A study on multimodal metaphor in coca cola and pepsi’ television commercials

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES PHẠM THỊ THU HIỀN A STUDY ON MULTIMODAL METAPHOR IN COCA- COLA

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES

PHẠM THỊ THU HIỀN

A STUDY ON MULTIMODAL METAPHOR IN COCA- COLA

AND PEPSI’ TELEVISION COMMERCIALS

(NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ ẨN DỤ ĐA PHƯƠNG TIỆN TRONG CÁC TVC QUẢNG

CÁO CỦA COCA- COLA VÀ PEPSI)

MA THESIS – TYPE 1

Field : English Linguistics Code : 8220201.01

HANOI – 2018

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES

PHẠM THỊ THU HIỀN

A STUDY ON MULTIMODAL METAPHOR IN COCA- COLA

AND PEPSI’ TELEVISION COMMERCIALS

(NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ ẨN DỤ ĐA PHƯƠNG TIỆN TRONG CÁC TVC QUẢNG

CÁO CỦA COCA- COLA VÀ PEPSI)

Signature

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

For the fulfilment of the master thesis, first and foremost, I would love to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor Dr Nguyen Thi Minh Tam for all her invaluable comments, counsel and her whole-souled instructions as well Beside

my advisor, my sincere thanks are sent to all my colleagues at the faculty of Foreign Languages at Hanoi Pedagogical University No.2 for their suggestions that enable

me to complete my study

My heartfelt thanks would also go to my institution – Hanoi Pedagogical University No.2 for giving best conditions to study at University of Languages and International Studies for my postgraduate program and carry out the thesis over a long time

Finally, I owe a debt of gratitude to my family for their supports and care during the completion of my study

ABSTRACT

There is no shadow of doubt that human beings have been employing metaphor in almost all aspects of life even though they are sometimes unaware of the fact And the professional world of scholars has already taken the notion of metaphor into account Especially after the publication of the work named

Metaphors We Live By in 1980 by Lakoff and Johnson, the notion of metaphor was

exploited conceptually and seemed to have more practical applications The thesis was done to investigate how multimodal metaphor has been used in Coca- Cola and Pepsi‟ television commercials accompanied by a comparison between two companies The present study includes four main chapters: literature review, methodology, findings and discussion, and conclusions Findings show that both brands take full advantage of visual, verbal and sonic modes, despite different degrees, to represent groups of metaphorical themes Similar and different aspects

in their usage of, multimodal metaphor were also disclosed in the study

Table of contents

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES vi

PART A INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale 1

2 Research questions 2

3 Significance of the study 3

4 Scope of the study 3

5 Design of the thesis 3

PART B DEVELOPMENT 5

CHAPTER 1 LITERATURE REVIEW 5

1 APPROACHES TO METAPHOR 5

1.1 Before Cognitive Linguistics 5

1.2 Cognitive Linguistics 7

2 MULTIMODAL METAPHOR 9

2.1 Multimodality and monomodality 9

2.2 Features of a multimodal metaphor 11

2.3 Modes in a multimodal metaphor: Classification and interaction 13

2.4 Multimodal metaphor and the genre 15

3 EMPIRICAL STUDIES 18

4 CHAPTER SUMMARY 20

CHAPTER 2 METHODOLOGY 21

1 Description of the data 21

2 Methods of the study 21

5 Chapter summary 26

CHAPTER 3 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 27

3.1 Statistical findings 27

3.1.1 Coca – Cola 27

3.1.2 Pepsi 28

3.2 Qualitative findings 29

3.2.1 Multimodal metaphor in Coca- Cola TV commercials 29

3.2.2 Multimodal metaphor in Pepsi TV commercials 46

3.3 Discussion of research questions 62

3.3.1 Answer to research question 1: „How is multimodal metaphor used in the TV ads of Coca - Cola and Pepsi?’ 62

3.3.2 Answer to research question 2: „What are similarities and differences in using multimodal metaphor of the two soft drink brands?’ 63

3.4 Chapter summary 64

PART C CONCLUSIONS 65

1 Recapitulation of main ideas 65

2 Limitations 66

3 Recommendations for further studies 67

REFERENCES 68 APPENDICES I

LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES

Figure 1 Subdivision of Modes - Forceville (2007: 20)

Figure 2 Metaphorical Themes Frequency in 15 Coca- Cola's TVCs

Figure 3: Metaphorical Themes Frequency in 15 Pepsi's TVCs

Table 1: Sample Analytical Framework

Table 2: Mappings of the CM Love is a journey

Table 3: Mappings of the CM Drink is a journey

PART A INTRODUCTION

In this part, the researcher explains why she chose the research topic and

indicates aims, scope and design of the study Two raised research questions were clearly stated

1 Rationale

Metaphor was considered as an exclusively figurative phenomenon which had little or no place in everyday language until the 19th century Yet, since Lakoff

and Johnson published their work named Metaphors We Live By in 1980, the notion

of conceptual metaphor theory (CMT) has ruled metaphor studies Here, metaphors are primarily a phenomenon of thought rather than of language, which have been applied to all corners of life such as literature, economy and especially recreational and media areas Additionally, as a result of the quick social commercialization and the surge of media, advertising becomes one of the most efficient ways of

broadcasting products, and a fundamental part of our life as well as „a major manifestation of conceptual metaphors‟ (Kövecses 2002: 59)

In the realm of advertising, metaphor is regarded as an integration of words, images, sounds and meanings A well-selected metaphor will significantly provoke shoppers‟ inspiration to buy a certain product Forceville (2008) asserts that it is vital to study nonverbal and multimodal metaphors systematically to test claims made about conceptual metaphors Within Conceptual Metaphor Theory framework, multimodal metaphors are defined as those metaphors whose target and source are rendered exclusively or predominantly in two or more modes and the verbal is in many cases just one of them (Forceville: 2006; see also Forceville: 2008; Forceville and Urios Aparisi: 2009a) The possible modes likely consist of written and spoken language, static and moving images, music, nonverbal sounds, and gestures (Forceville and Urios-Aparisi: 2009b)

