An Analysis Of Multimodal Metaphor In Microblog Advertisements

With the advancement of information technology,microblog,as a new media,plays an important role in promoting the brand and attracting consumers.Although much attention has been paid to microblog advertisements,most scholars conduct their researches from the perspective of marketing and economics instead of multimodal metaphor analysis.Therefore,this thesis has theoretical and practical significance.This thesis collects eighty-six microblog advertisements from Cellphone Enterprises’ Sina official microblog websites,out of which thirty will be used to conduct a multimodal metaphor analysis and explain the main features of the microblog advertisements.The research results show as follows: firstly,multimodal metaphors of narrative representation are mainly realized through substituting the participant,process,and circumstance.Besides,the multimodal metaphors in conceptual representation are mainly achieved by the classificational process,analytical process,and symbolic process.Secondly,multimodal metaphor in the interactive meaning is mainly realized through “IMAGE-VIEWER RELATION IS CAMERA POSITIONING”.Thirdly,multimodal metaphor in compositional meaning is mainly achieved through “INFORMATION VALUE IS SPATIAL POSITION”.Finally,this study summarizes six characteristics of microblog advertisements.(1)Personalization.Juxtaposing the product with the targeted customer in spatial relation constructs the multimodal metaphor to emphasize the personalized design.(2)Narrativity.Adding the “scenario” in the action process builds the multimodal metaphor to attract the viewer.(3)Originality.Fusing the product with unexpected entities gives the readers a feeling of refreshing.(4)Transmittability.Influenced by the culture,microblog advertisements also could transmit cultural connotations to the viewers.(5)Timeliness.Multimodal metaphor is constructed by combining the festival with the product to stimulate the viewers’ purchase inclination.(6)Interactivity.On the one hand,the interactivity is achieved by the microblogging platform to communicate with the customer.One the other hand,using different spatial position constructs the multimodal metaphor to narrow the distance between the product and the viewer.Finally,some suggestions are recommended to improve the quality of microblog advertisements drafting,namely,juxtaposing the product with the targeted customer to highlight the personalized design,endowing the product with the scenario in microblog advertisements to attract the customer’s attention,enriching originality of microblog advertisements,showing cultural elements of microblog advertising to attract viewers and integrating festival with microblog advertisements.