Việc sử dụng ẩn dụ ý niệm trong các khẩu hiệu quảng cáo cho điện thoại di động Nokia, Samsung, Apple, Blackberry và Sony Ericsson Phạm Thị Hằng Trường Đại học Ngoại ngữ Luận văn ThS ngành: Ngôn ngữ Anh; Mã số: 60 22 15 Người hướng dẫn: Dr. Ngô Hữu Hoàng Năm bảo vệ: 2012 Abstract: This minor thesis on the use of conceptual metaphors in advertising slogans of Nokia, Samsung, Apple, Blackberry and Sony Ericsson cell phones was undertaken to provide advertisers with beneficial information when developing a slogan. The research attempts to answer two questions: How are conceptual metaphors frequently used in five brands’ cell phone advertising slogans?;What are the subtypes of conceptual metaphors employed in five brands’ cell phone advertising slogans?. The slogans used in this thesis are taken from newspapers, TV and the internet. They are first put into each cell phone brand numbered from 1 to 65 (see APPENDIX), then the analysis based on Lakoff and Johnson’s theory of conceptual metaphors is done to find out the appearing frequency of the metaphors in the corpus and each subtype used also. Finally, all the results and discussion on the frequent choice of metaphor subtypes in the slogans are represented. The study with a corpus of 65 slogans is still on its infancy and requires further research, though the copywriters, through this thesis, can develop a useful tool for their advertisements. Keywords: Tiếng Anh; Quảng cáo; Ẩn dụ ý niệm Content PART I: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale In the epoch of information explosion, it is inevitable for any of us to bump into advertising words and images. Advertising is all around us, though we like it or not, we hear it, see it and feel it albeit on purpose or just by some chance. In order for a brand name to go global, a good advertisement of their product is a key matter, no wonder why billions of bugs has been spent on copywriting. The utmost aim of the advertisement is to capture our attention. “The whole aim of the copywriters is to us get us register their communication either for purposes of immediate action or to make us more favourably disposed in general terms to the advertised product or service. […] so copywriters have to find ways to shout at us from the page.” (Angela Goddard, 1998: 11). The researcher is also captive in advertisements especially those of mobile phones. That is the reason why I took a hook to go ahead with mobile phone advertising slogans. In order to achieve the aim of getting customers noticed, copywriters have contributed a non-stop effort in creating an attractive, memorable, distinct advertising slogans for each brand. The methods used in writing advertising slogans range from employing phonological aspect, lexical and morphological aspect, syntactic aspect to semantic aspect. More concretely, in phonological aspect, rhyme, homophone, alliteration are often put into consideration while in lexical and morphological aspect, verb phrase, noun phrase, collocation, idiomatic construction, formation of new words and phrases are of great approval. What’s more, when syntactic aspect can be found in sentence types, sentence structure like ellipsis, semantic aspect is often realized through rhetorical devices such as simile, hyperbole, metonymy, polysemy and metaphors. The researcher is absolutely engaged in metaphors which have long been a part of my interest. This explains the second reason to choose metaphors in advertising. Metaphors are a part and parcel of everyday life in that they appear in nearly all our everyday concepts without our realization of it. Lakoff and Johnson give the notion of conceptual metaphors which have explained this all in an easy-understanding way. This attributes to the cause for choosing Lakoff and Johnson’s theory as a foundation in analyzing the data obtained in the study. 2. Objectives of the study and the research questions The study tries to seek out the answers to two research questions. Research question 1: Are conceptual metaphors frequently used in five brands’ cell phone advertising slogans? Research question 2: What subtypes of conceptual metaphors are employed in five brands’ cell phone advertising slogans? 3. Scope of the study Due to the time constraint, the thesis only focuses on five cell phone brands’ slogans which are world famous ones.The selected slogans of five brands are randomly taken from newspapers, TV and Internet at the researcher’s ease.A corpus of 65 chosen slogans is not a big one, so to some extents, the results provided are just selective, not comprehensive. In this study, the analysis is based on the theory and classification of metaphors given by Lakoff and Johnson. 