(Luận văn thạc sĩ) a study on multimodal metaphor in coca cola and pepsi’ television commercials

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES

PHẠM THỊ THU HIỀN

A STUDY ON MULTIMODAL METAPHOR IN COCA- COLA
AND PEPSI’ TELEVISION COMMERCIALS
(NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ ẨN DỤ ĐA PHƯƠNG TIỆN TRONG CÁC TVC QUẢNG
CÁO CỦA COCA- COLA VÀ PEPSI)

MA THESIS – TYPE 1

Field

: English Linguistics

Code

: 8220201.01

HANOI – 2018


VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES

PHẠM THỊ THU HIỀN

A STUDY ON MULTIMODAL METAPHOR IN COCA- COLA

AND PEPSI’ TELEVISION COMMERCIALS
(NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ ẨN DỤ ĐA PHƯƠNG TIỆN TRONG CÁC TVC QUẢNG
CÁO CỦA COCA- COLA VÀ PEPSI)
MA THESIS – TYPE 1

Field

: English Linguistics

Code

: 8220201.01

Instructor

: Nguyễn Thị Minh Tâm, Ph.D.

HANOI – 2018


DECLARATION

I hereby certify that the thesis titled „A Study on Multimodal Metaphor in
Coca - Cola and Pepsi’ Television Commercials’ is the result of my own work in
partial fulfilment of the requirements for Degree of Master of Arts of Faculty at
Post - graduate Studies, University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam
National University of Hanoi. The research has not been submitted to any other
universities or institutions.

Signature

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
For the fulfilment of the master thesis, first and foremost, I would love to
express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor Dr. Nguyen Thi Minh Tam for all
her invaluable comments, counsel and her whole-souled instructions as well. Beside
my advisor, my sincere thanks are sent to all my colleagues at the faculty of Foreign
Languages at Hanoi Pedagogical University No.2 for their suggestions that enable
me to complete my study.
My heartfelt thanks would also go to my institution – Hanoi Pedagogical
University No.2 for giving best conditions to study at University of Languages and
International Studies for my postgraduate program and carry out the thesis over a
long time.
Finally, I owe a debt of gratitude to my family for their supports and care
during the completion of my study.

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ABSTRACT

There is no shadow of doubt that human beings have been employing
metaphor in almost all aspects of life even though they are sometimes unaware of
the fact. And the professional world of scholars has already taken the notion of
metaphor into account. Especially after the publication of the work named
Metaphors We Live By in 1980 by Lakoff and Johnson, the notion of metaphor was
exploited conceptually and seemed to have more practical applications. The thesis
was done to investigate how multimodal metaphor has been used in Coca- Cola and

Pepsi‟ television commercials accompanied by a comparison between two
companies. The present study includes four main chapters: literature review,
methodology, findings and discussion, and conclusions. Findings show that both
brands take full advantage of visual, verbal and sonic modes, despite different
degrees, to represent groups of metaphorical themes. Similar and different aspects
in their usage of, multimodal metaphor were also disclosed in the study.

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Table of contents
DECLARATION ....................................................................................................... i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ..................................................................................... ii
ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................. iii
LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES ...................................................................... vi
PART A. INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................1
1. Rationale .............................................................................................................1
2. Research questions .............................................................................................2
3. Significance of the study ....................................................................................3
4. Scope of the study ..............................................................................................3
5. Design of the thesis .............................................................................................3
PART B. DEVELOPMENT .....................................................................................5
CHAPTER 1. LITERATURE REVIEW ................................................................5
1. APPROACHES TO METAPHOR ..................................................................5
1.1. Before Cognitive Linguistics ......................................................................5
1.2. Cognitive Linguistics ...................................................................................7
2. MULTIMODAL METAPHOR ........................................................................9
2.1. Multimodality and monomodality .............................................................9
2.2. Features of a multimodal metaphor ........................................................11
2.3. Modes in a multimodal metaphor: Classification and interaction .......13

