3。2 Main Points of Relevance Theory 9

3。2。1 Relevance 9

3。2。2 Classification of Relevance 10

3。2。2。1 Maximal Relevance 10

3。2。2。2 Optimal Relevance 11

3。2。2。3 Difference Between Maximal Relevance and Optimal Relevance 12

IV。 Analysis of Puns in English Advertisements from the Perspective of Relevance Theory 14

4。1 Homophonic Puns and Maximal Relevance 14

4。2 Semantic Puns and Optimal Relevance 15

4。3 Idiom or Saying Puns and Maximal Relevance 17

V。 Conclusion 19

Bibliography 20

Puns in English Advertisements---from the Perspective of Relevance Theory

I。 Introduction

Advertising communication as a human communicative behavior has special effects to stimulate the consumers’ desire to purchase。 But in a lot of advertising, the information is often not expressed directly, but indirectly, in order to achieve this effect。 论文网

Puns, which are widely used in people’s daily life and various literary works to attract the readers’ attention, are also widely used in English advertisements。 Using puns makes English advertisements more attractive, refined, meaningful, and also humorous。 Using puns can help English advertisements to achieve the best communicative effects and encourage customers to buy the goods。 The wide use of puns in English advertisements has aroused extensive interest of scholars at home and abroad。 Therefore, this paper will also analyze customers’ comprehension process of puns in English advertisements and their impact on the potential customers。 

Relevance theory, first proposed by Sperber and Wilson (1986), explains the understanding of language in human communication and has been widely used in various linguistic researches。 English advertisements, also a special form of communication, therefore, can also be explored from this angle。 Therefore, this thesis chooses to study the comprehension of puns in English advertisements based on the Relevance theory。 

Five parts will be presented in this thesis。 Part one gives a general introduction to the aim, significance and organization of the thesis。 Part two gives the definition and classifications of puns and the uses of puns in English advertisements。 Part three elaborates on the theoretical framework of the thesis, introducing the basic concepts and main points of relevance theory。 Part four is the application of relevance theory to analyzing customers’ understanding of puns in English advertisements, which is also the most important part of the thesis。 Part five provides a major conclusion, mainly including the findings, limitations of the recent research and several suggestions for the further study。

II。 Puns in English Advertisements

For the purpose of better understanding of puns widely used in advertisements, we will at first discuss the definition and classifications of puns together with several examples for further illustration。文献综述

2。1 Definition of Puns 

The term “pun”, also known as “paronomasia”, means “calling by a different name”。 It comes from a Latin word-“paranomazein”。 

The Webster’s English Dictionary(1961:2014) defines the pun as “the humorous use of a word, or words which are formed or sounded alike but have different meanings, in such a way as to play on two or more of the possible applications; a play on words。”