This article examines the contextual realization of puns in written texts and headlines, focusing on the interaction between lexical ambiguity, contextual meaning, and pragmatic interpretation. Puns are linguistic devices that exploit similarities in sound, spelling, or multiple meanings of words to create humorous, ironic, persuasive, or attention-grabbing effects. The study aims to identify the principal linguistic mechanisms underlying puns and to explain how context influences their interpretation in different textual environments. The research employs descriptive, contextual, semantic, and comparative methods. Illustrative examples of English headlines and short texts are analyzed to demonstrate how lexical and contextual factors contribute to the realization of wordplay. The analysis suggests that puns are interpreted through the interaction of linguistic form, surrounding discourse, background knowledge, and readers’ expectations. In headlines, puns primarily attract attention and compress information, whereas in longer texts, they may develop irony, characterization, thematic coherence, and rhetorical emphasis. The article highlights the importance of contextual analysis in understanding the communicative functions of puns.
Contextual Realization of Puns in Texts and Headlines
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References
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