NHẬN THỨC VỀ NGÔN NGỮ QUẢNG CÁO DƯỚI GÓC NHÌN CỦA ẨN DỤ Ý NIỆM COGNITION OF ADVERTISING LANGUAGE IN THE VIEW OF CONCEPTUAL METAPHOR Phan Văn Hòa Trường Đại học Ngoại ngữ, Đại học Đà Nẵ
Trang 1NHẬN THỨC VỀ NGÔN NGỮ QUẢNG CÁO DƯỚI GÓC NHÌN
CỦA ẨN DỤ Ý NIỆM
COGNITION OF ADVERTISING LANGUAGE IN THE VIEW
OF CONCEPTUAL METAPHOR
Phan Văn Hòa
Trường Đại học Ngoại ngữ, Đại học Đà Nẵng
Huỳnh Trung Ngữ
Học viên cao học khóa 2007-2010
TÓM TẮT
Ngày nay ẩn dụ không còn là vấn đề của riêng ngôn ngữ mà ẩn dụ là vấn đề của tư duy và hành động Ẩn dụ không chỉ giới hạn ở các tác phẩm văn chương mà trái lại nó được sử dụng trong hầu hết tất cả các lĩnh vực bởi tính thiết thực của nó Quan điểm về ẩn dụ khái niệm của Lakoff và Johnson [1] đã mở ra những hướng nghiên cứu mới về ẩn dụ Quảng cáo là một mãnh đất màu mỡ
để ẩn dụ có thể phát triển vì những nhu cầu thiết thực của mục đích quảng cáo Trong bài viết này các tác giả bước đầu đề cập đến việc nhận thức về ngôn ngữ quảng cáo dưới góc nhìn của ẩn dụ khái niệm Trước hết, xác định lại khái niệm ẩn dụ ý niệm, thứ hai là chỉ ra vai trò của ẩn dụ ý niệm đối với giao tiếp nói chung và đối với ngôn ngữ quảng cáo nói riêng, thứ ba là nói đến bốn chủ đề
ẩn dụ ý niệm thường xuất hiện trong quảng cáo; đó là hành trình, chiến tranh, bè bạn, và quà tặng Trong khi mô tả và phân tích mỗi chủ đề như vậy, người viết sẽ so sánh cách sử dụng ẩn dụ ý niệm cũng như tầng số xuất hiện của các chủ đề đề này thông qua ẩn dụ ý niệm trong tiếng Anh và trong tiếng Việt Cuối cùng, người viết sẽ nhận xét chung và đưa ra những đề xuất ứng dụng
ABSTRACT
Metaphor is not only the matter of language but also that of thoughts and actions The fact that metaphor is almost used in all fields is due to its effectiveness, not only in literary works When Lakoff’s and Johnson’s theory was introduced, it opened a new horizon for the study of metaphor Conceptual metaphor has come into our everyday life under different aspects and adverting language is one of them In this paper, the writers want to discuss the cognition of advertising language in the view of conceptual metaphor Firstly, the definition of the concept ‘the conceptual metaphor’ is restated Secondly, the role of conceptual metaphor regarding communication in general and advertising language in particular is pointed out Thirdly, the four topics such as Journeys, Wars, Friends, and Gifts, which are commonly mapped through advertisements, are described and analyzed In this way, comparisons of conceptual metaphor expressions and of occurrences in English and Vietnamese are made Finally, some general comments and practical suggestions are also presented in this article
1 Introduction
Nowadays, advertising is a part that is inevitable in the modern life because our present society is that of producers and consumers Advertising is not only means of selling goods, but also a level of art, and in its turn, because of the level of art, advertising becomes more effective for selling products This is also the reason why metaphor is used more and more in advertising In other words, advertisers have paid more attention to ways of using words and their meaning effectively in order to serve
Trang 2producers’ aims But how they explore conceptual metaphors to benefit themselves in terms of the use of metaphor is a question to be answered We will come to the following examples:
(1) Địa ốc SaigonLand: Điểm hẹn của sự thành công! [7]
(22) UPS: Moving at the speed of business [10]
(27) Microsoft: Where Do You Want to Go Today? [11] From the examples above, we can see the presence of conceptual metaphor in
advertising via metaphor expressions like “Điểm hẹn”, “Cùng đi tới”, “Moving at the
speed”, “Go” Here, we see the source domain [JOURNEY] in order to send
advertisers’ massages to consumers So, we grasp advertising language thanks to these
metaphorical expressions
We will come to the definition of conceptual metaphor to understand more about its nature as well as its role in advertising
2 Conceptual Metaphor
2.1 Definition
In studies of metaphor, the representation of any coherent segment of experience, such as the concepts of love or journeys, a conceptual domain that is understood in terms of another is called a conceptual metaphor In other words, in the cognitive linguistic view, metaphor is defined as understanding one conceptual domain
