VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES PHẠM THỊ THU HIỀN A STUDY ON MULTIMODAL METAPHOR IN COCA- COLA AND PEPSI’ TELEVISION COMMERCIALS (NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ ẨN DỤ ĐA PHƯƠNG TIỆN TRONG CÁC TVC QUẢNG CÁO CỦA COCA- COLA VÀ PEPSI) MA THESIS – TYPE 1 Field : English Linguistics Code : 8220201.01 HANOI – 2018 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES PHẠM THỊ THU HIỀN A STUDY ON MULTIMODAL METAPHOR IN COCA- COLA AND PEPSI’ TELEVISION COMMERCIALS (NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ ẨN DỤ ĐA PHƯƠNG TIỆN TRONG CÁC TVC QUẢNG CÁO CỦA COCA- COLA VÀ PEPSI) MA THESIS – TYPE 1 Field : English Linguistics Code : 8220201.01 Instructor : Nguyễn Thị Minh Tâm, Ph. HANOI – 2018 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com DECLARATION I hereby certify that the thesis titled „A Study on Multimodal Metaphor in Coca - Cola and Pepsi’ Television Commercials’ is the result of my own work in partial fulfilment of the requirements for Degree of Master of Arts of Faculty at Post - graduate Studies, University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University of Hanoi. The research has not been submitted to any other universities or institutions. Signature i TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS For the fulfilment of the master thesis, first and foremost, I would love to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor Dr.
Nguyen Thi Minh Tam for all her invaluable comments, counsel and her whole-souled instructions as well. Beside my advisor, my sincere thanks are sent to all my colleagues at the faculty of Foreign Languages at Hanoi Pedagogical University No.2 for their suggestions that enable me to complete my study. My heartfelt thanks would also go to my institution – Hanoi Pedagogical University No.2 for giving best conditions to study at University of Languages and International Studies for my postgraduate program and carry out the thesis over a long time. Finally, I owe a debt of gratitude to my family for their supports and care during the completion of my study.
ii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com ABSTRACT There is no shadow of doubt that human beings have been employing metaphor in almost all aspects of life even though they are sometimes unaware of the fact. And the professional world of scholars has already taken the notion of metaphor into account. Especially after the publication of the work named Metaphors We Live By in 1980 by Lakoff and Johnson, the notion of metaphor was exploited conceptually and seemed to have more practical applications. The thesis was done to investigate how multimodal metaphor has been used in Coca- Cola and Pepsi‟ television commercials accompanied by a comparison between two companies.
The present study includes four main chapters: literature review, methodology, findings and discussion, and conclusions. Findings show that both brands take full advantage of visual, verbal and sonic modes, despite different degrees, to represent groups of metaphorical themes. Similar and different aspects in their usage of, multimodal metaphor were also disclosed in the study. iii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com Table of contents DECLARATION.
iii LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES. Significance of the study. Scope of the study. Design of the thesis.
APPROACHES TO METAPHOR. Before Cognitive Linguistics. Multimodality and monomodality. Features of a multimodal metaphor.
Modes in a multimodal metaphor: Classification and interaction. Multimodal metaphor and the genre. Description of the data. Methods of the study.
Data Analysis Procedure .25 iv TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION. Multimodal metaphor in Coca- Cola TV commercials. Multimodal metaphor in Pepsi TV commercials.
Discussion of research questions. Answer to research question 1: „How is multimodal metaphor used in the TV ads of Coca - Cola and Pepsi?’. Answer to research question 2: „What are similarities and differences in using multimodal metaphor of the two soft drink brands?’. Recapitulation of main ideas.
Recommendations for further studies. I v TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES Figure 1. Subdivision of Modes - Forceville (2007: 20) Figure 2. Metaphorical Themes Frequency in 15 Coca- Cola's TVCs Figure 3: Metaphorical Themes Frequency in 15 Pepsi's TVCs Table 1: Sample Analytical Framework Table 2: Mappings of the CM Love is a journey Table 3: Mappings of the CM Drink is a journey vi TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.
INTRODUCTION In this part, the researcher explains why she chose the research topic and indicates aims, scope and design of the study. Two raised research questions were clearly stated. Rationale Metaphor was considered as an exclusively figurative phenomenon which had little or no place in everyday language until the 19th century. Yet, since Lakoff and Johnson published their work named Metaphors We Live By in 1980, the notion of conceptual metaphor theory (CMT) has ruled metaphor studies.
Here, metaphors are primarily a phenomenon of thought rather than of language, which have been applied to all corners of life such as literature, economy and especially recreational and media areas. Additionally, as a result of the quick social commercialization and the surge of media, advertising becomes one of the most efficient ways of broadcasting products, and a fundamental part of our life as well as „a major manifestation of conceptual metaphors‟ (Kövecses 2002: 59). In the realm of advertising, metaphor is regarded as an integration of words, images, sounds and meanings. A well-selected metaphor will significantly provoke shoppers‟ inspiration to buy a certain product.
