Ẩn dụ hình ảnh trong quảng cáo thương mại trên tạp chí tiếng anh

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION GRADUATION PAPER VISUAL METAPHOR ANALYSIS IN ENGLISH

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION

GRADUATION PAPER

VISUAL METAPHOR ANALYSIS IN ENGLISH

COMMERCIAL MAGAZINE ADVERTISING

Supervisor: Trần Thu Hà, M.A

Student: Nguyễn Thị Hồng Ngọc

Year: QH.2008.F.1

HANOI – 2012

ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ KHOA SƯ PHẠM TIẾNG ANH

KHOÁ LUẬN TỐT NGHIỆP

ẨN DỤ HÌNH ẢNH TRONG QUẢNG CÁO THƯƠNG

MẠI TRÊN TẠP CHÍ TIẾNG ANH

Giáo viên hướng dẫn: Trần Thu Hà

Sinh viên: Nguyễn Thị Hồng Ngọc

Khoá: QH.2008.F.1

HÀ NỘI – NĂM 2012

I hereby state that I: Nguyễn Thị Hồng Ngọc, group 08.1.E.20, being a candidate for the degree of Bachelor of Arts (TEFL) accept the requirements of the College relating to the retention and use of Bachelor’s Graduation Paper deposited in the library

In terms of these conditions, I agree that the origin of my paper deposited in the library should be accessible for the purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the librarian for the care, loan or reproduction of the paper

Signature

Date 30/4/2012

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor,

Ms Tran Thu Ha, for her unfailing support and invaluable guidance The study would not have been possible without her assistance

I also owe much appreciation to all participants who made great contribution to the completion of questionnaire, thus to the paper as well

Finally, words fail to express my gratitude to my family and friends, particularly the whole 08.1.E.20 whose encouragement and support gave me strength in fulfilling this study

Last but not least, my words of thanks go to the readers for their interests and feedbacks on the thesis

ABSTRACT

Traditionally, the focus of research and studies on metaphor has been on the verbal component while the non – verbal manifestation has been dedicated with little attention

In the wake of cognitive sciences, the status of metaphor has dramatically changed, from

a merely a figurative of speech to the cognitive device to reflex human thought patterns

As metaphor has grown out of being a language phenomenon, it also permeates our daily life by making presence in music and images Since metaphor can now manifest itself in visual other than verbal, it quickly abounds advertising in form of visual metaphor With its compact and vivid nature, visual metaphor is preferably used in print advertising by copywriters and advertisers as indirect persuasion with a view to deducing customers to buy products With an aim to closely look at the visual metaphor in English commercial magazine advertising, this study has been carried out by analyzing advertisements of visual metaphor content and conducting questionnaire to see the participants‟ interpretations towards visual metaphor

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements………i

Abstract……… ii

List of tables, charts, and abbreviations………vi

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Statement of the problem and rationale for the study……… 1

1.2 Research aims and objectives……… 2

1.3 Research scope……….3

1.4 Significance of the study……… 3

1.5 Organization of the study……….4

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Advertising……… 5

2.1.1 Definition of advertising……… 5

2.1.2 Types of advertising……… 7

2.2 Metaphor……… 8

2.2.1 Definition of metaphor……… 8

2.2.2 Visual metaphor in advertising………11

2.2.3 Linguistic context and pictorial context in print advertisements………14

2.3 Related studies………15

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOG Y 3.1 Sampling and participants……… 17

3.1.1 Sampling of advertisements……….17

3.1.2 Participants……… 18

3.2 Data collection instruments………19

3.2.1 Content analysis……… 19

3.2.2 Questionnaire……… 19

3.3 Data analysis procedure……… 20

CHAPTER FOUR: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 4.1 Research question 1 and 2……… 22

4.1.1 Edy‟s FruitBars ice cream advertisement……… 22

4.1.2 Tacori engagement ring advertisement……… 24

4.1.3 Barilla‟s Basilico sauce and Farfelle pasta advertisement……….26

4.1.4 Olay Wrinkle Revolution advertisement………28

4.1.5 Oscar Mayer Carving Board ham advertisement……… 29

4.2 Research question 3……… 31

4.1.1 Edy‟s FruitBars ice cream advertisement……… 31

4.1.2 Tacori engagement ring advertisement……… … 32

4.1.3 Barilla‟s Basilico sauce and Farfelle pasta advertisement……….34

4.1.4 Olay Wrinkle Revolution advertisement………36

4.1.5 Oscar Mayer Carving Board ham advertisement……… 38

4.3 Implication and application……… 41

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 5.1 Major findings of the research……… 42