2.4. Multimodal metaphor and the genre .......................................................15
3. EMPIRICAL STUDIES ..................................................................................18
4. CHAPTER SUMMARY .................................................................................20
CHAPTER 2. METHODOLOGY .........................................................................21
1. Description of the data ....................................................................................21
2. Methods of the study .......................................................................................21
3. Analytical Framework.....................................................................................23
4. Data Analysis Procedure ................................................................................25
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5. Chapter summary ............................................................................................26
CHAPTER 3. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION ...................................................27
3.1. Statistical findings .........................................................................................27
3.1.1. Coca – Cola ..............................................................................................27
3.1.2. Pepsi .........................................................................................................28
3.2. Qualitative findings ......................................................................................29
3.2.1. Multimodal metaphor in Coca- Cola TV commercials ......................29
3.2.2. Multimodal metaphor in Pepsi TV commercials ................................46
3.3. Discussion of research questions .................................................................62
3.3.1. Answer to research question 1: „How is multimodal metaphor used in
the TV ads of Coca - Cola and Pepsi?’ ..............................................................62
3.3.2. Answer to research question 2: „What are similarities and differences
in using multimodal metaphor of the two soft drink brands?’ ...........................63
3.4. Chapter summary .........................................................................................64
PART C. CONCLUSIONS .....................................................................................65
1. Recapitulation of main ideas...........................................................................65
2. Limitations ........................................................................................................66
3. Recommendations for further studies ...........................................................67
REFERENCES ........................................................................................................68

APPENDICES ........................................................................................................... I

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LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES

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

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

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

Table 1: Sample Analytical Framework

Table 2: Mappings of the CM Love is a journey

Table 3: Mappings of the CM Drink is a journey

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PART A. INTRODUCTION
In this part, the researcher explains why she chose the research topic and
indicates aims, scope and design of the study. Two raised research questions were
clearly stated.
1. Rationale
Metaphor was considered as an exclusively figurative phenomenon which
had little or no place in everyday language until the 19th century. Yet, since Lakoff
and Johnson published their work named Metaphors We Live By in 1980, the notion

of conceptual metaphor theory (CMT) has ruled metaphor studies. Here, metaphors
are primarily a phenomenon of thought rather than of language, which have been
applied to all corners of life such as literature, economy and especially recreational
and media areas. Additionally, as a result of the quick social commercialization and
the surge of media, advertising becomes one of the most efficient ways of
broadcasting products, and a fundamental part of our life as well as „a major
manifestation of conceptual metaphors‟ (Kövecses 2002: 59).
In the realm of advertising, metaphor is regarded as an integration of words,
images, sounds and meanings. A well-selected metaphor will significantly provoke
shoppers‟ inspiration to buy a certain product. Forceville (2008) asserts that it is
vital to study nonverbal and multimodal metaphors systematically to test claims
made about conceptual metaphors. Within Conceptual Metaphor Theory
framework, multimodal metaphors are defined as those metaphors whose target and
source are rendered exclusively or predominantly in two or more modes and the
verbal is in many cases just one of them (Forceville: 2006; see also Forceville:
2008; Forceville and Urios Aparisi: 2009a). The possible modes likely consist of
written and spoken language, static and moving images, music, nonverbal sounds,
and gestures (Forceville and Urios-Aparisi: 2009b).
The researcher was impressed by Coca - Cola and Pepsi – two typical soft
drink brands in the beverage industry. Both have invested a lot in commercial
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strategies to propagate their names worldwide. One of reasons for their success may
come from their advertising campaigns with TV commercials (TVCs) combined by
different modes ranging from images, sounds and words. The researcher questions
the use of multimodal metaphor on those TVCs in broadcasting the items and
grabbing the audience‟s attention; hence, she is so curious to do a thorough research
into this area. For the aforementioned explanations, the thesis mainly concentrates
on analyzing the multimodal metaphors used in TVCs of two brands Coca-Cola and

Pepsi within the Conceptual Metaphor Theory, from which some comparison will
be made between the two brands.
2. Research questions
A great number of works within the Conceptual Metaphor Theory have been
done, but concentrate only on one aspect of the metaphor. Even if they did consider
various modes, their areas are totally different, so hardly can the researcher find a
research of the same field and topic. The present paper analyses metaphor as a
complex phenomenon and argues that the genre and modes interact to create a
meaningful message to advertise the target items. The problem raises the following
research questions:
How is multimodal metaphor used in the TV ads of Coca - Cola and Pepsi?
What are similarities and differences in using multimodal metaphor of the two
soft drink brands?
The research‟s aims were to identify multimodal metaphors and relationships
between their target and source domains in expressing certain messages followed by
a comparison in using multimodal metaphors of the two big names. The corpus
included two series of 30 TV commercials taken from the website iSpot.tv.

