The use of conceptual metaphors in advertising slogans of nokia, samsung, apple, blackberry and sony ericsson cell phones

Lakoff and Johnson give the notion of conceptual metaphors which have explained this all in an easy-understanding way.This attributes to the cause for choosing Lakoff and Johnson‟s theor

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF

POST GRADUATE STUDIES ***********

PHẠM THỊ HẰNG

THE USE OF CONCEPTUAL METAPHORS IN

ADVERTISING SLOGANS OF NOKIA, SAMSUNG, APPLE, BLACKBERRY AND SONY ERICSSON CELL PHONES

(Việc sử dụng ẩn dụ ý niệm

trong các khẩu hiệu quảng cáo cho điện thoại di động

Nokia, Samsung, Apple, Blackberry và Sony Ericsson)

THESIS SUMMARY

M.A THESIS(Minor Programme)

Field: English LinguisticsCode: 60 22 15

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF

POST GRADUATE STUDIES ***********

PHẠM THỊ HẰNG

THE USE OF CONCEPTUAL METAPHORS IN

ADVERTISING SLOGANS OF NOKIA, SAMSUNG, APPLE, BLACKBERRY AND SONY ERICSSON CELL PHONES

(Việc sử dụng ẩn dụ ý niệm trong các khẩu hiệu quảng cáo cho điện thoại di

động Nokia, Samsung, Apple, Blackberry và Sony

Ericsson)

THESIS SUMMARY

M.A THESIS(Minor Programme)

Field: English LinguisticsCode: 60 22 15

Supervisor: Ngo Huu Hoang, PhD

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

ABSTRACT

LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

2 Objectives of the study and the research questions

3 Scope of the study

4 Method of the study

5 Design of the study

6 Previous studies

CHAPTER II: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

1 Definition of metaphors

2 Conceptual metaphors/ Cognitive metaphors

2.1 Conceptual metaphors in relation with cognitive linguistics

2.2 Conceptual metaphors

3 Classification of conceptual metaphors

3.1 Structural metaphors

3.2 Ontological metaphors

3.3 Orientational metaphors

4 Advertising slogans

4.1 Definition of an advertising slogan

4.2 Qualities of an effective slogan

CHAPTER III: THE USE OF ADVERTISING SLOGANS

1 Conceptual metaphors in advertising slogans

1.1 The effects of conceptual metaphors on audience

1.2 Conceptual metaphors in advertising slogans

2 Research procedures

2.1 Data collection

2.2 Data analysis

3 Results and discussion

3.1 Research question 1

3.2 Research question 2

CHAPTER IV: CONCLUSION

1 Recapitulation of main ideas

2 Limitations of the study

3 Suggestions for further research

4 Implications

REFERENCE

APPENDIX

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

In the epoch of information explosion, it is inevitable for any of us to bump intoadvertising words and images Advertising is all around us, though we like it or not, wehear it, see it and feel it albeit on purpose or just by some chance In order for a brandname to go global, a good advertisement of their product is a key matter, no wonderwhy billions of bugs have been spent on copywriting English, an internationallanguage, is used in every single advertisement with an aim of the company goingplaces world wide The utmost aim of the advertisement is to capture our attention

“The whole aim of the copywriters is to get us register their communication either forpurposes of immediate action or to make us more favourably disposed in general terms

to the advertised product or service […] so copywriters have to find ways to shout at

us from the page.” (Goddard, A., 1998: 11) A question may arise that how advertisingcan impinge on people‟s life so much and it is given a short answer by Fairclough:

Advertising has made many people into consumers, i.e has brought about a change in the way people are, in the sense that it has provided the most coherent and persistent model for consumer needs, values, tastes and behaviour It has done this by addressing people as if they were commonsensically already fully fledged consumers The general point is that if people are obliged day-in day-out to occupy the subject position of consumer, there is a good chance that they will become consumers […] Advertising can show people lifestyles (and patterns of spending) which they might not otherwise meet, but also invite them to “join” (1989: 207)

The researcher is captive in advertisements especially those of mobile phones.That is the reason why I took a hook to go ahead with mobile phone advertisingslogans

