视觉语法下平面广告中多模态隐喻的意义构建和劝说策略分析

CHAPTER ONE  INTRODUCTION

1.1    Research Background

Metaphor  research  has  gradually  become  an  independent  and  mature  field  as  more and  more  studies  has  been conducted  on  it.  It  has  been  brought  up  by  cognitive linguists including the famous George Lakoff that metaphor is not limited to its use of rhetorical  device.  It  is  a  production  of  human  perception  and  a  cognitive  tool  for human to make use of their experience accumulated from certain area to understand unfamiliar  things  from  another  area.  In  his influential  book,  Metaphor  We  Live  By, Lakoff and Johnson (1980:3) put forward the idea of conceptual metaphor and point out  that  metaphor  runs  through  our  daily  life.  Not  only  does  it  penetrate  in  our language, but also reflects on our thoughts and actions. The wide acceptation of the idea has made researches on metaphor break its restriction to the traditional metaphor theories  based  on  literature  and  rhetoric  and  enters  a  brand-new  world  of  cognitive field.

However,  with  the  rapid  and  continuous  development  of  science  and technology,  the  way  people  communicate has  changed  a  lot.  Verbal  language  is  no longer  the  only  way  for  people  to  express  themselves.  Non-verbal media  such  as pictures,  sounds,  colors  have  all  been  increasingly  important  resources  for  meaning constructions and have played a role of vital significance in exchange of information and  daily  communication.  As  a  result,  most  of the  previous  studies  on  conceptual metaphor  are  restricted  to  the  analysis  of  verbal  resources,  focusing  on illustrating their  linguistic  features  and  semantic  structures.  As  there  is  a  lack  of  thorough explorations  in  other non-verbal  semiotic  resources  with  meaning  potential,  such studies  have  fallen  short  of  the  development.  Given the  fact  that  nowadays  the manifestation  of  metaphors  have  extended  to  non-verbal  modes  including music, pictures, gestures and so on, recently a number of researchers led by Forceville spent tremendous  time  and efforts  on  shifting  metaphor  study  from  verbal  texts  to  the domain of interdisciplinary multimodality for the purpose of providing a larger space for  the  development  of  metaphor  researches  to  match  the  development  of  human communications  realized  in  multiple  ways.  

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1.2   Rationale

People nowadays are bombarded with all kinds of advertisements everywhere like TV commercials  at  home,  posters on the  public  transportations,  billboards  by  the  road, and messages from mobile phones. The thesis chooses to analyze advertisements not only because its penetration into all aspects of people‘s life, but also due to the fact that it represents a genre full of metaphors with a multimodal character and clear-cut persuading intentions. There is no doubt that most of the time advertising is intended to draw people‘s attention, inform them about the message they try to convey. For public service  advertising,  they  intend  to  call  for  actions  for  better  causes.  And  for commercial  advertising  they attempt  to  display  the  product  information  and  trigger further consumptions. So as to achieve the maximum effects of the persuasive power of the advertising but not to seem desperately pushing and annoy target audience or potential customers at the same time, many advertising designers try their best to add metaphorical  elements  to  intrigue people instead  of  using  direct  and  straightforward promotions  in  conventional  ways.  The  advertisements  studied  are mostly  endowed with  a  multimodal  characteristic  with  at  least  pictorial  and  linguistic  components. These features work in consistency as a whole to manifest the metaphorical meaning. Since printed advertisement ―need not be abridged in that they can be reproduced in their  entirety  and  more  or  less,  in  their  original  form‖  (Forceville, 1996:70),  the advertisements under study are all printed advertisements due to its static feature and in order to be more practical.        

Due to the fact that verbal language is no more the only or even the main semiotic  mode,  previous  studies  which concentrated  on  mono-modal  context  and linguistic  resources  are  inadequate  and  have  limitations  when  their theories  being applied to explore the present multimodal discourses. Ever since its emergence in the late  1990s  and prosperity  afterwards,  multimodal  discourse  analysis  including multimodal  metaphor  has  been  an  effective  way  to analyze  the  non-linguistic resources.  Nevertheless,  most  of  the  researches  on  multimodal  metaphor  are conducted  from  the  perspective  of  cognitive  linguistics.  Seldom  are  there  studies examining  the  multimodal metaphor  on  the  grounds  of  systemic-functional  theories, let alone using the Visual Grammar theory, put forward by Gunther Kress and Theo van  Leeuwen  in  the  pioneering  work  Reading  Images.  The  dissertation  not  only intend to explore how multimodal metaphor are constructed in printed advertisement including  public  service  advertisements and  commercial  advertisements,  but  also attempt  to  discuss  the  persuasive  strategies  and  effects  of multimodal metaphor  in printed  advertisements  form  the  perspective  of  Kress  &  Van  Leeuwen‘s meta-functional meanings and based on Aristotle‘s Three Appeals. 

