Multimodal Metaphoranalysis Of Public Service Advertising

Metaphor is a basic and common language phenomenon in people’s daily life and linguistshave studied metaphor focusing on the verbal language for hundreds of years. However, with therapid development of modern computer technology and multimedia technology, human beingshave come into an information age, in which image, color, sound and many other nonverbalsymbols play important roles in people’s daily communication. The manner of people’scommunication has shifted from monomodality to multimodality. Therefore, the study onmetaphor from multimodal perspective has become an inevitable trend. Public serviceadvertisings, aiming at maintaining social morality and improving public social consciousness,are particularly good examples of interaction between visual, verbal and aural modes. Hence, tomake a study of multimodal metaphor in public service advertising is of theoretical and practicalsignificance.Based on conventional conceptual metaphor theory and Forceville’s multimodal metaphor,this thesis adopts qualitative research method with the help of descriptive research. By analyzingthe public service advertisement—“FAMILY”, which has been aired on CCTV, this thesisillustrates the identification and interpretation process of source domain and target domain ofmultimodal metaphor in public service advertising. This thesis also illustrates the workingmechanism of multimodal metaphor and applies it to the analysis of the public serviceadvertisement—“FAMILY”. In this way, the process of target audiences comprehend andunderstand multimodal metaphor in public service advertising are illustrated, which not onlybroadens the research scope of multimodal metaphor but also provides guidance for mass mediaworkers. Besides, other influential factors that are seldom analyzed in previous multimodalmetaphor studies such as background music, encyclopedia knowledge and cultural features arealso explored in this thesis.To some extent, this thesis enriches multimodal metaphor study from both theoretical andpractical perspectives. Firstly, it further verifies that people’s thinking and action isfundamentally metaphorical in nature, not only in verbal symbols, but also in nonverbal elements.Secondly, compared with conventional conceptual metaphor theory, multimodal metaphor studyis still at the very beginning stage. Based on Foceville’s studies and with the analysis of publicservice advertising together, this study broadens the research scope of multimodality study,deepens the understanding of nature and manifestations of multimodal metaphor. Thirdly, in thisstudy, theories related to multimodal metaphor are applied to the understanding and analysis ofpublic service advertising. The cognitive and psychological explanation of audience’sunderstanding in public service advertising not only makes the interpretation of public service advertising more precise and comprehensive, but also provides a new angle for mass mediastudy.