The researcher was impressed by Coca - Cola and Pepsi – two typical soft drink brands in the beverage industry Both have invested a lot in commercial

strategies to propagate their names worldwide One of reasons for their success may come from their advertising campaigns with TV commercials (TVCs) combined by different modes ranging from images, sounds and words The researcher questions the use of multimodal metaphor on those TVCs in broadcasting the items and grabbing the audience‟s attention; hence, she is so curious to do a thorough research into this area For the aforementioned explanations, the thesis mainly concentrates

on analyzing the multimodal metaphors used in TVCs of two brands Coca-Cola and Pepsi within the Conceptual Metaphor Theory, from which some comparison will

be made between the two brands

2 Research questions

A great number of works within the Conceptual Metaphor Theory have been done, but concentrate only on one aspect of the metaphor Even if they did consider various modes, their areas are totally different, so hardly can the researcher find a research of the same field and topic The present paper analyses metaphor as a complex phenomenon and argues that the genre and modes interact to create a meaningful message to advertise the target items The problem raises the following research questions:

How is multimodal metaphor used in the TV ads of Coca - Cola and Pepsi? What are similarities and differences in using multimodal metaphor of the two soft drink brands?

The research‟s aims were to identify multimodal metaphors and relationships between their target and source domains in expressing certain messages followed by

a comparison in using multimodal metaphors of the two big names The corpus included two series of 30 TV commercials taken from the website iSpot.tv

3 Significance of the study

This study was done to contribute to the linguistics, especially metaphor research Its approach is quite new as no studies have been done on comparing multimodal metaphors in Coca- Cola and Pepsi‟ TVCs Completing the thesis means that a new discovery will be revealed and maybe open new ideas for further examination

Another striking point is that by the language phenomena‟s clarification in television commercials, an unprecedented foundation for explaining the same phenomena may be established in other areas and genres Last but not least, she strongly believes that her study contributes to building theoretical basis in the linguistic area Also, it is likely used as a reference for the latter studies

4 Scope of the study

The thesis exploited 30 TV commercials of Coca- Cola and Pepsi on the iSpot.tv over a period of 5 years, from 2013 to 2018 All commercials are spoken

in English from 15 seconds to about 60 seconds long Despite unequal numbers of videos taken from each year, it was still able to reflect general marketing purposes and contemporary trends The number one reason for the choice is because Coca- Cola and Pepsi are of the most well-known soft drink brands worldwide They have already published extremely attractive and inspiring TVCs to raise their sales Second, the researcher hypothesized that there are likely certain marketing strategies, campaigns and unique brands in their TV shots, so she was so curious and eager to investigate them

5 Design of the thesis

The thesis consists of three main parts, organized as follows:

PART A: Introduction- gives the reasons why the author chooses this topic, aims,

the scope and the design of the study

PART B: Development: includes 3 chapters:

Literature review chapter reviews literature and previous studies in the field

Methodology chapter describes the data and data analyzing process It also provides

an analytical framework for further discussion

Findings and discussion chapter shows results and discusses research questions

PART C Conclusions - summarizes the findings and draws the conclusions

followed by limitations and recommendations for extensive research

PART B DEVELOPMENT

The development part begins with the first chapter of literature review in which the researcher reviews literature and previous studies in the field Following this, methodology chapter describes the data and data analyzing process It also provides an analytical framework for further discussion To end to the development part, a findings and discussion chapter shows results and discussesr esearch questions

CHAPTER 1 LITERATURE REVIEW

As mentioned once, the chapter of literature review gives a general picture of related theories and already- done studies in the same field as the current thesis The chapter is subdivided into smaller sections, beginning with a revision on approaches

to metaphor, followed by basic foundations to multimodal metaphors The chapter ends by a brief overview of two related studies about metaphor in advertising in which the researcher takes a chance to highlight salient points in her thesis in comparison with these two

1 APPROACHES TO METAPHOR

1.1 Before Cognitive Linguistics

Metaphor has continuously grabbed public attention and scholars over the centuries, so the researcher started this section by presenting major thoughts in studying metaphor before the birth of Cognitive Linguistics

There has been an existing fact that the nature of metaphor has been discussed by Aristotle on the level of noun (name), indicating that metaphor typically „happens‟ to the noun, and it is presented as motion:

…the application of a strange (alien, allotrios) term either transferred (displaced, epiphora) from the genus and applied to the species or from the species and applied to the genus, or from one species to another, or else by analogy (Aristotle, 1982:1447b)

According to Aristotle, once a name is applied to a new thing, it may communicate something much more clearly, which is something else hard to grasp

He also specified four possibilities of creating a metaphor, namely genus to species, species to genus, species to species, and by analogy or proportion Nevertheless, one can find in his later work that the primary objective of rhetorical speech is persuasion, which is far of importance from our view point In fact, virtues of metaphor comprise clarity, warmth, facility, appropriateness and elegance, and

finally „metaphor sets the scene before our eyes‟ (Aristotle, 1954:1410b) Scholars

argued that even though the definition of metaphor is itself metaphorical, the explanation for it is circular Researchers might have slowed down and leave metaphors to flourish only in stylistics, as a basic „figure of speech‟

After a long period of scholars‟ losing interest in metaphors, Chomsky paid a

direct attention back to linguistics In his Language and Mind, he showed that:

„Linguistics is a branch of cognitive psychology: I think there is more of a healthy ferment in cognitive psychology – and in the particular branch of cognitive psychology known as linguistics – than there has been for many years…if we are ever to understand how language is used or acquired, then

we must abstract for separate and independent study a cognitive system, a system of knowledge and belief.‟ (Chomsky, 1972: 1-4)

Chomsky confesses that „we are as far today as Descartes was three centuries ago from understanding just what enables a human to speak in a way that

is innovative, free from stimulus control, and also appropriate and coherent.‟

(1972:12-13), and his approach targets at the analysis of deep structure Moreover, Brugman highlights the importance of categories, based on Rosch (1977) and Kay and McDaniel (1978), reaching the verdict: sensory elements in categorizing human experience represent a possibility to describe language, although a single word is but a narrow investigation, not revealing great truths about the language itself

