A Study Of Cognitive Multimodal Metaphor And Metonymy In Public Service Advertisements

Metaphor is not only a linguistic phenomenon but also a way of thinking.With the development of Cognitive Linguistics(CL),metonymy research has also received unprecedented attention.Different modes of metaphor and metonymy,including texts,images,music,and gestures,have become popular research topics due to the rapid growth of information technology.Public service advertisements(PSAs)often use the interaction of multiple symbols,such as images,sounds,and texts,to convey their values and establish a deeper connection between the events and audiences.The study of multimodal metaphors and metonymies in PSAs mainly takes environmental protection and traffic safety PSAs as the corpus,and pays less attention to the theme of anti-domestic violence.In addition,the research on anti-domestic violence PSAs is mostly from the perspective of communication and design,but a few are from the perspective of multimodal metaphor and metonymy.In view of this,this thesis selects an anti-domestic verbal violence PSA Hush as the research corpus,employs a combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods,studies the main representation types and modal frequency of multimodal metaphor and metonymy in this PSA from the perspective of multimodal metaphor and metonymy,and interprets the meanings and cognitive mechanism characteristics represented by multimodal metaphor and metonymy in this PSA.Through the research,it is found that:(1)The anti-domestic verbal violence PSA Hush concerns fifteen multimodal metaphors,involving four types: color metaphor,orientational metaphor,ontological metaphor,and voice metaphor.The frequency of visual mode is the highest,taking up 46%.And verbal and written modes are used less frequently,both accounting for 27%,respectively.(2)In the anti-domestic verbal violence PSA Hush,there are four multimodal metonymies,including two representation types: CONCRETE FOR ABSTRACT and INSTRUMENT FOR PRODUCT.Visual mode is used most frequently,accounting for 40%.Verbal and written modes are used less frequently,both taking up 30%,respectively.(3)Compared with multimodal metonymies,multimodal metaphors are more commonly used,indicating that multimodal metaphors play a larger role in the anti-domestic verbal violence PSA Hush,while multimodal metonymies play a smaller role.In terms of modal presentation,both multimodal metaphors and metonymies are presented in three modes:visual,verbal,and written,and they are more inclined to be presented in visual mode.The reason is that intuitive objects,characters,shooting angles,gestures,and colors in visual mode can more fully activate people’s relevant experiences and cognitive processes,so that audiences can directly feel the harm caused by parental verbal violence to the boy and the boy’s depressed situation.In addition,the co-occurrence of verbal and written modes can help audiences interpret verbal violence and serve as a warning to parents.This thesis explores the PSA against domestic verbal violence from the perspective of multimodal metaphor and metonymy,expands the research topic of multimodal metaphor and metonymy,and helps to add a new research perspective to PSAs.At the same time,it calls on parents to respect their children,care for their physical and mental health,and jointly eliminate verbal violence in family parent-child education.