Keywords: cognitive; metaphor; structural metaphor; English advertiments
1. Introduction
Nowadays, advertising has been following us here and there. Advertiment is a pervasive phenomenon and there have already been a lot of literatures about the language of advertising approached from a wide range of disciplines, such as sociology, linguistics, literary criticism, and media studies. Though, few studies have been touched on metaphor ud in advertising, nearly all rearchers in the field consider metaphor as a persuasive and effective means exploited by advertirs. Metaphor only ud to be regarded as a figure of speech in literature.
Metaphors have been being studied since the age of Aristotle. Aristotle believes that metaphors exists everywhere anytime inhuman beings’ life. However, we must know that metaphors call help human beings better understand the new things, categories and concepts. In 1980, scholars George Lakoff and Mark Johnson published the book Metaphors We Live By. It is claimed that metaphor is one of our most important tools for attempting to understand partially what cannot be comprehended totally. Lakoff and Johnson first put forward conceptual metaphor theory in this book, and try to study human metaphor from the view of human cognition. This paper will focus on studying con
ceptual metaphor in English advertising in the cognitive linguistic framework.
incentiveIn order to achieve the goal of persuasion, it is generally believed that some unreal or exaggerated claims through the conceptual metaphor will be made by the advertir. The conceptual metaphors involved in English advertising are quite different from the metaphors studied in traditional theory. The cognitive system of conceptual metaphor is unintentional and automatic. Each metaphor is grounded on the correspondences in our real experiences. Conceptual metaphor is more creative and powerful. The goal of this thesis is to tell how conceptual metaphors are applied in English advertiments as a powerful way to arou consumer’s attention and lead them to remember and cognize.
2. Literature Review
2. 1 The Cognitive Study of Metaphor
The cognitive status of metaphor has been pointed out by many a rearcher. Lakoff and Johnson argue that the language of the imagination, especially metaphor is the most sign
ificant aspect of our experience as it transcends rationality and objectivity. Thus, meaning is the sum of objective and subjective personal experience with categories, which makes the study of figurative language insightful and enriching.
spencer tunickThe creative nature of metaphor suggests that metaphor making is not reliant on existing objective similarity between a source domain and a target domain. “The only similarities relevant to metaphors are similarities as experienced by people”, not objective similarities (Ibid: 154). Lakoff and Johnson propo that metaphors can be bad on similarities, though in many cas the similarities are themlves bad on conventional metaphors that are not bad on similarities. Similarities bad on conventional metaphors are nonetheless real in our culture, since conventional metaphors partly define that we find real.
The cognitive linguistics are excessively concerned with the role of metaphor in cognition, instead of trying to explain how metaphor really works, which has aroud criticisms from other linguistics. In fact, metaphor is prented as a cognitive operation, and its import ca
nnot be communicated otherwi. One of the most recent developments in metaphor study has appeared within the framework of the conceptual metaphor theory.
2. 2 An Overview on Advertising
清明节英语2. 2. 1 Definition of Advertising
Throughout the history of advertising, the word “adverti” derives from Latin word “advertere”. Its original meaning is “to inform somebody of something”. “to bring into notice” or “draw attention to something”, etc. As language changes with the development of the society, the meaning of “adverti” has extended to “ari people’s attention to certain article”. A wide quoted working definition of advertising was put forward by Courtland L．Bovee and William F． Arens (1984): “Advertising is the non-personal communication of information, usually paid for and usually persuasive in nature, about products (goods or rvices) or ideas by identified sponsors through various media.”
essay2. 2. 2 Functions of Advertising
hurry是什么意思After a brief introduction of the definitions of advertising, we now come to the functions of advertising. The primary goal of advertirs is to persuade or influence the audience to buy the product or rvice advertid.
