Puns in English Advertisement and Their Translation英语毕业论文.doc

Puns in English Advertisements and Their TranslationIntroduction: With the development of social economy, advertisements have deeply gone into every field of our society and have become an indispensable part of our lives. The creation of advertisements is a comprehensive art. The writing of this kind of art needs more skills than that of other forms. It should make use of marketing theories to create vivid and interesting words which can be appreciated by both the well-educated and the un-educated. Whats more, it should be able to attract readers attention in a short moment and stimulate their purchasing desire, and then bring about their purchasing action. Punning is one of a common skill in advertising creation. Punning is the use of a word in such a way as to suggest two or more meanings or different associations, or the use of two or more words of the same or nearly same sound with different meanings, which can not only appeal to consumers attention but also bring about their imagination. Puns have many rhetorical effects such as concise, funny, humorous, novel, special, etc. Thus, puns are largely employed in advertisements.1 Language Characteristics of English Advertisements1.1 Lexical FeaturesWords in English advertisements are abundant and colorful, and the selection and using of them serve for this ultimate aim-marketing goods. Therefore, they are armed with encouragement and influence. Lexical features can be summarized as followed:Firstly, adjectives and its comparative and superlative degrees are applied. For example, Famous world-wide gourmet cuisine. Excellent daily specials and mouth watering desserts. Tasters richermellowermore satisfying.Secondly, new words and odd words are created to cause the sense of novelty, to make novelty, oddness and specialty of the products more outstanding, to satisfy consumers minds to pursuing fashion and flaunting humanity. For instance,For twogether, the ultimate all inclusive one price sunkissed holiday. “Twogether” is derived from the sound of together, and that it is translated into two people is more vivid than that translated into together, which adds more tastes to this advertisement.Thirdly, repetition of words is used. The repetition is a common skill which can achieve the effects of emphasizing and rendering. And such effect is right an effect that advertising language pursuing. Take an advertisement of SUNSHINE convenient barbecue stand as an example, “easy to use, easy to clean, easy to assemble”.Fourthly, abbreviated and compound words are used to save the length of the advertisement. In advertising writing, length is controlled as short as possible to relegate costs. The use of abbreviation and compound are common. For example,Where to leave your troubles when you fly JAL. JAL is the abbreviation of Japan Airlines.Fifthly, elegant and common words are both used to make ads colorful. For instance,The home of your dreams awaits you behind this door. Whether your taste be a country manor estate or a penthouse in the sky, you will find the following pages filled with the worlds most elegant residences. In this ad, “await”, “be”, “manor elegant”, “residence” are all elegant words only used in formal context. Here they respectively take place of those common words- “wait”, “is”, “nice”, “place”.1.2 Syntactical FeaturesFirstly, in order to make advertisement clear and easy to be understood, a great amount of simple and short sentences are used. For instance, Fresh up with seven-up.Secondly, many coordinate sentences are used, so as to make advertisements compact. Besides, the parallel structure of this kind of sentence is impressive. For example,Introducing FITNESS magazine. Its about health, its about exercise, its about your image, your energy and your outlook. Thirdly, a number of elliptical sentences are used to make advertising language concise. For instance,Youll enjoy relaxed sunny days. Warm crystal clear lagoons. Cool green foliage. Waterfalls. Flowers. Exotic scents. Bright blue skies. Secluded beaches. Graceful palms. Breathtaking sunsets. Soft evening breezes. And food that simply outstanding. From “warm crystal clear lagoons” to “soft evening breezes”, a series of noun phrases takes place of the sentence “Youll enjoy”. It is not only concise and compact, but also bright and powerful.Fourthly, many imperative sentences used in advertisements provide ads with intense encouragement. For example,So come into McDonalds and enjoy big Mac Sandwich Fifthly, few negative sentences are employed. Even if using the negative sentences, it is to be served as a foil by other products, or to project the specialty of the product. For instance,We would never say the new Audi A4 is the best in its class We dont have to 1.3 Discourse Features1.3.1 Body Copy of an Advertisement In this section we will discuss the body copy as a discourse