is often rendered as“一日一苹果，医生远离我”

Eg.4 Coca Cola Version:可口可乐

Pun also appears in brands，for instance,“Coca Cola”,a brand of soft drink. According to American Heritage Dictionary, “cola” originally refers to “African evergreen plants having reddish，fragrant, nutlike seeds yielding all extract that contains caffeine and theobromine”，but nowadays，it usually refers to“a carbonated soft drink containing an extract of the cola nut and other flavorings”. When it was introduced into China, the translator borrowed the name and hence a name for this new type of soft drink came into being.“可乐”in Chinese also means“something that deserves to be happy about”; therefore“可口可乐”has more than one interpretation: on the one hand, it is the name of the brand, a usage of alliteration which sounds very pleasant; on the other hand, it means “both tasty and deserves to be happy about”, referring to its superb taste and its quality of being able to bring happiness or even good luck, and this really caters to Chinese reader’s interests. What is important is that, obviously, the translator has given full consideration to both the advertiser’s intentions and the reader’s expectations, making them meet each other perfectly. So not only the original pun is successfully preserved but also new values are added. Thus, it’s an ideal translation, both its quality and function are included in the translation.

Eg.5 Coke refreshes you like no other can. Version A:没有什么能像可乐那样令您神清气爽. Version B:清新可口，别无所求.

In this advertisement for soft drink Coke, the word “can” has two meanings, one refers to “the metal container for liquids”, and the other “the modal verb”. So the

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advertisement can have two interpretations: “Coke refreshes you like no other can(tin, drink)can refresh you”. The pun can’t be preserved, as the translator is unlikely to find a Chinese word or phrase that can cover the two meanings of the original. So under the circumstance, the translator can choose other strategy like compensation, explication or omission to render the advertisement. Version A is a case of explication, in which the main idea of the original is conveyed. However, we can see that this translation seems to be a little clumsy, so the reader deserves a better translation. As we know the purpose of an advertisement is to attract the reader’s attention, interest, to appeal to the reader, so in a sense, at first sight it has to be readable and memorable. However, Version A seems to be incapable of achieving this purpose. To make it “sweet and short”, the translator can use the well-established four-character phrases in the Chinese version, as shown in Version B. The original pun is omitted in this translation for the sake of stylistic effect, otherwise the version will be longer and hence less forceful. Compared with Vsion A, this one being concise and impressive, though imperfect, it is more likely to be accepted by the reader. On the other hand, in the aspect of meaning, the phrase“别无所求”conveys a wealth of implicatures, for instance, “it suits you best” ,“it is the best”, “it brings you the greatest happiness”, etc. So Version B can produce adequate contextual effects in the reader’s cognitive environment without causing his/her unnecessary processing effort, and optimal.

Conclusion

This dissertation proves that Relevance Theory is really a powerful explanatory tool for analyzing the advertising puns. After reviewing the related literature, the construction of theoretical framework and the case studies, the following part is the conclusion.

The present study is intended to use relevance theory to analyze the advertising puns. After the review of the related literature, the construction of theoretical framework and the case studies, it is time to conclude the study. The author will give a brief summary of the discoveries obtained from the research first, then discuss the implications that the discoveries may have, and the last, the author is going to try specifying the limitations of the research and the future.

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The study employs Sperber and Wilson’s Relevance Theory to examine pun application in English advertisements. According to Relevance Theory, the principle of relevance governs the whole ostensive-inferential communication process. In the advertisements, advertisers take pun as one of the attention-catching verbal devices to persuade consumers to take purchase action. Puns have effects of surprise and entertainments involving pun are easier to attract the target audience because of its wit and humor. The consumers will be amused and impressed during the short time span. According to Sperber and Wilson’s Relevance Theory, humans tend to pay attention to those phenomena that are most relevant to them.

Notes

[1]Peter New mark, A Textbook of Translation (Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press,

2001), 39-42.

[2]Michael Newman, The 22 Irrefutable laws of Advertising (Singapore: John Wiley and Sonset, 2004), 86.

[3]Walter Red fern, Pun(Oxford: Basil Blackwell Ltd, 1984), 130.

[4]黄映秋. 广告英语中的双关运用及其可译性探讨[J].外国语，2005（8）：46. [5]孟琳,詹晶辉.英语广告中双关语的运用技巧和翻译[J].中国翻译,2001(5):50.

[6]文军.英语修辞格词典[M].重庆：重庆大学出版社，1992.

[7]Greig.J.Y.T, The Psychology of Laughter and Comedy (London: Allen&Unwin, 1923), 211. [8]Lyons.J.Semantics, Cambridge (Cambridge University Press, 1977), 22.

[9]Cuddon. J. A, .A Dictionary of Literary Terms (Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1986), 541. [10]Nash..W, The Language of Humor (London & New York: Longman, 1985), 146.

[11]leechG.N, Principles of Pragmatics (London: Longman, 1983), 67-92.

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