In order to achieve the aim of getting customers noticed, copywriters havecontributed a non-stop effort in creating an attractive, memorable, distinct advertisingslogan for each brand The methods used in writing advertising slogans range fromemploying phonological aspect, lexical and morphological aspect, syntactic aspect tosemantic aspect More concretely, in phonological aspect, rhyme, homophone,alliteration are often put into consideration while in lexical and morphological aspect,verb phrase, noun phrase, collocation, idiomatic construction, formation of new wordsand phrases are of great approval What‟s more, when syntactic aspect can be found insentence types, sentence structure like ellipsis, semantic aspect is often realizedthrough rhetorical devices such as simile, hyperbole, metonymy, polysemy andmetaphors The researcher is absolutely engaged in metaphors which have long been apart of my interest This explains the my reason to choose metaphors in advertising.

Metaphors are a part and parcel of everyday life in that they appear in nearly allour everyday concepts without our realization of it Lakoff and Johnson give the notion

of conceptual metaphors which have explained this all in an easy-understanding way.This attributes to the cause for choosing Lakoff and Johnson‟s theory as a foundation

in analyzing the data obtained in the study

2 Objectives of the study and the research questions

The study aims to describe a language phenomenon happening in advertisingslogans, specifically conceptual metaphors To go further, it targets at five cell phonebrands to find out the frequency of conceptual metaphors used in their advertisingslogans and the subtypes of conceptual metaphors employed based on the theory ofLakoff and Johnson In other words, the study tries to seek out the answers to tworesearch questions

Research question 1: How are conceptual metaphors frequently used in five

brands‟ cell phone advertising slogans?

Research question 2: What are subtypes of conceptual metaphors employed in

five brands‟ cell phone advertising slogans?

3 Scope of the study

Due to the time constraint, the thesis only focuses on five cell phone brands‟slogans which are world famous ones

The selected slogans of five brands are randomly taken from newspapers, TVand the Internet at the researcher‟s ease

A corpus of 65 chosen slogans is not a big one, so to some extents, the resultsprovided are just selective, not comprehensive

In this study, the analysis is based on the theory and classification of metaphorsgiven by Lakoff and Johnson

4 Method of the study

This research is a mixture of qualitative and statistical research Firstly,qualitative research is employed in analyzing the conceptual metaphors as well as thesubtypes of conceptual metaphors in each slogan The researcher uses statisticalresearch method in order to give a description of a language phenomenon occurring inadvertising slogans of five mobile phone brands in quantitative data In addition, theexploratory research method is employed with an aim to examining the correlationsamong three subtypes of conceptual metaphors namely structural, ontological andorientational metaphors

5 Design of the study

The thesis consists of four chapters: CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION,CHAPTER II: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND, CHAPTER III: THE USE OF

METAPHORS IN CELL PHONE AND ADVERTISING SLOGANS and CHAPTERIV: CONCLUSION.

In INTRODUCTION, the researcher provides the reason for conducting theresearch Moreover, readers can find out the objectives of the study as well as theresearch questions for the thesis The scope, method, design of the study and anoverview of previous studies are also stated in this chapter

The second chapter named THEORETICAL BACKGROUND will deal withdefinition of metaphors, conceptual metaphors, the classification of conceptualmetaphors Moreover, a definition of advertising slogans, qualities of an effectiveslogan are also given through which readers can be aware of the role of a slogan to acompany

The third chapter entitled THE USE OF METAPHORS IN CELL PHONEADVERTISING SLOGANS provides the information about the effects of metaphors

on audience, conceptual metaphors in advertising slogans and the research procedures

in which data collection and data analysis methods are represented Further more, the

“results and discussion” section is a statistical description of metaphors used inadvertising slogans of five cell phone brands

The last chapter entitled CONCLUSION represents a recapitulation of the mainideas of the study, the limitations of the study, some suggestions for further researchand the implications of the studies

6 Previous studies

Since advertising is crucial in evoking customers‟ actions, copywriters havespent abundant time researching for the linguistic devices to employ in theiradvertisements Among the linguistic devices, metaphors can really work wonders

To begin with Lapsanska‟s (2006) “The language of advertising with theconcentration on the linguistic means and the analysis of advertising slogans”,

