Multimodal Metaphors in English and Chinese Food Commercials: A Case of Snickers

Abstract

Advertising serves as a unique mode of communication, where elements such as slogans, sounds, and images are essential approaches to conveying its central theme. Numerous scholars have examined advertising language and imagery through various linguistic frameworks, including stylistics, pragmatics, systemic functional grammar, and semiotics. However, the study of multimodal metaphors in advertising, particularly about their types, presentation modes, and characteristics, remains insufficiently explored. This article, grounded in conceptual metaphor theory, analyzes the multimodal metaphors employed in 14 Snickers television commercials, aiming to address the following research questions: (1) What types of multimodal metaphors are utilized in Snickers TV commercials? (2) How are these multimodal metaphors manifested through different modes? (3) What distinctive features do these multimodal metaphors exhibit in food commercials? The findings of this study indicate three key results. First, the multimodal metaphors identified in the Snickers commercials can be categorized into two primary metaphor systems, namely, the great chain of being metaphor system and the event structure metaphor system. Second, the images, language, and sound modes work in conjunction to realize the multimodal metaphors. Third, the source domain typically appears earlier than the target domain. By examining how metaphors are represented across different modes, this article contributes to the existing body of research on multimodal metaphors and offers valuable insights for advertisers in the field.