Forceville (2008) asserts that it is vital to study nonverbal and multimodal metaphors systematically to test claims made about conceptual metaphors. Within Conceptual Metaphor Theory framework, multimodal metaphors are defined as those metaphors whose target and source are rendered exclusively or predominantly in two or more modes and the verbal is in many cases just one of them (Forceville: 2006; see also Forceville: 2008; Forceville and Urios Aparisi: 2009a). The possible modes likely consist of written and spoken language, static and moving images, music, nonverbal sounds, and gestures (Forceville and Urios-Aparisi: 2009b). The researcher was impressed by Coca - Cola and Pepsi – two typical soft drink brands in the beverage industry.
Both have invested a lot in commercial 1 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com strategies to propagate their names worldwide. One of reasons for their success may come from their advertising campaigns with TV commercials (TVCs) combined by different modes ranging from images, sounds and words. The researcher questions the use of multimodal metaphor on those TVCs in broadcasting the items and grabbing the audience‟s attention; hence, she is so curious to do a thorough research into this area. For the aforementioned explanations, the thesis mainly concentrates on analyzing the multimodal metaphors used in TVCs of two brands Coca-Cola and Pepsi within the Conceptual Metaphor Theory, from which some comparison will be made between the two brands.
Research questions A great number of works within the Conceptual Metaphor Theory have been done, but concentrate only on one aspect of the metaphor. Even if they did consider various modes, their areas are totally different, so hardly can the researcher find a research of the same field and topic. The present paper analyses metaphor as a complex phenomenon and argues that the genre and modes interact to create a meaningful message to advertise the target items. The problem raises the following research questions: How is multimodal metaphor used in the TV ads of Coca - Cola and Pepsi? What are similarities and differences in using multimodal metaphor of the two soft drink brands? The research‟s aims were to identify multimodal metaphors and relationships between their target and source domains in expressing certain messages followed by a comparison in using multimodal metaphors of the two big names.
The corpus included two series of 30 TV commercials taken from the website iSpot. 2 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail. Significance of the study This study was done to contribute to the linguistics, especially metaphor research. Its approach is quite new as no studies have been done on comparing multimodal metaphors in Coca- Cola and Pepsi‟ TVCs.
Completing the thesis means that a new discovery will be revealed and maybe open new ideas for further examination. Another striking point is that by the language phenomena‟s clarification in television commercials, an unprecedented foundation for explaining the same phenomena may be established in other areas and genres. Last but not least, she strongly believes that her study contributes to building theoretical basis in the linguistic area. Also, it is likely used as a reference for the latter studies.
Scope of the study The thesis exploited 30 TV commercials of Coca- Cola and Pepsi on the iSpot.tv over a period of 5 years, from 2013 to 2018. All commercials are spoken in English from 15 seconds to about 60 seconds long. Despite unequal numbers of videos taken from each year, it was still able to reflect general marketing purposes and contemporary trends. The number one reason for the choice is because Coca- Cola and Pepsi are of the most well-known soft drink brands worldwide.
They have already published extremely attractive and inspiring TVCs to raise their sales. Second, the researcher hypothesized that there are likely certain marketing strategies, campaigns and unique brands in their TV shots, so she was so curious and eager to investigate them. Design of the thesis The thesis consists of three main parts, organized as follows: PART A: Introduction- gives the reasons why the author chooses this topic, aims, the scope and the design of the study. PART B: Development: includes 3 chapters: Literature review chapter reviews literature and previous studies in the field.
3 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com Methodology chapter describes the data and data analyzing process. It also provides an analytical framework for further discussion. Findings and discussion chapter shows results and discusses research questions. Conclusions - summarizes the findings and draws the conclusions followed by limitations and recommendations for extensive research.
4 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail. DEVELOPMENT The development part begins with the first chapter of literature review in which the researcher reviews literature and previous studies in the field. Following this, methodology chapter describes the data and data analyzing process. It also provides an analytical framework for further discussion.
To end to the development part, a findings and discussion chapter shows results and discussesr esearch questions. LITERATURE REVIEW As mentioned once, the chapter of literature review gives a general picture of related theories and already- done studies in the same field as the current thesis. The chapter is subdivided into smaller sections, beginning with a revision on approaches to metaphor, followed by basic foundations to multimodal metaphors. The chapter ends by a brief overview of two related studies about metaphor in advertising in which the researcher takes a chance to highlight salient points in her thesis in comparison with these two.
APPROACHES TO METAPHOR 1. Before Cognitive Linguistics Metaphor has continuously grabbed public attention and scholars over the centuries, so the researcher started this section by presenting major thoughts in studying metaphor before the birth of Cognitive Linguistics. There has been an existing fact that the nature of metaphor has been discussed by Aristotle on the level of noun (name), indicating that metaphor typically „happens‟ to the noun, and it is presented as motion: …the application of a strange (alien, allotrios) term either transferred (displaced, epiphora) from the genus and applied to the species or from the species and applied to the genus, or from one species to another, or else by analogy (Aristotle, 1982:1447b). 5 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com According to Aristotle, once a name is applied to a new thing, it may communicate something much more clearly, which is something else hard to grasp.