英语本科毕业论文-浅析广告英语中的修辞.doc

本科毕业论文 浅析广告英语中的修辞学生姓名： 学生学号： 200310206051 院（系）： 外国语学院 年级专业： 2003级英语本科3班 指导教师： 二七年五月Analysis to the Rhetoric inAdvertising EnglishYu QinUnder the Supervision ofWang HuanSchool of Foreign Languages and CulturesPanzhihua UniversityMay 2007攀枝花学院本科毕业论文 ContentsContentsAbstractIKey WordsI摘要II关键词IIIntroduction1I. Value of Advertisements2II. Basic Rhetoric Tactics in Advertising English3A. Phonation Rhetoric.31. Rhyme32. Onomatopoeia5B. Vocabulary Rhetoric61. Figure of Speech62. Hyperbole93. Pun94. Personification125. Parody136. Irony147. Coinage148. Anticlimax15C. Syntax rhetoric161. Parallelism162. Repetition173. Antithesis18. The Comprehensively Applying Rhetoric in Advertising English19Conclusion21Acknowledgements23Bibliography24 攀枝花学院本科毕业论文 AbstractAbstractNowadays, we are endlessly bombarded with all kinds of advertisements through various media such as magazine, newspaper, TV, radio, poster and internet, etc. Advertisement takes an important part in modern life, with its special magic power, prompting social and economic development. In import and export business, advertisements play more and more important role. The most frequently used rhetoric devices are: personification, figures of speech, pun, parallelism, rhyming and so on. The application of these rhetoric devices can make products or services lively, interesting, visualized, and lifelike, also endow the advertising English with the beauty of rhythm and English language. Personification makes products lively and lifelike; figures of speech make products brilliant on their features; parallelism makes language tone more strong; rhyming makes language finger-popping. Rhetoric devices can bring advertising a good effect and make readers impressive on both products and language if its used properly.This paper mainly talks about rhetoric features of advertising English from three aspects: phonation, vocabulary and syntax.Key WordsAdvertising English; rhetoric; phonation; vocabulary; syntax.II攀枝花学院本科毕业论文 摘要摘要当今，广告以各种媒体如杂志、报纸、电视、广播、海报、因特网等多种形式不断地出现在我们日常生活中。广告作为现代生活的重要组成部分，以它的独特魅力，对社会经济的发展起着推动作用，在商品进出口中，充当着越来越重要的角色。广告英语中频繁使用的修辞手法有：拟人、比喻、双关、排比、押韵等。这些修辞手法的运用能使英语广告中的产品或服务生动有趣、形象传神，同时赋予广告语言美、音律美。例拟人使产品形象生动；比喻使产品特点鲜明；排比使语言增强语势；押韵使语言富有节奏感等。不管是给产品还是给语言本身，修辞手法在广告英语中合理运用都能给广告带来良好的效果，继而给读者留下深刻印象。本篇论文主要从音韵、词义、结构三方面讨论分析广告英语中的修辞特点。关键词 广告英语；修辞；音韵；词义；结构攀枝花学院毕业论文 Introduction20IntroductionAdvertising English is not a simple commercial term but a kind of encouraging language with artic charm by using all kinds of lingual skills. The word “advertise” derives from Latin word: advertere, which refers to a means of calling peoples attention to something and induce people to a certain directions（Wang Yanxi,2004）. At present, although advertising explanations from different countries scholars are different in the literal, they are largely identical but with minor differences.With the rapid development of economy, the competition among the competitors becomes more and more fierce. In order to make their commodity enter into the international markets, merchants divert their attention to advertising English. Advertisements are noticed by more and more people as the child of commodity economy. The advertisements use the simplest and clearest words to express complicated meanings. The main function of English advertisements is to propagate the information of the products in order to excite peoples purchase desire.Advertising English, as a kind of application language, has been apart from the normal English and has developed to a substandard special language because of its special use. Advertising English is different from normal English in structure and rhetoric, and it will change with the development of advertising, science and technology. In order to make the advertisements more attractively, the designers often create their advertisements by using rhetoric, which makes the advertisement more chic, vivid and attractive. Artistic effect produced by using rhetoric in advertisements gives people enjoyment of beauty, which makes customers accept goods information in the delight atmosphere; at the same time, advertisements achieve their commercial purposes.