Scholarly record

TOWARDS THE THEORY OF MULTIMODAL METAPHOR

I. Olehnovica, D. Olehnovics, S. Liepa

Abstract

The main claim of the Cognitive Metaphor Theory (CMT), proposed by Lakoff and Johnson (1980), is that we not only speak and write, but also think in terms of metaphors. In his turn, the Dutch scholar Charles Forceville argues, if this is correct, alongside the verbal manifestations of the conceptual metaphors, other modes must exist to communicate these metaphors. In addition, Forceville has derived the importance of context when analysing metaphors; this has led to a considerable research into pictorial or visual metaphors, subsequently multimodal metaphors, particularly in advertising discourse. The assumption that context is one of the ways of cueing the target and the source domain of a metaphor instantiated in advertising discourse, printed advertisements in particular, highlights the necessity of looking at the interplay between image and text in activating and identifying metaphors, monomodal or multimodal. It must be stated that a distinction between monomodal and multimodal metaphors in printed advertisements containing verbal part is not quite clear yet. Therefore, the current report is aimed at defining the concepts of pictorial and multimodal metaphor within the advertising discourse, as well as the analysis of several categorisations of pictorial or visual metaphors and verbo-pictorial metaphors. As a result, a possible continuum between monomodal and multimodal metaphors has been developed to trace how the study of pictorial metaphors turned into the research of multimodal metaphors.

Publication Impact Profile

No metrics available.

PLUMX see details

DOI resolver: doi.org/10.5593/SWS.ISCAH.2019.2/S09.058

Publication details

Back to publication list