A Study Of Multimodal Metaphor In Pro-environment Public Service Advertising Film Lucid Waters And Lush Mountains

Public service advertising,as a media tool of social marketing,usually has strong educational and symbolic significance.Due to the multimodality of advertising genres,multimodal metaphors in public service advertising have become a research topic of general interest.This study is mainly guided by Conceptual Metaphor theory and Intersemiotic Complementarity Theory.Taking the latest pro-environment public service advertising film Lucid Waters and Lush Mountains released by CCTV in 2017 as the research corpora,it adopts a combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods.The multimodal metaphors in Lucid Waters and Lush Mountains are researched in order to solve the following three questions:(1)What are the types of multimodal metaphors in Lucid Waters and Lush Mountains?(2)How is the meaning of these multimodal metaphors co-constructed ?(3)What social functions of these multimodal metaphors are embodied in pro-environment public service advertising?The study finds:(1)There are five types of multimodal metaphor representations in Lucid Waters and Lush Mountains,including journey metaphor,personification metaphor,animal\plant metaphor,family metaphor and emotion metaphor;(2)The meaning co-construction of these multimodal metaphors is achieved through two aspects: first,the intersemiotic complementarity of image and verbal modes,color and verbal modes,gesture and verbal modes,sound and verbal modes;second,the source domain substituting the target domain,the source and target domains being integrated and the source and target domains being collocated;(3)These multimodal metaphors reflect the social function of spreading the correct pro-environment concept,standardizing the public’s pro-environment behavior and promoting the harmonious development of economy and environment in society.The study can expand the research dimension of multimodal metaphor and can also help the audience quickly interpret producers’ intentions of pro-environment public service advertising,thus enhancing the pro-environmental awareness of the audience.