A Relevance-Theoretic Interpretation of Puns in English Advertisements

Abstract

Commercial advertising is the product of a highly developed modern commodity economy, which can rapidly expand product popularity, shape product image, and promote the rapid and healthy development of the commodity economy. Puns are favored because they can maximize cost savings and stimulate customers’ desire to purchase. From the perspective of the cognitive process, pun advertising is a combination of contradictions, which increases the difficulty of understanding the content but can attract the attention of the audience. From the perspective of Relevance Theory, advertising communication is an ostensive-inferential process, and a cognitive process in which the listener identifies the speaker’s intention. Under the viewshed of Relevance Theory and Abrams’ four literary coordinates, the communication strategies contained in English pun advertisements have been thoroughly analyzed, and the mechanism of their action has also been elaborated in detail. Analysis can not only help the audience better understand the English advertising pun strategy but also provide a reference for the production of the commercial advertisements and the shaping of commodity images, which can promote the sustainable and healthy development of commodity economy.