A Cognitive Research On Synaesthetic Metaphors In Advertising

The term "synaesthesia" refers to transfers between perceptual domains. Synaesthesia can be broadly divided as weak synaesthesia and strong synaesthesia, which belongs to the field of neurological study. And it is weak synaesthesia that has aroused attention and become the focus of present study. Traditionally, weak synaesthesia has merely been taken as a rhetorical device that is widely used in literary works. Since the thriving of cognitive linguistics, its cognitive functions have also aroused many researchers' attention, whose focus is mainly on researches of general synaesthesias.Synaesthesia in advertising, for its virtues in persuasion, is playing a key role nowadays in intense competition of business. As a means of information communication and an approach of promotion, advertising has fully developed and is growing vigorously. Since advertisers' generally belief that metaphorical advertising can persuade audience better, weak synaesthesia, as one device that can create an impressive way to persuade the audience, are widely applied to many effective advertisements. However, relative studies on synaesthetic metaphors in advertising have long been ignored and limited in one certain field. It is desperate for more multi-discipline studies on this topic. Consequently, to deepen our understanding in this field, this thesis attempts to conduct a study on synaesthetic metaphors in advertising from a cognitive perspective, which perceive synaesthesia as a kind of special metaphor. To be specific, transferring tendency, characteristics and effects of synaesthetic metaphors in advertising are all studied by cognitive analysis of their integration processes under the framework of Conceptual Metaphor Theory and Conceptual Blending Theory. So the present study tends to be significant not only in our perception on synaesthesia but also on advertising, a special and important genre in information age.Altogether this thesis consists of six chapters. In chapter one, a brief introduction on the research is presented, which includes some background information in this field, objectives of present study, and its significance. Chapter two is an overview of multidisciplinary studies of synaesthesia and advertising. At first, differences between strong synaesthesia and weak synaesthesia are firstly clarified while studies in each field are presented respectively. Then multidisciplinary studies on advertising are overviewed by dividing them into abroad studies and domestic studies. In chapter three, two significant theories in cognitive linguistics, Lakoff and Johnson's Conceptual Metaphor Theory and Fauconnier's Conceptual Blending Theory, are introduced in detail, which are going to be the solid theoretical basis and useful instrument of present study. Chapter four and five are the main part of this thesis. In chapter 4, data collected are classified and analyzed under the framework of CMT and CBT. In chapter 5, compared with previous study results of synaesthetic metaphors applied in daily language and literary language, transfer tendency, certain characteristics and effects of synaesthetic metaphors in advertising are figured out. In the last chapter, chapter 6, the study is wrapped up by presenting its major findings, implications and unavoidable limitations. In the meantime, suggestions for further researches are provided at the end of the thesis.