A Comparative Study Of Multimodal Metaphoric Gestures In Chinese And American Technological Product Launch Presentations

As a way of language representation,gesture also plays an important role in language expression.The multimodalities of metaphoric gestures and verbal language used in technological product launch presentations have a positive effect on consumption and the promotion of new products.Based on the theory of conceptual metaphor and multimodal metaphor,this thesis selects five Chinese and five American technological product launch presentation videos from year 2019 to 2021,with videos covering five categories of products:computers,mobile phones,cars,computer systems,and graphics.This thesis labels ten videos respectively and conducts comparative analysis on them,comparing types,frequencies,and dynamics of metaphoric gestures in product launch presentations,exploring the differences of mapping modes and target domains in multimodal meaning construction and the functions realized by metaphoric gestures.The research findings are as following:(1)The types of gestures existing at the presentations in China and America both include: ontological gestures,orientational gestures,temporal gestures,and metonymic gestures.Presenters from China tend to use ontological metaphorical gestures most to explain product functions;while American presenters tend to use orientational gestures most to express abstract target domains.When expressing the abstract concept of time,Chinese presenters use temporal gestures pointing to “up and down”,“front and back” and “left and right”,while American presenters only use temporal gestures pointing to “left and right”,and “front and back” in the metaphorization.(2)In addition,Chinese presenters tend to use more dynamic metaphoric gestures to show the dynamics of target words,while American presenters use more static gestures to describe the target domain.(3)In the process of multimodal meaning construction,there are four mapping modes corresponding to four kinds of metaphoric gestures and the mapping modes are same between Chinese and American presenters’ gestures;however,as for target domain,differences are showed in target domain associating with subjective experience,promotion,and quantity respectively.(4)Metaphoric gestures realize cognitive and linguistic functions.The differences in gestures used by Chinese and American presenters also result in differences in the realization of functions of metaphoric gestures.This research provides the interpretation of similarities and differences of the functions by metaphoric gestures,and meaning construction and functions realized by metaphoric gesture in the technological product launch presentations,explains the factors causing the differences in metaphoric gestures between the Chinese and American technological product launch presentations,and provides some implications to help presenters effectively use multimodal metaphoric gestures to obtain product promotion.