攀枝花学院本科毕业论文 BodyI. Value of AdvertisementsThe purpose of advertisements is to arouse customers action or the desire of buying goods. So, as a successful advertisement sentence, four features should be incarnated: 1. Attention Value: to attract customers attention.2. Memory value: to give people great impressions of the goods and make customers remember their advantages anywhere.3. Readability: to make people convenient to remember and easily to understand.4. Persuasion: to persuade customers to buy the goods.Designers often adopt appropriate rhetoric in the purpose of realizing the features mentioned above, because good rhetoric usage can get twice result with half the effort. Good rhetoric used in advertisements can form a beautiful image about the goods and make people produce the desire to buy the goods. Rhetoric can also enhance the artistry and appeals. It can suit all contexts, improve the expressiveness of the spoken and written languages, and make people feel indubitable. The paper would analyze and generalize the rhetoric devices in advertisement English from three aspects: phonation, vocabulary and syntax.攀枝花学院本科毕业论文 BodyII. Basic Rhetoric Tactics in Advertising EnglishIf advertisements want to stand in the invincible position in the fierce competition, the vocabulary should be used; meanwhile, the contriving structure ought to be paid attention. Then some right rhetoric should be used too. The definition of rhetoric is applying many language materials and various expressive devices to manifest the designers purpose appropriately.A. Phonation Rhetoric.1. Rhyme Rhyme is identity of sounds between two words or verse lines extending back from the end to the last fully accented vowel and not further. Three points should be explained about this definition: the last accented vowel must be the same; All the sounds following this vowel, if there is any, must be the same. The consonants preceding this vowel, if there is any, must be different.(Tang Ying, Qu Jing, 2004)Rhyme in advertising English contains head-rhyme and rear-rhyme. Advertising English uses this kind of rhetoric skill to make its music rhythm. In this way, the advertisement is suitable for reading. And the target audiences get a happy mood; therefore consumers become interested in products from its advertisement introduction, thus this kind of advertisements excite consumers purchase desire.1.1. Head-rhyme Head-rhyme means words to be linked together or to be related to each other repeat the same vowel. For example: Health, Humor Happiness gifts we would love to give.（Wang Yanxi,2004）Three words begin with “H” and form the head-rhyme, which give people a deep impression and make people memorize it involuntarily. Certainly, the smart use of suspension points also leaves people much space to imagine. Uncrowede, Unspoiled, Under $800.(Traveling advertisement of UTA the Air France)（Wang Yanxi,2004）Every word has the letters “UN”, that is very skillful, not only emphasizing their good condition and low price of their planes, but also giving people a good impression. In Touch With Tomorrow, Toshiba. (Toshiba cooperation) This advertising language has three words in all add the products name to begin with “to”, it is the typical rhymes alliteration, and the sentence seems succinct and strong, and it benefits to leave a deep memory. 1.2. Rear-rhyme Rear-rhyme means words to be linked together or to be related to each other repeat the same rear sound. For example: Hasty, Tasty. (An advertisement of a Snack Bar)（Wang Yanxi,2004）This is a kind of form of rear-rhyme. Once people read the advertisement, they will find it is rhythmic. On one side it can arouse peoples interest easily. On the other side, it also can avoid arrhythmic belonged to Snack Bar. It is so-called kill two birds with one stone. Pepsi-Cola hits the spot,Twelve full ounces, thats a lot,Twice as much for a nickel, too,Pepsi-Cola is the drink for you.