PUNNING IN HONG KONG CHINESE MEDIA: FORMS AND FUNCTIONS / 双关语在香港中文媒体中的形式与功能

This paper shows that punning (shuāngguān) is commonly found in Hong Kong Chinese media, especially adverts. As a rhetorical device and a form of language play, punning — monolingual or bilingual — is generally used to enhance the communicative impact of what is said. Linguistically a punning effect may be achieved through homonymy or (near-) homophony. In the literature published in English, research on punning straddles stylistics and linguistics. With reference to Heller's (1980, 1983) linguistic typology of punning, our analysis of selected examples from Hong Kong Chinese media shows that most instances of punning may be characterized as 'retentional — non-disambiguational' puns. Orthographic puns are very common, in that the punning effect is only apparent in the printed, but not in the spoken medium. Functional shift in the signaling device of the pun is another salient feature. 双关乃修辞技巧之一，常见于香港中文传媒之中，尤以广告为甚。双关语的主要作用是加强信息之感染力。英语文献之中，双关语的研究介乎风格学与语言学之间。标示双关语的手段一般为同形同音异义词及同音(或语音相近的)异义词。本文参照了Heller(1980, 1983)从语言学角度研究所得的双关语分类，对部份香港中文双关语材料进行了分析，结果显示大部份的双关语属「双关语义成份获保留/不会消除」之类别。很多在书写方面显性很强的双关语语意转到ロ语的时候显性便会消失。另ー发现是标示双关语的句子或词组，存有词性功能转换的情况颇为普遍。