Pictorial metaphor in advertising
By: Charles Forceville.
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 1996
Place of publication: London; New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 233
Subjects: Symbolism in advertising.; Pictures -- Printing.; Metaphor.; Advertising layout and typography.
First sentence: "The theory of metaphor upon which I will ground my account of pictorial metaphor is Max Black's (1962, 1979a) interaction theory." [Eerste zin hoofdstuk 2]
Description: More than two decades have passed since the first editions of Andrew Ortony's Metaphor and Thought (1979) and Lakoff and Johnson's Metaphors We Live By (1980), and metaphorology has practically become a discipline in its own right, as can be gauged from the foundation of the journal Metaphor and Symbol (formerly Metaphor and Symbolic Activity) and from various bibliographies (see Shibles 1971, van Noppen et al. 1985, and van Noppen et al. 1990). Both the sheer quantity of publications (some 10,000 items are listed altogether) and the wide range of disciplines from which work on metaphor originates is impressive. Moreover, the study of metaphor has broadened significantly to include many other aspects pertaining to the relationship between the mind and the mind's perceptible manifestations (for an overview, see Gibbs 1994). But despite Lakoff and Johnson's claim that "metaphor is primarily a matter of thought and action, and only derivatively a matter of language" (1980: 153), reiterated in Lakoff's succinct observation that metaphor is "not a figure of speech, but a mode of thought" (1993: 210), virtually all research concentrates on the links between idealized cognitive models (ICMs) and their linguistic manifestations. But if the claims about cognition and its manifestations are correct, there should also be non-verbal manifestations of metaphor – and perhaps first of all of pictorial metaphor. But although cognitivists do, in passing, mention the possibility of pictorial, or visual, metaphor, there is still very little extended research in this area. The most recentInternational Cognitive Linguistics Conferences (Amsterdam 1997, Stockholm 1999, Santa Barbara 2001, Logroño 2003)) had virtually nothing to offer in terms of the pictorial; but as Bradd Shore emphasizes, "any culturally oriented theory of ICMs must redress this bias [towards linguistic models, ChF] and characterize the full range of sensory modalities employed by cultural models" (1996: 334).
	One of the reasons for the relative scarcity of studies pertaining to pictorial metaphor among cognitivists may well be that it is difficult to find visual representations of the type of ICMs that cognitivists discuss: LIFE IS A JOURNEY; ARGUMENT IS WAR; ACTORS ARE MOVERS; EVENTS ARE MANIPULATORS (see Turner 1996) -- although the former two might well be traceable in medieval art (and see Forceville forthcoming, Journal of Pragmatics). But research on how pictures are understood is still in its infancy, so that it may simply be too early to answer questions as to how ICMs function in visual representations. But just as verbal metaphor has long been studied by focusing on isolated examples, firmly rooted in a specific context, before they (or: many of them) were understood as amenable to ICMs; just so it is a useful start to venture into the realm of the pictorial by reflecting on the question if, and if so how, a picture can contain a metaphor in the first place. That is, at this stage in research on pictures, it will be fruitful to decide whether it makes sense to label something a "pictorial metaphor" and what such a something might look like.
	In Pictorial Metaphor in Advertising I try to delineate a number of parameters relating to "pictorial metaphor." I argue that metaphor can occur in pictures, more specifically in printed advertisements and billboards, and I propose a theoretical framework within which these pictorial metaphors can be analysed. Subsequently some thirty advertisements and billboards are analysed in the light of this theory, the analyses themselves naturally leading to further subdivisions of the concept "pictorial metaphor." Although media analysts will probably find something of interest both in the theory and in the applications, the most important aim of the study is to make a contribution to a theory of pictorial metaphor. The structure of the book, after the introductory chapter, is as follows.
	Chapter 2 contains a detailed discussion of Max Black's (1962, 1979) interaction theory of verbal metaphor. This theory, enriched by the insights of later (cognitivist) scholars of metaphor, will in slightly adapted form serve as the starting point for the analysis of pictorial metaphors in Chapters 6 and 7. Some elliptical passages in Black's two articles are clarified and expanded on, and Kittay's (1987) objections to the interaction theory are examined at length. This chapter is intended to be of intrinsic interest to students of verbal and cognitive metaphor.
