The Rhetorical Means and Functions of Puns in English Literature

1.IntroductionLanguage, the ship of ideology, is a tool for human communication, on which people rely and enrich by creativeness during their social activities. Paronomasia, or just call it pun in an informal way, in nature, a world-play. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word ‘pun’ did not appear in English language until 1662 with Dryden; yet this word-play as a practice has been found in English literature since earliest times. In English language, there are many words that are pronounced alike or spelt alike, or both. A pun, in essence, is an ambiguity. A pun involves the use of a polysemous word to suggest two or more meanings, commonly literal meaning versus figurative meaning, or involves the use of homonyms, i.e. different words which look or sound the same but have different meanings. The whole point of a pun is the user’s intent to produce a humorous or witty effect from the juxtaposition of meanings. As a unique phenomenon of language using, puns are rhetorical means of using words and phrases which contain two different ideas, conceptions, things or emotions at the same time, making the sentence include different meanings.

There is a famous example from the Linguistics Master Noam Chomsky: Flying planes can be dangerous.

a. Sentence = Noun Phrase (Someone flies planes) + Verb Phrase (can be dangerous)

b. Sentence = Noun Phrase (Planes fly) + Verb Phrase (can be dangerous)

In English, the very concentrate occasion of puns is in the literature. It is very early that pun shows up, when it turns to the Shakespeare’s era, the using of this phraseology in literature has in its period of great prosperity. According to a statistics, puns in his works have reached an amount of 3000. Many writers like to use it, treat it as a serious, graceful, high-ranking art with plenty of lingering charm.

In Webster’s New World Dictionary, pun is defined as: The humorous use of a word, or of words which are formed or sounded alike but have different meanings, in such a way as to play on two or more of the possible applications. We can see that words with the same or similar sound and words with more than one meanings or other forms of language materials in various interpretations widely exist in human’s language, they are the prerequisite of puns that could be tenable. As a unique phenomenon in language using, puns naturally become common in human languages.

While the English poet and dramatist John Dryden (1631-1700) has given a humorous definition to puns: ‘Pun--to torture one poor word ten thousand ways.’

 

II. The Means of Puns Used in Literature

2.1 Phonological Means

Phonological pun means using language materials which sound the same or similar with multiple implications to form a pun. And the puns formed by phonological means mainly appear on the lexical arrangement. Although sentences sounding the same can form a pun in theory, but in truth, limited by language system or social language using or some language user’s condition, the percentage of occurrence is not comparatively so large.#p#分页标题#e#

Here are several forms through which puns are constructed by phonological means.

2.1.1 Homophones

A homophone is a word that is identical to another in pronunciation but not in spelling and meaning. For example:

(1) …for they pray continually to their saint, the commonwealth; or, rather, notpray to her, but prey on her; for they ride up and down on her, and make her their boots.

(W. Shakespeare, Henry IV)

As homophones, Shakespeare use the totally different meanings of ‘pray’ and ‘prey’, perfectly expressed the satirizing of the thief Gai Cixier to the nobles who seems praying to the country, but preying indeed, which is much worse than his stealing.

(2) Romeo: Give me a torch: I am not for this ambling; being but heavy, I will bear the light.

Mercutio:  Nay, gentle Romeo, we must have you dance.

Romeo:    Not I, believe me: you have dancing shoes with nimbler soles; I have asoul of lead so stake me the ground I cannot move.

(W. Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet)

Shakespeare use the homonyms of ‘soles’ and ‘soul’ formed a homophone, with the adjective of ‘nimbler’ and ‘lead’, described the heavy and worried emotion of Romeo in the masquerade appropriately.

(3) ‘How is bread made?’

‘I know that!’ Alice cried eagerly. ‘You take some flour…’

‘Where do you pick the flower?’ the White Queen asked, ‘In a garden, or in the hedges?’

