Multiple actualization of meaning in English and German advertising texts

Abstract

The article establishes the features of multiple actualization of meaning in modern English and German texts of printed consumer advertising taking into account verbal and non-verbal components in terms of polycode and cognitive-pragmatic approaches. Multiple actualization of words and phraseological units in English and German advertising texts occurs either solely on the basis of verbal components or involves non-verbal components. The former case refers to a language game device based on polysemy, homonymy or paronymy – a pun, which also comprises anthanaclasis – repetition of words in different meanings. The pun is more frequent in German advertising texts, which is explained by the greater importance of the verbal component as compared to the English ones. The latter case describes a visual metaphor. Both direct and figurative meaning of the lexical/phraseological unit can be subject to visualization. When the direct, literal meaning is visualized, in the verbal component words are used in a figurative meaning, and in the image the meaning is literalized according to one of four varieties: 1) visualization of the entire explicit proposition; 2) visualization of the proposition with the addition of an implicit actant; 3) visualization of the subject actant of the sentence and 4) visual interpretation of the internal form. Visualization of the figurative meaning suggests that the direct meaning of the word is actualized through the verbal component, and the figurative meaning is reflected in the image. Multiple actualization of meaning is not affected by the occurring phenomenon – homonymy, polysemy or paronymy.