Lapsanska provides the analysis of language of advertising from linguistic point ofview and specifies linguistic means used in advertising texts Her work bringsknowledge about the use of linguistic devices in print advertising The result of herresearch reveals that, among three groups of meaning transference including metaphor,personification and polysemy/homonymy, metaphor is most frequently used inadvertisements with 75/270 ads while the figures for the other two are 24/270 and9/270 respectively (2006:76) Czerpa has the same opinion when she notes thatmetaphors in advertisements are powerful and compelling tool because they not onlyenrich an add but also extend the meaning of textual/ visual message, creating multi-leveled layers of interpretation (Czerpa, 2006:3) Their point is made even stronger by

Kovesces‟s statement, “an appropriate selected metaphor may work wonders in promoting the sale of an item” (2002:59).

Leiss, Kline, and Jhally have used metaphors to study social communication inadvertising They suggest that metaphors in advertisements have become a powerfuland commonly used strategy “Metaphor is the very heart of the basic communicationform used in advertising” (Leiss et al., 214)

The study of metaphors in advertising has been used to gain insight aboutconsumers‟ behavior (Zaltman and Coulter, 1995) Zaltman‟s Metaphor ElicitationTechnique (ZMET) is a research tool developed to define and describe the metaphorswhich drive consumers‟ behaviour with implications for copy-writing Metaphors arerelevant to the study of advertising since they are “laden with symbols and imagerythat might be used creatively in implementing decisions that will animate or bringappropriate reasoning processes and mental models to life.” (as cited in Lapsanska,2006)

Charles Forceville tries to look at previous literature metaphor in hope ofdeveloping a theory of pictorial metaphor in advertising, but notes that most of theliterature metaphor is primarily on verbal metaphors (Forceville, 4)

Similarly, Fazio, Zanna and Cooper have found that direct experience mayaffect attitude formation by altering the way in which the available information isprocessed (Fazio et al., 51) Since metaphors in consumer advertising require theconsumers to become more actively involved and experienced on things in terms ofanother, advertising using metaphors may affect attitude formation towards a product

or brand At the very least, the active involvement stimulated by metaphors will alterthe way in which the information is processed (Fazio et al., 51

However, all the above mentioned research mainly studied the visual metaphors

in advertising in particular and non-verbal metaphors in general

There have been some researches in Vietnam concerning the matter ofadvertising Trang, B T (2010) reveals the typical techniques employed in advertisingslogans in terms of graphology, phonology, lexicology, syntax and semantics; however,she does not point out the use of metaphors in the advertising slogans Trang, B T P(2011) gives an insight into metaphors used in English slogans by some banks in theworld In her research, Trang argues that the approachability of conceptualmetaphorical expressions in banking context is very high and the use of ontologicalmetaphors is of great approval

To the researcher‟s knowledge, there has been no study about metaphors in cellphone advertising slogans but in cosmetics, foodstuff, banking, etc Therefore, byconducting this research, I hope to contribute into the metaphor world in advertisinganother field

CHAPTER II THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

1 Definition of metaphors

An enormous effort has been made in the course of finding a way to define whatmetaphor is by many scholars and researchers all around the world Gibbs (1999:29)even introduces an ironical statement by Wayne Booth that by the year 2039 “therewould be more students of metaphor than people” (quoted in Michael White, EstudiosIngleses de la Universidad Complutense, Vol.10 (2002) 309-315)

Aristotle who is the first to provide a scholarly treatment of metaphors give asomehow detailed definition A metaphor “consists of giving the thing a name thatbelongs to something else; the transference being either from genius to species, or fromspecies to genius, or from species to species, or on the ground of analogy” (quoted inReck, D 2002:3) I A Richards goes further when he defines metaphors through two

terms topic and vehicle in which the latter term is used metaphorically and the relationship between two terms is call ground Kovecses, one of the most significant

Hungarian researchers of metaphors gives out his definition as follows:

In the cognitive linguistic view, metaphor is defined as understanding one conceptual domain in terms of another conceptual domain […] The conceptual domain from which we draw metaphorical expressions is to understand another conceptual domain called source domain, while the conceptual domain that is understood this way is the target domain […] Understanding one domain in terms of another involves a set of fixed correspondences (technically called mappings) between

a source and a target domain (2002: 4) (quoted in Agnes (2009:20))