（Wang Yanxi, 2004）The advertisement of Pepsi-Cola is composed as a verse according to a folk song, and its English name calls Pepsi-Cola Jingle. Because this advertisement rises and falls rhythmically, the sentence is attractive and neat, the word is graceful. “Spot” and second lines “lot” are the similar sound, the third line too (tu :) “and “you(ju :)” are the similar sound. Form the a,a,b,b of poem form.2. Onomatopoeia Onomatopoeia means making words used in the adverts simulate specific sound of animal or human（Feng Cuihuan, 1983）. The function of onomatopoeia could not be neglected. Because onomatopoeias simulate sound of things, they can manifest the features on sound of the productions vividly, and more, they can add innervation of advertisement. Onomatopoeias are commonly used in some productions advertisements with special sound, such as beer, watch, can opener, and the other machines. People often get deep impression by onomatopoeias in advertisement. For example: Deck the hallsWith plop plop plop, fizz, fizz.Fallalalalalala. Ahhh! (Advertisement of Alkaseltzer)（Wang Yanxi,2004）The advertisement is recomposed by a famous Christmas carol, whose outstanding sound shows a chirrupy scene that people enjoy themselves on Christmas Day: the sound of decorating room, opening bottle cap (plop plop plop), foaming by beer and all kinds of drink(fizz fizz), and peoples singing(Fallalalalalala. Ahhh). All of these are taken up by taking Alkaseltzer and escaping tummy. The magical use of onomatopoeias in the advertisement makes people seemed to be personally on the scene. Just pour it in, brush, let it stand ten minutes, then flush. (LAUNDRY DETERGENT)This is one sort of laundry detergent advertisement. Advertiser applies the word “brush” to describe the sound of cleaning the toilet and “flush” to depict the sound of washing the toilet. This laundry detergent advert use photographic sound effect to promote their laundry detergent product to customers successfully.B. Vocabulary Rhetoric1. Figure of SpeechFigure of speech applied in the advertisement English often employs concrete and authentic things to designate another abstract thing, which customers are not familiar with. Figure of speech can make the language more vivid and visual, express similar relation between two different kinds of things, and embroider concrete and visual character of language; all of these can reinforce the languages aesthetic feeling, and then evoke consumers mental association to products. The application of figure of speech can make the products more lifelike and acceptable. Figure of speech is one of extensive basic rhetoric methods in the advertising English, which can be divide into four sorts: simile、metaphor、 metonymy and synecdoche.1.1. SimilesA simile is a figure of speech which makes a comparison between two unlike elements having at least one quality or characteristic in common，and it explicitly signals itself in an advertisement, with the words as or like.（Feng Cuihuan,1983）The simile helps to create the clear image, much easier for readers to accept. For example:Light as a breeze, soft as a cloud.(The advertisement of clothing)（Sun Xiaoli,1995） In the advertisement above, two similes are used, which embody vividly the softness and comfort of the clothesAfter reading the advert，consumers will associate with such kind of comfortable feeling after wearing that brand of clothing, and nobody can resist the temptation. It gives my hair super shine, super body, and leaves it smelling fresh as a meadow. (Hair lotion advertisement)This hair lotion advertisement uses rhetoric tactics of simile, and this advertisement displays the result of this lotion image very concrete, which makes people produce abundant association and desire of purchase. Like a good Neighbor, State Farm is there. (State Farm insurance agent)（Wang Yanxi, 2004）Here, advertiser takes State Farm as a good neighbor, driving by which readers will arouse cordial senses after reading the advertisement and produce the desire to buy insurance, just as their neighbors help them and consider them sincerely.1.2. MetaphorsMetaphor is another linguistic process used to make comparisons between the attributes of one thing and something else (Tang Ying, Qu Jing, 2004). There is a formal difference between simile and metaphor, in which the words “like” and “as” do not appear. For example: The most sensational place to wear satin on your lips. (Lipstick)In this piece of advertisement, satin alludes to lipstick. That is to say, this kind of lipstick rouged on ones lips where is full of enthusiasm, it seems wearing the luminant and silky satin. The euphemistic and implicit description makes consumers full of imagination and expectation. Something within you is Dior. (Christian Dior).