Pun in Advertising From the Perspective of Figure-Ground Theory

Li WANG

Abstract


As a flexible rhetorical device, pun is widely adopted by advertisers because of its brevity and novelty. For a long time, scholars have studied pun from different perspectives and focused on translation, pragmatics and aesthetics. This paper will study puns in advertising from the perspective of cognitive linguistics, and further analyze the cognitive mechanism of pun in advertising within the framework of Figure-Ground Theory. Based on the analysis of specific examples, we draw the conclusion that puns in advertisement not only has the features of ambiguity and double context, but conforms to the characteristics of figure and ground. 


Keywords


Pun; Figure-ground theory; Cognitive mechanism; Advertisement

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References


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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3968/7477

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