The use of conceptual metaphors in advertising slogans of Nokia, Samsung, Apple, Blackberry and Sony Ericsson cell phones

The use of conceptual metaphors in advertising
slogans of Nokia, Samsung, Apple, Blackberry
and Sony Ericsson cell phones


Phạm Thị Hằng


Trường Đại học Ngoại ngữ
Luận văn Thạc sĩ ngành: English Linguistics; Mã số: 60 22 15
Người hướng dẫn: Dr. Ngô Hữu Hoàng
Năm bảo vệ: 2012


Abstract. This minor thesis on the use of conceptual metaphors in advertising slogans
of Nokia, Samsung, Apple, Blackberry and Sony Ericsson cell phones was undertaken
to provide advertisers with beneficial information when developing a slogan. The
research attempts to answer two questions: How are conceptual metaphors frequently
used in five brands’ cell phone advertising slogans?;What are the subtypes of
conceptual metaphors employed in five brands’ cell phone advertising slogans?. The
slogans used in this thesis are taken from newspapers, TV and the internet. They are
first put into each cell phone brand numbered from 1 to 65 (see APPENDIX), then the
analysis based on Lakoff and Johnson’s theory of conceptual metaphors is done to find
out the appearing frequency of the metaphors in the corpus and each subtype used also.
Finally, all the results and discussion on the frequent choice of metaphor subtypes in the
slogans are represented. The study with a corpus of 65 slogans is still on its infancy and
requires further research, though the copywriters, through this thesis, can develop a
useful tool for their advertisements.

Keywords. Tiếng Anh; Quảng cáo; Ẩn dụ ý niệm

Content
1. Rationale
In the epoch of information explosion, it is inevitable for any of us to bump into
advertising words and images. Advertising is all around us, though we like it or not, we hear it,
see it and feel it albeit on purpose or just by some chance. In order for a brand name to go global,
a good advertisement of their product is a key matter, no wonder why billions of bugs have been
spent on copywriting. English, an international language, is used in every single advertisement
with an aim of the company going places 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 for purposes 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 advertising
can 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 advertising slogans.
In order to achieve the aim of getting customers noticed, copywriters have contributed a
non-stop effort in creating an attractive, memorable, distinct advertising slogan for each brand.
The methods used in writing advertising slogans range from employing phonological aspect,
lexical and morphological aspect, syntactic aspect to semantic 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 words and phrases are of great approval. What’s more, when syntactic aspect
can be found in sentence types, sentence structure like ellipsis, semantic aspect is often realized

through rhetorical devices such as simile, hyperbole, metonymy, polysemy and metaphors. The
researcher is absolutely engaged in metaphors which have long been a part 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 all our
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 advertising slogans,
specifically conceptual metaphors. To go further, it targets at five cell phone brands to find out
the frequency of conceptual metaphors used in their advertising slogans and the subtypes of
conceptual metaphors employed based on the theory of Lakoff and Johnson. In other words, the
study tries to seek out the answers to two research 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, TV and the
Internet at the researcher’s ease.
A corpus of 65 chosen slogans is not a big one, so to some extents, the results provided
are just selective, not comprehensive.
In this study, the analysis is based on the theory and classification of metaphors given 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 the subtypes of
conceptual metaphors in each slogan. The researcher uses statistical research method in order to
give a description of a language phenomenon occurring in advertising slogans of five mobile
phone brands in quantitative data. In addition, the exploratory research method is employed with
an aim to examining the correlations among three subtypes of conceptual metaphors namely
structural, ontological and orientational 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 CHAPTER IV: CONCLUSION.
In INTRODUCTION, the researcher provides the reason for conducting the research.
Moreover, readers can find out the objectives of the study as well as the research questions for
the thesis. The scope, method, design of the study and an overview of previous studies are also
stated in this chapter
The second chapter named THEORETICAL BACKGROUND will deal with definition
of metaphors, conceptual metaphors, the classification of conceptual metaphors. Moreover, a
definition of advertising slogans, qualities of an effective slogan are also given through which
readers can be aware of the role of a slogan to a company.
The third chapter entitled THE USE OF METAPHORS IN CELL PHONE
ADVERTISING 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 in advertising slogans of five cell phone
brands.
The last chapter entitled CONCLUSION represents a recapitulation of the main ideas of
the study, the limitations of the study, some suggestions for further research and the implications
of the studies.

6. Previous studies
Since advertising is crucial in evoking customers’ actions, copywriters have spent
abundant time researching for the linguistic devices to employ in their advertisements. Among
the linguistic devices, metaphors can really work wonders.
To begin with Lapsanska’s (2006) “The language of advertising with the concentration
on the linguistic means and the analysis of advertising slogans”, Lapsanska provides the analysis
of language of advertising from linguistic point of view and specifies linguistic means used in
advertising texts. Her work brings knowledge about the use of linguistic devices in print
advertising. The result of her research reveals that, among three groups of meaning transference
including metaphor, personification and polysemy/homonymy, metaphor is most frequently used
in advertisements with 75/270 ads while the figures for the other two are 24/270 and 9/270
respectively (2006:76). Czerpa has the same opinion when she notes that metaphors in
advertisements are powerful and compelling tool because they not only enrich 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 in
advertising. They suggest that metaphors in advertisements have become a powerful and
commonly used strategy. “Metaphor is the very heart of the basic communication form used in
advertising” (Leiss et al., 214).
The study of metaphors in advertising has been used to gain insight about consumers’
behavior (Zaltman and Coulter, 1995). Zaltman’s Metaphor Elicitation Technique (ZMET) is a
research tool developed to define and describe the metaphors which drive consumers’ behaviour
with implications for copy-writing. Metaphors are relevant to the study of advertising since they
are “laden with symbols and imagery that might be used creatively in implementing decisions
that will animate or bring appropriate reasoning processes and mental models to life.” (as cited in
Lapsanska, 2006).
Charles Forceville tries to look at previous literature metaphor in hope of developing a
theory of pictorial metaphor in advertising, but notes that most of the literature metaphor is

primarily on verbal metaphors (Forceville, 4).
Similarly, Fazio, Zanna and Cooper have found that direct experience may affect attitude
formation by altering the way in which the available information is processed (Fazio et al., 51).
Since metaphors in consumer advertising require the consumers to become more actively
involved and experienced on things in terms of another, advertising using metaphors may affect
attitude formation towards a product or brand. At the very least, the active involvement
stimulated by metaphors will alter the 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 of advertising. Trang,
B. T (2010) reveals the typical techniques employed in advertising slogans 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 the world. In her research, Trang argues
that the approachability of conceptual metaphorical expressions in banking context is very high
and the use of ontological metaphors is of great approval.
To the researcher’s knowledge, there has been no study about metaphors in cell phone
advertising slogans but in cosmetics, foodstuff, banking, etc. Therefore, by conducting this
research, I hope to contribute into the metaphor world in advertising another field.


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