Multimodal Metaphors In Advertising Discourse

In recently years, the focus of linguistic study has shifted from the analysis ofpure verbal discourse to multimodal discourses because of arriving at the digital age.The conceptual metaphor theory, which is also called CMT, has been sought toprove the claim that metaphor is not primarily a matter of language but a matter ofthought in the last30years. If the tenet of CMT is right, metaphors should manifestitself in other modes besides language. To some extent, the study of multimodalmetaphors can enrich the study of verbal metaphors.Based on the CMT and Blend theory,20real estate advertisements are collected,which are all of verbal-pictorial types for analysis in this paper. These advertisementsare all taken from the internet of the five most powerful companies in the2013Chinese Real-estate Sale Ranking, a list of the largest companies in China that canheavily influent the economic environment. These five companies are all well-knownestate companies in China, they are Wanke Group, Oversea Estate, Poly Real Estate,Hengda Group and Lvdi Real Estate Company. All data is collected by the Baiduengine. These collected ads are well conformed to my aim of analyzing multimodalmetaphorWhile collecting the examples, the following elements should be taken intoconsideration. First of all, there is the shortage of terms properly to describe thesensory experiences. Their communication is inevitably linked to metaphor. Thus, thecommercial posters which contain pictorial and verbal elements are made as thesource domain in this paper. Secondly, a comprehensive study of multimodalmetaphor requires that it needs to integrate the visual and verbal elements andinvestigate how they contribute to the whole meaning of multimodal metaphor andpersuade the customers to buy the products.The major findings of thesis can be obtained and summarized as the following:firstly, if the reader wants to comprehensively interpret a commercial poster, not onlylanguage but also some other elements, such as color, light, arrangement, and so on,should be taken into consideration. Secondly, metonymies play a key role in theinterpretation of multimodal metaphor. Thirdly, though not found in every poster,some ads are closely relative to cultural elements.This thesis is composed of five chapters. It starts with a general introduction ofthe development of multimodal metaphors, the research background, purpose of thestudy, significances and organization of the thesis. Chapter Two is the literature review which commences with the basic definition of metaphor and multimodalmetaphor in order to provide a theoretical background for the following discussion.Chapter Three presents theoretical framework and research methodology. ChapterFour is the main body of this thesis, in which a set of CPREA will be analyzed, andpresentation and discussion of the results are also given. Chapter Five serves as asummary of the whole thesis. The major findings and the limitations of this study arepresented. This chapter ends up with suggestions for further study.