ABSTRACT

With the rapid development of social and commercial economy, advertisement plays a quite important role in our daily life. The purpose of advertisements is not only to inform, but also to persuade customers to buy the prodcts. All kinds of figures of speech are neatly used in advertising English, which can make the purpose of advertisement come true much more effectively. This paper is intended to discuss the figure of speech in advertising English and show examples to illustrate how the figure of speech to be used in advertising. And then according to the different background of language, the figure of speech of Chinese and foreign advertisement is also different. This paper mainly studies the rhetoric features of advertising in China and foreign countries. Because of the differences between English and Chinese and cultural background, the rhetorical features of the advertising language in the foreign language are also different. 

By knowing about the background and the status quo of the research of stylistic features of Chinese and foreign advertisement, with the help of internet tool to find information and the researches that domestic and foreign scholars make on advertising, we understand what kind of rhetorical characteristics are used in Chinese and foreign advertising and analyze the differences of Chinese and foreign advertising on rhetorical characteristics. And then by understanding rhetorical features and characteristics of Chinese and foreign advertising, analyze and conclude the reason of this difference between advertisements at home and abroad on rhetorical features, and in the end, let us have a better understanding of Chinese and foreign advertising language.

Key words: Advertising English; Figure of Speech; Rhetoric Characteristics; Cultural Background; Language Characteristics

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

ABSTRACT

摘要

Chapter One  INTRODUCTION-1

Chapter Two  LITERATURE REVIEW-3

2.1 Semantic Rhetoric-3

2.1.1 Figure of speech: simile and metaphor-3

2.1.2 Parody-4

2.1.3 Pun-5

2.1.4 Hyperbole-6

2.2 Phonetics Rhetoric-6

2.2.1 Alliteration-7

2.2.2 Consonance-7

2.2.3 Rhyme-8

2.3 Syntactical Stylistic Device-8

2.3.1 Parallelism-8

2.3.2 Repetition-9

2.3.3 Rhetorical question-9

Chapter Three  The Comparative Study of Rhetorical Characteristics-11

3.1 The Comparative Study of Chinese and Foreign Advertisement on Semantic Rhetoric-11

3.2 The Comparative Study of Chinese and Foreign Advertisement on Phonetics Rhetoric-13

3.3 The Comparative Study of Chinese and Foreign Advertisement on Syntactical Stylistic Device-14

Chapter Four  DISCUSSION-16

4.1 Different Cultural Background-16

   4.2 Different Language Custom-17

4.2.1 Chinese idioms-18

4.2.2 English idioms-19

Chapter Five  CONCLUSION-21

REFERENCES-23