All definitions have in common that they speak of two terms related to eachother thanks to the similarities they have But they also limit the function of metaphors

to embellish or decorate the language

In their work, Lakoff and Johnson (1980:3) said:

Metaphor is for most people a device of the poetic imagination and the rhetorical flourish – a matter of extraordinary rather than ordinary language Moreover, metaphor is typically viewed as characteristic of language alone, a matter

of words rather than thought or action For this reason, most people think they can get along perfectly well without metaphor We have found, on the contrary, that metaphor

is pervasive in everyday life, not just in language but in thought and action Our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature.

By what they have found, Lakoff and Johnson indicate that metaphors not onlyinfluence our “linguistic behavior but also our thought processes and our system ofvalue.” (cited in Agnes, 2009: 21)

2 Conceptual metaphors/cognitive metaphors

2.1 Conceptual metaphors in relation with cognitive linguistics

In order to understand conceptual/ cognitive metaphors, there‟s a need to have

an understanding of cognitive linguistics As we all know, language is not only a tool ofthought and communication but a spiritual “product” of human beings which has in itthe specific cultural distinctions of each nation

Cognitive science began to develop in America in the 60s of 20th century, alongwith the new tendency of linguistics namely transformational grammar and latergenerative grammar advocated by Noam Chomsky Along with the flourishing ofcognitive psychology, cognitive linguistics was formed on the foundation of famousresearches by Noam Chomsky, Ronald W Langacker, Charles J Fillmore, R.Jackendoff, Gilles Fauconnier Langacker developed the concept profile theory whichlatter became the center of cognitive linguistics In 1989, international conference oncognitive linguistics was held in Duisburg, Germany In this conference, the

International Cognitive Linguistics Association was established and the cognitivelinguistics journal (led by Dirk Geeraerts as chief editor in 1990) was also born.

The way of exploring language of transformational – generative linguistictheory and cognitive linguistic theory is different Those supported transformational –generative linguistic theory paid great attention to language knowledge while therepresentatives of cognitive linguistic theory had their concern in our knowledge aboutthe world and studied how natural language contributed to that knowledge The formerstudied the linguistic structure depth on the basis of the language directly observed andtried to model them as mathematics formula; however, the latter tended to study theeveryday language of human beings on the basis of the language directly observed andthe language which cannot be observed like concepts, psychology, senses, culturalethnic distinctions However, they both had one way in common, that is, both wereconcerned about spiritual structure which constituted knowledge and their utmost goalwas to reach the awareness of human language nature

According to Ly Toan Thang (2005), if there is a need to say briefly whatcognitive linguistics is about, it can be defined as follows: “it is a new school ofmodern linguistics which studies language on the basis of experience and human‟sperception of the objective world as well as the way people perceive and conceptualizethings and situations of that objective world.”

Lakoff and Johnson (2003: 4) say that:

“The concept that govern our thought are not just a matter of the intellect They also govern our everyday functioning, down to the most mundane details Our concepts structure what we perceive, how we get around in the world, and how we relate to other people Our conceptual system thus play a central role in defining our everyday realities If we are right in suggesting that our conceptual system is largely metaphorical, then the way we think, what we experience, and what we do everyday is very much a matter of metaphor”.

From their point of view, we can see that metaphors are pervasive in every daylife without our realizing about it The only way for us to realize our using of

metaphors is to look at language “Since communication is based on the same conceptual system that we use in thinking and acting, language is an important source

of evidence for what that system is like.” (Lakoff and Johnson, 2003: 4).

