China's Rhetoric Series "What is Homophony"

[Definition] A figure of speech that uses the homophone or homophone relationship of words to arouse people's association or imagination. Homophony enhances the expressive ability of language and writing, which has aroused people's extensive concern and interest. It is widely used in daily life and literary creation. Many folk customs are related to homophonic, and homophonic phenomena abound in riddles, two-part allegorical sayings and proverbs, forming a homophonic culture.

[example]

Example 1: I saw a joke on the internet. A rich man bought a car and chose the license plate number in the garage, but there was no auspicious license plate number in the garage. Just when he was worried, the owner of the car dealership came over and said to him with a smile, "00544 is a good license plate." "Two fours, bad luck." "You don't understand. You should read "Touch me to try". How awesome! Make sure no one dares to mess with you! "

The rich man was moved, got the license plate with satisfaction and went home excitedly. Unexpectedly, I was hit on the road. The rich man got out of the car angrily and was about to get angry, but when he saw the other person's license plate, he was immediately discouraged. It turns out that the other party's license plate is 44944 (just try it).

The joke "1" is written in the homonym of numbers. "00544" is homophonic with "Let me try". The rich man's choice of this license plate number exposed his arrogance. Unfortunately, the license plate number of the car that hit him is "44944", which is just the same as "just try". This joke cleverly satirizes the abnormal psychology of some rich people through the homonym of the license plate number.

Digital homophonic is one of the most widely used rhetorical phenomena in the network age. "520" means "I love you", "13 14" means "all my life" and "3399" means "a long time". It is a fashion to express one's thoughts euphemistically with digital homophones, but it also reflects a kind of life sentiment.

Example 2: "Spot" as early as possible, not "pox". (Cosmetic advertisement)

Homophonic figures of speech are also common in commodity advertisements. Example 2 is a wonderful example, in which "getting off work" and "getting off work" are homophonic, and "staying acne" and "staying" are homophonic. This kind of advertisement, which uses homophonic words to convey new information, brings freshness to consumers and deepens their impressions.