5.2 Limitations of the research……….43

5.3 Suggestions for further studies……… 44

REFERENCES………45

APPENDICES……… 48

Appendix 1: Questionnaire………48 Appendix 2: Advertisements……….52

LIST OF TABLES, CHARTS, AND ABBREVIATIONS

TABLES

Table 1: Primary subject and secondary subject found in each advertisement

Table 2: Properties projected from secondary subject onto primary subject in each

advertisement

CHARTS

Chart 1: Informants‟ response to the content of FruitBars advertisement

Chart 2: Informants‟ response to how the message is communicated in FruitBars advertisement

Chart 3: Figure 3: Informants‟ response to the content of Tacori advertisement

Chart 4: Figure 4: Informants‟ response to how the message is communicated in Tacori advertisement

Chart 5: Informants‟ response to the content of Basilico advertisement

Chart 6: Informants‟ response to how the message is communicated in Basilico advertisement

Chart 7: Informants‟ response to the content of Olay advertisement

Chart 8: Informants‟ response to how the message is communicated in Olay advertisement

Chart 9: Informants‟ response to the content of Carving Board advertisement

Chart 10: Informants‟ response to how the message is communicated in Carving Board advertisement

ABBREVIATIONS

ESP: English for Specific Purposes

FELTE: Faculty of English Language Teacher Education

ULIS: University of Languages and International Studies

VNUH: Vietnam National University, Hanoi

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Statement of the problem and rationale for the study

As a dominant feature of language, metaphor has been paid a great deal of attention by linguists, scholars and researchers over time The status of metaphor, though, has gone through ups and downs Traditional approaches view metaphor merely as a figure of speech (Halliday, 1985) i.e it serves as a purely stylistic device for some artistic and rhetorical purpose to make language graceful (Blasko, 1999) Meanwhile, historical semanticists see metaphor as a scheme in semantic change (i.e the evolution of word usage in which either “new meanings of the word appear” or “some old meanings drop out of the language or coexist with the new ones” (Nguyen Hoa, 2004, p.100) These approaches towards metaphor have not yet seen metaphor to its fullest potential In the light of cognitive semantics framework, especially the publication by Lakoff and Johnson (1980), the status of metaphor has witnessed great transformation: metaphor has grown out of being a poetic device in literary work to serve as a cognitive mechanism In that sense, metaphor is now seen as “a means of structuring our conceptual system and the kinds of everyday activities we perform” (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980, p 145) that influences the way we perceive the world On account of metaphor‟s ubiquitous presence

in the use of language, metaphor also comes in handy in advertising so as to enhance the customers‟ perception of certain products

Within linguistic field, on account of the fact that “Advertising takes many forms, but in most of them language is of crucial importance.” (Vestergaard & Schroder, 1985, p.140), quite a lot of studies have been carried out in an effort to gain an insight into advertising linguistic features That is to say those have largely looked at the advertising discourse The non – verbal manifestations, in other words, the visual aspect, quite a new-fangled field, unfortunately, have been devoted with little attention

In few studies on the non – verbal manifestations, since the wake of Forceville‟s publication Pictorial metaphor in advertising (1960) on the base of conceptual and

interaction theory, it is to be recognized that metaphor has its pervasive presence not

merely in verbal form but also in icons, images and pictures It means metaphor “can manifest itself on the pictorial as well as the verbal level – and possibly in yet other ways” (Forcevile, 1996, p.108)

That metaphor makes its presence in advertisement images has good grounds as Pollay (1985) documents that during the course of the 20th century, pictures came to occupy an ever-increasing portion of magazine ads Additionally, Johns (1984) regards

“metaphorical representation as a viable strategy for visually communicating abstract information” (as cited in Forceville, 1996, p.56) In that sense, decoding pictorial metaphor message conveyed in advertisements is of the essence, for the fact that metaphor now serves as a commercial value and of cultural significance in the process of persuading customers to purchase the advertised products

Paradoxically, however, although customers get frequent exposure to advertisements of visual metaphor in magazines, television, etc they are not likely to realize the fact That is to say, in all probability, they fail to catch the intended messages communicated by the copywriters Therefore, it results in a need to call the viewers for metaphorical reading with a view to seeing how they respond to the use of visual metaphor in advertising

All the conditions aforementioned have offered the researcher a chance to carry

out a research paper entitled “Visual metaphor analysis in English commercial magazine advertising.”

1.2 Research aims and objectives

The study aims at investigating pictorial metaphor presented in English magazine advertisements in terms of its components and features projected between the two domains After that, the research paper is to explore the viewer‟s interpretations of visual metaphor in advertising More specifically, the study is intended to address the following questions:

1 What are the two terms (primary subject and secondary subject) of the pictorial metaphor in each advertisement?

2 Which features are projected from the secondary subject upon the primary subject?

3 What are the viewers‟ interpretations of pictorial metaphor in print advertisements?

1.3 Research scope

Although visual metaphor can have its presence in computer science, website design, television commercials, etc within the scope of the research paper, only print advertisements containing pictorial metaphor content will be investigated Furthermore, though there are satisfactory advertisements in different languages other than English, only those in English magazines will be selected for analysis for the fact that English is the international language and also the major of both the researcher as well as the informants

