Multimodal Metaphor and Metonymy in Advertising: A Corpus-Based Account

ABSTRACT

This article offers the first large-scale study of a multimodal corpus of 210 advertisements. First, the reader is presented with a description of the corpus in terms of the distribution of conceptual operations (for the purposes of this work, metaphor and metonymy) and use of modal cues. Subsequently, the weight of mode and marketing strategy to trigger more or less amounts of conceptual complexity is analyzed. This corpus-based survey is complemented with the qualitative analysis of three novel metaphor–metonymy interactions that stem from the data and that have not yet been surveyed in multimodal use. The results show that metaphtonymy (a metaphor–metonymy compound) is the most frequet conceptual operation in the corpus; that there is a significant effect of the use of modes in the activation of different amounts of conceptual complexity; and that the type of advertised product and the marketing strategy has no significant effect on the number and complexity of conceptual mappings in the advertisement.

Acknowledgment

I am in debt with Prof. Jeannette Littlemore for her invaluable help with the statistical part of this study.

Funding

The research on which this article is based is supported by a Marie Curie Individual Fellowship (Project ref.: EMMA-658079; European Commission) and by the national project FFI2013-43593-P (Ministry of Innovation and Competitiveness, Spain).

Secondary References

Example 1. Wi-Fries (2009)

Source: McDonald’s

Advertising Agency: DDB, Sydney, Australia.

Example 2. AUDI TT (2007)

Source: Audi

Example 3. OTIS, The Way to Green (2011)

Source: Otis Elevator Company

Notes

¹ The perspective adopted in this article is that it is not possible to draw a clear line between the traditional distinction of hedonic versus utilitarian products (cf. Chang and Ten 2013) because the boundaries might depend on the location and professional status of the customer (e.g., a hi-fi camera might be a hedonic product for someone living in a developing country, but it will be considered utilitarian for a Dutch journalist). Moreover, this distinction does not address in detail the differences between service and product, a core aspect about which significant differences in terms of conceptual complexity can be expected.

² All in all, the reader might find relevant that literal advertisements were very rarely encountered (only in two occasions). Further research should put the results reported in this article in comparison and contrast with the use of literal language in advertising in order to draw more general observations about the use of verbal and non-verbal meaning construction processes (figurative and non-figurative) in this genre.

³ Forceville (1996) points out that this is only logical for two reasons: (1) advertisers need to sell their products, so they cannot afford faulty interpretations produced by the absence of the advertised product; and (2) advertisers borrow values from desirable and well-connoted domains and ascribe them to their products aiming to draw the attention of their target audiences.

⁴ Conceptual operations are shown in mean values, in a scale that ranges from metonymy = 1, (MS)iT metonymy = 2, metonymic chain = 3, (MS)iT metonymic chain = 4, metaphor = 5, metaphtonymy = 6, (MS)iT metaphtonymy = 7, single source metaphoric amalgams = 8, double-source metaphoric amalgams = 9, to metaphoric chains = 10. In order to ease the understanding of the table, I have also added the closest conceptual operation to which each value refers.

⁵ Text: Love free Wi-fi

⁶ The graphic convention throughout this article is as follows: metonymic domains are represented with circles; same for metonymic subdomains, but with interrupted edge; metaphoric domains with squares; metonymic mappings with black arrows; metaphoric mappings with white thick arrows, metaphoric amalgams with white thick arrows and interrupted edge.

⁷ In spite of that, the reader should recall here that there have been only few academic papers devoted to the interaction between metaphor and metonymy within the domain of multimodality: Urios-Aparisi (2009) in application to TV commercials; and Hidalgo and Kralievic (2011) and Pérez-Sobrino (2013, 2016.) for printed billboards.

⁸ Text: New Audi TT. Attractive power.

⁹ Text: The way to green.

Additional information

Funding

The research on which this article is based is supported by a Marie Curie Individual Fellowship (Project ref.: EMMA-658079; European Commission) and by the national project FFI2013-43593-P (Ministry of Innovation and Competitiveness, Spain).