in terms of another conceptual domain Examples of this include when we talk and think about life in terms of journeys, about arguments in terms of wars, about love also in terms of journeys, about theories in terms of buildings, about ideas in terms of food, about social organizations in terms of plants, and many others A convenient shorthand way of capturing this view of metaphor is the following: CONCEPTUAL DOMAIN (A) is CONCEPTUAL DOMAIN (B) [1], which is what is called a conceptual metaphor This idea, and a detailed examination of the underlying processes, was first extensively explored by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson in “Metaphors We Live By” [1] Cognitive scientists often study subjects similar to conceptual metaphor under the label of "analogy." Take some examples below to clarify the concept: conceptual metaphor
Examples:
o Life is a journey (Cuộc sống là một hành trình)
o Love is a journey (Tình yêu là một hành trình)
o Love is a war (Tình yêu là một cuộc chiến tranh)
o Argument is a war (Tranh luận là một cuộc chiến tranh)
o Theory is a building (Lý thuyết là một tòa nhà)
o Idea is a food (Ý tưởng là một món ăn)
o Time is money (Thời gian là tiền bạc) [1]
Trang 32.2 Mappings
There are two main types of conceptual domains used in conceptual metaphors: Source domain: the conceptual domain from which we draw metaphorical expressions Target domain: the conceptual domain that we try to understand
A mapping is the systematic set of correspondences that exist between constituent elements of the source and the target domain Many elements of target concepts come from source domains and are not preexisting To know a conceptual metaphor is to know the set of mappings that applies to a given source-target pairing
We can see that the set of concept in which words and expressions is borrowed is called
“Source Model”, while the concept which is the borrowers is called “Target Model” as shown in the examples
Traveler She went through life with a good heart Destinations He knows where he is going in life
3 The role of conceptual metaphors in advertising
Leiss, Kline, and Jhally [3] have used metaphor to study social communication
in advertising They suggest that metaphors in advertisements have become a powerful and commonly used strategy, when saying: “Metaphor is the very heart of the basic communication form used in advertising” Many other researchers share this view as they seek to explain the effects of metaphor use in advertising
The study of metaphor in advertising has been used to gain insight about consumer behavior [6] Zaltman’s Metaphor Elicitation Technique (ZMET) was a research tool developed to define and describe the metaphors that drive consumer behavior with implications for copy testing [6] Metaphors are relevant to the study of advertising because metaphors are laden with symbols and imagery that might be used creatively in implementing decisions that will animate or bring appropriate reasoning processes and mental models to life
Stern [5] also is an advocate of studying symbolism along with metaphor
in advertising Stern believes that advertising is a metaphorical art, much like poetry [5]
Phan Văn Hòa [4: 9] says: “Metaphor is not the use of a special language to decorate something with beautiful but empty words In contrast, metaphor has long become a real essence and emotion of language life in various kinds of discourse Nor
is metaphor limitted to the use of imaginary words But, rather, metaphor has entered
Trang 4into the process of ‘wording’ of the conceptual world Metaphor is not only an effective
means of language but also a creative thinking device based on the featurique function
of language”
4 Presence of conceptual metaphors in advertising
4.1 Journeys
The source domain [JOURNEY] is used to conceptualize advertising language
Through metaphorical expressions, we perceive advertising language under different
aspects From the various mappings, we see the ontological correspondent entities
between two domains the source and the target as follows:
Producers, products, goods, activities, and services are travellers on a journey
Also, services or advertised products are pathways along which consumers move
