广告中双关语的语用功能和运用技巧
[Abstract] In modern society, advertisement’s influence is universal. Pun is to add more attraction, being applied as a kind of figures of speech in advertisement and deeply loved by people. Pun has many forms of expression such as pun on polysemy, homophone, hononymy, parody, illustrations and words, grammar, etc. The advertisers use brand, idiom, and phrase, etc, to form pun skillfully. From the aspect of pragmatics, pun violates the Cooperative Principle by Grice. People usually violate the maxims in four ways. The article analyses pun from the fourth way that the speaker may flout a maxim; that is, he may blatantly fail to fulfill it and to achieve some purpose. The proper use of pun in advertisement results in the effects of humor, wit, beauty, economy, warning, and even makes the product more competitive and profitable, and makes the advertisement sweet to the ear, and please both the eye and mind.
[Key words] advertisement; pun; pragmatic maxims; pragmatic function
【摘 要】当今社会，广告作为一种竞争手段无处不在，而双关语是一种广泛运用于广告创作并深受人们喜爱的修辞格。双关语的表现形式多种多样，可分为一词多义双关，同音异义双关，谐音双关，仿拟双关，插图和文字双关，语法双关等。广告商巧妙地运用品牌、成语、习语等构成双关语以增加宣传效果。但从语用学的角度去分析双关语，它违背了Grice提出的合作原则。合作原则的违反通常有四种情况，而本文主要从第四种进行分析双关语，即说话人公然不执行某一条准则，也就是说话人知道自己违反了一条准则，他还想让听话人知道他违反了一条准则。运用恰当的双关语产生了幽默、风趣、经济和警告的作用，使人享受语言的美，同时帮助厂家在激烈的竞争中立于不拜之地，获得更大收益。
【关键词】广告；双关语；语用原则；语用功能
1. Introduction
“The definition of advertisement by AMA(American Marketing Association): Advertising is the nonpersonal communication usually paid for and usually persuasive in nature about products, services of ideas by identified sponsors through the various media.[1] It is a device to arouse consumers’ attention to a commodity and induce them to use it. In modern age, people find themselves surrounded by various advertisements each day. An American writer writes: “ we find advertisement of all kinds everywhere, for example, glittering neon signs on top of high buildings and a long main streets, colorful pictures painted on buses pamphlets sent to very house, advertisement jammed between TV programs various advertisement glutting, newspaper and radio broadcast; etc.”[2] Facing so many advertisement, how to make the advertisement impressive is the main purpose of the advertisers. In order to enhance the appeal of an advertisement, advertisers pay much attention not only to such expressive devices as plates, color and the layout of a printed page, but also to the choice of words or phrases, to make an advertisement beautiful and attractive. In the practice of the advertising English, people pay more attention to pun to make the advertisement succinct, accurate and vivid and to provide rich imagination and plentiful associations for readers so as to stimulate their desire.
The frequent and wide use of figures of speech is an important characteristic of advertising English, which is an effective way to make the advertisement attractive. Among the figures, pun is loved deeply. Oxford Advanced Dictionary defines pun as “humorous use of a word that has two meanings or of different words that sound the same”.[3] A pun (also known as paronomasia) can be understood like that it is a deliberate confusion of similar-sounding words of phrases for rhetorical effect, whether humorous or serious. It leaves a deep impression on readers by its readability, wit and humor. It can satisfy the requirement of advertisement characteristics—selling power, memory value, attention value, and readability. So pun is very popular in advertisement. The article just wants to present the pragmatic function and application of pun in advertisement.
2. Types of pun in advertisement
A pun is a rhetorical device in which people use the polysemous, or homonymous relation of a language to cause a word, a sentence of a discourse to involve two things of meanings. It has several types.
2.1 Pun on Polysemy
“While different words may have the same of similar meaning, the same one word may have more than one meaning. This is what we call polysemy, and such a word is called polysemic word. Historically speaking, polysemy can be understood as the growth and development of or change in the meaning of words.”[4] Pun on polysemy is used widely, especially with the name of the product such as the following examples:
[1] “From sharp minds. Come sharp products.”[5]
The example is an advertisement for the Sharp copier. The word “sharp” praises the consumers’ brightness, but also refers to the Sharp product. The advertisement praises the consumers who are sharp to buy the product which is sharp. The vanity of the audiences is aroused and they want to use it to show their wise, and also they believe the product is really sharp.