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3. Significance of the study
This study was done to contribute to the linguistics, especially metaphor
research. Its approach is quite new as no studies have been done on comparing
multimodal metaphors in Coca- Cola and Pepsi‟ TVCs. Completing the thesis
means that a new discovery will be revealed and maybe open new ideas for further
examination.
Another striking point is that by the language phenomena‟s clarification in
television commercials, an unprecedented foundation for explaining the same
phenomena may be established in other areas and genres. Last but not least, she

strongly believes that her study contributes to building theoretical basis in the
linguistic area. Also, it is likely used as a reference for the latter studies.
4. Scope of the study
The thesis exploited 30 TV commercials of Coca- Cola and Pepsi on the
iSpot.tv over a period of 5 years, from 2013 to 2018. All commercials are spoken
in English from 15 seconds to about 60 seconds long. Despite unequal numbers of
videos taken from each year, it was still able to reflect general marketing purposes
and contemporary trends. The number one reason for the choice is because CocaCola and Pepsi are of the most well-known soft drink brands worldwide. They have
already published extremely attractive and inspiring TVCs to raise their sales.
Second, the researcher hypothesized that there are likely certain marketing
strategies, campaigns and unique brands in their TV shots, so she was so curious
and eager to investigate them.
5. Design of the thesis
The thesis consists of three main parts, organized as follows:
PART A: Introduction- gives the reasons why the author chooses this topic, aims,
the scope and the design of the study.
PART B: Development: includes 3 chapters:
Literature review chapter reviews literature and previous studies in the field.

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Methodology chapter describes the data and data analyzing process. It also provides
an analytical framework for further discussion.
Findings and discussion chapter shows results and discusses research questions.
PART C. Conclusions - summarizes the findings and draws the conclusions
followed by limitations and recommendations for extensive research.

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PART B. DEVELOPMENT
The development part begins with the first chapter of literature review in
which the researcher reviews literature and previous studies in the field. Following
this, methodology chapter describes the data and data analyzing process. It also
provides an analytical framework for further discussion. To end to the development
part, a findings and discussion chapter shows results and discussesr esearch
questions.
CHAPTER 1. LITERATURE REVIEW
As mentioned once, the chapter of literature review gives a general picture of
related theories and already- done studies in the same field as the current thesis. The
chapter is subdivided into smaller sections, beginning with a revision on approaches
to metaphor, followed by basic foundations to multimodal metaphors. The chapter
ends by a brief overview of two related studies about metaphor in advertising in
which the researcher takes a chance to highlight salient points in her thesis in
comparison with these two.
1. APPROACHES TO METAPHOR
1.1. Before Cognitive Linguistics
Metaphor has continuously grabbed public attention and scholars over the
centuries, so the researcher started this section by presenting major thoughts in
studying metaphor before the birth of Cognitive Linguistics.
There has been an existing fact that the nature of metaphor has been
discussed by Aristotle on the level of noun (name), indicating that metaphor
typically „happens‟ to the noun, and it is presented as motion:
…the application of a strange (alien, allotrios) term either transferred
(displaced, epiphora) from the genus and applied to the species or from the
species and applied to the genus, or from one species to another, or else by
analogy (Aristotle, 1982:1447b).

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According to Aristotle, once a name is applied to a new thing, it may
communicate something much more clearly, which is something else hard to grasp.
He also specified four possibilities of creating a metaphor, namely genus to species,
species to genus, species to species, and by analogy or proportion. Nevertheless,
one can find in his later work that the primary objective of rhetorical speech is
persuasion, which is far of importance from our view point. In fact, virtues of
metaphor comprise clarity, warmth, facility, appropriateness and elegance, and
finally „metaphor sets the scene before our eyes‟ (Aristotle, 1954:1410b). Scholars
argued that even though the definition of metaphor is itself metaphorical, the
explanation for it is circular. Researchers might have slowed down and leave
metaphors to flourish only in stylistics, as a basic „figure of speech‟.
After a long period of scholars‟ losing interest in metaphors, Chomsky paid a
direct attention back to linguistics. In his Language and Mind, he showed that:
„Linguistics is a branch of cognitive psychology: I think there is more of a
healthy ferment in cognitive psychology – and in the particular branch of
cognitive psychology known as linguistics – than there has been for many
years…if we are ever to understand how language is used or acquired, then
we must abstract for separate and independent study a cognitive system, a
system of knowledge and belief.‟ (Chomsky, 1972: 1-4).
Chomsky confesses that „we are as far today as Descartes was three
centuries ago from understanding just what enables a human to speak in a way that
is innovative, free from stimulus control, and also appropriate and coherent.‟
(1972:12-13), and his approach targets at the analysis of deep structure. Moreover,
Brugman highlights the importance of categories, based on Rosch (1977) and Kay
and McDaniel (1978), reaching the verdict: sensory elements in categorizing human
experience represent a possibility to describe language, although a single word is
but a narrow investigation, not revealing great truths about the language itself
(1981:1).