1.4 Significance of the study

The study, once completed, would be among the initial research paper at FELTE, ULIS, VNUH on the topic of pictorial metaphor in advertising for the fact that the major focus of studies carried out earlier has been on its linguistic features only In this sense, the study would be helpful for people of interest in metaphor in that it goes into visual metaphor, quite a new aspect of the conventional topic Additionally, it is hoped that the study would appear helpful to advertisers on the grounds that they understand the power

of visual metaphor in the advertisement of products The study would also benefit the students of ESP as they can now understand the importance of visual metaphor in advertising and apply it into real-life interpretation of hidden implicatures Hopefully, points that have not been covered in the study will inspire other researchers who are o f the same interest and concern to continue working on them in conduction successive studies

1.5 Organization of the study

The study consists of five chapters:

Chapter 1 – Introduction – states the reasons for the choice of the topic, the aims and

objectives, scope, significance as well as the organization of the research paper

Chapter 2 – Literature review – provides the theoretical knowledge of related studies in

the field of pictorial metaphor

Chapter 3 – Methodology – describes the methods and procedures for collecting and

analyzing data

Chapter 4 – Results and Discussions – presents the data collected and analysis to answer

the research questions

Chapter 5 – Conclusion – summarizes the main points made in the research paper,

presents the limitations of the study and give suggestions for further studies in the future

References and Appendixes – The References & Appendices includes a list of references

that the researcher used for the research and samples of questionnaire

In conclusion, the chapter has provided the rationale for the study by placing the accent on the visual aspects of print advertising which have been left with much space to fill in On top of that, the research questions have been presented, serving as the guidelines for the rest of the study In the next chapter, literature of the paper as well as related studies to the research topic will be elaborately presented

CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Advertising

2.1.1 Definition of advertising

Although advertising is generally perceived as communicating product information for the sake of persuading potential customers to buy, the task of defining the term is by no means easy In Latin, the word advertising means “to turn attention of people to a specific thing” which highlights the nature of advertising is to induce the buyers The Institute of Practitioners in Advertising offers quite an academic definition of the term as: “the most persuasive possible selling message to the right prospects for the product or service at the lowest possible cost” In this sense, advertising is seen as a mass communication tool in paid form which is economical and compelling

Concerning the function of web advertisement, Janoschka (2004) viewed the term from the angle of communication and marketing which involves “the sender” and “the receiver” (or “the audience”) and a certain kind of “message” In this sense, advertising comparable to verbal communication which draws in a speaker, a hearer and some thought to be sent and received In line with Janoschka‟s viewpoint, Winston (2010, p.1)

in his short introduction to advertising defined the term as “one type of marketing communication” among others such as packaging, sale promotion, catalogue, etc That advertising is viewed as a means of communication is widely accepted as after all it has

to do with “notifying and informing somebody of something” (Dyer, 1990, p.2) Dibb, Simkin, Pride and Ferrel (1991, as cited in Janoschka, 2004) offered a more intricate definition of advertising which however still sees advertising from the perspective of communication: “Advertising is a paid form of non – personal communication about an organization and its products that transmitted to a target audience through a mass medium such as television, radio, newspapers, magazines, direct mail, public transport, outdoor display or catalogues.” (p.16)

Interestingly, much the same as the aforementioned definition, Kotler and Keller (2006) give the meaning of advertising as “any paid form of non – personal presentation and promotion of ideas, goods or services by an identified sponsor” (p.536) By closely looking at the two definitions, it is to be realized that advertising covers a certain cost in

an attempt to bridge a gap in terms of information between the sender and the receiver for the sake of providing information and convincing the customer(s) to purchase the products advertised Furthermore, media outlet comes to play a big part in diffusing product information to the customers The nature of advertising is “non – personal” as it directs at a mass audience rather than each individual Overall it is agreed that advertising

is a paid and pubic communication present in various means of media ranging from, television, radio, TV, magazines, newspapers, billboard or the Internet As the utmost goal of advertising is to encourage buying, advertisement should be “persuasive, informative, and are designed to influence purchasing behavior or thought patterns” 1

In defining advertising, it would be appropriate to distinguish the two nearly identical but confusing terms: advertisement and advertising Although both are interchangeably used, there exist outstanding dissimilarities to clear up Winston (2010, p.1) makes it clear by telling the differences between them “advertising is a process, advertisements are the end result of that process, but the words are often used interchangeably.” By looking up these terms in Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, the following definitions come into view Advertising can be under stood as “the business which concerns itself with making known to the public what is for sale and encouraging them to buy, especially by means of pictures in magazines, notices in newspapers and messages on television (commercials)”; meanwhile, advertisement is “a notice of something for sale, services offered, job position to be filled, room to let, etc, in

a newspaper, painted on a wall, or made as a film; the action of advertising” A judgment can be made about the two terms: advertising is a broader term that encompasses

