论文总字数：34010字

摘 要

随着科技和数字媒体的快速发展, 广告成功地刺激消费者购物欲望,成为了最有效的营销手段之一。为了增强其感染力和表达效果, 隐喻就发挥了重要的作用。但由于其过分地渲染和夸张常常会导致人们的冲动消费, 特别是女性的化妆品,因此本文以认知隐喻为基础,结合中英化妆品各140条广告案列, 从结构隐喻,方位隐喻, 本体隐喻角度对广告进行对比及定量分析, 旨在找出中英化妆品广告中概念隐喻的异同原因, 帮助人们更好理解广告语中所蕴含的深层意义。

关键词：概念隐喻；化妆品广告；文化差异；对比研究

Content

1. Introduction 1

2. Literature Review 2

2.1 The theory of conceptual metaphor 2

2.2 The classification of conceptual metaphor 2

2.3 Studies on metaphor in advertising home and aboard 3

3. The Comparative Study of Conceptual Metaphors in Chinese and English Cosmetics Advertisements 5

3.1 Structural metaphor in cosmetic advertisements 5

3.2 Orientational metaphor in cosmetic advertisements 8

3.3 Ontological metaphor in cosmetic advertisements 10

4. Analysis of Similarities and Differences of Metaphor in Chinese and English Cosmetics Advertisements 12

4.1 Analysis of similarities of metaphor in Chinese and English cosmetics advertisements 12

4.2 Analysis of differences of metaphor in Chinese and English cosmetics advertisements 13

5. Conclusion 14

Works Cited 16

1. Introduction

With the development of digital media, we can see various advertisements in different forms at any places and any times, such as billboard, spot announcement, bounce window, which are undoubtedly becoming one of the most effective marketing tools to stimulate consumption. When advertising, the merchants tend to use a lot of rhetoric to decorate the product. As the typical representative in rhetoric, metaphor naturally becomes one of the popular means for publicity because it can increase advertising interest, improve advertising or brand attitude, enhance memory, reach your audience concept. As for this point, we have to say metaphor plays an important role in advertising, which can unconsciously influence people’s thinking mode and behaviors, resulting in impulsive purchase.

Due to various factors, metaphor always catches scholars’ attention. Since George Lakoff amp; Mark Johnson’s masterpiece Metaphors We Live By, the view about metaphor has experienced a cognitive turn that it is not only a linguistic phenomenon but also a way of thinking. Lakoff, as the founder of metaphor, proposed the concepts of target domain and resource domain, claiming that “the essence of metaphor is to employ the concept and structure of one thing to explain or understand the other thing” (Lakoff 5).

Then considering about contemporary digital age, many scholars begin to research on metaphor in advertising, contributing to the practical application of metaphor. In West, scholars prefer to study from cognitive perspective, especially from multimodal metaphor. While in China, it seems no particular emphasis. Scholars study from different views, such as translation, cognition, persuasive function and comparison.

Although, there are diverse aspects on the researches of advertising metaphor, rare of them are related to the cosmetic market. Nowadays, with the increasingly high standard of living food, clothing, shelter and transportation become less important. People begin to pursue a high level of material life instead of basic life needs. Particular for female, they pay more attention to skin care and makeup. So female’s cosmetic field, which accounts for a larger portion of consuming market, should get more attention.

So based on the conceptual metaphor theory, adopting quantitative analysis, this paper compares the similarities and differences between Chinese and English cosmetics advertisements. More importantly, hoping that it could help people better understand the deep indicative meaning in the advertisements so as to raise their awareness of rational consumption.

2. Literature Review

2.1 The theory of conceptual metaphor

In the traditional linguistic theories, metaphor was regarded as a rhetoric language that can be traced to Aristotle (384-322 BC). But in the 19^th century, Lakoff and Johnson redefined the metaphor from the cognition concept. They claimed that “Metaphor is pervasive in everyday life, not just in language but in thought and action” (Lakoff 3). They also proposed that the process of understanding one thing called Cross Domain Mapping can be divided into two aspects: one is target domain which is the reflection of one certain objection and the other is source domain which is the equivalent objection in the individual’s familiar field. The target domain is usually the concrete substance which is more familiar to people, and the source domain is usually the abstract object. In China, Zhang Pei said that “Metaphor is an implicit analogy that equates something with another in an imaginary manner, applying the formers characteristics to the latter or bestowing the latter’s associated emotions and imaginary factors on the former”(Zhang 1).

