Abstract
Advertising is a special type of communication and its goal is to attract the attention from the audience and persuade them to purchase the product. In order to make the advertisements standout, many kinds of rhetorical devices are used in advertisements. And punning is one of the most frequently used ways in advertising language to help to achieve desired effects of advertisements. The proper use of pun in advertisement will bring the effects of humor, wit, economy, and even makes the product more competitive and profitable. This paper mainly explores the application of puns and its translation in English advertisements. In the first part, in order to make the reader have a better understanding of how the puns are formed, the author deals with various ways to form puns: pun on homophone, pun on grammar and pun on parody. In the second part, the author explains the characteristics of English puns, namely: ambiguity and the double context, which are the two fundamental conditions pun needs. And then the author explores the pragmatic function of puns in advertisement and the techniques of translating puns respectively. After having a comprehensive understanding of pun, people can apply it in the advertisement correctly to appeal customers to buy their products so as to gain profit.
Key Words: advertising English; pun; translation
Contents
Abstract I
Contents I
Introduction 1
1. The definition and type of pun 2
1.1 Pun on homophone 2
1.2 Pun on grammar 2
1.3 Pun on Parody 3
2. The characteristics of English pun 4
2.1 Ambiguity 4
2.2 The double context 4
3. The function of pun in English advertisement 6
3.1 Wit and humor 6
3.2 Satisfying people’s requirement of beauty 6
3.3 Satisfying the requirement of society—Economy 6
3.4 Making the product more profitable and competitive 7
4.The translating methods of English pun 9
4.1 Literal translation 9
4.2 Free translation 10
4.3 Annotated translation 11
4.4 Connotation translation 11
Conclusion 12
References 13