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activities to publicize the products, among which advertisements is a means of diffusing merchandise information

2.1.2 Types of advertising

The website wikieducator.org2 suggests the classification of advertising can be done “on the basis of function, region, target market, company demand, desired response and media”, among which there are two notable categorizations: according to the function and means of media Classification based on function divides advertising into informative (to inform the customers about product information), persuasive (induce customers to buy), reminder (call to mind product information to existing customers) and negative (exhort customers to avoid the harmful products such as alcohol, cigarettes, etc.) Based on means of media, there will be audio, visual, audio – visual, written, Internet and verbal advertising Each type denotes the form that advertising comes into view In mentioning advertising technique using mass media, it is necessary to refer to the terms Above-the-line (ATL) and Below-the-line (BTL) The former involves conventional advertising techniques such as TV, radio and Internet; meanwhile the latter refers to promotional activities in which a product is promoted in mediums other than aforementioned ones used in ATL like direct mail campaigns or trade shows In this sense, audio, visual, audio – visual, written and Internet advertising are part of ALT while verbal advertising promotes products during conferences, seminars, and group discussion sessions fits in BTL

Mai (2004) suggested a simpler way of classification with two groups: objective – based and media – based In the first sorting, advertising can be categorized into three types, namely commercial advertising, non-commercial advertising and institutional advertising As for media – based classification, the “big five” means of media have been mentioned namely press, television, radio, outside and billboard

2

As the research concerns with commercial advertising only, it is necessary to elucidate the term at this stage Basically, commercial advertising differs from other types

of advertising namely non – commercial or institutional ones in that it targets at selling the products in order to earn profits instead of “to build awareness or seek responses and sound behavior of the community about social problems” or “to promote an organization‟s image, reputation or ideas father than a specific product” (Hang, 2004 , p.10) Leech (1966, p.25) calls the commercial advertising in another name – commercial consumer advertising – lightly different but more authentic and also offers a clear definition “advertising directed towards a mass audience with the aim of promoting sales

of a commercial product or service.” Besides commercial consumer, advertising also comes in other types namely “trade advertising” (which “a firm [uses] to promote(s) its products to other firms esp in trade journals”) and “prestige advertising” (which “does not promote product but image to bring about an alignment of public opinion with commercial interests” (Behm, 2006, p.3)

Metaphor‟s first known use was in 15th

century Since then this figure of speech gets pervasive from everyday language to specific fields such as literature and advertising The very first scholar that finds interest in studying metaphor is perhaps Aristotle – a Greek philosopher – who renders the meaning of metaphor as “…the application of a word that belongs to another thing either from genus to species, of from species to genus, or from species to species, or on grounds of analogy.” According to

Aristotle, metaphor works at the level of word Given a word, there will be four different ways for it to be replaced with another which are “either from genus to species, of from species to genus, or from species to species, or on grounds of analogy.” Aristotle‟s viewpoint on metaphor has survived in philosophy for millennia and become a central tenet for further theories to develop Though early and discerning contribution has been made to define and understand the term, the viewpoint undeniably has its flaw in that metaphor has not been seen to be an essential feature of human communication but rather

a means for “linguistic decorations” That is to say, metaphor has not been viewed to its fullest but restricted within an art of language that only genius is able to perceive

By the early twentieth century, Richards (1936) introduced a new theory on metaphor Richards suggested metaphor operates at the level of sentence and opposed the claim that metaphor is “a grace or ornament or added power of language” (p.90) which is supported by Aristotle Furthermore, Richards described metaphor as “the use of one reference to a group of things between which a given relation holds, for the purpose of facilitating the discrimination of an analogous relation in another group In the understanding of metaphorical language one reference borrows part of the context of another in an abstract form” In observing the frequent use of metaphor in daily conversation, Richards put forward that “metaphor is an omnipresent principle in

language” (Richards, op.cit.) rather than a stylistic device only

Later on, in the light of cognitive sciences, Lakoff & Johnson introduced a

comprehensive analysis of metaphor in their widely read publication Metaphor we live by

(1980) It is claimed that metaphor has grown out of “just a matter of language, that is, of mere words” as “our thought processes are largely metaphorical” (p.6) The study has seen metaphor as the subject of inquiry within linguistic fields instead of literature and psychology

Metaphor appears pervasive in our use of language by reason of its compactness and vividness In comparison with ordinary language, metaphor is apparently efficient and economical for the fact that the fullest meaning gets conveyed by the minimal number of words The vividness of metaphor comes in handy as it helps “reduce the

ambiguity and increase the likelihood that the intent of the message is understood” (Ortony, 1975, as cited in Mio & Katz, 1996, p.5) The function of metaphor is characterized by “to illuminate, clarify or explain a concept in a way that cannot be done

with literal language.” (Ortony, op cit.)