4. Method of the study This research is a combination of primary and secondary research. More specifically, it is firstly a secondary research in that there is a literature review of metaphors study as well as metaphors in advertising provided; it is secondly a primary research in that the researcher uses statistical research method in order to give a description of a language phenomenon occurring in advertising slogans of five mobile phone brands. In addition, the exploratory research method is employed with an aim to examining the correlations among three subtypes of conceptual metaphors namely structural, ontological and orientational metaphors. 5. Design of the study The study consists of three parts: INTRODUCTION, DEVELOPMENT including two chapters and CONCLUSION. CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW 1. Definition of metaphors An enormous effort has been made in the course of finding a way to define what metaphor is by many scholars and researchers all around the world. Gibbs (1999:29) even introduced an ironical statement by Wayne Booth that by the year 2039 “there would be more students of metaphor than people” (quoted in Michael White, Estudios Ingleses de la Universidad Complutense, Vol.10 (2002) 309-315). Kovecses, one of the most significant Hungarian researchers of metaphors gave out his definition as follows: In the cognitive linguistic view, metaphor is defined as understanding one conceptual domain in terms of another conceptual domain […]. The conceptual domain from which we draw metaphorical expressions is to understand another conceptual domain called source domain, while the conceptual domain that is understood this way is the target domain […]. Understanding one domain in terms of another involves a set of fixed correspondences (technically called mappings) between a source and a target domain (2002: 4) (quoted in Agnes (2009:20)) All definitions have in common that they speak of two terms related to each other thanks to the similarities they have. But they also limit the function of metaphors to embellish or decorate the language. In their work, Lakoff and Johnson (1980:3) said: Metaphor is for most people a device of the poetic imagination and the rhetorical flourish – a matter of extraordinary rather than ordinary language. Moreover, metaphor is typically viewed as characteristic of language alone, a matter of words rather than thought or action. For this reason, most people think they can get along perfectly well without metaphor. We have found, on the contrary, that metaphor is pervasive in everyday life, not just in language but in thought and action. Our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature. By what they found, Lakoff and Johnson indicated that metaphors not only influence our “linguistic behavior but also our thought processes and our system of value.” (cited in Ágnes, 2009: 21) 2. Conceptual metaphors Lakoff and Johnson introduced the notion of conceptual metaphors in Metaphor we live by (1980) with some famous metaphors like LOVE IS A JOURNEY, ARGUMENT IS WAR, HAPPY IS UP. Black also gave a metaphor MAN IS WOLF (Black, 1955:286) which as our first glance resembles the structure of conceptualization given by Lakoff and Johnson. However, in his work, Black did not give out two terms target and source domain, instead he called MAN and WOLF two subjects: the principle subject (MAN) and the subsidiary subject (WOLF), then he tried to suggest a set of standard believes about wolves that are the common possession of the members of some speech community from which we note that wolves refer “to something fierce, carnivorous, treacherous”, hence man “preys upon other animals” and is “fierce, hungry, engaged in constant struggle, a scavenger” (Black, 1995:287). Black called the similarities between MAN and WOLF “the commonplaces” and the “corresponding system” (1995:288). From Black’s analysis of his metaphor, we can see that the notion of conceptual metaphor had been conceived long ago, before the introduction of Lakoff and Johnson. To give some ideas of what it could mean for a concept to be metaphorical and for such a concept to structure an everyday activity, Lakoff and Johnson started with the concept ARGUMENT and the conceptual metaphor ARGUMENT IS WAR which is reflected in our daily language by a wide variety of expressions. ARGUMENT IS WAR Your claims are indefensible. He attacked every weak point in my argument. His criticisms were right on the target. I demolished his argument. I’ve never won an argument with him. You disagree? Okay, shoot! If you use that strategy, he’ll wipe you out. He shot down all of my arguments. (Lakoff and Johnson, 2003:5) 3. Classification of conceptual metaphors Lakoff and Johnson (2003) classified conceptual metaphors into three different kinds, namely structural metaphors, orientational metaphors and ontological metaphors. Kovecses (2010), despite having three other criteria for categorizing conceptual metaphors, had the same classification as Lakoff and Johnson, regarding cognitive function of metaphors. 