(Cui Gang,1992)This is the advertisement of perfume “poison” brought for the international brand CD of cosmetic series. On the propagandism of “poison”, the smart use of metaphor is manifested thoroughly. Is fascination existing inherence and emanating spontaneous or poison subsisting in heart and spreading voluntary? Two weeks later after the perfume coming to the world, one bottle of perfume is sold per fifty seconds and the action has broken worlds record. Certainly, this piece of advertisement gives its contribution in selling the products.One great gift, A million ways to enjoy it together. (Carnival Group advertisement)This is an advertisement of Carnival. Liken “Carnival into gift in the advertisement is to signify that this product can bring the joyful sense to somebody. It makes people produce the good morale, actually “Carnival was the amusement park, such an advertisement made people happy, thus solicits more visitors. 1.3. Metonymy Metonymy is a figure of speech that has to do with the substitution of the name of one thing for that of another. This substituted name may be an attribute of that other thing or be closely associated with it. In other words, it involves a “change of name,” the substituted name suggesting the thing meant（Feng Cuihuan,1983）. This kind of figure of speech obtains an unexpected impression for customers. For example: Wash the big city right out of your hair. (Shampoo)（Wang Yanxi, 2004）In the advertisement of shampoo, actually “the big city” substitutes “the dirt of the big city”. The real meaning of the advertisement is: using such kind of shampoo everyday, the dust brought from city can be scoured off. He is too fond of the bottle. (DRINKINGS)（Wang Yanxi, 2004）The word “bottle” in the advert above represents the drinking in the bottle. In this advert, it does not use drink directly but the word “bottle” to replace it.1.4. SynecdocheSynecdoche is a figure of speech by which a part is put for the whole, the whole for the part, the species for the genus, the genus for the species, or the name of the material for the thing made (Tang Ying, Qu Jing, 2004). This kind of rhetoric is common occurrence in advertising English. Synecdoche can be used to embroider atmosphere and emphasize mood. For example: The World of Music: The World of Art: The World of Theater: The World of Sight:This is a piece of advertisement about traveling cities. In the four noun phrase, the headword “world” used to be synecdoche has repeated four times. World indicates universe, everything is included. However, “world” in the advertisement means category of human activity, obviously part is put for whole. That is synecdoche in English. Innovative minds get their edge from usThis is an employment advertisement, of which the abstract word minds being used to express a concrete meaning: a person of great mental ability.2. Hyperbole Hyperbole is a figure of speech that deliberatey uses exaggeration in order to give emphasis.generally speaking, things modified by hyperbole cannot be understood by literal（Feng Cuihuan,1983）. Designers often use hyperbole in advertisements to strenthing the merit of the products. For instance: WinstonThe Great American Cigarette.（Wang Yanxi, 2004）Here, cigarette is modified by “great”, which is obvious to show that hyperbole is used in the advertisement. Although there is a bit exaggerated, peoples eyes will be attracted by the advertisement once they see the word “great” and maybe would like to have a try. We have hidden a garden full of vegetables where youd never expect in a pie. (Advertisement of food)Can a small pie hide a garden full of vegetables? Its certainly impossible. That is hyperbole, whose purpose is to tell people: in the small pie, there are all kinds of vegetables, and they are delicious and nutritious.3. Pun Pun is the humorous use of a word, or of words which are formed or sounded alike but have different meanings, in such a way as to play on two or more of the possible applications(Tang Ying, Qu Jing, 2004). As a means of rhetoric, pun is commonly used in advertisements, which exists in sound, vocabulary, grammar and the other lingual aspects. In advertisements, designers like using pun to make advertisement more humorous, vivid, and implicit a