Because of Lakoff‟s aim to uncover deeply embedded conceptual relations inthe mind, for him the ideal metaphorical expressions to analyze are not the widelydiscussed type of examples in (1), but rather those in (2):

(1) a Juliet is the sun (Shakespeare)

b. my wife…whose waist is an hourglass (Lakoff and Turner, 1989: 90)

(2) a I‟ll see you at 2 o‟clock

b. He is in danger

c. Her anger boiled over

d. She‟s had to contend with many obstacles in her life, but she has come a longway since her days in the orphanage

The metaphors in (1) are novel creations while the metaphors in (2) areconventionalized linguistic expressions, another aspect of their common everydaycharacter

The literal meaning of “at” in (2a) is locative in nature, but it has beenmetaphorically extended to apply also to time Likewise, “in” in (2b) has a basiclocative meaning, and the use in (2) is a metaphorical extension of this: here, a stage(danger) is conceived as a container that one can be inside of or outside of

For the above relation of metaphors in cognitive linguistics, the researcherdecided to choose conceptual/ cognitive metaphors

2.2 Conceptual metaphors

Lakoff and Johnson introduce the notion of conceptual metaphors in Metaphor

we live by (1980) with some famous metaphors like LOVE IS A JOURNEY,

ARGUMENT IS WAR, HAPPY IS UP Black also gives the metaphor MAN IS WOLF(Black, 1955:286) which, as our first glance, resembles the structure ofconceptualization given by Lakoff and Johnson However, in his work, Black does not

give out two terms target and source domain, instead he calls MAN and WOLF two

subjects: the principle subject (MAN) and the subsidiary subject (WOLF), then he tries

to suggest a set of standard believes about wolves that are the common possession ofthe members of some speech community from which we note that wolves refer “tosomething fierce, carnivorous, treacherous”, hence man “preys upon other animals”and is “fierce, hungry, engaged in constant struggle, a scavenger” (Black, 1995:287).Black calls the similarities between MAN and WOLF “the commonplaces” and the

“corresponding system” (1995:288) From Black‟s analysis of his metaphor, we cansee that the notion of conceptual metaphor had been conceived long ago, before theintroduction of Lakoff and Johnson

To give some ideas of what it could mean for a concept to be metaphorical andfor such a concept to structure an everyday activity, Lakoff and Johnson started withthe concept ARGUMENT and the conceptual metaphor ARGUMENT IS WAR which

is reflected in our daily language by a wide variety of expressions

ARGUMENT IS WAR

Your claims are indefensible.

He attacked every weak point in my argument.

His criticisms were right on the target.

I demolished his argument.

I‟ve never won an argument with him.

You disagree? Okay, shoot!

If you use that strategy, he‟ll wipe you out.

He shot down all of my arguments.

(Lakoff and Johnson, 2003:5)

With our knowledge of the physical world, we know how a war is We can fight

in the war and at last, we can either win or lose In order to win the battle, we need a good strategy and every shoot should be right on the target There is no physical battle

in here but the verbal battle, thus ARGUMENT IS WAR structures the actions weperform in arguing

Croff, W and Cruse, D A (2004) also give a definition of conceptual metaphor:

“a conceptual mapping between two domains The mapping is asymmetrical, however: the metaphorical expression profiles a conceptual structure in the target domain, not the source domain.” The mapping between source and target domains involves two

sorts of correspondences, epistemic and ontological The ontological correspondenceshold between elements of one domain and elements of the other domain; epistemiccorrespondences are correspondences between relations holding between elements inone domain and relations between elements in the other domain (this includes, forinstance, encyclopedic knowledge about the domain) The phenomenon ofcorrespondence can be illustrated using the example of ANGER IS HEAT OF AFLUID (Lakoff 1987: 387)

Agitation of boiling fluid

Limit of container‟s resistance

Explosion

Epistemic correspondences

When fluid in a container is heated

beyond a certain limit, pressure increases

to point at which container explodes

An explosion is damaging to container

and dangerous to bystanders

Explosion can be prevented by applying

sufficient force and counterpressure

Controlled release of pressure may occur,

which reduces danger of explosion

(Croff, W and Cruse, D A (2004: 197)

In general, metaphors are conceptual structures, and are not merely linguistic innature, although they are normally realized linguistically, of course

It‟s undoubtedly true that conceptual metaphors are pervasive in communicationand in any single text Take the lyric of the following song as an example:

“…I‟m on the top of the world lookin‟ down on

creation And the only explanation I can find

Is the love that I‟ve found ever since you‟ve been around

Your love‟s put me at the top of the world…”

