Visual metaphor analysis in English commercial magazine advertising = Ẩn dụ hình ảnh trong quảng cáo thương mại trên tạp chí Tiếng Anh

Abstract

Traditionally, the focus of research and studies on metaphor has been on the verbal component while the non – verbal manifestation has been dedicated with little attention. In the wake of cognitive sciences, the status of metaphor has dramatically changed, from a merely a figurative of speech to the cognitive device to reflex human thought patterns. As metaphor has grown out of being a language phenomenon, it also permeates our daily life by making presence in music and images. Since metaphor can now manifest itself in visual other than verbal, it quickly abounds advertising in form of visual metaphor. With its compact and vivid nature, visual metaphor is preferably used in print advertising by copywriters and advertisers as indirect persuasion with a view to deducing customers to buy products. With an aim to closely look at the visual metaphor in English commercial magazine advertising, this study has been carried out by analyzing advertisements of visual metaphor content and conducting questionnaire to see the participants‟ interpretations towards visual metaphor.