On Metaphor in Advertising English（正文）.doc

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1、毕业论文（设计）On Metaphor in Advertising EnglishIntroduction12. Metaphor Studies22.1 The Development of Metaphor32.2 The Definition of Metaphor33. English Advertisement53.1 Definition of advertising53.2 Features of Advertising Language64. Metaphor and other Rhetorical Techniques84.1 Cooperative Principle

2、approach to Metaphor84.2 The Humanizing Metaphor104.3 Hyperbole Metaphor114.4 The Synaesthetic Metaphor134.5 Summary145. Relevance Principles in English Advertising155.1 Principle of Economy155.2 Principle of Efficiency165.3 Principle of Euphemism175.4 Principle of Aesthetic196. Metaphor understandi

3、ng216.1 Metaphor understanding involves socio-cultural factors216.2 Individual difference in metaphor understanding227. Conclusion23Reference24IntroductionIn the modern world, advertising can be seen everywhere. As a main method of promoting products or services, advertisement plays a more and more

4、important role in commercial world. It highlights the effect of the products and services on the consumers. Metaphor, a traditional topic for poetry and literary studies, has recently attracted the increasing attention of philosophers, linguists, psychologists, and is generally regarded as a testing

5、 ground for theories of language comprehension. Metaphor has exploded as a topic of interest in the humanities and social sciences over the past twenty-five years (see Cameron, 1999:21) China has also attached great importance to metaphor, which is evidenced the proliferation of publications of pape

6、rs concerning metaphor studies in Chinas major journals of foreign language research.Advertising and metaphor, both are hot issues in the world. Metaphor as an important rhetoric is widely applied to advertisement. Even in the textbooks and tests, there is nothing new in it. There is a common viewpo

7、int exists among English readers in China, it is easy to grasp English by remember sufficient vocabulary. Only a few readers can pay enough attention to rhetoric, especially metaphor. Therefore, it is possible miss the point when readers have encountered some simply metaphor sentences. In order to o

8、ffering a good opportunity for English readers have a better understanding about metaphor, the following introduce different ways of classifying metaphor to see how metaphor is understood from different perspectives.2. Metaphor StudiesIt is believed that metaphor is one of the complicated topics in

9、the domain of language and though. Studying and applying metaphor are enormous, there are actually too many different theories of metaphor for any one who wishes to approach metaphor. 2.1 The Development of MetaphorIn ancient Greece, Aristotle defines metaphor as “the application of an alien name by

10、 transference either from genus to species, or from species to genus, or from species to species, or by analogy, that is proportion” (see Butcher, 1948:28.). This account of metaphor is known as the comparison theory of metaphor. In the 1980s, George Lakoff, a linguist, and Mark Johnson, a philosoph

11、er, suggest that metaphors not only make our thoughts more vivid and interesting but that they actually structure our perceptions and understanding. (1999:54) This is what we called conceptual metaphor theory.Contemporary metaphor researchers differ greatly in their perspectives of metaphor studies.

12、 Some of them are interested in the theoretical explorations of metaphor, focusing on such issues as metaphor identification, categorization of metaphor types, and interpretation of metaphor in discourse. Other researchers are inclined to investigate the processes of metaphor production and structur

13、ing of conceptual domains through metaphor.These scholars contribute to metaphor studies from different perspectives, at different levels, we can study in a well-developed framework or model.2.2 The Definition of Metaphor “Metaphor” originated from the Greek “metaphorn”, means “a transfer of a meani

14、ng”. According to Websters New World Dictionary, “it is a figure of speech containing an implied comparison, in which a word or phrase ordinarily and primarily used of one thing is applied to another”. Britannica Book of English Usage defined it “perhaps the most important figure of speech, points o

15、ut resemblance but with no acknowledge word”(see吕煦, 2004:36 ). Metaphor is language that directly compares seemingly unrelated subjects. In the simplest case, this takes the form: The first subject is a second subject More generally, a metaphor is a rhetorical trope that describes a first subject as