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1.2. Cognitive Linguistics
Cognitive linguistics was brought to light in the late 1970s in which
cognitive linguists assume an analysis of the conceptual and experiential basis of
linguistic categories and constructs is of a primary importance: formal structures of
language are studied not as if they were autonomous, but as reflections of general
conceptual organization, categorization principles, and processing mechanisms
(Gibbs: 1994; Lakoff: 1980).
The approach has thrived in part through the adherence to two different
commitments (Lakoff, 1980), especially „Generalization commitment‟ on general
principles in our theoretical descriptions of linguistic phenomena. Linguists of the
trend claim that metaphor is not merely a figure of speech, but is a specific mental,
and neural mapping that influences a good deal of how people think, reason, and
imagine in everyday life (Lakoff & Johnson, 1999). Furthermore, verbal metaphors
do not exist as mere ornamental, or communicative devices; instead, they reflect
underlying conceptual mappings in which people metaphorically conceptualize
vague, abstract domains of knowledge (e.g., time, causation, spatial orientation,
ideas, emotions, concepts of understanding) in terms of more specific, familiar, and
concrete knowledge (e.g., embodied experiences). These sources to target domain
mappings tend to be asymmetrical (Fauconnier & Turner, 1995) in that completely
different inferences result when the direction of the mappings are reversed (e.g.,
TIME IS MONEY is quite different from the, perhaps, anomalous idea that
MONEY IS TIME.)
The prominent interpretation of metaphor under light of cognitive linguistics
has been introduced only thirty - five years ago, although the metaphor has been
discussed since ancient times. Aristotle, as stated in the earlier section, understood
the metaphor as „the application of an alien name by transference either from genus

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

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is, proportion‟ (Aristotle,1982:1447b). However, only after linguists started to look
for generalizations that dictate the creation of poetic metaphors, they revealed that
metaphors are not in language, but in thought and are embedded there so deeply,
that „Our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is
fundamentally metaphorical in nature.‟ (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980a: 4). With the
present statement, as Forceville (2006: 379) rightly suggested, Lakoff and Johnson
marked „a switch from research into metaphor as a primarily verbal to a
predominantly conceptual phenomenon.‟ This new approach into metaphor was
called the conceptual metaphor theory (henceforth CMT) in which the most
remarkable turning point was the arrival of George Lakoff and Mark Johnson's
Metaphors we live by in 1980. In the publication, the authors respectively introduce
their theory of conceptual metaphors. Departing from a purely linguistic
phenomenon, its central notion is that like our thoughts and actions which are
metaphorical, metaphor is a matter of cognition rather than of language. In
comparison with Aristotle‟s ideas, Lakoff and Johnson's theory emphasizes the
everyday use of language. According to CMT, metaphors form the core of our
conceptual system, but they are often left without conscious notice, as „our
conceptual system is not something we are normally aware of „(Lakoff & Johnson,
1980: 3). Language, however, plays a role in construing metaphors and
correspondences between the domains by providing metaphorical expressions (Yu:
2007, 26). To illustrate, Lakoff (1992: 205-208) explains the conceptual metaphor
LOVE IS JOURNEY, which manifests itself in language through such metaphorical
expressions, as „we‟ve hit a dead end‟, „their marriage is on the rocks‟, „we can‟t
turn back now‟ and similar.
The term metaphor within the framework of CMT means „understanding and

experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another.‟ (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980a: 6).
These so-called „things‟ are conceptual domains with a set of features that serve as
the basis for the creation of the relationships. The process is carried out by partly
consciously and partly subconsciously projecting particular features from one
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domain onto another. As the result, the domain with the mapping features is called
the source domain and the domain onto which the features are mapped – the target
domain, and the general formula for the construction of the conceptual metaphor is
TARGET DOMAIN IS SOURCE DOMAIN. (Forceville, 2013: 55; Facounnier,
2003; Lakoff: 1992).
2. MULTIMODAL METAPHOR
2.1. Multimodality and monomodality
To differentiate multimodality and monomodality, a quick review at the term
„mode‟ is necessary. A s a matter of fact, the mode refers to 'a sign system
interpretable because of a specific perception process' (Forceville, 2006: 4). In this
respect, the mode refers to each of the senses and, at the same time, it enables to
make a distinction between them. Forceville also states that language can be
perceived through two different modes:
(...) language can be both perceived visually and aurally. I propose there is
goodreason to do justice to the important differences between these two
manners of perception by giving the status of a different mode to 'written
language' and ‘spoken language'. After all, oral and written texts rely on
very different conditions of understanding.‟ (Forceville, 2007: 6)
Hence, here monomodal messages can be understood as those which are only
represented in a single mode. Monomodality is a typical characteristic of verbal
texts, through which facts, information and knowledge have been transmitted. Yet,
monomodality can also found when we transmit an idea visually, through a picture,
a photo or an image; for instance, in a pictorial metaphor, the source and the target

domain are found in the image itself.
Owing to the fact that before the CMT, metaphor was seen as a matter of
language and not thought, only verbal mode was interpreted and all the other modes

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were ignored as not relevant (Jacobs et al, 2013: 490). Introducing a new approach
to consider metaphor as independent from language, cognitive linguistics
discovered diverse modes in which a metaphor can be represented (El Rafaie, 2003:
76). In general, Jewitt (2009: 14) interprets the multimodal approach to discourse as
below:
Multimodality describes approaches that understand communication and
representation to be more than about language, and which attend to the full
range of communication forms people use – image, gesture, gaze, posture,
and so on – and the relationships between them.
From this, most linguists started an argument that in analyzing any discourse
or text variation, one mode is not enough to reveal all the peculiarities and all
modes must be considered (Thomas, 2014 : 165), and some even assert that
monomodal texts do not even survive and each piece of information is one or the
other way conveyed via multiple modes (Bateman et al, 2007: 151). In spite of the
argumentative ideas, in order to study a metaphor from the present perspective,
Jewitt‟s defining is not adequate to clarify what a mode is. In fact, „a mode is a sign
system interpretable because of a specific perception process‟ (Forceville, 2006:
382) denoting that modes are associated with our senses and the information
attained thanks to a specific sense is specifically represented in a certain mode. Yet,
categorizing modes by senses does not always serve the expectations of discourse
analysis. It is because, for instance, the aural or sonic mode will include both
spoken language and music which usually have different purposes in different
discourses. Consequently, it is necessarily agreed that though analysis of any

discourse must not be restricted to one modality, the classification of modes varies
depending on the genre and analysis objectives. Moreover, modes can also be
interpreted from the perspective of theproducer and the recipient, i.e. the producer
forms a metaphor having in mind a hypothetical recipient and the possible
interpretation which may not always coincide with the way the actual recipient

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understands the interplay of modes (Holsanova, 2012: 252). Thus, any researcher
must also take a careful notice of the fact that any interpretation is subjective and
may not coincide with the intended meaning of the producer. The features,
classification, and relationships between modes in a metaphor presented in the
following subchapters are, hence, limited to the discourse typical of the genre of
advertising and the perspective of the production.
So far, multimodal metaphors are likely interpreted as those 'whose target
and source are each represented exclusively and predominantly in different modes'
(Forceville, 2006: 384); for example, metaphors whose target domain is verbal and
source domain is visual, or the other way round. This needs a mental
comprehension process which differs from processing visual or verbal concepts
alone. After considering the previous definition of monomodal and multimodal
metaphor and making the distinction between them clear, Forceville´s (2006)
analysis of monomodal and multimodal images needs to be taken into account.
According to Forceville (2006), if a product is only advertised visually, it has to be
divided into source and target domain. It is necessary to consider which part of the
image is the source and which is the target, carrying out the analysis by mapping the
concepts. However, in order to analyze a multimodal image, it has to be divided into
the different modes it contains. To exemplify, a multimodal image containing a
visual part and a verbal part would be divided into these two different modes, later
considering where the source and the target domain are.