component. The advertiser tells the complete sales story in the body copy. Set in smaller type than headlines or subheads, the body copy is a logical continuation of the headline and subheads. It is also where the sale is closed. The body copy should relate to the campaign appeal and to the readers self-interest and it must explain how the product or service being advertised satisfies the customers need. The body copy may concentrate on one or several benefits as they relate specifically to the target audience. In some cases, especially in daily goods ads, body is omitted just because readers know what they are.1.3.2 Differences in Body CopiesCopies fall into many categories. Some common types of copies include straight-sell copy, institutional copy, narrative copy, dialogue/monologue copy.In a straight-sell copy, the text immediately explains or develops the headline in a straightforward attempt to sell the product.Sometimes the advertiser uses the institutional copy to sell an idea or the merits of the organization or service rather than sales feature of a particular product. Service ads, such as ads of banks, insurance companies, public utilities, and large manufacturing concerns are the most common users of the institutional copy.Advertisers use the narrative copy to tell a story. It often sets up a problem and then creates a solution using the particular sales features of the product or service. It may then suggest that the audiences use the same solution if they have that problem. Service advertisements are often written in this.By using a dialogue/monologue copy, the advertiser can add the believability that the narrative copy sometimes lacks. The characters portrayed in a print advertisement do the selling in their own words, through a testimonial or quasi-testimonial technique, or through a comic-strip panel. All kinds of ads can use this body copy, if necessary.1.4 Rhetorical FeaturesSome people regard the rhetorical features as sub-literary genre, because a great amount of rhetorical devices are used in advertisements, such as repetition, personification, rhyming, and analogy. Puns are one of the most common ones in English advertisements. Using puns appropriately in advertisements can enhance advertisements charming, bring about consumers imagination and consolidate their memories.First of all, the use of puns enriches the content of a text in that a pun usually expresses the underlying meaning as well as the surface meaning. Secondly, puns, if properly used, help to embody the image of a character. Besides, puns are frequently employed in humorous stories and satiric writing. Puns enable the speaker or the writer to express his intent indirectly by way of homophone. Lastly, implicitness is one of the distinctive features of puns; therefore puns are frequently employed in literary works to transfer a rich implication or to encourage readers to think more about the plot and the characters.2 A Brief Introduction to Punning2.1 Definition of a PunLets first go over a group of English definitions made by various dictionaries.Oxford Dictionary of literary terms defines “pun” as “the use of a word in such a way as to suggest two or more meanings or different associations, or the use of two or more words of the same or nearly same sound with different meanings, so as to produce a humorous effect.” Princeton encyclopedia of poetry and poetics gives the following definition:” a figure of speech depending upon a similarity of sound and a disparity of meaning.” While the definition of Websters New World Dictionary of the American Language and Linguistics, the compiler thinks that pun can be defined as “deliberate use of lexical ambiguity (homonymy or homophony) in speech, mostly, though by no means exclusively, for jocular purposes.” And last, the Longman Dictionary of the English Language, “pun is a witticism involving the use of a word with more than one meaning or of words having the same or nearly the same sound but different meanings.”Reviewing the definitions of English puns listed above, we can easily find that the key points of the definition lie in “similar sounds, different meanings, and humorous effect”.2.2 Classification of PunsAccording to Malcolm Offord, a structural approach to Shakespeares puns with three possibilities identified is presented.Implicit puns involve a single occurrence of the word and evoke more than one meaning on the basis of either homonymy (two words have the same form) or polysemy (i.e. one word has two or more meanings). Explicit puns present two or more occurrences of the original word, with a different meaning at each occurrence, again based on either polysemy or homonymy.Syntactic puns involve a change of word-class, which can be included in the explicit puns category, so there are two basic types only.But later Offord used vertical and horizontal puns for implicit and explicit puns respectively. Vertical puns involve