A Study Of Multimodal Metaphors In English Wildlife Protection Video Public Service Advertisements On YOUTUBE(2010-2020)

On the basis of conceptual metaphor theory,this study conducts a multimodal metaphorical study of English VPSAs for wildlife protection from a cognitive perspective.This paper collects video public service advertisements about wildlife protection published on YOUTUBE from 2010 to 2020,and selects 30 English public service advertisements for wildlife protection as corpus.This paper aims to deepen the audience’s understanding of wildlife protection public service advertisements and enhance their awareness of wildlife protection by analyzing the mode configuration patterns,meaning construction and persuasive function of multimodal metaphor in English wildlife protection VPSAs.The research of this paper is based on Forceville’s multimodal metaphor recognition criteria:(1)In a specific context,two referents should belong to different categories,but they should be a similar relationship in some aspects;(2)Two referents can be identified as the source domain and the target domain respectively,and they are not interchangeable;(3)One or more features related to the source domain can be mapped to the target domain.Based on the above criteria,this paper analyzes the multimodal metaphors in 30 video advertisements by using a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods.The purpose is to answer the following three research questions:(1)What are the mode configuration patterns of multimodal metaphors in English wildlife protection VPAs?(2)How are multimodal metaphors constructed in English wildlife protection VPAs?(3)How do multimodal metaphors perform the persuasive function in English wildlife protection VPSAs?The multimodal metaphors in the 30 English public service advertisements for wildlife protection belong to two basic metaphorical systems: great chain metaphor and event structure metaphor.In great chain metaphor,the source domains and target domains account for 25.5% of the total proportion of the pictorial mode and music mode.In event structure metaphor,pictorial mode and music mode are most commonly used in the source domains,while the target domains are pictorial mode,music mode and written mode,which account for 37.2%.The meaning construction of great chain is mainly through “ANIMALS ARE HUMANS”,“ANIMALS ARE ACCESSORIES”,“HUMANS ARE ANIMALS”,“PLANTS ARE OBJECTS” and“ANIMALS ARE OBJECTS”.Event structure metaphor constructs meaning through“CHANGES ARE MOVEMENTS(INTO OR OUT OF BOUNDED REGIONS)”,“DIFFICULTIES ARE IMPEDIMENTS TO MOTION” and “LONG-TERMS,PURPOSEFUL ACTIVITIES ARE JOURNEYS”.Then through the direct display of pictorial mode,the background of music mode to set off the atmosphere,the sonic mode to indicate the occurrence of events,the explanation of verbal mode and the hint or explanation of written mode,the theme of advertisement can be clearly expressed from a variety of modes,that is,the vulnerability of wildlife,the harm of human beings to wildlife and the harm of environment to wildlife destructive.The miserable life of wildlife,the relationship between human and wildlife,and the rarity of wildlife can be reflected through a variety of modes of interaction.The persuasive function of multimodal metaphor in wildlife protection VPSAs mainly attract readers’ attention through the manifestation of multimodal metaphor,and realize the persuasive function by arousing readers’ ration and emotion through the content of multimodal metaphor.This study has some practical value.As the COVID-19 epidemic has spread around the world recently,it comes down to human’s destruction of the environment and human’s killing of wildlife over a long period of time.Therefore,it is urgent to protect wildlife.The public service advertisements of wildlife protection focus on the social problems that people pay special attention to now,which can arouse the strong resonance of the public and play the role of warning the public.