3.1. Structural metaphors In this kind of metaphors, “the source domain provides a relatively rich knowledge structure for the target concept” (Kovecses, 2010:37). In other words, the cognitive function of these metaphors is to enable speakers to understand target A by means of the structure of source B. This understanding occurs by means of conceptual mappings between elements of A and elements of B. For example, in the metaphor: LOVE IS A JOURNEY, the target domain LOVE is understood via the source domain JOURNEY through a range of mappings. The mappings include: LOVE IS A JOURNEY Look how far we’ve come We are at the crossroads We’ll just have to go our separate ways. We can’t turn back now. - Lovers corresponds to Travelers - The relationship between lovers corresponds to the means of transportation (the vehicle) - The means for achieving purposes correspond to routes. 3.2. Ontological metaphors It is necessary to make the concept of ontology well-defined in assistance to understanding ontological metaphors. Ontology is traditionally listed as a part of the major branch of philosophy known as metaphysics, which “deals with questions concerning what entities exist or can be said to exist, and how such entities can be grouped, related within a hierarchy, and subdivided according to similarities and differences” (www.wikipedia.org/wiki/ontology). Kovecses (2010: 38) also read “ontology is a branch of philosophy that has to do with the nature of existence”. Ontological metaphors base on our experiences with physical objects, that is “ways of viewing events, activities, emotions, ideas, etc as entities and substances.” (Lakoff and Johnson, 2003: 26). By this way, when the target domain is not discrete or bounded, we can still categorize and identify them. There are many kinds of ontological metaphors with different purposes one of which being the concept ABSTRACTS ARE THINGS: An accumulation of problems. The solution was within rich. The joy was seen in his face. In these examples, by setting an artificial boundary, we can bound the “problems”, “solution”, and “joy” in a way that we can see it, can touch it. 3.3. Orientational metaphors As the name suggests, those metaphors are based on the orientation in space, hence a special relationship is made for a concept. This relationship is normally based on our experiences of the physical space we possess. For instance, Being HAPPY IS HIGH/UP Being SAD IS LOW/DOWN. 4. Metaphors in advertising slogans 4.1. Definition of an advertising slogan There is a countless number of definitions given to advertising which all have in common that advertising is a means of promoting the product, idea or organization on the market with an aim to giving information and to persuading people of the benefits of the product and inducing them to take an action, say to buy it, to approve of it, to follow it, etc. Advertising slogan is defined as “a word or phrase that is easy to remember, used for example by a political party or in advertising to attract people’s attention or to suggest an idea quickly” in Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary 2001 (Jana Lapsanska, 2006: 14). However, Greg Meyers (1997) use the term “slogan” in broader sense – for any catchy phrase. Slogan is “…the backbone of the whole campaign, helping the other party to memorize the product being advertised” (Mgr. Jana Pelclová, 2010: 30). In the frame of this thesis, the concept “slogan” will be understood in a large sense which means slogan is any catchy words or phrases or even sentences used in an advertising campaign of a product. 4.2. Conceptual metaphors in advertising slogans The application of metaphors in advertising has aroused close attention of many scholars and researchers around the world. Lapsanska wrote, “a single metaphor may be worth of a hundred words of advertising text. It has an interesting value and stimulates the curiosity of the reader about the product” (2006: 46). Czerpa saw eye to eye with Lapsanska when she noted that metaphors in advertisements are powerful and compelling tool because they not only enrich an add but also extend the meaning of textual/ visual message, creating multi-leveled layers of interpretation (Czerpa, 2006: 3). MacInnis, Moorman and Jaworski (1991) viewed metaphor as “a stimulus of deeper levels of processing because of its interest value and because it stimulates curiosity about the product or brand” (Czerpa, 2006: 4). Nissan advertises their car with the slogan “Change to new ways” which embeds in it the conceptual metaphor LIFE IS A JOURNEY and Nissan will bring you to a better future. Let’s have another look at the advertising