Activities and transactions are movements made on journeys Again, advertised
products also are the departures or destinations of journeys, etc
We have a look at some following examples:
(1) Daily Mirror: Forward with the People [10]
(3) Pot Noodle: Fuel of Britain, Isn’t It [11]
(4) 1939 - Coca-Cola goes along [12] (5 Địa ốc SaigonLand: Điểm hẹn của sự thành công! [7]
(7) “Con đường tốt nhất vào Đại học hàng đầu thế giới.” [9]
From the examples above, we see the languages of journeys are borrowed to
describe the sub-domains of the target domain [ADVERTISING] So, we understand
advertising language via language of journey For example, the phrases “Forward
with”, “Station”, “ Fuel”, “ goes along”, “ Điểm hẹn”, “ Cùng đi tới”, “ Con đường
tốt nhất” are use metaphorically to depict the advertised products and services lively
and aptly From “Forward with” in (1), we understand that the paper Daily Mirror
always companies with the people like friends on a journey With the metaphorical
expression “Station” in (2), the product Coca-cola is understood drink loved and chosen
by the Stars Or Pot Noodle is considered fuel of Britain via the word “Fuel” in (3)
while Địa ốc SaigonLand is seen as a destination for people through “Điểm hẹn” in (5)
And, the service FPT ia depicted as a traveler on a journey via the metaphorical
expression “Cùng đi tới” in (6) and so on There are many metaphorical expressions
belonging the source [JOURNEY] used in English and Vietnamese We have a
comparison via the following table
Trang 5Table 4.1 Metaphorical expressions belong to the source model [JOURNEY]
in English and Vietnamese
English Vietnamese
Blue Ginger Restaurant: A nice place to come Anh văn Hội Việt Mỹ: Khởi đầu cho sự thành công
Hat Council: If you want to get ahead, get a hat Địa ốc SaigonLand: Điểm hẹn của sự thành
công!
Pampers: We’re right behind you Every step of
the way
FPT: Cùng đi tới thành công
After all, can you think of a better way to avoid
manual labour? Sabura
Trường Nhân lực Quốc tế: Vững bước đến tương
lai!
You're invited on a Journey Con đường tốt nhất vào Đai học hàng đầu thế giới
4.2 Wars
Like the previous way of metaphor use, the advertisers have used the war
metaphor in their advertisements to make advertising language more lively and stronger
The war metaphor also has another version the fight metaphor, and this metaphor
generates many entailments Advertising is often presented in terms of wars or fighting
as physical conflict or clash between adversaries As a result, there is a tight mapping
according to which entities in the domain of advertising systematically correspond to
entities in the domain of fighting This mapping preserves the image-schematic structure
of the source domain [2] because the image schematic structure of the source domain
[WAR] is projected onto the target domain [ADVERTISING] The ontological
correspondences are the following:
Actions or activities in advertisements are fights, struggles, or combats Those
activities take place in the course of fighting Products, services, and advertised
things are hostile enemies in the market They fight each other to get their own
markets and customers So, companies, products, goods, and advertised things
have become brave warriors or soldiers in an army Competition between
products advertised is the confrontation between counterparts That products
used most welcomed warmly by virtue of their quality and convenient use is
victory, whereas that the ones welcomed less or boycotted by consumers
because of bad quality is defeat in the battle Sometimes, the fights occur
between products’ use and the agents attacking people As a result, advertised
products become warriors willing to fight to protect people from attacking of
unexpected agents
The following is some examples for illustration:
(8) Budweiser Beer: Nothing beats a Budweiser [7]
Trang 6(10) You Can Kill a Horse but not a Cadillac [13]
(11) Milmax Angle 2 với Lactoferrin: Lá chắn vững chắc cho
(12) Kem Nivea Q10 Plus: Đẩy lùi mọi dấu hiệu lão hóa [7]
(13) Thật xứng danh thủ lĩnh Plasma siêu việt [8]
From the examples above, we see that advertising language is understood in
terms of the language of wars For example, with the word “beat” used
metaphorically in (8), Budweiser Beer is considered a strong warrior that can’t be
