The Application of Pun in English Advertisement

The Application of Pun in English Advertisement

Introduction
  Advertising is nonpersonal communication usually paid for and usually persuasive in nature about product, services of ideas by identified sponsors through the various media .Its aim is to arouse consumers'attention to a commodity and induce them to use or buy it.But how to make the advertisement impressive is the main purpose of the advertisers. In order to enhance the appeal of an advertisement ,the choice of words or phases may make the advertisement attractive. In advertisement there are many rhetoric features such as smiliar, metaphor, personification, hyperbole, repetition, contrast and pun. However, of all these features, pun is the most frequently used and loved by many people. It may leave a deep impression on people by its readability, wit and humor.As some linguists said, pun always can satisfy the requirement of advertisement characteristics--selling power, memory value , attention value and readability. Thus, pun is very popular in advertisement.

Types f Pun in English Advertisement
  The defination of pun is "humorous use of a word that has two meanings or   of different words that sound the same". A pun is a rhetorical device in which people use the polysemous or homonymous relation of a language to cause a word,a sentence of a discouse to involve two things of meaings.There are   several types of pun ,such as pun on polysemy,pun on homonymy, pun on parody, pun on grammer, pun on illustrations and words.
2.1 Pun on Polysemy
  "While different words may have the same similar meaning,the same one word may have more than one meanings .This is what we call polysemy ,and such a word is called polysemic word .Historically speaking,polysemy can be understood as the growth and development of or change in the meaning of words."(戴炜栋,何兆熊,2002/7,p74-75). Pun on polysemy is used very widely,especially with the brand of the product such as the following examples:
(1)"Money doesn't grow on...