THE EFFECTIVENESS AND METHOD OF HARMONIC PUNS IN CHINESE ADVERTISEMENTS AND THEIR RELEVANCE TO VIETNAMESE ADVERTISEMENTS

Abstract

This article aims to point out the harmonic puns mainly used in Chinese advertisements, then relate them to Vietnamese advertisements, and analyze the effectiveness of harmonic puns in advertising. Based on the theory of the art of harmonic wordplay, we conduct research and analyze 20 Chinese advertisements and 20 Vietnamese advertisements that use the art of harmonic puns.  The results show that there are two main types of harmonic puns in Chinese and Vietnamese advertisements which are hamonymic pun and homophonic pun. The hamonymic pun includes word repetition, interpretation, and use of people's names. The homophonic pun includes homophones with different letters and words that sound almost the same with different letters. Because Vietnamese characters are hieroglyphs, different from Chinese characters, which are hieroglyphs, the art of harmony in Vietnamese advertisements are more limited than Chinese advertisements. Specifically, in Vietnamese advertisements there are no puns using people's names and homophones with different letters. The art of harmonic puns makes ads concise, lively, interesting, humorous, which help viewers understand and remember idioms and proverbs.