2.2. Features of a multimodal metaphor
Multimodal metaphors, as characterized by Forceville (2008a, 2008b, 2009),
‘are metaphors whose target and source are each represented exclusively or
predominantly in different modes’ (2009: 24). Forceville describes a mode as
belonging to one of the following groups: pictorial signs; written signs; spoken
signs; gestures; sounds; music; smells; tastes; or touch (2009: 23). The diversity of
modes uncovers that multimodal metaphors can occur in various different genres,
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including conversation, print advertisements, or TV commercials. Moving images
naturally allow more modes to cue the target and source domains of a metaphor
(Forceville, 2008a). A domain can be cued musically, or through a sound effect, for
instance. Furthermore, the simultaneous representation of target and source domains
found in linguisticand static pictorial metaphors need not be present in metaphors in
moving images, as the domains can be represented seconds or hours apart.
Although the aforementioned description clearly reveals a main feature of a
multimodal metaphor, it does not reflect all of its distinctiveness. In fact, it is not
compulsory to have only one mode for each, there can be more than one mode to
represent each of the domains and some or even all may correspond. For example,
the source and the target can be both represented visually and verbally, or the target
may be represented in three modes, while the source in one only. Such metaphors
will still be called multimodal. Take the metaphor described by Forceville (2007:
20) GAZELLE BIKE IS THOUROUGHBRED as a demonstration. It can be
observed that domains are cued in multiple modes, namely visual, sonic, and verbal,
but so are the mappings. For example, physical beauty is cued visually and the
feature of being classics is cued sonically by the horse-like sounds. Therefore, if all
modes can be excluded except for one and the metaphor could still be understood, it
is not multimodal, but if more than one mode is necessary in order to grasp the
metaphor, it can be called multimodal.

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

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conceptual metaphor in general is comparison of two things or entities in the
metaphor belong to different categories, but are not necessarily separate.
The third mandatory characteristic of a multimodal metaphor as pointed out
by Forceville (2013: 41) is that the things compared must be differentiated as the
source and the target and cannot be reversed in the current metaphor. It means that
we have to clearly see that one of the phenomena is the source and not the target
and the second is vice versa.
Finally, there must be at least one feature of the source domain is linked to
the target domain. As using multiple modalities expresses a huge amount of
information in a relatively short time spam, multimodal metaphors usually have a
number of features mapped.
All in all, a metaphor can be multimodal if it meets the compulsory criteria:
1. Its domains are represented in more than one modality;
2. Phenomena compared in the present metaphor come from different
categories;
3. Phenomena are clearly understood as source and target domains and cannot
be reversed in the current context;
4. There is at least one feature that is mapped from one to the other domain.

2.3. Modes in a multimodal metaphor: Classification and interaction
In multimodal metaphors analysis in advertising, there have been several
classifications presented. In this paper, Forcevile‟s was used as the main foundation.
Forceville (2007: 20) assures that domains in multimodal metaphors can be
represented visually, sonically, musically, in spoken words, and in written words.
Visual representation implies display of the phenomenon fully, partially or
representation of related elements to the phenomena. For example, the car itself, a
wheel as a part of it, or a person wearing car garment can be shown for the
depiction of a car model in the advertisement. Then, sonic representation means
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sounds that are neither music, nor speech. In case of the same advertisement, it can
be a sound of wheels touching the highway or a sound of a car bell. On the other
hand, musical representation refers to music only and no other sounds. Hence,
music can be a melody or a song. Lastly, representation of domains in spoken or
written words can also be full presentation or symbolization by words pertain to the
target or source metonymically or by other relationships, e.g. similarity, association,
etc. The figure following figure exemplifies the subdivision of modes according to
Forceville (2007: 20):

Figure 1. Subdivision of Modes - Forceville (2007: 20)
The aforementioned figure illustrates how modes are interrelated. In reality,
it is sometimes even difficult to attribute one or other representation to one mode
only. A song can generally be considered as a part of sonic mode and music. Yet,
song itself often involves spoken words which belong to verbal mode in another
perspective, and incorporates melody which often belongs to an entirely separate
subdivision. For that reason, even if modes are categorized, representation of a
domain can happen in multiple modes at once. Cornelissen et al (2008: 14)
reinforces the idea by showing that „a metaphor is likely to be cued and represented