beaten by anyone From here, we can understand that Budweiser Beer is a champion
of quality in comparison with other beers Or, the product Nivea Cream Q10 Plus is
considered a soldier that can stop and drive back every sign of old-age This is
depicted via “Đẩy lùi” in (12) and so forth The conceptual metaphor is used in both
English and Vietnamese
Table 4.2 Metaphorical expressions belong to the source model [WAR] in English and in Vietnamese
English Vietnamese
Budweiser Beer: Nothing beats a
Budweiser
Milmax Angle 2 với Lactoferrin: Lá chắn
vững chắc cho thiên thần của bạn
Quaker Puffed Rice: Shot from Guns! Kem Nivea Q10 Plus: Đẩy lùi mọi dấu
hiệu lão hóa
You Can Kill a Horse but not a Cadillac “…Cao huyết áp được mệnh danh là kẻ
giết người thầm lặng…”
Biore: Look closely No cleaner clears
and prevents blemishes better than Biore
Mineral Care Spa
Hydra-Free-Oil-Balance giúp kiểm soát chất nhờn tối đa
và chống mất nước cho da, mang lại cho
bạn một làn da sạch,…
Sally Hansen Nailpolish: The protection
you need in the colors you want
Pond’s Double White Day and Night
Facial Foam giúp loại bỏ bụi bẩn, bã
nhờn…
Nivea: It helps protect your skin Nụ cười chiến thắng cùng EPSON
Prudential Financial: Growing and
protecting your wealth Thật xứng danh thủ lĩnh Plasma siêu việt
Nicorette: Nicorette, Nicorette, you can
beat the cigarette
Clear: “Trong thế giới của tóc, gàu bắt
đầu xâm chiếm…”
Trang 74.3 Friends
The model [FRIEND] is used as the source domain to express the massages
from the everyday advertisements The friend metaphor has large metaphorical
entailments, so there are many different aspects from friends used metaphorically to
persuade consumers The following are illustrated examples in English and Vietnamese:
(16) Transcend (USB): Digital life in your hand Your supplier,
Your partner, Your friend [7]
(17) Bảo Việt Việt Nam: Cùng bạn trên mọi nẻo đường [7]
(18) MiLo: Giúp trẻ tự tin để vươn xa hơn [7]
The examples above let us see that due to the metaphorical expressions from
(14) to (19) like “Always besides you”, “Share”, “Your friend”, “Cùng bạn”, “Giúp
trẻ”, “Nâng niu” advertised products and services have become close consumers’
friends that can share, help and always stand beside consumers As a result, the
advertisers have built an amicable relationship between the advertised products as well
as producers and consumers There is similarity between English and Vietnamese in
using this metaphor
Table 4.3 Metaphorical expressions belong to the source model [FRIEND]
in English and in Vietnamese
English Vietnamese
IZUSU: Always besides you Bảo Việt Việt Nam: Cùng bạn trên mọi nẻo
đường Transcend (USB): Digital life in your hand Your
supplier, Your partner, Your friend
Thái Sơn – người bạn trung thành và chuyên
nghiệp của bạn
Kodak: Share moments Share life Bảo hiểm Prudential: Luôn luôn lắng nghe,
luôn luôn thấu hiểu Pampers: We’re right behind you Every step of the
way
Người lao động – Tờ báo luôn đồng hành với
đời sống và việc làm của bạn
Access: Your Flexible Friend Hãy chọn kỳ nghỉ tuyệt vời cho bạn cùng Hàng
không Singapore
4.4 Gifts
Human beings’ life has been developing together with the course of time, so giving
and receiving gifts become a part of everyday communication means Catching this trend,
the advertisers have exploited the source model [GIFT] to project onto the conceptual
Trang 8domains in advertising With the structural mapping, the advertisers want to draw
consumers’ feelings and care to the advertised products as well as seduce perspective
customers to buy their products, goods, and services The following is examples:
(20) General Electric: We Bring Good Things to Life [7]
(23) Nước khoáng thiên nhiên Thạch Bích: Quà tặng vô giá của thời gian [7]
Through conceptual metaphors, advertised products and services are considered
valuable gifts that attract everyone We can see this from the examples above And, we
don’t find out any difference between English and Vietnamese
Table 4.4 Metaphorical expressions belong to the source model [GIFT] in English
and in Vietnamese
English Vietnamese
Anheuser-Busch Beer: This Bud’s for
Kleenex: Thank goodness for
Kleenex
Đồng hồ Rado: Hãy bày tỏ tình yêu của bạn
bằng cách tặng đồng hồ Rado
ALPO Dog Foot: Doesn’t your dog
deserve ALPO?
