摘  要

广告无处不在，在人们的生活中发挥着重要作用。广告目的在于吸引潜在顾客的注意力，维系其兴趣，激起其购买欲望并采取行动。双关语则可使语言更简洁、新颖、直接，这和广告初衷不谋而合，因此，广告商通常使用双关语来达到广告的目的。关于英语广告中双关语现象的相关研究有很多，但从关联理论视角下对其进行探讨的研究成果却还为数不多。鉴于此，本论文尝试以关联理论为指导，运用个案研究和总结等方法，探讨英语广告中双关语的方法技巧及其效果，以进一步剖析英语广告中的双关语现象。分析表明：广告商可以以明示刺激和语境选择两种技巧来达到经济、 幽默、吸引眼球及强化记忆等广告效应。本文旨在能为人们更好地解读、欣赏和评价英语广告中的双关语提供一个新视角。

关键词：英语广告；关联理论；双关语

Abstract

Nowadays, advertising is playing a significant role in our everyday life and people are confronted with millions of advertisements in their daily life. The goal of advertisement is to draw the attention of the prospective buyer, maintain her or his interest, create a desire, and get her or him into action. Puns can make the language in advertisements simple, novel and direct, which is in accordance with the demands of the advertisement. Therefore the advertisers resort to pun as it is a practical way to reach this goal. For a few years, plenty of studies analyzing pun in English advertisements have been done, but few studies have access to the analysis of pun in English advertisements from the perspective of Relevance Theory. Literature research methods, case study methods and summary are selected in the thesis. This thesis illustrates the skill of puns and lays particular emphasis on the analysis of the effects of puns in English advertisements from the perspective of Relevance Theory. In view of this, this thesis attempts to explore skills and effects of puns in English advertisements from the perspective of Relevance Theory by case study method and summary in order to make a further study on analysis of puns in English advertisements. Analysis shows that advertisers can employ ostensive stimulus and choice of the context to achieve the effects of puns in advertisements, such as economical effect, humorous effect, attention-grabbing effect and memory-strengthening effect. This thesis aims to provide people with a new view to appreciate and evaluate puns better in English advertisements.

Key words: English advertisement; Relevance Theory; pun