Metaphorical Realization Of Non-prototypical Instances Of Print Advertising Genre

The term genre is applied in a great number of subjects and its study in the field of linguistics is originally derived from discourse analysis. The shift from discourse analysis to genre analysis symbolizes the turn of focus from surface formal descriptive study to the deep-level functional explanatory study. Since people gradually realize the importance of the communicative purpose and strategies, genre analysis comes to catch more attention among scholars.The study of metaphor is a hot topic in linguistics, especially in the 70s in the western world. With the profound study on it, people become aware that metaphor is not only a kind of rhetorical device, but more importantly, a way of thinking and forming concepts. Metaphor exists universally in human being's life and plays a vital role.Previously, the study of metaphor and genre are two separated subjects in linguistics with few scholars noticing the correlation between them. Only J. R. Martin once mentioned the similarity a little, but he did not delve into it and make empirical study.This paper starts from the analysis of two advertisements: a news-looking one and an invitation-looking one and then makes it clear that disguised in the forms of news and invitation, they in fact perform the function of advertisement and thus are of print advertising genre. Meanwhile, according to Halliday's and Lakoff's views on metaphor, we point out that the realization of such non-prototypical instances of print advertising genre is metaphorical. In addition, this paper makes further discussion about the universality, functions and dynamicness of the metaphorical realization of non-prototypical instances of print advertising genre.This paper is composed of five chapters.Chapter one is the introduction, giving the background information of the study and the intended goal to be achieved.Chapter two presents an overview of the genre study over years and paves way for the following discussion. The major content of this part is to discuss the definition of genre and its properties. Meanwhile, the theoretical framework of the study is also briefly represented in this chapter.Chapter three sees the review of the metaphor study. Since the study of metaphor enjoys a long history, we will start the review from the traditional view, through the two academic groups, to the recent outcomes of the research. The focus of this chapter is the introduction of Halliday's grammatical metaphor, especially that of the congruent and metaphorical forms.Chapter four centers on the analysis of two advertisements: a news-looking one and an invitation-looking one, to put it clear that though on the surface they appear to be of other genres, yet in essence they all belong to print advertising genre and this kind of realization of print advertising genre is non-prototypical.Chapter five witnesses the thorough explanation of the metaphorical realization of non-prototypical instances of print advertising genre, mainly its theoretical interpretation. In this chapter, we also have a discussion about the universality, functions and dynamicness of this kind of metaphorical realization.At last, chapter five gives out the conclusion of the paper as the ending.