slogan of Macy’s perfume: “Feast your senses” or “Make them [men] melt” through which we can see the adoption of SEXUAL DESIRE IS HUNGER metaphor and AFFECTION IS WARMTH respectively. Also, the mappings of PASSION IS HEAT can be found in Lancôme’s lip gloss slogan “Color fever gloss”. Orientational metaphor GOOD IS UP is seen in the ad “Beyond and above” – Land Rover cars range, “Built from the cloud up” – Microsof Window Server 2012, “spice things up” – Macy’s perfumes, “Life can’t wait. Change up your look. Change up your life.” – Sunsilk Shampoo. Or in “Up your status” – Samsung cell phone, we can find the orientational metaphor HIGH STATUS IS UP. CHAPTER III: THE USE OF METAPHORS IN CELL PHONE ADVERTISING SLOGANS 1. Procedures 1.1. Data collection A list of 65 cell phone advertising slogans are chosen at random from online newspapers, TV ads and websites. These 65 slogans are classified into 5 cell phone brand names: Nokia, Samsung, Apple, Blackberry and Sony Ericsson. The researcher chose these 5 bands for the reason that they are well-known and prominent in everyday use. Further more, the source to collect data is at hand. 2.2. Data analysis All these slogans will be first sorted out into categories of brand names, then analyzed to show whether they use metaphors or not. The next step is to study the metaphors employed in each slogan so that the researcher can point out to which categories of conceptual metaphors namely structural, ontological and orientational the slogans belong. In order to achieve that purpose, the qualitative method is to be used. After that, the quantitative method is adopted with an aim of figuring out the proportion of three kinds of conceptual metaphors in these selected slogans. Finally, a description of the results will be presented through the statistics and interpretation. 2. Results and discussion 2.1. Research question 1: The frequency of the use of conceptual metaphors in cell phone advertising slogans Chart 1: The use of metaphors in cell phone advertising slogans. 51/65 metaphors are used in mobile phone advertising slogans. Such a figure is not minor as metaphor is just one among many types of linguistic means used in advertisements. In her findings, Lapsanska (2006:76) showed that 99/270 metaphors are used in advertisements (including personification as one subtype of ontological metaphors), which is equivalent to 37% while the percentage of metaphors applied in cell phone advertising slogans accounts for 78%, doubling that of Lapsanska’s result. This reveals that metaphors appear with high frequency in mobile phone advertisements. Maybe the reason for this had been stated by Kovecses “An appropriately selected metaphor may work wonders in promoting the sale of an item”. (2002:59). 2.2. Research question 2: Types of conceptual metaphors used in mobile phone advertising slogans The use of metaphors in cellphone advertising slogans 78% 22% use metaphors not use metaphors Chart 2: Subtypes of conceptual metaphors used in cell phone advertising slogans It is clear from the pie chart that the ontological metaphors are found in cell phone advertising slogans with the highest frequency, making up 63% off all three subtypes. In analyzing ontological metaphors, it is noted that personification is used very widely in the selected slogans. In these slogans, PRODUCT IS A PERSON WITH HUMAN CAPACITIES. For example, Nokia cell phone is a person who can connect people together (Connecting people – slogan (1), see APPENDIX). The same thing occurs in slogan (30) “No matter how you stay in touch, Samsung connects you in style” or “Connect to what matters” (slogan (55)). Further more, Samsung cell phones have the ability of inviting people (Everyone’s invited – slogan (16)), saying (The right thing says everything – slogan (23)), feeling happy (Download some mobile music. It’ll make your phone happy – slogan (24)). Apple can say hello to you (Slogan (34), see APPENDIX), listen to you (“Say Hello to iPhone” – slogan (36)), can beat (The first phone to beat the iPhone – slogan (39)), can change your life (“This changes everything. Again” – slogan (44)). Blackberry phones are also human beings in that they can fuel you with power, express your style and simplify your life (Power the passions you pursue with a smartphone that expresses your style and simplifies your life – slogan (56)). Also, ABSTRACTS ARE THINGS ontological metaphor are found in these slogans, the entailments of this ontological metaphor can be traced in: EXPERIENCES ARE THINGS (Blackberry – Bring experiences to life! – slogan (50)); SUCCESS IS AN OBJECT (Nokia – Get a taste of success – slogan (15)); AMAZING IS AN OBJECT (Samsung – A touch of amazing – slogan (21)); BEAUTY IS AN OBJECT (Samsung – Imagine touching beauty – slogan (27)); Subtypes of conceptual