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CHAPTER TWO LITERATUE REVIEW

2.1   Previous Studies of Multimodal Discourse Analysis

One  of  the  very  first  researchers  in  multimodal  discourse  analysis  is  R.Barthes.  He discussed  the  interaction  of pictures  and  words  in  construction  of  meaning expressions in his paper Rhetoric of the Image in 1997. Cope & Kalantiz (2000) put forward  that  the  meta-language  is  composed  of  six-fold  design,  linguistic  design, visual  design, audio  design,  gestural  design,  spatial  design  and  multimodal  pattern which  relate  the  other  five  modes together. Their  theory  and  research  project  has paved  the  way  for  the  development  and  flourish  of  multimodal discourse analysis. Based  on  Halliday‘s  systemic-functional  theory  from  the  perspective  of  social semiology,  Kress,  G.  & Van  Leeuwen,  T  (1996;  2001;  2003)  built  up  an  analysis framework  for  multimodal  discourse  analysis  in pictorial analysis.  Their  book Reading  Images  is  a  milestone  of  multimodal  discourse  analysis.  It  clarified  the constituents and structure of visual design to analyze how images covey meanings and it is also used to analyze the function of sound and color in the discourse. It is found in  the  book  that  the  grammar  of  language  can  be  utilized  and  applied  to the  visual communication.  They  adopt  the  systemic-functional  grammar  to  analyze  the  visual modes. The systematic and efficient analytic framework they put forward with has a profound  influence  and  led  to  numerous subsequent  productive  researches  in  the related  field.  Baldry  (2000)  studied  the  way  to  better  students‘ multimodality acquisition  ability  in  order  to  make  full  use  of  the  multi-mediality  in  the  distant learning  age. O‘Halloran,  K.L  (2004)  not  only  studied  the  theory  construction  of multimodality,  but  also  devoted  himself  to the  researches  on  the  multimodality phenomenon in Math discourse. Royce, T. (2002) studied the complementary effects of  different  semiotic  resources.  He  put  forward  the  inter-semiotic  complementarity theory and applied it to the research of synergy of different modes in second language class  teaching.  Scollon  (2003)  studied  geo-semiotics, the  meaning  system  where language  is  placed  in  the  material  world.  He  also  worked  a  way  in  which  material features  of  language  in  the  world  define  communications.  

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2.2   Previous Studies of Multimodal Metaphor

The  rise  of  multimodal  metaphor  can  be  induced  into  the  following  three  factors, according  to  Zhao  Xiufeng (2011):  the  inadequacfay  of  pure  language  metaphor researches  within  the  field  of  cognitive  linguistics,  the development  trend  of multimodal  discourse  triggered  by  the  popularity  of  multimodal  communication media and the cross-discipline development trend of human science. At the beginning, the pictorial metaphor researches concentrated ondifferent kinds of visual media arts such  as  painting  arts,  line  arts  and  illustrations,  movie  pictures and  advertisement pictures. At this time pictorial metaphors were regarded as means of pictorial rhetoric of a broader sense. It is Charles Forceville who was the first one in favor of putting pictorial  metaphor  into  the  theoretical framework of  cognitive  linguistics  to  have  a systematic and comprehensive analysis. In his book Pictorial Metaphor in Advertising published  in  1996,  he  made  a  systematic  and  comprehensive  explanation  of  the composition, classification and the analysis strategy about the printed advertising for the first time. One of the outstanding contributions of the book is the categorization of pictorial  metaphors.  He  divided  the  pictorial  metaphors  into  four  types:  contextual metaphor (MP1),  hybrid  metaphor  (MP2),  pictorial  simile  (PS)  and  integrated metaphor  (VPM).  The  book  also  stressed the  important  role  the  context  and  the cultural  background  of  the  readers  played  in  the  interpretation  of  the metaphor. However,  the  book  focused  too  much  on  the  pictures  and  did  not  have  a  clear differentiation of the modality, given by the fact that the pictorial metaphor it depicted involved  not  only  mono-modal  metaphors manifested by  pure  pictures,  but  also multimodal  metaphors  shown  by  pictures  and  words. 

