An ICM Approach To Multimodal Metaphor In The WeChat Advertising

Featured in digitalized technology,interactive audience,and personalized media terminals,the new media advertising utilize dynamic and combined modal forms such as images,texts,sounds and so forth to more effectively deliver information.New media advertising in multimodal forms is metaphorical and restricted by cognitive and cultural models,which has become a significant topic for metaphor study.The contemporary research on multimodal metaphor construing in advertising is grounded on the Conceptual Integration Theory,Relevance Theory,Semiotics and Conceptual metaphors,and Chinese and western cultural perspective,which lays stress on public service advertisements,cartoons,animations,films and body languages while less attention is attached to the construal meaning of multimodal metaphor,including the construal function and interaction.Considering the deficiencies,this thesis embarks upon the Idealized Cognitive Model(ICM)and takes cases in WeChat advertising for instance,discussing the construal mechanism of multimodal metaphor by exploring three specific questions:(1)What metaphorical modes are utilized in new media advertising?(2)What are the relations among them?(3)What is the construal mechanism of multiple modes in new media?The major findings are as follows:(1)There are at least nine modes utilized in new media advertising in which multiple,pictorial signs,and music modes are most frequently employed while the most effective modes are multiple,pictorial signs and sound modes.(2)The construction of multimodal metaphor meaning is an interactive,dynamic and symbiotic process in which each mode can individually or collaboratively construct metaphorical meanings and one or more auxiliary modes are necessary.(3)Grounded on the ICM perspective,the construing of multimodal metaphor involves the multimodal representations,content characteristics and cross-border mapping of source domain and target domain.The abstract metaphor can not only be externalized into language,but also be synergic to image representation through other modes or multiple modes.The construing of multimodal metaphor shall transfer the multiple senses such as vision,hearing,smell,the function of contextual factors,and human body through cognitive experience to complete the information and emotional communication with the surroundings,realizing the effective interaction between symbolic information.This thesis further proves the cognitive function of multimodal metaphor and the construal mechanism of ICM multimodal metaphor,which verifies that ICM has explanatory power for multiple metaphors.