“In the simplest formulation, when we use metaphor we have two thoughts of different things active together and supported by a single word, or phrase, whose meaning is the reluctant of their interaction” (Richards, 1936, p.93) Richards‟s theory labels the two thoughts of a metaphor as “tenor” and “vehicle” In greater details, “The tenor is the subject to which attributes are ascribed The vehicle is the object whose attributes are borrowed.” 3

Consider the following example: “Life is a journey” – life and journey respectively serve as tenor and vehicle As it is found by Kennedy (1982), “tenor

and vehicle are not symmetrical and hence not reversible” (Kennedy, 1982, as cited in Forceville, 1996, p.55) i.e life cannot be perceived as vehicle and that holds true for journey

Richards‟s theory was later on further developed by Black (1979), accordingly a metaphorical expression is made of “primary subject” and “secondary subject” The concepts get further developed in Forceville‟s theory in that two terms are presented: a

“literal primary subject” (also known as “target domain”) and a “figurative secondary subject” (known as “source domain”) In talking about the elements made up a metaphor,

it is to keep in mind that “Both the primary and the secondary subject of the metaphor can be envisaged as domains of meaning elements, ranging from verifiable facts t o connotations, and including beliefs about and attitudes towards that subject” (Forceville,

1996, p.108)

So that one object is understood in terms of another, a solid ground for the features transference has to be built up As metaphor comes in the common form of A is B, certain attributes of B get transferred to A Black (1979/1993) proposes a mapping model

to project one or more features of the source domain (i.e B) to the target domain that (i.e

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A) “involves the foregrounding, adoption or modification of certain features in the primary subject” (as cited in Forceville, 1996, p.69) In other words, there is a link to be created between the product advertised (i.e target domain) and the image (i.e source domain) in which the product acquires the features assigned to the image In speaking of metaphor as “a leap of thought from one domain to another”, Feder (1989) brings up “a structure – preserving mapping” (p.90) which closely relates itself with the mapping model

2.2.2 Visual metaphor in advertisi ng

Precedingly, studies on metaphor have almost confined in verbal dimensions for the fact that “Amongst tropes, metaphor is generally „thought of as the fundamental

“figure” of speech” (Hawkes, 1984, as cited in Tanaka, 1994, p.82) In the wake of

Forceville‟s widely read publication Pictorial metaphor in advertising in 1996, the

coverage of metaphor is opened up to a new horizon as metaphor “can manifest itself on the pictorial as well as the verbal level” Metaphor that comes into view in non – verbal communication is dubbed pictorial metaphor or visual metaphor Generally, visual metaphor can be perceived as the presence of metaphor in picture where the theoretical ground and the mapping model introduced above appear applicable Lule (2003) offered

a more accurate definition towards the term as “the representation of an abstract concept through a concrete visual image that bears some analogy to that concept” (as cited in Rodriguez and Dimitrova, 2011, p.57)

Before going to an in-depth analysis of visual metaphor in print advertising in the next chapter, theoretical background will be presented to understand the reason why metaphor is rich in advertising images In the first place, it is necessary to trace back to the classic article by Barthes (1986) in which the theorist laid emphasis on the nature of intentionality of advertising images:

…in advertising, the image‟s signification is assuredly intentional: it is certain attributes of the product which is priori forms the signifieds of the advertising message, and these signifieds must be transmitted as clearly as possible; if the image contains signs, we can be sure that in advertising these signs are replete,

formed with a view to the best possible reading: the advertising image is frank, or

at least emphatic (p.22)

It can be seen that the clear-cut intention of advertising, excluding non – commercial ones, is selling products However, in the context of fast – paced information technology allowing ever – increasing multimedia advertisements to prosper, the task of getting consumers‟ attention gets harder In order to accomplish the ultimate goal of promoting and seducing consumers to buy products, novelty should be brought into ads with a view to meet the standards of ideal ads suggested by Lunds (1974) as to attract attention, arouse interest, stimulate desire, create conviction and get action Furthermore, as claimed by Forceville (1996), “limited amount of space (in printed advertisements or billboards) forces advertisers to think of something out of t he ordinary to “to have his/her ad noticed among numerous other ads and subsequently to create a maximally effective impact” In that sense, visual metaphor comes into handy as

“metaphors‟ deviation from conventional usage makes them attractive means to draw consumers‟ attention” (p.69) Pertinent to the issue being discussed is Williamson‟s opinion (1978) saying “Advertising borrows characteristics and affective values from more or less structured domains of human experience and transposes these to the pro duct advertised” (as cited in Forceville, 1996, p.69) By comparing the aforementioned statement with Lakoff & Johnson‟s argument (1980) “the essence of metaphor is understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another” (p.5), the question regarding the possibilities of metaphor in advertising is being answered