‘Well, it isn’t picked at all,’ Alice explained: ‘It’s ground…’

‘How many acres of ground?’ said the White Queen.

(Lewis Carrol, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland)

For the similar pronunciation of ‘flour’ and ‘flower’, ‘ground (the past participle of ‘grind’） and ‘ground’, they formed the puns in the dialogue.

(4) King: …my cousin Hamlet, and my son…how is it that the clouds still hang on you?

Hamlet: Not so, my lord, I am too much in the sun.

（Shakespeare, Hamlet）

In this example, ‘son’ has the same pronunciation with ‘sun’ in different meanings, Hamlet does want to use this feature to express his indignation tactfully. The king pretended affectionate by calling Hamlet ‘son’, but the reaction of Hamlet was ‘too much in the sun (son)’. On the surface it was talking about staying too long in the sunshine, but in fact he wanted to express that he has been the ‘son’ of the king for too long time. It might be expressed only in this way could the author describe the deeply going psychological action.

2.1.2 Homophonic Phrases or Sentences#p#分页标题#e#

Because of courses, assimilation, tone, even coincidentally, some irrelevant English phrases and sentences can have the same effects with homophones. This sort of means is commonly used in humorous statements as answers. For example:

(1) Why don’t you starve in the desert?

Because of all the sand which is there.

The sound of ‘sand which is’ is just like ‘sandwiches’, while the question is that about ‘desert’ which has two meanings at the same time, one is the sand land and another is the food waiters served after meal.

(2) Woman: What is the brightest idea in the world?

Man: Your eye, dear.

It is an example in the same situation with e.g.1. The similar sounds of ‘idea’ and ‘eye, dear’ are the key point of forming the pun.

 

2.1.3 Paronomasia Words, Phrases and Sentences

Different words, phrases, formations or sentences may be sound similar under the influence of variety of elements. In certain language environment, it can be homophonic puns too. For example:

(1) The Cuckoo then, on every tree

Mocks married men: for thus sings he ‘Cuckoo Cuckoo, Cuckoo’.

Oh word of fear,

Unpleasing to a married ear!

(Shakespeare, When Daisies Died)

‘Cuckoo’ is the sound of cuckoos, the sound can easily be related with ‘Cuckoo’ (a man whose wife has proved unfaithful).

(2) ‘And then there’s that woman with the Pagan name,’ said my aunt, ‘thatPeggotty, she goes and gets married next…’

(Charles Dickens, David Copperfield)

‘Pagan’ and ‘Peggotty’ sound alike, we can easily feel the ironic tone from ‘my aunt’s words.

(3) Lady Macbeth: Infirm of purpose!

Give me the daggers: the sleeping and the dead

Are but as pictures: ’tis the eye of childhood

That fears a painted devil. If he do bleed,

I’ll gild the faces of the grooms withal;

For it must seem their guilt.

(Shakespeare, Macbeth)

The background of this sentence is after Macbeth killed Duncan, and took the lethal weapon home, Mrs. Macbeth required him to send it back, while Macbeth had no courage to go back. Then Mrs. Macbeth said the sentence in the example. ‘Gild’ and ‘guilt’ have similar pronunciations, and the pun has presented the blackheart of Mrs. Macbeth that murdering people and doing it away with a witness, creating a false scene and shifting the misfortune onto others.

2.2 Semantic Means

From the view of Semiotics, the language communication of human beings involved both ‘coding’ and ‘decoding’, which might cause a dislocation. Because the process of ‘coding’ is exactly the opposite of the process of ‘decoding’, the former is a process of ‘idea—meaning—pronunciation’, while the later is a process of ‘pronunciation—meaning—deep thoughts’. The two totally different processes contain the possibility of the hearer’s misunderstanding. So most of the linguists think it is negative in semantic understanding.#p#分页标题#e#

However, in certain occasions with certain reasons, people don’t like to express their real meanings directly, so the ambiguity of language needs the means of puns to get the willing linguistic effects.