1.2 Cognitive Linguistics

Cognitive linguistics was brought to light in the late 1970s in which cognitive linguists assume an analysis of the conceptual and experiential basis of linguistic categories and constructs is of a primary importance: formal structures of language are studied not as if they were autonomous, but as reflections of general conceptual organization, categorization principles, and processing mechanisms (Gibbs: 1994; Lakoff: 1980)

The approach has thrived in part through the adherence to two different commitments (Lakoff, 1980), especially „Generalization commitment‟ on general principles in our theoretical descriptions of linguistic phenomena Linguists of the trend claim that metaphor is not merely a figure of speech, but is a specific mental, and neural mapping that influences a good deal of how people think, reason, and imagine in everyday life (Lakoff & Johnson, 1999) Furthermore, verbal metaphors

do not exist as mere ornamental, or communicative devices; instead, they reflect underlying conceptual mappings in which people metaphorically conceptualize vague, abstract domains of knowledge (e.g., time, causation, spatial orientation, ideas, emotions, concepts of understanding) in terms of more specific, familiar, and concrete knowledge (e.g., embodied experiences) These sources to target domain mappings tend to be asymmetrical (Fauconnier & Turner, 1995) in that completely different inferences result when the direction of the mappings are reversed (e.g., TIME IS MONEY is quite different from the, perhaps, anomalous idea that MONEY IS TIME.)

The prominent interpretation of metaphor under light of cognitive linguistics has been introduced only thirty - five years ago, although the metaphor has been discussed since ancient times Aristotle, as stated in the earlier section, understood

the metaphor as „the application of an alien name by transference either from genus

to species, or from species to genus, or from species to species, or by analogy, that

is, proportion‟ (Aristotle,1982:1447b) However, only after linguists started to look

for generalizations that dictate the creation of poetic metaphors, they revealed that metaphors are not in language, but in thought and are embedded there so deeply,

that „Our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature.‟ (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980a: 4) With the

present statement, as Forceville (2006: 379) rightly suggested, Lakoff and Johnson

marked „a switch from research into metaphor as a primarily verbal to a predominantly conceptual phenomenon.‟ This new approach into metaphor was

called the conceptual metaphor theory (henceforth CMT) in which the most remarkable turning point was the arrival of George Lakoff and Mark Johnson's Metaphors we live by in 1980 In the publication, the authors respectively introduce their theory of conceptual metaphors Departing from a purely linguistic phenomenon, its central notion is that like our thoughts and actions which are metaphorical, metaphor is a matter of cognition rather than of language In comparison with Aristotle‟s ideas, Lakoff and Johnson's theory emphasizes the everyday use of language According to CMT, metaphors form the core of our

conceptual system, but they are often left without conscious notice, as „our conceptual system is not something we are normally aware of „(Lakoff & Johnson,

1980: 3) Language, however, plays a role in construing metaphors and correspondences between the domains by providing metaphorical expressions (Yu:

2007, 26) To illustrate, Lakoff (1992: 205-208) explains the conceptual metaphor LOVE IS JOURNEY, which manifests itself in language through such metaphorical expressions, as „we‟ve hit a dead end‟, „their marriage is on the rocks‟, „we can‟t

turn back now‟ and similar

The term metaphor within the framework of CMT means „understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another.‟ (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980a: 6)

These so-called „things‟ are conceptual domains with a set of features that serve as the basis for the creation of the relationships The process is carried out by partly

domain onto another As the result, the domain with the mapping features is called the source domain and the domain onto which the features are mapped – the target domain, and the general formula for the construction of the conceptual metaphor is TARGET DOMAIN IS SOURCE DOMAIN (Forceville, 2013: 55; Facounnier, 2003; Lakoff: 1992)

2 MULTIMODAL METAPHOR

2.1 Multimodality and monomodality

To differentiate multimodality and monomodality, a quick review at the term

„mode‟ is necessary A s a matter of fact, the mode refers to 'a sign system interpretable because of a specific perception process' (Forceville, 2006: 4) In this

respect, the mode refers to each of the senses and, at the same time, it enables to make a distinction between them Forceville also states that language can be perceived through two different modes:

( ) language can be both perceived visually and aurally I propose there is goodreason to do justice to the important differences between these two manners of perception by giving the status of a different mode to 'written language' and ‘spoken language' After all, oral and written texts rely on very different conditions of understanding.‟ (Forceville, 2007: 6)

Hence, here monomodal messages can be understood as those which are only represented in a single mode Monomodality is a typical characteristic of verbal texts, through which facts, information and knowledge have been transmitted Yet, monomodality can also found when we transmit an idea visually, through a picture,

a photo or an image; for instance, in a pictorial metaphor, the source and the target domain are found in the image itself

Owing to the fact that before the CMT, metaphor was seen as a matter of language and not thought, only verbal mode was interpreted and all the other modes

were ignored as not relevant (Jacobs et al, 2013: 490) Introducing a new approach

to consider metaphor as independent from language, cognitive linguistics discovered diverse modes in which a metaphor can be represented (El Rafaie, 2003: 76) In general, Jewitt (2009: 14) interprets the multimodal approach to discourse as below:

Multimodality describes approaches that understand communication and representation to be more than about language, and which attend to the full range of communication forms people use – image, gesture, gaze, posture, and so on – and the relationships between them

From this, most linguists started an argument that in analyzing any discourse

or text variation, one mode is not enough to reveal all the peculiarities and all modes must be considered (Thomas, 2014 : 165), and some even assert that monomodal texts do not even survive and each piece of information is one or the other way conveyed via multiple modes (Bateman et al, 2007: 151) In spite of the argumentative ideas, in order to study a metaphor from the present perspective,

Jewitt‟s defining is not adequate to clarify what a mode is In fact, „a mode is a sign system interpretable because of a specific perception process‟ (Forceville, 2006:

382) denoting that modes are associated with our senses and the information attained thanks to a specific sense is specifically represented in a certain mode Yet, categorizing modes by senses does not always serve the expectations of discourse analysis It is because, for instance, the aural or sonic mode will include both spoken language and music which usually have different purposes in different discourses Consequently, it is necessarily agreed that though analysis of any discourse must not be restricted to one modality, the classification of modes varies depending on the genre and analysis objectives Moreover, modes can also be interpreted from the perspective of theproducer and the recipient, i.e the producer forms a metaphor having in mind a hypothetical recipient and the possible

understands the interplay of modes (Holsanova, 2012: 252) Thus, any researcher must also take a careful notice of the fact that any interpretation is subjective and may not coincide with the intended meaning of the producer The features, classification, and relationships between modes in a metaphor presented in the following subchapters are, hence, limited to the discourse typical of the genre of advertising and the perspective of the production

So far, multimodal metaphors are likely interpreted as those 'whose target and source are each represented exclusively and predominantly in different modes'

(Forceville, 2006: 384); for example, metaphors whose target domain is verbal and source domain is visual, or the other way round This needs a mental comprehension process which differs from processing visual or verbal concepts alone After considering the previous definition of monomodal and multimodal metaphor and making the distinction between them clear, Forceville´s (2006) analysis of monomodal and multimodal images needs to be taken into account According to Forceville (2006), if a product is only advertised visually, it has to be divided into source and target domain It is necessary to consider which part of the image is the source and which is the target, carrying out the analysis by mapping the concepts However, in order to analyze a multimodal image, it has to be divided into the different modes it contains To exemplify, a multimodal image containing a visual part and a verbal part would be divided into these two different modes, later considering where the source and the target domain are

2.2 Features of a multimodal metaphor

Multimodal metaphors, as characterized by Forceville (2008a, 2008b, 2009),

‘are metaphors whose target and source are each represented exclusively or predominantly in different modes’ (2009: 24) Forceville describes a mode as

belonging to one of the following groups: pictorial signs; written signs; spoken signs; gestures; sounds; music; smells; tastes; or touch (2009: 23) The diversity of modes uncovers that multimodal metaphors can occur in various different genres,

including conversation, print advertisements, or TV commercials Moving images naturally allow more modes to cue the target and source domains of a metaphor (Forceville, 2008a) A domain can be cued musically, or through a sound effect, for instance Furthermore, the simultaneous representation of target and source domains found in linguisticand static pictorial metaphors need not be present in metaphors in moving images, as the domains can be represented seconds or hours apart

Although the aforementioned description clearly reveals a main feature of a multimodal metaphor, it does not reflect all of its distinctiveness In fact, it is not compulsory to have only one mode for each, there can be more than one mode to represent each of the domains and some or even all may correspond For example, the source and the target can be both represented visually and verbally, or the target may be represented in three modes, while the source in one only Such metaphors will still be called multimodal Take the metaphor described by Forceville (2007: 20) GAZELLE BIKE IS THOUROUGHBRED as a demonstration It can be observed that domains are cued in multiple modes, namely visual, sonic, and verbal, but so are the mappings For example, physical beauty is cued visually and the feature of being classics is cued sonically by the horse-like sounds Therefore, if all modes can be excluded except for one and the metaphor could still be understood, it

is not multimodal, but if more than one mode is necessary in order to grasp the metaphor, it can be called multimodal

Forceville (2013:41) also mentions another characteristic of multimodal metaphor is that two comparable phenomena must come from different categories Categories are not only ambiguous but can also be construed on various levels, from very general to very specific (Rosch 1978: 30) The rule becomes clear when a bicycle is compared to a horse, because they apparently fall into different categories Yet, it is totally possible in advertising to compare, for example, a family car to a sports car as it can be still considered that they belong to different

conceptual metaphor in general is comparison of two things or entities in the metaphor belong to different categories, but are not necessarily separate

The third mandatory characteristic of a multimodal metaphor as pointed out

by Forceville (2013: 41) is that the things compared must be differentiated as the source and the target and cannot be reversed in the current metaphor It means that

we have to clearly see that one of the phenomena is the source and not the target and the second is vice versa

Finally, there must be at least one feature of the source domain is linked to the target domain As using multiple modalities expresses a huge amount of information in a relatively short time spam, multimodal metaphors usually have a

number of features mapped

All in all, a metaphor can be multimodal if it meets the compulsory criteria:

1 Its domains are represented in more than one modality;

2 Phenomena compared in the present metaphor come from different categories;

3 Phenomena are clearly understood as source and target domains and cannot

be reversed in the current context;

4 There is at least one feature that is mapped from one to the other domain 2.3 Modes in a multimodal metaphor: Classification and interaction

In multimodal metaphors analysis in advertising, there have been several classifications presented In this paper, Forcevile‟s was used as the main foundation Forceville (2007: 20) assures that domains in multimodal metaphors can be represented visually, sonically, musically, in spoken words, and in written words Visual representation implies display of the phenomenon fully, partially or representation of related elements to the phenomena For example, the car itself, a wheel as a part of it, or a person wearing car garment can be shown for the depiction of a car model in the advertisement Then, sonic representation means

sounds that are neither music, nor speech In case of the same advertisement, it can

be a sound of wheels touching the highway or a sound of a car bell On the other hand, musical representation refers to music only and no other sounds Hence, music can be a melody or a song Lastly, representation of domains in spoken or written words can also be full presentation or symbolization by words pertain to the target or source metonymically or by other relationships, e.g similarity, association, etc The figure following figure exemplifies the subdivision of modes according to Forceville (2007: 20):

Figure 1 Subdivision of Modes - Forceville (2007: 20)

The aforementioned figure illustrates how modes are interrelated In reality,

it is sometimes even difficult to attribute one or other representation to one mode only A song can generally be considered as a part of sonic mode and music Yet, song itself often involves spoken words which belong to verbal mode in another perspective, and incorporates melody which often belongs to an entirely separate subdivision For that reason, even if modes are categorized, representation of a domain can happen in multiple modes at once Cornelissen et al (2008: 14)

reinforces the idea by showing that „a metaphor is likely to be cued and represented

in more than one mode simultaneously, as metaphoric gestures often coincide with linguistic metaphors, and as sculpted artifacts may extend linguistic metaphors.‟