What‟s more important is the effect of metaphor being deployed in advertising image Here it is to refer to the point of view of cognitive linguistics which claims metaphor being a matter of thought to conceptualize the way we see the world Far from being solely ornament to language, Turner (1987) recognized the use of metaphor is the demonstration of thought patterns That is to say, much of our understanding of everyday experience is structured in terms of metaphor which is stated by Lakoff and Johnson (1980) as “a means of structuring our conceptual system and the kinds of everyday activities we perform” (p.145) According to the aforementioned scholars,

many concepts in human conceptual system are metaphorical in nature; therefore, abstract concepts can be conceptualized through the use of metaphor Take the widely used example to illustrate the case in point:

“LOVE IS A JOURNEY”

The concept we need to understand is love which is named target domain As

“love” is not a material entity to see or to feel, we have to conceptualize it through

another concept we already know – “journey” – dubbed source domain “Look how far we’ve come.”, “We‟re at the crossroad.”, “This relation is a dead-end street.”, “We‟ve gotten off the track.”

The italicized indicate the concept of journey through which the abstract concept

of “love” is understood concretely Here it is relevant to mention Krzeszowski‟s (1997, p.24) opinion:

Not all “things” exist in the material world Some perhaps most, are only results of human conceptualizations Things such as friendship, love, mathematics, tragedy, motherhood, and hosts of others, including values themselves, do not exist outside human experience as entities independent of human conceptualization In fact, they are results of human cognitive processes and specifically the process of conceptualization

It is to deduce that not every concept is perceived directly as some of them are abstract ones, existing in form of thought in the mind rather than physical objects In order for those to be comprehended, cognitive processes come in handy, associating concrete objects with abstract ideas, and that process is close to how metaphor actually operates To link with advertising, advertisers search for metaphors in an effort to

“forge[s] a link between the product and something that already possesses the characteristic(s) he desires to claim for the product” (Forceville, 1996, p.69) To put it in simple terms, there is a link between the products advertised and the concept that best associates with such commodities thanks to the use of metaphor All things considered,

we come to the point that stated by Zaltman and Coulter (1995, pp 37 -38) “Metaphors are the key windows/mechanisms for viewing consumer thought and feelings and for understanding (…) Even behaviour and thoughts are themselves metaphors for one another.”

In short, it is metaphor that brings the magnificence to the advertisement and lingers the impression effect on the customer Therefore, it is relevant to deduce that

“Metaphor can be used to increase the memorability of concepts since the participant is force to elaborate the topic and thus produce a stronger memory trace” (Ortony, 1975, as cited in Mio & Katz, 1996, p.5)

2.2.3 Linguistic context and pictorial context in print advertisements

Normally in advertisements of visual metaphorical content, there will be pictorial textual context and pictorial context More specifically, textual context refers to the text elements such as caption or slogan Regarding this, Barthes (1986) put forward the theory

of three kinds of messages, in which the linguistic message is identified by its two functions in relation to the image, namely anchoring and relaying The former one refers

to the denominative function of the linguistic message; that is to say to provide response

to the question of “What is this?” To put in simple terms, the linguistic message “guides the identification and the interpretation of the pictorial co mponents of the image” towards

“a meaning selected in advance” (Barthes, 1986, as cited in Forceville, 1996, p.71) Although anchoring function is more common than the relaying one, the latter is more important and frequently found in photographs and advertisements Significant information not present in the image has been relayed thanks to relaying function

In perceiving the intended message conveyed in the advertisement, linguistic message is not enough The pictorial elements should be also taken into consideration Considering the research by Bosch (1985) and Tversky (1977), Forceville made a relevant conclusion towards the function of pictorial context as “just as verbal anchoring can affect the identification and interpretation of a certain pictorial representation, so can the presence of other pictorial stimuli” Speaking generally “contextual elements of any kind can be said to have an anchoring function, that is, to guide and constrain possible interpretations.” (Forceville, 1996, p.77)

All things considered, in analyzing visual metaphor in five print advertisements, it

is necessary to look at the textual context and examine the pictorial context as they may

give hints to the two terms of visual metaphor Neither of them should be left out as together the linguistic message and visual content contribute to the overall meaning of the

advertisement

2.3 Related studies

The view of metaphor presented in the research is put forward by Black (1979/1993) whose theory recognizes metaphor as a “cognitive instrument”; in other words, it is the reflection of our thinking In line with Black‟s theory comes Lakoff & Johnson‟s (1980) that detailed the understanding of metaphor as well as its role in language and the mind The two authors reached an important conclusion that metaphors can shape our perceptions and actions regardless the unawareness or notice given to them Return to Black‟s theory, it actually lays a basis for Forceville‟s (1996) further analysis of another field of metaphor, that is metaphor presented in pictures, from now on

go by the name of pictorial/visual metaphor Forceville‟s publication – the first introduction of a systematic account of pictorial metaphor in advertising has grounded account of body of knowledge for later researchers In his work, the visual manifestation

of metaphor has been discussed and a model for identification, classification and analysis the non – verbal aspect of metaphor also comes in handy

