Understanding Metaphor In English Advertising From The Perspective Of Relevance Theory

With the development of international trade and global economy, advertising has penetrated into every corner of our life. In order to save time or space and impress the consumers mostly in a condensed and effective way, the advertisers employ lots of metaphors in advertisements. By using metaphors, advertisers can avoid exaggerating their products'certain functions and causing unnecessary dissensions since the audience takes a large part of responsibility for deriving the implicatures. This thesis aims at understanding metaphor in English advertising within the framework of relevance theory.In 1986, Sperber and Wilson proposed relevance theory in their book Relevance: Communication and Cognition. Relevance theory treats communication as a cognitive activity. It claims that human communication is an ostensive-inferential process and human communication is governed by the principle of relevance. It also holds that every act of ostensive communication communicates a presumption of its own optimal relevance.The present study holds that the communication which occurs in advertising is ostensive-inferential in nature. Metaphors in advertising are used as ostensive stimuli to catch and hold the audience's attention to the advertiser's informative intention. This thesis attempts to show how metaphors, including verbal and pictorial metaphors, help the audience to recover the advertiser's communicative intentions and achieve optimal relevance. It may contribute to both the advertisers and the audiences.