Abstract

Advertising is a special type of communication and its goal is to attract the audiences’ attention and persuade them to purchase the products. Pun is one of the rhetorical devices most frequently employed in the advertisements for it creates humor, attracts audience’s attention and adds persuasive force to the message, which is consistent with the requirements of the advertisements, namely AIDA principle, whereby the language of advertising must attract the attention of the prospective buyer, maintains their interest, create a desire, and get them into action.

 From the analysis, it points that the advertiser should guarantee the pun is an optimal relevant stimulus that is worth the audience’s attention and processing efforts. And the audience also should resort to optimal relevance to infer the advertiser’s intended interpretation. While working out the puns, the audiences obtain pleasure and satisfaction and therefore they will have a deep impression of the advertisements, and ultimately of the products advertised.

In this thesis, the relevance theory was applied to the translation of puns in  English advertisements, and the author propose six strategies to translate puns in English advertisements, i.e. Retention, recasting, imitation, compensation, transliterating and omission.  

Key words: English advertisement; pun; Relevance Theory; translation strategies

Contents

Abstract

中文摘要

1 Introduction1

1.1 Background of the Study1

1.2 Purpose and Significance of the Study.2

1.3 Necessities of this Study.3

2 Literature review3

2.1 Previous Studies on Puns3

2.2 Previous Studies on Pun Translation4

3 Theoretical framework.6

3.1 The Introduction of the Relevance Theory6

3.1.1 The Inferential Nature of Communication6

3.1.2 Context and the Principle of Relevance.8

3.2 Puns8

3.2.1 The Definitions and Characteristics of puns.8

3.2.2 The Classifications of Puns.8

3.2.3 The Functions of Puns in Advertisements10

4 Strategies of Pun Translation in English Advertisement Under the  Guidance of the Relevance Theory 13

4.1 Application of Relevance Theory in Pun Translation .14

4.2 Strategies for Puns Translation in English Advertisements.,.15

4.2.1 Retention.16

4.2.2 Recasting.17

4.2.3 Imitation.18

4.2.4 Compensation.19

4.2.5 Transliterating.19

4.2.6 Omission.20

5 Conclusion21

References 23