2.2 The classification of conceptual metaphor

Because cognition has its unique feature, it can generate many kinds of metaphor theories. Due to these factors, the classification of metaphor has no standard.

This paper is based on Lakoff and Johnson’s theory which divides a metaphor into two categories: conventional metaphors and novel metaphors in line with the degrees of conventionality of a metaphor. The novel metaphors are created by people’s imagination and innovation which can frequently been seen in the works of literature and philosophy. And the conventional metaphors can be further categorized into three types: structural metaphor, orientational metaphor, ontological metaphor. Structural metaphors are cases where one concept is metaphorically structured in terms of another. Orientational metaphors are the metaphors related to the space concept; Ontological metaphors are entity and substance metaphors, which are based on our experience of physical objects and substances. Because the conventional metaphor is more recognized by people, the writer of the thesis does the research on the basis of structural metaphor, orientational metaphor and ontological metaphor.

2.3 Studies on metaphor in advertising

As for the metaphor in advertisements, the foreign scholars prefer to research it from cognitive view. To be more simply, they like focusing on the conceptual metaphor. Scholars like Schlosser and fenko pay attention to the spatial metaphor. They convince that spatial elements on advertising and packaging can affect consumers’ cognition and attitude and influences their decision-making behavior (Schoseer 496).

Lars Hermeren wrote the book English for Sale - A Study of the language of advertising, claiming that “metaphor means understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in term of another” (Lars 145). He tried explaining working mechanism of metaphor in the advertising, believing that the application of metaphor in advertisements is a powerful means of combination by relating new information to familiar information, which plays an important role in stimulating consuming.

In 1996, Forceville and Charles published a book about pictorial metaphor in advertisement. He proposed a theoretical framework about metaphors analyzing and made great contribution to the theory of graphical metaphors, laying the foundation for multimodal metaphors (Forceville 139).

At the end of the 20th century, scholars began to focus on modal symbols, such as images, colors, lines, sounds, which led to the development of multimodal metaphor. Scholars such as Koller, Caballer had profound influence on the field of multimodal metaphor in advertising. They all concerned about the same question “What unique feature does the construction of multimodal metaphor have in advertising discourses which have to achieve the purpose of product and positive appeal” (Shutova 173).

Except the cognitive view, persuasive function of metaphor is another heat theme. Delbaere, Mcquarrie and Phillips proposed the indirect persuasive strategy of the advertisements (Delbaere 130). Leiss, Kline and Jhally studied on the persuasive function of advertising metaphor and claimed the similar point that metaphor is the very heart of the basic communication form used in advertising (Leiss 49).

Compared with western researches, we don’t have a long history of studying on this field. Until 1990s, scholars began to read a mass of literature and materials of foreign researchers, and this motion lift the study on metaphor to a higher level at home. During this period, there emerged many excellent works, such as On the Operation of Metaphor Mechanism, Research on Metaphor by Shu Dingfang, respectively introducing the concept of metaphor and its working mechanism (Shu 221).

With the study booming in the field of metaphor, different scholars studied metaphors from different perspectives, especially in advertising. It can be generally classified into four aspects: cognition aspect, persuasive function aspect, translation aspect, comparison aspect.

Study from cognition aspect of metaphor in advertising. Liang Yuanbing, in his article Metaphor in Advertising from a Cognitive Perspective, obtained conceptual metaphor ranking diagram based on specific linguistic data by studying on the advertisements in English Business Weekly. He found that the domain sources with high frequency in advertising corpus are: life, travel, architecture, sports, war and fight.(Liang 66) Zhang Hui and Zhang Weiwei combined examples of mutimodal metaphor which explained the relationship between metaphor and metonymy, and the relationship between images and words interpretation (Zhang multimodal 23).