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

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It is undebatable that the interplay of modes not only occurs at the most
general level but also creates a conceptual metaphor and communicates a complex
message; thus, many deploy several modes at the same time. Yu (2008: 87)
analyzed educational Chinese advertisements and one of them was related to the
concept of water. The interpreted multimodal metaphor was VIRTUE IS WATER,
and it was achieved through the correlation of all main modes - aurally (sonic),
visually, and verbally. Sonic and visual modes were applied to show how water
drops become seas and oceans, and verbal mode directed the audience into the right
interpretation. The illustration states how closely the modes are connected. Aural
and visual modes are presented simultaneously throughout the commercial, and
verbal mode is added later to intensify the effect made by the first two.
2.4. Multimodal metaphor and the genre
Metaphor has been regarded as a powerful rhetorical tool for a long time.
These days, new media supply platforms for realizations of metaphors, be linguistic,
pictorial or even multimodal. In all these forms, metaphor has been widely and
effectively employed in various branches of advertising. In the section, multimodal
metaphor in commercials, will be discussed in details.
Advertising is a specific genre of persuasive discourse. The success of such
persuasion involves in several factors: recognition of a brand, recognition of the
source and the target, and relation of specific positive features of the source domain
to the target domain (Forceville 2007: 20;2008: 275). The underlying and final
objective of any advertisement is to sell a product. More specifically, in the genre of
commercial advertising - to sell the advertised, with the main message either „buy
our product/service‟ or „do not buy the product/service of our competitors’, and

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

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A commercial, then, can be analyzed as an instance of a genre event (Steen,
2011) not only with the clear goal, but also the participants, the medium, often also
the main lines of the content. In metaphor research, it is not implausible to take the
genre into consideration because the genre „determines and constrains its possible
interpretations to an extent that is difficult to overestimate‟ (Forceville, 2006: 14).
Probably, the most important objective of commercial is to remind the audience
about the product or service in specific, as well as the brand in general. To maintain
the target audience‟s interest, the advertised product and the brand are most often
withheld till the end of the commercial (Tzanne, 2013: 123). Hence, the producer‟s
duty is to create impressive and clear metaphor. However, in order to construe
correct and intended relationships between the target and the source, it is the
audience who have to identify them. Due to the specific aim of the genre of
advertising, the target in commercials is as a rule the product or service marketed.
Moreover, commercials are about the specific product or service; thus, they are the
other phenomena that serve as the source domain and explain the positive features
of the first (Forceville 2006: 392). On the other hand, the target can also have
antonymic relationships with the advertised goods, for instance, when negative
features of a product of competitors are highlighted, or, in case of services, can be
unrelated to both the product and the competitors (Forceville, 2008: 297). Another
feature that makes better interpretation is the fact that in advertising, the source is
usually of a higher value than the target because it supplies the positive features
mapped from the source to the target (Tzanne, 2013: 115). It is also important to
mention that the juxtaposition of the source and the target domains created by the

CM is hypothetical rather than real. The last main objective is to let the target
audience associate certain positive features of the source domain with the target
domain (Forceville 2007: 20; Qui 2013: 1588). Despite the fact that a commercial is
very rich in modalities, there are two detriments that challenge the genre. First, time
on TV is so pricey and thus commercials are normally limited in time, and second,
the attention to commercials is low in comparison to films or TV programs. As a

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result, to ensure the mapping of the right features, advertisers need to select only
one or several features that are mapped and ensure that they are strongly in relation
to the product in shape, size or quality in order for it to be easily associated and
introduce the feature(s) from the very beginning of the commercial (Forceville
2013: 60; Forceville, Lecture 5; Forceville, Lecture 4; 2008: 292).
Until now, it can be interpreted that a multimodal metaphor is a cognitive
process in which the target and source domains are represented in different modes.
Hence, in the study of multimodal metaphor, it is necessary for the surface
representation to be considered to foster understandings of metaphorical mappings.
Forceville also emphasizes that „clearly, which channel(s) of information
(language, visuals, sound, and gestures, among others) are chosen to convey a
metaphor is a central factor in how a metaphor is construed and interpreted‟
(2007:15). However, one should remind that television commercials are optimal
examples of interaction among modes, especially visual, verbal and sound; thus, the
metaphor in television commercials is not static, but dynamic. That is why the
analysis of multimodal commercials normally involves the identification of the two
main domains: target and source followed by a discussion of how they draw on
more than one mode along with an analysis of mode interaction.
Multimodal metaphor in television commercials is unique and comparative
to pictorial one in printed ads and billboards, so the following dimensions should be

taken into account:
1. Since commercials unfold in time, target and source needn‟t be
represented (or unequivocally suggested) at the same moment; that is, they
can be presented sequentially.
2. A metaphorical term (target or source) can be presented not only visually
or verbally, but also sonically, by means of a musical theme or a non-verbal
sound.

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