It is undebatable that the interplay of modes not only occurs at the most general level but also creates a conceptual metaphor and communicates a complex message; thus, many deploy several modes at the same time Yu (2008: 87) analyzed educational Chinese advertisements and one of them was related to the concept of water The interpreted multimodal metaphor was VIRTUE IS WATER, and it was achieved through the correlation of all main modes - aurally (sonic), visually, and verbally Sonic and visual modes were applied to show how water drops become seas and oceans, and verbal mode directed the audience into the right interpretation The illustration states how closely the modes are connected Aural and visual modes are presented simultaneously throughout the commercial, and

verbal mode is added later to intensify the effect made by the first two

2.4 Multimodal metaphor and the genre

Metaphor has been regarded as a powerful rhetorical tool for a long time These days, new media supply platforms for realizations of metaphors, be linguistic, pictorial or even multimodal In all these forms, metaphor has been widely and effectively employed in various branches of advertising In the section, multimodal metaphor in commercials, will be discussed in details

Advertising is a specific genre of persuasive discourse The success of such persuasion involves in several factors: recognition of a brand, recognition of the source and the target, and relation of specific positive features of the source domain

to the target domain (Forceville 2007: 20;2008: 275) The underlying and final objective of any advertisement is to sell a product More specifically, in the genre of

commercial advertising - to sell the advertised, with the main message either „buy our product/service‟ or „do not buy the product/service of our competitors’, and

both the creation and interpretation of the conceptual metaphor are always in tune with the main aim (Forceville, 2008: 273; Philips & McQuarrie 2004: 113; Qiu 2013: 1584 & 1588)

A commercial, then, can be analyzed as an instance of a genre event (Steen, 2011) not only with the clear goal, but also the participants, the medium, often also the main lines of the content In metaphor research, it is not implausible to take the

genre into consideration because the genre „determines and constrains its possible interpretations to an extent that is difficult to overestimate‟ (Forceville, 2006: 14)

Probably, the most important objective of commercial is to remind the audience about the product or service in specific, as well as the brand in general To maintain the target audience‟s interest, the advertised product and the brand are most often withheld till the end of the commercial (Tzanne, 2013: 123) Hence, the producer‟s duty is to create impressive and clear metaphor However, in order to construe correct and intended relationships between the target and the source, it is the audience who have to identify them Due to the specific aim of the genre of advertising, the target in commercials is as a rule the product or service marketed Moreover, commercials are about the specific product or service; thus, they are the other phenomena that serve as the source domain and explain the positive features

of the first (Forceville 2006: 392) On the other hand, the target can also have antonymic relationships with the advertised goods, for instance, when negative features of a product of competitors are highlighted, or, in case of services, can be unrelated to both the product and the competitors (Forceville, 2008: 297) Another feature that makes better interpretation is the fact that in advertising, the source is usually of a higher value than the target because it supplies the positive features mapped from the source to the target (Tzanne, 2013: 115) It is also important to mention that the juxtaposition of the source and the target domains created by the

CM is hypothetical rather than real The last main objective is to let the target audience associate certain positive features of the source domain with the target domain (Forceville 2007: 20; Qui 2013: 1588) Despite the fact that a commercial is very rich in modalities, there are two detriments that challenge the genre First, time

on TV is so pricey and thus commercials are normally limited in time, and second,

result, to ensure the mapping of the right features, advertisers need to select only one or several features that are mapped and ensure that they are strongly in relation

to the product in shape, size or quality in order for it to be easily associated and introduce the feature(s) from the very beginning of the commercial (Forceville 2013: 60; Forceville, Lecture 5; Forceville, Lecture 4; 2008: 292)

Until now, it can be interpreted that a multimodal metaphor is a cognitive process in which the target and source domains are represented in different modes Hence, in the study of multimodal metaphor, it is necessary for the surface representation to be considered to foster understandings of metaphorical mappings

Forceville also emphasizes that „clearly, which channel(s) of information (language, visuals, sound, and gestures, among others) are chosen to convey a metaphor is a central factor in how a metaphor is construed and interpreted‟

(2007:15) However, one should remind that television commercials are optimal examples of interaction among modes, especially visual, verbal and sound; thus, the metaphor in television commercials is not static, but dynamic That is why the analysis of multimodal commercials normally involves the identification of the two main domains: target and source followed by a discussion of how they draw on more than one mode along with an analysis of mode interaction

Multimodal metaphor in television commercials is unique and comparative

to pictorial one in printed ads and billboards, so the following dimensions should be taken into account:

1 Since commercials unfold in time, target and source needn‟t be represented (or unequivocally suggested) at the same moment; that is, they can be presented sequentially

2 A metaphorical term (target or source) can be presented not only visually

or verbally, but also sonically, by means of a musical theme or a non-verbal sound

3 Framing and camera movements provide formal means to establish metaphoric similarity not available to singular static images (Forceville, 2007: 18)

3 EMPIRICAL STUDIES

Studies of multimodal metaphor have been done on different areas, yet in beverage advertising, especially in television commercials there have been just a few This can be considered as the most unique difference of this thesis when it concentrated on analyzing multimodal metaphor in beverage television commercials Despite lack of previous relevant studies, in this section, the two typical studies are still reviewed in order to highlight the outstanding differences of the thesis