In discussing the studies that lay the basis for the theory of pictor ial metaphor, Forceville credited Kennedy (1982) for his work in that Kennedy saw certain rhetorical devices are likely to represent visual manifestations together with their existing verbal ones The viewers perceive metaphorical meaning visually by “sort out the relevant from the irrelevant [in a picture] and determine the governing principles rather than accept all features equally” (Kennedy, 1982, as cited in Forceville, 1996, p.55) John (1984) argued what the consumers do with the advertisements is the communication carried out by

“reading” the visual that may require “visual literacy” to understand the multilayered values lying behind the ads

In sum, the introduction of pictorial metaphor has opened a promising direction of research towards metaphor in the light of cognitive sciences It has actually grasped the

interest and efforts from quite many researchers and scholars in revealing the effects of visual manifestations of metaphor now seen in advertisement Of the same interest in the topic, the researcher wishes to carry out the study on pictorial metaphor in English commercial advertisement, seeing that the advertising industry has been thriving in the past few years and the use of pictorial metaphor is pervasive in magazines, while a large percentage of studies towards metaphor and advertising have not yet paid due attention to the visual aspect of those

In summary, this chapter has provided the theoretical background for the rest of the paper though detailed elaboration on the key terms as well as a number of related studies The next chapter is dedicated to elucidate the methods employed to answer the research questions Later on, the justification for the procedures of selecting participants, collecting and analyzing data will be elaborately presented

The advertisements were reproduced from two popular glossy English magazines

Of the two magazines, one is Cosmopolitan – a magazine for women with sixty three international editions in thirty languages in more than one hundred countries all over the world whose content concerns health, celebrities, beauty, etc The other is Food Network – a food entertainment magazine with a readership of million ones The reasons lying behind the choice of materials are as follows: firstly, these two magazines display a high content of advertisements with an astronomical number of advertisements The advertisements displayed in the two magazines are of famous brands such as Dior, Cartier, Lancôme, Chanel, etc.; therefore, it can be assumed that they are well -designed and creative enough to get the most of readers‟ attention Additionally, advertisements in Cosmopolitan and Food Network are directed at the mass audience rather than a s mall target group, as a result, no specialized background knowledge is required to interpret the advertisements The process of collecting samples is then carried out in two steps Firstly, issues of Cosmopolitan and Food Network were selected and browsed in search of visual metaphors Secondly, as satisfactory samples were picked out, they were reproduced almost in their original form for analysis

Regarding the choice of advertisements, as aforementioned, the ones containing visual metaphorical content will be selected for further analysis However, the remaining question is how to appropriately recognize the presence of visual metaphor among a large

number of available advertisements To this end, it is relevant to refer to Kaplan‟s account in Smith et al publication (2005):

The first hint that some feature (or combination of features) is intended to evoke a metaphorical response in the viewer is the presence of images or pictorial elements that seem distorted or out of place Often, the cue is a violation of the viewer‟s understanding of physical reality (p.172)

To put it in simple terms, in advertisements of visual metaphor, the viewers may notice something anomaly in the image Take Forceville (1996)‟s case study of Clerget shoes advertisement as a typical example The advertisement pictures a man in abnormal suit as the tie which normally goes with the suit has now been replaced by a shoe So there is certainly “a violation of the viewer‟s understanding of physical reality” as no one wears the shoe as their tie The replacement made in this case is undoubtedly intentional with a view to inviting the viewers to decode the hidden meaning which is then interpreted by Forceville as the shoes are so nice that they are worth being worn in the noticeable place just as the tie

In the end, five advertisements from the two magazines aforementioned were selected in accordance with the criteria put forward by Kaplan

3.1.2 Participants

The target population of the research is ten forth year students of English major at the Faculty of English Language Teacher Education, ULIS, VNU who come from group 08.1.E.20 The selection was done firstly for the sake of convenience Secondly and more importantly, it is noted that the knowledge of metaphor has been taught in Se mantics – a compulsory course for every English major student at college, therefore, the participants have already had basic knowledge regarding the topic of metaphor In addition, it is assumed that they are more likely to get more exposure to English advertisements and understand them in terms of language used in advertisements than students of non – English majors Last but not least, as the participants are Fast-track students, they are expected to acquire good command of English language skills which s erve as an important condition to deal with advertisements in English magazines These criteria lay

a crucial important foundation for information collected with a view to find out their opinions towards the use of visual metaphor in advertisements

3.2 Data collection instruments

To address the research questions, the following data collection instruments will

be employed: content analysis and questionnaire

3.2.1 Content analysis

Five advertisements in total were collected and analyzed under the theor etical framework proposed by Lakoff & Johnson (1980) and Forceville (1996) The information gathered from the analysis will provide answers for the two first questions regarding the two terms of visual metaphor presented in each advertisements as well as t he projected features from the secondary subject to the primary one