metaphors used in cellphone advertising slogans 63% 29% 8% ontological metaphors structural metaphors orientational metaphors LIFE IS AN OBJECT (Blackberry – Find more life – slogan (53)). In slogan (7) “Hit a hole-in-one. Hit the right impression”, we can notice two conceptual metaphors: THE PHONE IS A GOLF CLUB (structural metaphor) which you can use and hit the ball to the hole, and IMPRESSION IS AN OBJECT (ontological metaphor), so you can hit it. Slogan (13) “Connect with style” also embeds the ontological metaphor ABSTRACTS ARE THINGS, specifically STYLE IS AN OBJECT. “Your life. Enhanced” also offers the ontological metaphor LIFE IS A PRODUCT in here, A MOBILE PHONE, the audience are expected to draw a message that this mobile is going to enhance their life or in other words, improve or brighten their life. Ontological metaphor PROGRESS IS MOTION is applied in slogan (43) “The fastest, most powerful iPhone yet”. Ontological metaphors are followed by structural metaphors with a percentage of 29% which means well more than a quarter of all three subtypes. Among those, the Apple’s slogan (33) “Touching is believing” is typical for EMOTIONAL INTIMACY IS PHYSICAL CLOSENESS structural metaphor. The conceptual metaphor A SOLUTION IS A PRODUCT is also realized in the slogan “A stylish way to get things done” – Blackberry – slogan (51) or “There’s an app for that. That’s the iPhone. Solving life’s diplemma one app at time” – Apple – Slogan (45). Moreover, EMOTIONAL DESIRE IS PHYSICAL HUNGER is also made clear in “Wanna quench your thirst for fun? Take a sip of Sony Ericsson Mediascape – all your music, video and photos, just waiting to be enjoyed.” – Sony Ericsson – Slogan (64). We can see some overlaps in the analysis between ontological and structural metaphors. For example “A touch of amazing” can be seen as ontological and structural metaphor at the same time. When we see AMAZING IS AN OBJECT, we are seeing it in an ontological way that the abstract thing AMAZING do exist so that we can feel the touch of it. When we consider the structural metaphor EMOTIONAL INTIMACY IS PHYSICAL CLOSENESS, the “touch” (the source domain) is physically felt as an act of love and care (the target domain), thus emotional feeling. Moreover, when we attribute the personification metaphor to the slogan “No matter how you stay in touch, Samsung connects you in style” we can get the ontological metaphor PRODUCT IS A PERSON WITH HUMAN CAPACITIES because it can “connect you in style”. However, we can also draw a structural metaphor EMOTIONAL INTIMACY IS [...]... them are the realizations of the metaphor GOOD IS UP “Open up a world of possibilities” – Blackberry – slogan (52) “Power up the Blackberry Curve smartphone and empower our life” – Blackberry – slogan (58) “The Blackberry Bold 9700 really is the pinnacle of the traditional Blackberry smartphone experiences” – Blackberry – Slogan (57) The message underlying these slogans is that these phones will make... communication by an investigation into advertising slogans of just five brands After the representation of data analysis, the findings are revealed as follows: Firstly, conceptual metaphors is used with high frequency in advertising slogans of Nokia, Samsung, Apple, Blackberry and Sony Ericsson mobile phone brands among other linguistic means Secondly, ontological metaphors are dominant among conceptual metaphors... slogans of Sony Ericsson Structural metaphors are the only kind exploited in all brands’ slogans The brand with the highest percentage of structural metaphors is Sony Ericsson (100%), next come Blackberry (38%) and Apple (30%); the smallest shares belongs to Samsung (1%) and Nokia (1%) Orientationl metaphors which make up the smallest share of three subtypes of conceptual metaphors mainly focus on Blackberry. .. your social status Let’s have a look at how these metaphors are distributed in each mobile brand Brand names Conceptual metaphors Total Ontological Structural Orientational Nokia 11 (84%) 1 (8%) 1 (8%) 13 (100%) Samsung 10 (84%) 1 (8%) 1 (8%) 12 (100%) Apple 7 (70%) 3 (30%) 0 (0%) 10 (100%) Blackberry 4 (49%) 3 (38%) 2 (13%) 9 (100%) Sony Ericsson 0 (0%) 7 (100%) 0 (0%) 7 (100%) Table 2: Proportion of... 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Việc sử dụng ẩn dụ ý niệm trong các khẩu hiệu quảng cáo cho điện thoại di động Nokia, Samsung, Apple, Blackberry và Sony Ericsson Phạm Thị Hằng Trường. slogans are chosen at random from online newspapers, TV ads and websites. These 65 slogans are classified into 5 cell phone brand names: Nokia, Samsung, Apple, Blackberry and Sony Ericsson. . analysis, the findings are revealed as follows: Firstly, conceptual metaphors is used with high frequency in advertising slogans of Nokia, Samsung, Apple, Blackberry and Sony Ericsson mobile