The first study under consideration is „Metaphors in Food Advertising Slogans‟ by Chennan Yu (2009), which aimed to investigate both the conceptual

metaphors and the creative metaphorical linguistic expressions used in food advertising slogans and figured out the possible reasons why a certain source domain is chosen for a certain target domain So as to answer research questions, the researcher analyzed 20 food advertising slogans from three sources, namely textart.ru, Wikipedia and Google in which advertising slogans of McDonald‟s, Burger King and Coca-Cola were the main component of the materials With a series of steps, from selection, classifying to analyzing and discussing, Yu finally could find the answer for his research that conceptual metaphors are used extensively in food advertising slogans to arouse customers‟ interest Various aspects related to the product are conceptualized into different kinds of entities and objects Many conventional and common metaphors are utilized in advertising slogans, but much creative work has also been done by the advertisers A large number of everyday metaphors are extended and elaborated in a new way in the slogans Yu also disclosed that the LIFE metaphor contributes to a large portion of

FOOD The taste of the source concept of FOOD is used as well to pass on the message that the product will make people‟s life better Slogans focused on the target concept of FEELINGS and STATES of customers are analyzed as well They intend to make people believe that the product is fun and eating the product is an interesting experience People‟s thoughts and inner desire appear regularly in food advertising slogans By conceptualizing them into objects and people, they tend to encourage people to fulfill the desire to buy the product

Conceptual metaphors, more specifically pictorial metaphors, have also been studied by Nani Indrajani Tjirakusuma Although in the same line with Chennan Yu (2009) about the area of food and beverage advertising, Nani‟s focus is pictorial metaphors in foodand beverages advertising discourse The method of this study seems to be more active and varied than Yu‟s in which This study was a qualitative study with the source from various online magazines and its data were advertisements on foods and beverages that contained pictorial metaphors The data analysis was based on interpretation The units of analysis were words in context, including phrases, clauses, sentences and the contextual pictures in the advertisements The metaphors found in the advertisements were identified and qualitatively described and analyzed, from the point of view of content analysis or textual analysis Four advertisements of food and beverages were examined to draw the conclusion that metaphors used in the advertisements are not just verbal metaphors, but also nonverbal ones When the pictures seem to tell nothing about the advertised product, these pictures are intentionally created as pictorial metaphors by the advertisers because all the verbal and nonverbal advertisement texts should support the advertised product

Under investigation of the two above studies, the researcher of this thesis found out following unique points in her thesis First, no study has been done on her topic before; hence, this is totally novel in the linguistic world Second, her study is not only descriptive and qualitative research but also a contrastive one, so it

investigates deeply and thoroughly the data Last but not least, she holds a strong belief that her study can brings new flow of air into the linguistic world, showing new approach of completely new theme

4 CHAPTER SUMMARY

In order for the thesis to be firmly and convincingly constructed, the researcher spent a quite long chapter to look back fundamental and related theoretical backgrounds to her present study A comprehensive revision of prominent approaches to metaphor in general and necessary foundation for multimodal metaphor in the area of commercial advertising was careful specified and organized in the chapter Additionally, the researcher did not forget to go over two studies of her same research field, from which she emphasized salient achievements of her own paper compared to these two ones

CHAPTER 2 METHODOLOGY

The chapter is organized in four subparts in which a description of chosen data was mentioned After that, the researcher spends time clarifying her research methods and an analytical framework A detailed description of data analysis process is also encompassed in the final minutes

1 Description of the data

The data chosen for analysis consisted of 15 Coca - Cola and 15 Pepsi TV commercials, found on iSpot.tv over the period of 2013 – 2018 The length of the commercials in question varied from 15 seconds to 60 seconds All of the videos were spoken in English so that it was so convenient for the researcher to examine and discuss the data

The choice for the set of data was first and foremost inspired by the researcher‟s curiosity of how popular Coca – Cola and Pepsi are in the beverage market She realized that they are two of the biggest names and the most well- known to the customers all over the world Hence, she had a desire to answer this question Although the amount of data was limited due to the time, the researcher still held a strong belief that this thesis devoted to reflecting different campaigns, brands and sales from which an interesting marketing was told to the public

2 Methods of the study

The metaphors in 30 commercials are analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively The quantitative analysis takes its foundation from the themes of metaphor cases Meanwhile, the qualitative analysis takes into consideration how metaphor is specifically realized from each mode In addition, such factors as contextual features of the commercials are also analyzed so that the meaning of the metaphor could be more thoroughly interpreted In order to carry out the analysis of the multimodal metaphors in commercial advertising, a corpus of 30 TV commercials of Coca- Cola and Pepsi were taken from an online advertising

website iSpot.TV over a period of 5 years, from 2013 to 2018 After that, the commercials from Coca-Cola are coded from C01 to C15 ( see appendix 1), and those from Pepsi are coded from P01 to P15 ( see appendix 2) A cognitive approach, especially based on the conceptual metaphor theory to analyze the advertisements was also employed

First of all, the TV commercials were collected and analyzed in terms of their forms and functions Each analysis included a clear description of the video and a certain text for interpreting the metaphor Under investigation, the metaphor was examined to disclose how modes interact to represent the source and target domains, followed by intended messages Besides, all TV commercials were compared and contrasted to clarify their similarities and differences of using multimodal metaphor as the producers‟ strategies to sell the products and improve the two brands

For a thorough examination into the selected data, the study follows Critical Metaphor Analysis (Charteris-Black, 2004), which is an approach to reveal implied intentions and ideologies of language users along with the conceptual essence The approach appreciates investigation of the context where metaphorical expressions occur in order to facilitate metaphors‟ interpretations and their purposes His framework for metaphor analysis stresses that in metaphor analysis, the linguistic, semantic, cognitive, and pragmatic criteria should be combined for an effective account for metaphor inany linguistic expression Therefore, the present research includes three major analysis steps: Identification (based on the upcoming analytical framework) in which specific modes, contexts and possible meanings in each commercial are made clear and categorized After that, interpretation (shown in findings and discussion part) occurs for metaphorical themes with mode interactions and messages to be explored The final step is explanation in which comparison among data and possible accounts for the phenomena is publicized

The researcher has realized that the raised methods are appropriate in her thesis because the thesis is both qualitative-quantitative oriented, so descriptive and cognitive processes are of the importance that helps the researcher gain a deep investigation into subjects under the study Additionally, these methods are clearly feasible because the study just focuses on the TV commercials as the main data and its core purpose is to investigate the use of multimodal metaphors and compare its use in two brands Hence, in this case, it is totally suitable for them to be employed