16、 being or equal to a second subject in some way. Thus, the first subject can be economically described because implicit and explicit attributes from the second subject are used to enhance the description of the first. This device is known for usage in literature, especially in poetry, where with few

17、 words, emotions and associations from one context are associated with objects and entities in a different context. (Net, 1)But metaphor is much than simple A is like B or B is a statement. Lakoff and Johnson (1980) hold a viewpoint that synecdoche, irony and personification are general category tha

18、t covers a very wide range of metaphors. “Metaphor is pervasive in everyday life, not just in language but in thought and action”. (1980:4) Aristotle points out that a metaphor is “lucid, pleasing, and strange, and has all these qualities to a high degree” (see Cameron, 1999:3) Metaphor is frequentl

19、y used in the world. However, a large part of metaphor studies has chiefly been focused on theory-introduction and comments, few studies are focused on the advertising field, both theoretically and experimentally. There are actually some relationship between metaphor and advertising. The aim of this

20、 thesis is to find how metaphor applied to advertising English.3. English Advertisement With the economic globalization as well as China entering WTO, more and more foreign products are imported to China, English advertisement has become more and more popular. 3.1 Definition of advertising Advertisi

21、ng is a type of publicity to draw public attention to something, for its Latin origin “advertere” means “to turn toward.” or drawing attention to something”(Hermeren L, 1999:2) The following are some of the often-cited definitions of advertising. The famous American Marketing Association defines adv

22、ertising as follow: Advertising is the nonpersonal communication of usually paid for and usually paid for and usually persuasive in nature about products, services or ideas by identified sponsors through the various media. (1998) Advertising is often regarded as a process of relatively indirect pers

23、uasion, based on information about products or services benefits, which is designed to create favorable mental impression that turns the mind toward purchase. (Rossiter and Percy ,1997) In the above definition, “public”, “nonpersonal communication”, and “indirect persuasion” indicate that the target

24、 of advertisement is public not personal, the way of promoting is indirect not direct. The advertisement is to “public” not for individual person, the information convey by advertisement must be accept by the public. Advertising is not aimed at any individual, or by any individual. Its a nonpersonal

25、 transmission of information aiming at the public or a certain group of people. The information, methods, media, and other components of advertising should abide by the advertising laws, policies and rules, and should be under the supervision of the public. (Net.2) The aims of advertisement are to i

26、nform, persuade, and remind customers to purchase. Generally speaking, people are not familiar with new products or new services at first. Through advertisement, people could know the information about products and services benefits, and then accept the promoting products and services.3.2 Features o

27、f Advertising LanguageAccording to the language system, language consists of spoken language and written language. A written language is the representation of a language by means of a writing system. The written language can be significantly more precise.Written words can be chosen with greater deli

28、beration and thought, and a written argument can be extraordinarily sophisticated, intricate, and lengthy. These attributes of writing are possible because the pace of involvement is controlled by both the writer and the reader.The writer can write and rewrite at great length, a span of time which i

29、n some cases can be measured in years.Similarly, the reader can read quickly or slowly or even stop to think about what he or she has just read.The written word appeals a deliberative style.A spoken language is a human natural language in which the words are uttered through the mouth. From the point

30、 of view of linguistic evolution, spoken is prior to written language. Spoken language can also be precise and indeed they ought to be. But precision in oral communication comes only with a great deal of preparation and compression. Once spoken, words cannot be retracted, although one can apologize

31、for a mistake and improvise a clarification or qualification. On the other hand, spoken language can be significantly more effective in expressing meaning to an audience, due to the extensive repertoire of signals available to the speaker: gestures, intonation, inflection, volume, pitch, pauses, mov

32、ement, visual cues such as appearance, and a whole host of other ways to communicate meaning. (Net. 3) The wide use of advertising has created a special style of Englishadvertising English. Its unique features, simple language and immense attraction make it differ from other kind of language. In the

33、 development of advertising English, this kind of language has formed its own features in several aspects, which are related to spoken language and written language. (Net. 2)(1). Simple and informalThe function of advertising is to provide information, attract consumer, exploit market, and promise t

