A Study on the Puns in English Advertisement from the Perspective of Relevance Theory

摘要

As a vital product of the contemporary society, advertisement has drawn much attention. The advertisers pay much attention to language strategies for the sake of leaving impression on the audience within limited time and space. Among a lot of different linguistic rhetorical devices, pun is seen as the most important one. It has been many years since advertising languages were studied. Many scholars studied it from different expects. Pun has also been studied from a variety of angles. However, those studies were almost limited to its definition, features, classifications and rhetoric effects, and less attention has been paid to the application of puns in field of advertising. Thus, the purpose of the paper is to show how people understand puns in advertisements more effectively.