3 Analytical Framework

The analytical framework employed in this study is based on division of modes

in multimodal metaphor by Forceville (2007: 20) All TVCs were analyzed according to criteria in the following framework accompanied by detailed description and analysis The analytical table is as follows with an example from one TV commercial of Coca- Coca named New Open Happiness (2013)

Meaning Visual Verbal Sonic

- lively background music building positive atmosphere

- The song is Peter and the

The campaign

„OPEN HAPPINESS‟

was launched

in the first half

of 2009 in markets around the world with the aim of increasing sales

of sparkling beverages of

In the middle

of video, the audience can see that the artifact is a huge

floating plastic Coca-Cola bottle and it is then opened on the lively

v

Coca-Cola At

a time when the weakened economy was sapping soft drink sales, the 'Open

Happiness' campaign invited people around the world to refresh

themselves with a Coke and continue to enjoy the simple

pleasures of life

music background which is the manifestatio

n of the

Coca-Cola is the container

4 Data Analysis Procedure

The analysis was carried out within the framework of the Conceptual Metaphor Theory and mainly in the light of Forceville (2007: 20) about multimodal metaphor in TV commercials and Critical Metaphor Analysis (Charteris-Black, 2004) The steps of the research procedure were as follows:

At first, all commercials of two companies were closely watched to identify the relationship among each advertisement and a common underlying conceptual metaphor

Then, the series was judged according to the three typical features found in advertisements that are built around conceptual metaphor in advertising ( as mentioned in the theoretical background) – whether the target domain corresponds

to the product advertised, whether expressions referring to the product advertised are withheld till the end, and whether the source domain is of a higher quality than the target domain

After that, the elements that help to cue the target and the source domains of the CM were extracted and included into the table (analytical framework) by the modalities they were found in – visual, verbal spoken, verbal written, sonic sound, and sonic music It is worthy to remark that elements included were not necessarily metaphorical expressions on their own, but even communicated metaphorical content together with elements from other modalities The factors were presented subsequently from the very first seconds in the commercial to the last If there were

no elements of the CM found in a certain modality, the modality was not included into the table After modalities were summarized in the table of the distribution of elements of the CMs among analyzed modalities, a closer analysis of modalities and their relationships was carried out by clearly stating which modalities cue the target and the source domains

Finally, certain messages and possible conceptual metaphors were identified

by giving special attention to the role of the products in the metaphor, from which the entailments of the CM were recognized and served as the basis for the conclusions on the underlying values of the TV commercial series

5 Chapter summary

To sum up, the researcher has just stated her main research methods in which the qualitative and quantitative combination was applied so that she could take a thorough examination into the research subjects Moreover, the chapter also elucidated data collection and analysis processes with specific steps and manipulations With a view to building up a reliable basis for her research in term

of methodology, the researcher took this chance to show the analytical framework used to work on the data It is undeniable that thanks to such an evident organization of the chapter, readers can gain a clear picture of how the thesis was done

CHAPTER 3 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

This chapter discusses the data analysis and findings from 30 TV commercials of Coca- Cola and Pepsi taken from iSpot.TV The purpose of this study was to identify how multimodal conceptual metaphors are used and relationships between their target and source domains in expressing certain messages followed by a comparison in using multimodal metaphors of the two big names

3.1 Statistical findings

This section could be treated as a statistic data in which the researcher gave a summary of metaphor frequencies in terms of metaphorical themes in 30 TV commercials from two companies

3.1.1 Coca – Cola

The 15 commercial videos employed all three modes of verbal, visual, and sonic in constructing the metaphors In details, visual and sonic modes are mainly used while the company just applied a small proportion of verbal mode, mainly in

written form with their slogans Five salient themes specified are: Coca Cola is the container of happiness, Enjoying Coca Cola is the emotional remedy, Coca Cola is the companion of fun and refreshment, Coca Cola is the nurturer of life values, and Coca Cola is the food’s lover, and the distribution of metaphors according to the

themes is summarized as below:

Figure 2 Metaphorical Themes Frequency in 15 Coca- Cola's TVCs

Food's lover

Metaphorical Themes Frequency in 15 Coca- Cola's TVCs

( in number)

It can be seen from the chart that the most number of videos considers the Coca- Cola as an emotional remedy while the lowest one goes for the theme of Coca‟s being a food‟s lover The other three themes, namely container of happiness;

a companion of joy and refreshment, and a nurturer of life values share the same quantities, with 3 videos

3.1.2 Pepsi

Quite familiarly, Pepsi used almost every mode – visual, sonic and verbal in their advertising With 15 collected videos, the researcher found out that most of them are rich in visual modes, not much from verbal and sonic The verbal even varies from spoken to written forms In fact, there are some videos containing only

spoken mode Five most common themes could be found out, namely Pepsi is our time, Pepsi is a companion of joy and refreshment, Pepsi is a sports cheerleader, Pepsi is a matchmaker, and Pepsi is food’s partner The allocation of metaphors

based on themes is also visualized in the following bar chart

Figure 3: Metaphorical Themes Frequency in 15 Pepsi's TVCs

The chart shows that just one out of 15 Pepsi videos regards the drink as a matchmaker, which is opposite with six out of 15 displaying the role of a

Matchmaker Food's partner

Metaphorical Themes Frequency in 15 Pepsi's TVCs ( in

number)

companion of fun and happiness The theme about „drink is time‟ comes second with two videos „Sports cheerleader‟ and „food‟s partner makes up the same number of 3 videos

3.2 Qualitative findings

The researcher took this chance to give a detailed analysis at how multimodal metaphors work in the two companies‟ TV ads The section was subdivided according to the company in which the researcher grouped videos conveying the same metaphor to see how modes interact in aiming at the intended messages However, for each theme, some most outstanding videos are chosen to analyzed, others are put in the appendices