34、he quality. Therefore, advertisement must pay attention to its impelling language, and the first step is to use popular and spoken language to make it easy to understand and memorize.(2). Sophisticate and deliberate Because of the nonpersonal features of advertising, the dissemination and operation

35、of it should be restricted by the law of a country, the moral standards. Advertising language must deliberate and sophisticate, to avoid trivial faults in it. If occur, enterprise have no choice but to apologize for a mistake and suffer huge loss. 4. Metaphor and other Rhetorical Techniques There ar

36、e many pragmatic theories of metaphor, the three most influential ones are: Grices Cooperative Principle and Searles speech act theory and Sperber and Wilsons Relevance Theory. One main task of this chapter is to exemplify how the metaphor and other rhetoric techniques blend base on the Cooperative

37、Principle introduced by American philosopher H. Paul Grice. Metaphor is much more than a rhetoric technique, generalized metaphor includes: the humanizing metaphors, hyperbole metaphors and syanaesthetic metaphors etc. Some examples are quoted to show that metaphor and other rhetoric can be blend us

38、ed. The following analysis of the cross-domain relationships, take advertising as example to demonstrate how three different kind of metaphor advertising work. 4.1 Cooperative Principle approach to MetaphorCooperation has itself been elevated to the status of an independent principle in the works of

39、 the late British/American philosopher H. Paul Grice (1975, 1989), whose Cooperative Principle (abbreviated: CP) consists of four pragmatic sub-principles, or maxims, to wit:The maxim of quantity:1. Make your contribution as informative as required;2. Do not make your contribution more informative t

40、han required.The maxim of quality:1. Do not say what you believe to be false;2. Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.The maxim of relation:1. Make your contribution relevant.2. The maxim of manner:Be perspicuous, and specifically:1.Avoid obscurity2.Avoid ambiguity3.Be brief4.Be order

41、ly. (Net. 5) The Cooperative Principle describes how people interact with one another, enable effective communication. Most people are observing Cooperative Principle, but someone will violate it. Grice list follow situations:1. The speaker not observes the CP, and listener can not detect it.2. The

42、speaker claims that unwilling to observe CP.3. The speaker would observe and violate certain CP at the same time under embarrassing situation. 4. The speaker not observes CP intentionally, and listeners (generally) assume that speaker is not observing it.Advertising is a special conversation relate

43、to Cooperative Principle. The following will discuss metaphor base on Cooperative Principle. 4.2 The Humanizing MetaphorPersonification, American English Rhetoric (R.G. Bander, 1978: 176) defined as follow: “attributes human qualities and abilities to inanimate objects, animals, abstractions, and ev

44、ents.” Websters New World Dictionary explains: “a figure of speech in which a thing, quality, or idea is represented as a person”. The use of personification in advertising will endow the product with human emotion, will make advertising amicable to consumers. (see李鑫华, 2000:46)Metaphor and personifi

45、cation are usually identifying use. However, both seem to seem to come together in advertisement. For example,“How do you keep your head above water when the market takes a dive?Learn to swim. With a strong Swiss bank. In these times of volatile equities markets, political uncertainty and shrinking

46、dollars, we can help you stay afloat. With safe financial instruments invested in solid currencies.”(Bank and Insurance advertisements)Here “market takes a dive” is attribute human activity to market, it compare market risks to people take a dive. “How do you keep your head above water” and “learn t

47、o swim” indicate that people must learn how to avoid lose when encounter declining market. Metaphor and personification belong to different category, does not confirm to logical. “In the water” may refers to the place “sea” “pool” “river” the places for people swimming, but market is “the world of c

48、ommercial activity where goods and services are bought and sold”. Both are “place”, have bear some analogy, but “market take a dive” is an abstract conception, so “How do you keep your head above water when the market takes a dive” not observe Cooperative Principle. However, admen know the readers w

49、ould not comprehend it literally, and readers also know admen were not observe Cooperative Principle intentionally. In the market where would not mention to keep your head above. If reader can find the imply meaning “the economic forecast is gloomy or bright” that enable them comprehend the genuine meaning of “learn to swim”.4.3 Hyperbole M