	Chapter 3 evaluates a number of earlier studies which pertain to the concept "pictorial metaphor" (Kennedy 1982, Johns 1984, Durand 1987, Wollheim 1987, Forceville 1988, Hausman 1989, Whittock 1990). A critical survey of these studies, some of which focus on artistic representations while others include non-artistic "texts" in their corpora, highlights some of the theoretical problems attending an attempt to develop a theory of pictorial metaphor. On the basis of the strengths and weaknesses of these previous approaches I explain my choice of advertisements and billboards as suitable corpus material.
	Chapter 4 discusses in what ways context plays a role in the interpretation of advertisements generally, and pictorial metaphors occurring in them specifically. Within a communicative framework adapted from the well-known model by Jakobson (1960), a distinction is made between text-internal and text-external elements of context. On the basis of Roland Barthes' (1964/1986) concept of "anchoring" the former can be further subdivided into pictorial and verbal context. It is argued that an examination of text-internal context does not suffice, however; in addition, text-external factors such as cultural conventions, expectations, and genre-attributions need to be considered as well.
	Although Chapter 4 outlines various aspects outside the advertisement text proper that affect interpretation, two major factors are left out of consideration at this stage: the role played by the communicator of the advertisement message, and its audience, respectively. Chapter 5 delineates how the identities and interests of the originator of the advertising message and its envisaged reader/viewer crucially co-determine its possible interpretations. In an application of the theory of Sperber and Wilson (1986), who claim that the principle of relevance is the key concept governing human communication, it is shown what consequences their approach has for the analysis, first of metaphors, and then of advertisements. Of particular importance are their claim that relevance is always relevance to an individual and the distinction they propose between strongly and weakly communicated aspects of a message. Apart from constituting a vital step in the elaboration of a model of pictorial metaphor, this chapter can also be read independently as an application of Sperber and Wilson's relevance theory beyond the realm of language, namely to messages that are (partly) non-verbal, and mass-medial.
	Chapter 6, a key chapter of the book, combines Black's interaction theory with the insights of Sperber and Wilson to analyse pictorial phenomena in some thirty advertisements and billboards in terms of pictorial metaphor. On the basis of the various text-internal (verbal and pictorial) contextual levels that can be distinguished, a subdivision is proposed into pictorial metaphors with one pictorially present term (MP1s), pictorial metaphors with two pictorially present terms (MP2s), verbo-pictorial metaphors (VPMs), and pictorial similes (the terminology was partly adapted later on; see Forceville 2002, “Further thoughts on delimiting pictorial metaphor”). While the discussions of the advertisements and billboards are first and foremost intended to substantiate the validity of the concept pictorial metaphor in itself, the analyses hopefully are of independent interest to students of advertising, and of word & image relations more generally.
	Since the advertisements and billboards discussed in Chapter 6 are all interpreted by myself, the analyses – in line with Sperber and Wilson's claim that relevance is always relevance to an individual – necessarily reveal a degree of subjective interpretation. By way of a modest counterbalance, Chapter 7 reports the results of an exploratory experiment testing the responses of some forty people to three IBM billboards all purportedly containing a verbo-pictorial metaphor. Apart from assessing whether the participants are capable of identifying the metaphors as such, the experiment gives some idea of the degree of freedom in interpretation a pictorial metaphor allows. In addition, the results provide evidence that some viewers, when given a chance to do so, are happy to volunteer interpretations that run counter to those in all likelihood intended by the advertiser. This latter finding suggests that there may be a discrepancy between how viewers realize they are supposed to respond to the billboards and how they actually react. In view of the exploratory character of the experiment, the chapter reflects amply on methodological matters.
	Chapter 8, finally, briefly hints at ways in which the insights of the book may give rise to further research into issues concerning pictorial metaphor, word & image relations, advertising, and other pictorial tropes.


References

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Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [223-230]) and index.
There is a paperback edition of the book available.