The Cognitive Study Of Multimodal Metaphor In Dynamic Discourse

Traditional studies on metaphor only focus on its rhetorical features.However,some nonverbal semiotics such as sounds,images and gestures can also convey more precise and exact information than the purely verbal mode.Thus,the studies on metaphor have reached into the field of multimodality.In fact,since 1980 s,with the publication of Multimodal Metaphor written by Forceville,researches on metaphor have touched many fields that the previous verbal metaphor studies have not involved.However,the research subjects of multimodal metaphor study both at home and abroad are mainly static advertising,political cartoons etc.There are few studies on multimodal metaphor in dynamic discourse.In the field of linguistics,an English promotional film is one kind of dynamic discourses.And dynamic discourse is one kind of special research data for multimodal metaphor because it is different from the static advertisements and political cartoons.The images,words and sounds are changing all the time,so the meaning construction of metaphor is very complex.Meanwhile,it is also a big challenge for multimodal research.Based on Conceptual Metaphor Theory by Lakoff and Multimodal Metaphor Theory by Charles Forceville and taking the English promotional films of Chinese universities as analytic data,this study is going to answer the following three questions:(1)What multimodal metaphors can be found in the English promotional films?(2)How are the multimodal metaphors presented in the dynamic discourse?(3)What is the working mechanism of multimodal metaphors in English promotional films? The main findings are listed as follows.Firstly,the pictorial mode is the basic mode to reveal the theme of the multimodal metaphor in dynamic discourses.Then,the linguistic mode is the secondary mode to help to construct the metaphorical meaning of each multimodal metaphor.Besides,the sonic mode sometimes does not participate in the meaning construction of the metaphor.It helps to activate the source domain and target domain.Secondly,multimodal metaphor whose mapping type is between single modes is the basic mapping type in English promotional films.Thirdly,Part-whole metonymies play an important role in the revelation of the source ICM and the target ICM of multimodal metaphor.The application of multimodal metaphor theory to study the dynamic discourse can not only provide a new perspective for the study on metaphor but also broaden the application of the theory,providing some values and references for future study.