(“Top of the world” by The Carpenters)

In the above lyric, LOVE has been conceptualized as a concrete thing that “I”can “find” LOVE is also personified as a person who can “put me at the top of theworld” The conceptual metaphors LOVE IS A THING and LOVE IS A PERSON isdrawn therefrom Moreover the conceptual metaphor HAPPY IS UP allows us tocomprehend that the person in the song is in a happy state since “at the top of theworld” means UP

3 Classification of conceptual metaphors

Lakoff and Johnson (2003) classify conceptual metaphors into three different

kinds, namely structural metaphors, orientational metaphors and ontological

metaphors Kovecses (2010), despite having three other criteria for categorizing

conceptual metaphors, has the same classification as Lakoff and Johnson, regardingcognitive function of metaphors

3.1 Structural metaphors

In this kind of metaphors, “the source domain provides a relatively richknowledge structure for the target concept” (Kovecses, 2010:37) In other words, thecognitive function of these metaphors is to enable speakers to understand target A bymeans of the structure of source B This understanding occurs by means of conceptualmappings between elements of A and elements of B

For example, in the metaphor: LOVE IS A JOURNEY, the target domainLOVE is understood via the source domain JOURNEY through a range of mappings.The mappings include:

LOVE IS A JOURNEY

Look how far we’ve come

We are at the crossroads

We‟ll just have to go our separate ways We can‟t turn back now.

I don‟t think this relationship is going anywhere.

Where are we?

We‟re stuck.

It‟s been a long, bumpy road.

This relationship is a dead-end street We‟re just spinning our wheels.

Our marriage is on the rocks.

We‟ve forgotten off the track.

This relation is foundering.

(In the above poem, our knowledge about the elements of A JOURNEY are veryclear from which readers can draw an understanding of LOVE.)

- Lovers corresponds to Travelers

- The relationship between lovers corresponds to the means of transportation (the vehicle)

- The means for achieving purposes correspond to routes

- The lovers‟ common goals correspond to their common destination on the journey

- Progress in the relationship corresponds to the forward motion (the relationship is going anywhere)

- The difficulties in the relationship corresponds to the impediments to travel

If love is conceptualized as a journey and vehicle as the relationship, then ourunderstanding about the vehicle can help understand the relationship as Kovecses(2005:7) exemplifies:

If the vehicle breaks down, we have three choices: (1) we get out and try to reach our destination by some other means; (2) we try to fix the vehicle; or (3) we stay

in the vehicle and do nothing Correspondingly, if a love relationship does not work,

we can (1) leave the relationship; (2) try to make it work; or (3) stay in it (and suffer).

Carol Herron‟s model of language learning and teaching (1982) focuses on thefactory metaphor as a way to flag her deep unhappiness with the memorization andmindless repetition involved in audiolingual teaching She indicates five characteristicswhich match the aspects of factory production from which people can grasp the ideathat LEARNING IS (BEING) ON A FACTORY PRODUCTION LINE

Teaching or Learning Characteristic

1 “Proficiency in the basic skills”

2 “Minimizing any possibility of

student error”

3 “Rewarding students…in theclassroom”

4 “Inducing students to behave”

5 Planned structural drills withoutmuch meaning”

Table 1:Herron’s Audiolingual Correspondences (Herron, 1982)

From the two above example and analysis, we can see clearly that structuralmetaphors involve “the structuring of one kind of experience or activity in terms ofanother kind of experience or activity” (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980:197) The set ofmappings structures our notion of LOVE and LEARNING in a clear-cut way Withoutthe metaphor, it would be difficult to imagine what our concept of LOVE andLEARNING could be albeit countless definition of LOVE and LEARNING given

This kind of metaphors also appears in Vietnamese poetry and everyday life

“Giá đành trong nguyệt trên mây

Hoa sao hoa khéo đọa đầy bấy hoa” (Nguyễn Du)

“Hoa” is a metaphor used to infer a beautiful woman based on our experience ofthe objective world that “hoa” (flower) is beautiful and weak

Surprisingly, “hoa” in “Truyện Kiều” by Nguyễn Du is also used to denote aman:

“Nàng rằng khoảng vắng đêm trường

Vì hoa nên phải đánh đường tìm hoa” (Nguyễn Du)

In the above sentence, “hoa” is used to denote Kim Trong, an elegant man inKieu Story Thus, from the perspective of Nguyễn Du, “hoa” (flower) is not only anattribute of women but of men, too

3.2 Ontological metaphors

It is necessary to make the concept of ontology well-defined in assistance tounderstanding ontological metaphors Ontology is traditionally listed as a part of themajor branch of philosophy known as metaphysics, which “deals with questionsconcerning what entities exist or can be said to exist, and how such entities can begrouped, related within a hierarchy, and subdivided according to similarities anddifferences” (www.wikipedia.org/wiki/ontology) Kovecses (2010: 38) also reads

“ontology is a branch of philosophy that has to do with the nature of existence”

Ontological metaphors base on our experiences with physical objects, that is

“ways of viewing events, activities, emotions, ideas, etc as entities and substances.”(Lakoff and Johnson, 2003: 26) By this way, when the target domain is not discrete orbounded, we can still categorize and identify them There are many kinds ofontological metaphors with different purposes one of which being the conceptABSTRACTS ARE THINGS:

An accumulation of problems.

The solution was within rich.

The joy was seen in his face.

In these examples, by setting an artificial boundary, we can bound the

“problems”, “solution”, and “joy” in a way that we can see it, can touch it

Panasonic‟s slogan is “Ideas for life”, which employs an ontological metaphor

of IDEAS ARE PRODUCTS/COMMODITIES in that Panasonic‟s products are justthe solution for your better life

Another concept is CONTAINER metaphor According to Lakoff and Johnson(2003), human beings are containers with boundaries and an orientation of inside andoutside Let take the lyric of “Goodbye”, the song played by Air Supply as an example:

“I can see the pain living in your eyes.

And I know how hard you try…”

From the above citation, it‟s obvious that “your eyes” are the CONTAINERfrom which “I” can see the tangible thing namely PAIN.

Besides, states and emotions also play the role of a CONTAINER

“Well I hope that I don‟t fall in love with you

„Cause falling in love just makes me blue…”

(“Hope I don’t fall in love with you” by Tom Waits)

Personification can be conceived as another type of ontological metaphors Inpersonification, human qualities are given to nonhuman entities Personification is notonly common in literature but also omnipresent in everyday discourse We can find anumerous examples of ontological metaphors of this kind:

Life betrayed me.

Love speaks through her words.

Actions speak louder than words.

The word betray and speak are merely human-attributed; however, through

ontological metaphors, those abstracts like love, life or action are addressed with thehuman capacities

Like the expression of love through “journey” in English, Vietnamese also havetheir own way of expressing abstract idea, love, through concrete things

“Thuyền về có nhớ bến chăng

Bến thì một dạ khăng khăng đợi thuyền”

“Thuyền”, a moving object is used to talk about a man who travels many placesand is capable of forgetting the places he has been to By personification, “thuyền” hasbeen given the capability of “missing” and “bến” (the metaphor denoting a woman) thecapability of “waiting”

3.3 Orientational metaphors

As the name suggests, these metaphors are based on the orientation in space,hence a special relationship is made for a concept This relationship is normally based

on our experiences of the physical space we possess For instance,

Being HAPPY IS HIGH/UP

Being SAD IS LOW/DOWN

Lakoff and Johnson saw the physical state in the fact that someone sad has abow posture and a happy person is upright Hence the lyric:

“…She‟s up in the good times.

She‟s down in the bad.”

(“How can I tell her’ by Lobo)

Another possibility could be seen in the fact that heaven standing for happiness

is high above us but hell standing for misery is below us, therefore we have:

I‟m in a high mood.

I‟m in low spirits.