Study on persuasive function on metaphor in advertising. Wang Lihao and Sun Qiyao highlight five functions of metaphor in advertising language: aesthetic function, economic function, meaning creation, novelty creation, and culture transmission (Wang study 69).

Study from translation aspect on metaphors in advertisements. Chen Xiaojing，Zhao Geping and Chen Xiaojian discuss the translation of English advertising metaphors from the perspective of optimal relevance theory, proposing that optimal relevance is the guiding principle of translation, and discuss the relevant factors that influence the translator’s choice of strategies (Chen metaphor 147).

Study on the comparisons of metaphor in advertising. Zhang Pei, in the book The Life of Metaphor, provided representative data of the studies on Chinese and western metaphors, defining the historical stages, fields and types of metaphor study (Zhang 71). He Hengxin, on the basis of the existing research, proposed a new “metaphorical consistency” analysis mode, principle and procedure. Because “metaphorical expression analysis usually takes the form of two (not one) statements. And MC analysis can avoid this deficiency and provide a new starting point for many existing functional syntactic analysis” (He 25).

3. Comparative Study of Conceptual Metaphors in Chinese and English Cosmetics Advertisements

3.1 Structural metaphor in cosmetics advertisements

“Structural metaphor refers to the structure of one concept to construct another concept, so that the two concepts are connected. Part of the word describing one concept is used to describe another concept, and thus the phenomenon of multi-use of one word occurs” (Lakoff 137). Taking the proverb “time is money as example”, in this sentence, money is the source domain, and time is the target domain, and due to this connection, we would transfer some characteristics of money to the time. For instance, when we wait for someone, we would say that I have spent much time waiting for you. The word “spent” indicates that time has the value which can be consumed like money.

Here are some common examples：

But as for the metaphor in advertising, we can further classify the structure metaphor into war metaphor, motion metaphor, life metaphor, weather metaphor, time metaphor, energy metaphor, journey metaphor and theater metaphor.

Here is a comparison chart of the Chinese and English structure metaphor. The following examples:

As we can clearly see in the chart above, war metaphor has maximum proportion both in Chinese and English advertising. Below are some specific examples.

1. 三重保湿定律,与你一起来一场看得见的补水革命吧!我动,水动;我停,水润不停!(Olay)
2. 新生塑颜系列焕活年轻肌肤.多效修护系列一瓶对抗7大肌肤问题.(Olay)
3. 重启肌肤锁水屏障,肌肤焕发透露水感,同时添加维生素E,保护肌肤远离自由基的侵害.（温碧泉）
4. Scientists believe that it is the future defense against the signs of aging.( Clinique )
5. Imagine powerful acne-fighters disguised as refreshing moisturizers. (Neutrogena)
6. Reveal brighter, glowing skin and fight wrinkles.(L’OREAL)

In these advertisements, there is no clear difference between them because they all naturally regard skin care as a war, indicating that skin is the extremely vulnerable thing that needs special products to protect it from external harms. This kind of metaphor can successfully raise people’s concerns and awareness on the skin care, thus contributing to impulsive consumption.

Motion metaphor ranks only second to war metaphor. But unlike war metaphor, there are various indications in Chinese and English advertising. With respect to the Chinese ones, the source domains are some emotions related to family or country. China is a multi-ethnic country, so Chinese people form a sense of collectivism naturally. Moreover, Chinese traditional culture always teaches us the importance of relationships. While, the English advertisements highly emphasize and advocate individuality, and a few of them would mention the concept of family or country in the cosmetic advertisements. Here are some examples:

1.天然草本精华,让你的肌肤找到回家的感觉(百雀羚).

2.璀璨岁月的关怀,来自百雀羚的贴心与舒适.

3.草本百雀羚,国本万年青.