Nước khoáng thiên nhiên Thạch Bích: Quà
tặng vô giá của thời gian
Arpege perfume: Promise her
anything, but give her Arpege!
“Nhân sâm là món quà vô giá mà tạo hóa
đã ban tặng cho con người…”
5 Conceptual metaphors are most commonly used in English and Vietnamese
5.1 Conceptual Metaphors are most Commonly used in English
From the samples studied, we find that all three types of conceptual metaphors:
structural metaphors, ontological metaphors, and orientational metaphors are used in
advertising via different source models, but their frequency is not the same The
statistics are shown inthe table 5.1 below:
Table 5.1 Frequency of occurrence of types of conceptual metaphors in English
Trang 95.2 Conceptual Metaphors are most Commonly used in Vietnamese
While the Ontological metaphors are most commonly used in English, the
Structural metaphors are most employed in Vietnamese as shown in the table 5.2 below
Table 5.2 Frequency of occurrence of types of conceptual metaphors in Vietnamese
Figure 5.2: Frequency of occurrence of types of conceptual metaphors in Vietnamese
5.3 Summary
Conceptual metaphor used in advertising is an amusing phenomenon of
language There are many different source domains used to conceptualize advertising
language, but within the limit of the paper, writers only introduce four popular source
domains that are used almost in all advertisements: Journeys, Wars, Friends, and Gifts
In these source domains, we see that although there are differences in terms of the
frequency of occurrence of conceptual metaphors in English and Vietnamese, linguistic
features are almost analogous in the two languages However, there are more other
domains should be paid more attention in the study of conceptual metaphors To cover
the use of conceptual metaphors will give us more benefits: the nature of conceptual
meataphors will be clarified; and when clarified, conceptual metaphors will be widely
exploited not only in advertising but also in all kinds of discourses
68%
27%
5%
Structural metapho rs
Ontological metapho rs
Orientational metaphors
Trang 10TÀI LIỆU THAM KHẢO
[1] Lakoff, George and Johnson (1980), M Metaphors We Live By, Chicago and
London: The University of Chicago Press
[2] Lakoff, George , The Invariance Hypothesis: Is Abstract Reason Based on Image Schemas?, Cognitive Linguistics,1, 1990, 9-74
[3] Leiss, W., Kline, S., and Jhally, S (1986), Social Communication in Advertising
New York: Methuen
[4] Phan Văn Hòa (2008), “Ẩn dụ, ẩn dụ dụng học và ẩn dụ ngữ pháp”, Ngôn ngữ và
đời sống, số 5
[5] Stern, Barbara, “Medieval Allegory: Roots of Advertising Strategy for the Mass Market Journal of Marketing 52.3, 1988, 84-94
[6] Zaltman, Gerald and Coulter, Robin, “Seeing the Voice of the Consumer: Metaphor-Based Advertising Research.”, Journal of Advertising Research 35.4
July/August, 1995, 35-51
TÀI LIỆU PHÂN TÍCH
[7] Phan Thị Uyên Uyên, An investigation into some commonly stylistic devices in advertising language in English and Vietnamese newspapers, MA Thesis, 2006 [8] Thanh Niên, N0 363 (Dec 29th 2009), N0 07 (Jan 07th 2010)
[9] Tuổi Trẻ, N031/01/2010, N0 25/02/2010, N0 31/03/2010
[10] http://www.winspiration.co.uk/slogans.htm
[11] http://www.factacular.com/subjects/Advertising_Slogans
[12] http://www.winspiration.co.uk/royalcro.htm(cola)
[13] http://www.winspiration.co.uk/cadillac.htm