Another example can bee seen in the song “You raise me up” by Josh Groban:

“…You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains;

You raise me up, to walk on stormy seas;

I am strong, when I am on your shoulders;

You raise me up To more than I can be…”

A metaphor can serve as a vehicle for understanding a concept only by “virtue

of its experiential basis.” (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980: 204) MORE IS UP has a verydifferent kind of experiential basis from HAPPY IS UP or CONTROL IS UP presented

as follows:

MORE IS UP: seeing the level rise when we add more of a substance

CONTROL IS UP: physical dominance, where the winner in fight typically winds up above the loser, and where parents who are much larger, control infants Thus, instead of writing MORE IS UP, CONTROL IS UP, we might have the followingrepresentation:

Lakoff & Johnson (1980: 204)

This representation would emphasize that the two parts of each metaphor arelinked only via an experiential basis and that it is only by means of this basis that themetaphor can serve the purpose of understanding

Though the conceptual metaphor MORE IS UP meaning MORE IS BETTERand BIGGER IS BETTER is often true universally, it is not always coherent in context-specific situation or culture For example Nissan car slogan says “It‟s time to expect

more from a car” from which we can note that MORE IS BETTER We expect that the

Nissan car can provides consumers with better features and functions Nevertheless, the

UK BT Telecom‟s slogan “The cost of calling keeps on falling” denotes that LESS IS

BETTER

In English, the notion of TIME is incoherent as follows:

a, “In the week ahead of us…” (future) and “That‟s all behind us now…” (past)

→ FUTURE IS IN THE FRONT and PAST IS BEHIND

b, “In the following weeks…” (future) and “In the preceding weeks…” (past)

→ FUTURE IS BEHIND and PAST IS IN THE FRONT

Albeit this contradiction, the two slogans below denote FUTURE IS IN THEFRONT:

Toshiba: “Leading innovation”

Honda Lead: “Lead to the future”

We can see from the above slogans that LIFE IS A JOURNEY and Toshibaalways leads your way to the front in terms of creating new things while Honda Leadwill be your companion to the beautiful future awaiting for you ahead

In Vietnamese everyday life, the orientational metaphors are also abundant TheHAPPY IS UP can be found in:

(1) Tôi cảm thấy phấn chấn hẳn lên.

(2) Bài thơ đó đã nâng tâm hồn tôi lên.

(3) Những ý nghĩ về nàng luôn luôn làm tôi phấn khởi lên.

(Trần Văn Cơ, 1997)

The BAD IS DOWN metaphor is realized in the following examples:

(4) Giá cả giảm xuống.

(5) Tinh thần suy sụp.

(Trần Văn Cơ, 1997)

HEALTH IS UP conceptual metaphors can be found in:

(6) Tôi thấy khỏe lên.

(7) Lúc nào đỡ lên thì ra viện.

To conclude, Lakoff and Johnson stated that “The division of metaphors intothree types – orientational, ontological and structural – was artificial All metaphors arestructural (in that they map structures to structures); all are ontological (in that theycreate target-domain entities); and many are orientational (in that they map

orientational image-schemas) (2003:265) Therefore, it will be difficult to get a cut distinction between structural and ontological metaphors In this thesis, all thosenot clearly structural metaphors will be counted as ontological metaphors.

clear-4 Advertising slogans

4.1 Definition of an advertising slogan

Advertising is so familiar to us that it may seem odd to ask what anadvertisement is Though advertising is all around us, we don‟t often pause to thinkabout its nature as a form of discourse, as a system of language use whereby The root

of the word “advertisement” is the Latin verb “advertere” meaning “to turn towards”,

so it is undoubtedly true that advertisements are texts that do their best to get ourattention, to make us turn towards them

There is a countless number of definitions given to advertising which all have incommon that advertising is a means of promoting the product, idea or organization onthe market with an aim to giving information and to persuading people of the benefits

of the product and inducing them to take an action, say to buy it, to approve of it, tofollow it, etc

Advertising reaches people through various forms of mass communicationincluding newspapers, magazines, television and radio or even billboards or posters,etc While advertisers buy space in newspapers and magazines to publish their ads, theybuy time on television and radio to broadcast their products The utmost purposes ininvesting so much time and money on advertising are to influence, to persuade and toinduce customers For this reason, advertisements need to be attractive and memorable

In order to achieve that goal, an effective advertising slogan is absolutely essential Aslogan may help selling products like hot cakes in one country but gloomy in othersdue to the use of metaphorical concepts Sometimes, the dictionaries can be positivelymisleading, often encoding the literal meaning but leaving out the