3.2.2 Questionnaire

As stated by Mackey and Gass (2005), the use of questionnaire is among the most common instruments in collecting data on opinions from a large group of participant s In line with the research‟s aims on discovering the viewers‟ response to the use of visual metaphor in advertisements, questionnaire was designed, printed out and distributed to the participants The questions were worded to reflect a verbal metaphor that was either compatible or incompatible with the visualization being in use With ten questions in total (two for each advertisements), the participants were left with multiple choices regarding the subsequent issues: (1) Which of the following statements best reflect the content of the advertising? (2) In your opinion, in what way the content is communicated to the viewers? With a view to providing a helpful guidance on quite a new topic to the participants, multiple choice questions were employed rather than letting them figure the answers on their own

3.3 Data analysis procedure

The theoretical framework applied in decoding visual metaphor in the research paper is the combination of theories proposed by Lakoff and Johns on (1980) and Forceville (1996) To be more detailed, with each sample, the very first task is to find out the two terms encoded in the advertisements namely the primary subject and the secondary subject It is to be noticed that as far as Barthes (1986) is concerned, advertisements may accompany with some verbal messages to direct the readers among the various signifieds of the image Therefore, in interpreting a visual metaphor, the verbal component, should be taken into consideration as it may help to fully understand the metaphor

Once two terms of a visual metaphor were identified, the process went on by elucidating the priorities transferred from the secondary subject to the primary one This important step cannot be completed without the help of context because in a certain cases, the visual elements are not enough In this sense, assumptions and world knowledge should be brought into the visual metaphor to analyze the mapping of features between the two terms of a visual metaphor

Information yielded from the analysis of advertisements will provide the answers for the two first questions, while information collected by the questionnaires help to resolve the third one in revealing viewers‟ interpretations and recognition of visual metaphor in advertising As among verbal metaphors, there were either compatible

or incompatible ones with the visualization in use, the informants have to make up their mind to opt for the most reasonable answers The variations in respondents‟ choices were then converted into charts for better presentation and elaboration

In sum, this chapter has provided in details the methods that the researcher applied

to conduct the study With the use of content analysis and questionnaire, data used for analysis were obtained from participants in their fourth year from Fast-track group In this chapter, five advertisements in total reproduced from two popular international magazines will be analyzed using the theoretical framework aforementioned in Chapter three In addition, data collected from the questionnaires will be investigated and

discussed to provide answer for each research question For better presentation and elaboration, charts are made available

CHAPTER FOUR: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

4.1 Research question 1 and 2: What are the two terms (primary subject and secondary subject) of pictorial metaphor in each advertisement? Which features are projected from the secondary subject upon the primary subject?

4.1.1 Edy’s FruitBars ice cream advertisement

By looking at the advertisement, it is to realize at the first place that the advertisement is about Edy‟s popsicle as the brand‟s name is clear-cut located near the centre of the advertisement Looking a bit further, the object in the foreground features a red persimmon ice lolly However, there is something odd about the ice cream that addressees may notice: it was bitten off a bit on the top, thus revealing a bucket of strawberry inside As Kaplan (2005) noted, the presence of visual metaphor can be

observed by “images or pictorial elements that seem distorted or out of place” (as cited in Smith et al, 2005, p.172) In that sense, this advertisement is definitely a case in point as

it is unusual for an ice lolly with a crate of fruit inside

As claimed by Forceville (1996), in a majority of pictorial metaphor cases analyzed, “the primary subject each time was either the product itself or something that metonymically referred to the product” (p.121) More importantly, Forceville reported

“this primary subject was each time pictorially represented (…), while the secondary subjects were not pictorially represented, but univocally suggested by the context (…)” (op.cit.) Based on Forceville‟s observation, it is reasonable to say that the primary

subject to be identified is FRUIT BAR‟S POPSICLE or POPSICLE for short Unfortunately, the image itself gives insufficient amount of information to process further

so as to find out the secondary subject However, it is the anchoring text “Real fruit in every bite Now that‟s refreshing.” accompanied alongside the image that helps construct

it By now the other subject of the incomplete metaphor is no doubt REAL FRUIT or FRESH FRUIT “Fruit” here does not exactly refer to any specific kind of fruit but fruit

in general as there are different flavors such as strawberry, grape or lemon In the end, the metaphor is verbalized as POPSICLE IS FRESH FRUIT

Once the metaphor has been constructed, a question pops up is: What features have been transferred from the secondary subject FRESH FRUIT to the primary one POPSICLE? It seems to be clear – cut that Fruit Bar‟s popsicle now possesses some prominent properties as such: the color of corresponding fruit that makes up the ice cream, taste of fresh fruit, vitamins of such fruit All in all, the message to be conveyed

by the advertisers is clear as: With Fruit Bar‟s popsicle, you can now enjoy the refreshing taste and vitamins of fresh fruits

4.1.2 Tacori Engagement ring advertisement