4. Bloom Yourself. (Mamonde)

5. In order to be irreplaceable, one must always be different.

6. Believe the future, believe the youth in you.(LAMCOME)

As we can see from the statistics in the above chart, time metaphor ranks third place both in Chinese and English advertisements, but the specific time span they used is adverse. In most cases, Chinese advertisers like highlighting the past, for instance, “珍珠肌源修护抚纹眼霜 抚平岁月初痕”,“不见时光印迹,只见珍珠优雅”, to hint consumers that their products can rejuvenate them and bring them the beauty of the past. However, the western advertisers prefer to using the concept of future, like “A woman who does not wear perfume has no future”, “Start your day with a dose of youth”. In the west, people extremely value the time. They believe that the most wonderful thing is always waiting for you in the future, so advertisers use this way to indicate consumers that after using their products, they will get a gorgeous experience. And this standpoint can also be used to explain why there is no life metaphor and energy metaphor in the English advertisements. People value time, so they respect and obey the natural law, which means they will not take too much consideration to gain the extra energy or youth. On the contrary, Chinese people pay much attention to heath maintenance, so the concept of life expectancy and energy can easily catch people’s eyes.

Compared with English advertisements, Chinese advertisements are not involved in theatre and weather metaphor. We all know that different from China, people in western countries like tan skin rather than fair skin, so the word of sun can be seen in the English advertisements like “Use everyday sunshine for a sun-kissed glow and radiance illumination for healthy radiant finish.” But this word can hardly be seen in Chinese cosmetic advertisements, unless it shows as a negative indication. As is well known that journey is an exhausting and time-consuming but exciting and meaningful process. For Journey metaphor, it is very common in advertising irrespective of Chinese and English cultures. Advertisers use this kind of metaphor to hint consumer that the products should be utilized in a long term otherwise no effects will occur, thus raising up consumers’ loyalty.

3.2 Orientational metaphor in cosmetics advertisements

Orientational metaphors are also called spatialization metaphors, which are mostly related to the spatial orientational, such as up-down, front-back, in-out, deep-shallow, central-periphery. And this kind of metaphor tends to reflect people’s mood and social status. For instance, “I’m feeling up”; “I fell into depression”; “He is in the high command”; “He is my social inferior.”

But in the cosmetics advertising, orientational metaphor only has a small portion and is just involved in front metaphor and up metaphor.

In our subconsciousness, no matter both Chinese and English, believe that the best one tends to be the one on the frontier. If the advertisers want to attract consumers, using the words meaning “Front” is undoubtedly the most efficient way to catch up their eyes. For instance:

1. 国货百年草本护肤,唯百雀羚首居.
2. New power advanced wrinkle fighter system.

When buying things, quality is the primary factor people take into consideration. In the two advertisements, advertisers send out the same implication that it is their product that leads advertising industry, then people will naturally link the products to high quality with these words, and consequently people fall into the ingenious trick.

In the research, with the limited number of advertisements examples, the writer of this thesis does not find out Up metaphor in the English advertisements but finds two in the Chinese advertisements.

1. 几秒间摆脱油光、粗糙、倦容三个问题,时刻神采飞扬。 赢得爽快,赢在巅峰状态. (Olay)
2. 传承草本经典护肤,国货品质上佳之选.(百雀羚)

As we can see, although they are all the up metaphor but the cores contained are different. The resource domain of the former one is a high status, which aims to create a competitive atmosphere that those who using their product could reach the peak of their life, while, the resource domain of the latter one is just like the front metaphor mentioned above.

3.3 Ontological metaphor in cosmetics advertisements

Ontological metaphor helps people transform those abstract and complex concepts such as minds, motions, mental activities into the concrete substance which derives from people’s experience of surrounding physical things. “Metaphor can help us use known thing to understand both the unknown thing” (Shu 24). In addition, Ontological metaphor can be further classified into three categories: entity metaphor, container metaphor and personification metaphor. The following statics are from the corpus as above charts.

In the research, entity metaphor and personification metaphor make up the similar percent in the cosmetic advertising. Entity metaphor in advertising means that in order to make people better understand the abstract effects and features of the products, advertisers will transform these nonobjective concepts into some entities.

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