at least two levels of meaning layered in the pivot, that is, the word or phrase that the ambiguity hinges on: the surface (or primary) meaning is the meaning which springs to mind first by arising immediately from the verbal and situational context, while the underlying (or secondary ) meaning is the one which ignites the pun. A vertical pun has one pivotal term, while a horizontal pun has two.3 Applications of Puns in English Advertisements3.1 Homophonic PunsThis type of pun, mainly based on the use of homophones, is quite popular in English advertisements. In modern English, there are many words share same pronunciation, yet have different meaning respectively, e.g. see and sea, week and weak etc. A humorous sentence goes like this: seven days without water make one weak. Here, a pun is made on the word “weak”, which can be easily associated with its homophone “week”. Both the meanings of “a worse health status” and “a period of time -seven days” are embedded on the same pronunciation /wi:k/, which ignites the pun and its humorous effect. The homophonic pun is very popular with many advertising writers, because this type of puns possesses the language style of wit, humor, and buffoonery. Owing to that, the persuasion and influence of the advertisements are enhanced, and then consumers are impressed by them.e.g. Make your every hello a real good-buy.This is a piece of ad about telephones. The writer subtly makes use of the homophonic pun between good-buy and good-bye to make the ad not only easy to read but also salt and nifty. From the beginning of the call-“hello” to the end-“good-bye”, they both are able to pass to the opposite faithfully and make our relatives and friends, wherever they are, can express care and greeting with each other through the phone. The sellers just make use of this point to move the consumers hearts to achieve their commercial purpose. Besides, “good-buy” is provided with the meaning of “nice goods and reasonable price”, so it is worth buying this telephone.The application of homophonic pun in English advertisements embodies the language styles of wit, humor, nifty etc. which can attract consumers attentions and increase the persuasion and influence of advertisements. The puns in brand appellation not only can enhance gusto and humor of advertisements but also can be hard to forget, and then fortify the propagandistic force. Consequently, it can achieve the purpose of speaking widely.3.2 Semantic PunsSemantic pun is a kind of pun which forms in a special environment by making use of the multifocal character of some word. Literally, there is only a word, but actually it embraces two different meanings. We say this but it means that, thus, it produce a situation of connotation, circumbendibus and afford for thought, which enhance the expressive effect of the ad language. This kind of pun, which is different in approach with the homophonic pun but they are equally satisfactory in result, is also used broadly.e.g. You need the strongest line of defense against gum diseases.This is a piece advertisement about dental floss. As known to all, the use of dental floss is to keep our oral cavity clean and to prevent us from decayed teeth. From this point, the semantic pun “line” is used in the adverting language. The word” line” means the dental floss cleaning the teeth, and means the line of defense preventing decayed teeth as well. Thus, it makes consumers clear at a glance. Whats more, ads are provided with encouragement, and their language is so exaggerated, that is, the most solid defense line of dental diseases is built if this product is used, that make the ad achieve propagandistic purpose.3.3 Idiomatic PunsApart from homophonic and semantic puns, a lot of familiar idioms are cited in advertising language. These ads, based on originally social and cultural knowledge of target colony form the puns through bright and special language form. This kind of pun increases the attraction of ads and incarnates the art of advertising language.e.g. When you made a great beer, you dont have to make a great fuss.This is a piece of ad about Heineken. “Make a great fuss” means “being spoffish”. By making using of the idiom, the advertising writer creates “make a great beer” The two phrases have the same word count and the same structure, but they have contrast meanings, which projects the quality of Heineken beer. The application of idiomatic puns in advertising language has not only enhanced the affinity of ads, but also incarnated the artistry of advertising language. Further more, due to the popularity of this type of pun, the propagandistic objective will be quickly erected in public as a favorable brand image, and the appetency between products and consumers will be enhanced.3.4 Grammatical PunsThis kind of puns is mainly caused by the change of part of speech. The word on which the pun lies usually has two or more parts of speech.