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CHAPTER THREE THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK .................. 13

3.1  Forceville & Urios-Aparisi‘s Multimodal Metaphor ........... 13

3.1.1  Definition of Multimodal Metaphor .............. 13

3.1.2   Characteristics of Multimodal Metaphor ........ 13

CHAPTER  FOUR  MULTIMODAL  METAPHOR  CONSTRUCTION  OF  VISUAL GRAMMAR IN PRINTED ADVERTISEMENTS ................. 19

4.1  Metaphor Potential of Representational Meaning ............... 19 

4.1.1  Narrative Representation and Metaphor Construction ............. 20

4.1.2  Conceptual Representation and Metaphor Construction ......... 28

CHAPTER  FIVE  PERSUASIVE  STRATEGIES  OF  MULTIMODAL  METAPHOR IN PRINTED ADVERTISEMENTS ..... 53

5.1  Persuasive  Strategies  of  Multimodal  Metaphor  in  Printed  Public  Service Advertisements ....... 54

5.2  Persuasive  Strategies  of  Multimodal  Metaphor  in  Printed  Commercial Advertisements ........ 57

CHAPTER FIVE  PERSUASIVE STRATEGIES OF MULTIMODAL METAPHOR IN PRINTED ADVERTISEMENT

5.1 Persuasive  Strategies  of  Multimodal  Metaphor  in  Printed  Public  Service Advertisements

Nowadays,  people  pay  more  and  more  attention  to  their  health  and  try  to  avoid  or reduce the potential danger to their health, so smoking in the public has been banned worldwide  and  more  and  more  people  has  joint  the  team for  anti-smoking  as  the harmful effects of secondhand smoke have gained much more attention than before. 30 advertisements  for  anti-smoking  have  been  collected  and  analyzed  in  terms  of multimodal  metaphors.  And  13 of  them  are  involved  with  multimodal  metaphors. Their persuasive strategies are summarized along with the metaphor constructions as follows. 

As  the  metaphor  constructions  have  been  discussed  in  previous  chapter, metaphor  constructions  will  not  be analyzed  in  details  again.  The  strategies  used  in the anti-smoking advertisements have been numbered in Table 5.2 for clearer review. 

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CHAPTER SIX  CONCLUSION

6.1   Major Findings

Based  on  the  Forceville  &  Urios-Aparisi‘s Multimodal  Metaphor  and  Kress  &  Van Leeuwen‘s  Visual  Grammer,  the dissertation  attempts  to  explore  the  metaphor potential  and  the  metaphor  constructions  of  representational meaning,  interactive meaning  and  compositional  meaning  in  construction  of  multimodal  metaphors  in printed advertisement including the public service advertisement for anti-smoking and the commercial advertisement for shoes. And based on the Application of Aristotle‘s Rhetorical  Appeals,  the  dissertation  intends  to  discuss  the  persuasive strategies  and effects of these printed advertisement. The major findings are listed as follows, 

1)  There  is  metaphor  potential  in  representational  meaning  including  the  narrative process  and  conceptual process.  In  narrative  process,  any  replacement  of conventional  grammatical  units  including  participants,  process and  circumstance can construct metaphors. In terms of conceptual process, it is further divided into classificational process,  analytical  process  and  symbolic  process.  The  metaphor construction  for  classificational  process  is realized  by  symmetrical  composition. For  analytical  process,  both  partial  features  added  to  a  whole  and  partial replacement  of  a  whole  can  create  metaphors.  In  symbolic  process,  symbolic attributive  and  symbolic suggestive  are  the  two  similar  but  somehow  different ways to realize metaphors. 

2)  The  metaphors  constructed  in  interactive  meaning  belong  to  oriental  metaphors which  are  mainly  concerned with  the  symbolic  relation  between  viewers  and images.  The  main  resource  to  construct  interactive  meaning  in this  sense  is  the camera  positioning  which  includes  size  of  frame,  vertical  angle  and  horizontal angle corresponding  to  the  construction  of  social  distance,  power  relation  and involvement  respectively.  Accordingly, the constructed  metaphor IMAGE-VIEWER  RELATION  IS  CAMERA  POSITIONING  is  a  metaphoric system  which includes  three  sub-system  for  oriental  metaphors  SOCIAL DISTANCE  IS  SHOT  DISTANCE,  INVOLVEMENT  IS HORIZAONTAL ANGLE and POWER RELATION IS VERTICAL ANGLE. Shot distance can be generally  divided  into  close shot  and  long  shot,  representing  close  relation  and distant relation respectively. Horizontal angle talks about front view and  oblique view  which  correspondingly  refer  to  involvement  and  detachment.  The  vertical angle  symbolizes the  power  relation  between  the  image  and  viewer  and  three metaphors are involved, the IMAGE POWER IS LOW ANGLE, EQUALITY IS EYE-LEVEL and VIEWER POWER IS HIGH ANGLE. The projections between domains are based on human‘s physical and cultural experience.  

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