3.2.1 Multimodal metaphor in Coca- Cola TV commercials

3.2.1.1 A drink is a container of happiness

The first commercial series includes three videos, whose titles are C01 (2013) New Open Happiness; C02 (2013), Polar Bear Football and C03 (2014) Make someone happy These three TV shots are all in the 'Open Happiness'

campaign initiated in the first half of 2009 to inspire people around the world to refresh themselves with a Coke and continue to enjoy the simple pleasures of life In this sense, this group of videos featured the Coke as a container of happiness in which the C01 was selected to be closely examined with the clearest transference of

the metaphorical message

C01 (2013 – 60 seconds): New Open Happiness

The message (2013) is conveyed through all 3 modes:

 Verbal mode: Slogan „Open happiness‟ appears at the end

 Visual mode:The 60 – second commercial begins with the image of a man

lying on the grass, sleeping with a bottle of Coca- cola next to his position Taking the advantage of that moment, tiny species in the surrounding join hands, trying to get the bottle It then rolls over the ground, falls into water and floats before a big beetle comes up and opens the lid of Coca- cola The

visual is the nature with a community of insects and tiny species as well as the advertised product – a big red bottle of Coca- Cola (the main character and the star in the commercial) The bottle reappears at the end of the video with the slogan „Open happiness‟

 Sonic mode: To intensify the visual modality, the joyful music accompanies

along the length of the ads, especially when the lid is opened, the music seems to be louder and more joyful, representing the happiness of the scene

In general, the advertisement is itself rich in mainly two modalities – visual and sonic – and not too much from verbal mode The video is a part of the campaign

„Open happiness‟ launched in the first half of 2009 in markets around the world with the aim of increasing sales of sparkling beverages of Coca-Cola At a time when the weakened economy was soaking soft drink sales The 'Open Happiness' campaign invited people around the world to refresh themselves with a Coke and continue to enjoy the simple pleasures of life Taking all the contribution of the modes together, the message to be read is COCA- COLA IS THE CONTAINER

OF HAPPINESS

Following Coca- Cola‟s TV advertisements, it can be revealed that feelings and states of human beings are prevalentdomains which have been employed by Coca- Cola in designing its commercials It is probable because the producers and advertisers are stimulating their customers to believe that their products have a power to make them feel better and experience positive emotions Hence, the slogan

„Open happiness’ can be decoded in the way that opening Coca-Cola means

opening happiness There is lots of happiness in each bottle of Coca-Cola The video is a good example of how visual mode is interlaced with sonic mode to deliver one common idea The commercial begins with a picturesque and natural scenery of human beings and wildlife species The visual is simultaneously accompanied by the music Yet, the most effective collaboration of the two modes lies in the fact that the music supports and in the same tune with what is happening

in visual mode At the beginning of the commercial, a little sleepy and slow melody

arises in the background of a sleeping man It then becomes louder and more bustling when all species in that area are trying to catch the Coca – Cola, especially

at the moment of opening the lid of the bottle, the music is the most bustling followed by the consciousness of the man That is also the moment of happiness coming to all the setting from flora and fauna to human beings Beside the principal modes of visual and sonic, the verbal also plays a fundamental role in sending the whole message Although the video is not much rich in verbal, just a slogan „OPEN HAPPINESS‟ in the end, it is considered as an impressive closing and summary of all things occurring before The first example illustrates how visual, sonic and verbal are employed to ascribe the role of CONTAINER OF HAPPINESS to the DRINK „Coca- Cola‟.In this role, the conceptual metaphor HAPPINESS IS AN ENTITY is also extended and elaborated in the sense that HAPPINESS is conceived of as something in a parcel or box so that it can be unwrapped or opened Hence, opening Coca-Cola means opening happiness Happiness is contained in the bottle By this way of approaching, a majority of customers is about to feel excited

or curious before opening a box or bottle without being aware of what is in there And then, after the moment of unlocking the container, they would receive a basket

of happiness which exactly comes up to the advertisers „expectations

3.2.1.2 Enjoying a drink is emotional health/ remedy

The second commercial series consists of four videos, namely C06 (2016) Brotherly Love; C07 (2016) Break up; C010 (2017) Icebreaker, and C11.(2017) Sharing is always better Unlike the previous group, three members here mark a

strategic shift in marketing campaign of Coca- Cola, from „Open happiness‟ to

„Taste the feeling‟ It is a new global creative campaign, using universal storytelling and everyday moments to connect the Coke with consumers around the world Two

out of four TVCs named C06 (2016) Brotherly Love and C07 (2016) Break up

typically reflect underscored ideas of the campaign as well as the group‟s message

C06 (2016 – 60 seconds): Brotherly Love

The message conveyed through the video (2016) is through all 3 modes:

 Verbal mode: The name of the brand „Coca – Cola‟ co-appears with the

slogan „Taste the feeling‟ at the end of the commercial

 Visual mode: The commercial is full of visual factors with various

meaningful scenes

Scene 1: A quite raw- boned boy wearing a red hat, a red/white striped shirt,

and blue jeans sits on a couch, keenly playing a video game He is leaned forward, with his hands tightly gripping the video game controller as he vigorously mashes buttons On the front table is a bottle of refreshing Coca-Cola, which is open, but barely touched, assuming that when the boy gets around to drinking it, he will drink it with the same level of concentration he

is putting into this video game The boy‟s older brother who is a tall young man with a faded gray T-shirt and a smirk that says „I love Coca-Cola‟ enters from the righ, walks up to boy and pushes his hat down for no reason As soon as boy corrects his hat, brother immediately pushes it down again, this time covering his whole face Boy is clearly annoyed and tries to push brother away Brother walks away smirking

Scene 2: in living room again

Boy (wearing a different combination of red, white, and blue) is trying to reach a pair of headphones high up on a shelf Brother walks by, talking on the phone He is clearly tall enough to retrieve the headphones, but instead he takes the headphones and puts them on an even higher shelf Brother walks away with his classic smirk, and boy stares after him, visibly hurt and confused

Scene 3 Outside in the rain

Both are walking home from school, and brother is holding an umbrella over both of them Unexpectedly, brother quickens his pace and leaves boy in the