【正文】 e sea too long. Customer uses the homophone pun cleverly, not only says hello to the waitress, but also makes criticism of the restaurant’s food. Especially, he expresses his dissatisfaction. It’s very infectious. 4) Puns are quickwitted, which can make atmosphere easy. English pun is quickwitted, it can make atmosphere not so serious, and make people accept it easily. For example: Sixyearold Linda returned unimpressed from her school first day at school. Asked how she got on, she replied, “every morning, we all have to sit at our desks and when the teacher calls our names, we have to answer ?prisoner?!” Students have to reply “present” when teachers call their names in the class. However, the word “prisoner” sound like “present”. From this joking, we can feel the fact that 7 the students are full of discontentment and plain about the life in the school, it makes the readers laugh and makes the atmosphere is not so serious. The application of English puns 1) The use of puns in advertising Nowadays, advertising is an important part in human’s life, and its goal is to attract a customer’s attention to the product and induce them to buy it. In order to enhance the attraction of an advertisement, the choice of words or phrases bees more important. There are many rhetorical vehicles used in advertisement, and puns are particular favorable to it. Many panies use humorous effect to attract customers to buy their products easily. Thus, pun is very popular in advertisement. For example: Money does not grow on trees, but it blossoms at our BranchesLioyd Bank It is the advertisement of Lioyd Bank. “Branch” means “part of a tree growing out from the trunk”, but here it implies the division of bank. This advertisement encourages people to store their money in Lioyd Bank, and their money will be like the blooming flowers, yielding better fruits. Readers figure out that their money will bee more day by day, just like the flowers in the spring and fruits in autumn. 2) The use of puns in nonmercial actions Puns can make the lectures and slogans much more attractive and persuasive. For example: If we don?t hang together, we shall hang separately. This sentence is said by Benjamin Franklin, a famous American politician. Its aim is to call out people to hang together to fight for the freedom of the country. 3) The use of puns in word games and riddles The riddles often use extended puns, which make the riddles more interesting and humorous. For example: Why is the river rich? Because it always has two banks. 8 In this sentence, “bank” means “river bank”, but this word also has the meaning of “depositing money”, so naturally, the river is very rich. 4) The use of puns in literature There are many rhetorical devices used in literature works. Pun has bee a mon one. For example: Mr. Rochester continued blind the first two years of our union: perhaps it was that circumstance that drew us so very near that knit us so very close。A Pragmatic Study of English Puns A Thesis Submitted to College of Foreign Languages Xingtan College Qufu Normal University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement For the Degree of Bachelor of Arts ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am deeply indebted to Zhu He, my supervisor, who guided me throughout the whole writing of this thesis. She has read my drafts through carefully and ii painstakingly, and offered incisive ments and precious criticism on them. Without her help, I can’t make my thesis reach its present form. I am also deeply grateful to all my course teachers who has given me excellent lectures and great help. My sincere gratitude also goes to all my classmates who had offered generous advice and help in my process of writing this thesis. Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to all the writers whose works has been referred to in this thesis. Their wonderful works and views help me a lot. 摘 要 雙關(guān)語是一種特殊的語言現(xiàn)象并有著悠久的歷史。 for I was then his vision, as I am still his right hand. Literally, I was (what he often called me) the apple of his eye. He saw naturehe saw books through me. (Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre) The phrase “the apple of his eye” has two meanings, first one is the favorable thing of person, and the second one is pupil of one’s eyes. Since Mr. Rochester is blind, Jane reads for him and describes everything to him. She is the pupil of Mr. Rochester. And, Mr. Rochester loves Jane, so she is also his favorable person. 2. Speech Act Theory and English Puns English philosopher Austin published the famous theory— Speech Act Theory in the 1950s, which has a great influence to the development of language in later time. The core of this theory is: the aim of people using language is not only to speak and express a kind of thought, but also to realize a certain goal — to do things with words. Austin conclude three acts from a whole speech act, they are: locutionary act, illocutionary act, and perlocutionary act. On the basic of Austin’s theory, Searle developed the Speech Act Theory. He divided the speech act into four types: utterance act。 illocutionary act。 該文從語用學(xué)的角度，結(jié)合實(shí)例，通過文獻(xiàn)研究 、 文本分析以及收集相關(guān)資料，分析及探討英語雙關(guān)語的語用價(jià)值 和 語用意義， 以 促進(jìn)英語雙關(guān)語的正確理解和有效運(yùn)用。 a play on words.” However, the Oxford English Diction