1. INTRODUCTION
According to Cognitive Linguistics, metaphor and metonymy are fundamental processes of communication. Contrary to traditional approaches, the cognitive paradigm considers them to be conceptual, not linguistic, tools which govern thinking and understanding.1 Metaphor and metonymy are indispensable pro-cesses of cognition, as they facilitate comprehension. Metaphor, for instance, helps to understand the abstract concept of life, by connecting it with the more concrete, thus, more easily apprehensible, experience of a journey (She has gone through a lot in life.). Metonymy, on the other hand, can assist in grasping an – invisible – emotion (like love or attraction), through its – more tangible – bodily effect (He felt hot when he saw the dancer.). The difference between these two cognitive tools lies in the nature of the connection they establish. Metaphor links concepts based on their correlation in experience, while metonymy operates with entities that are contiguous.2 People tend to perceive similarities in the features of life and journeys (they both have difficulties/obstacles, choices/crossroads, goals/
destinations, etc.), which provides basis for their metaphoric connection. In the case of metonymies, however, the relatedness of the two concepts, the emotional cause and the physical effect of the emotional state, is already guaranteed, which is why they can metonymically activate each other.
Metaphor and metonymy are not limited to verbal language, though. As Cognitive Linguistics claims, they originate from thought; thus, they are con-ceptual in nature. This also means that they are probably present in other kinds of communication as well.3 The scope of the present study is to explore how the abovementioned conceptual mechanisms appear in the visual realm, more specifi-cally, in advertising. I will attempt to demonstrate that, just like verbal language, visuality is also bound to metaphoric and metonymic effects. The analysis will
* Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest 1 Lakoff – Johnson 1980: 37.
2 Kövecses 2002: 143–144.
3 Forceville – Urios-Aparasi 2009: 3–4.
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start with a general introduction of these two conceptual mechanisms, then it will turn to their more specific application in visual contexts, and finally it will focus on their particular role in the operation of billboards.
2. METAPHOR
The Metaphor Theory of Cognitive Linguistics comes from Lakoff & Johnson.4 According to their definition, metaphor is a conceptual, not linguistic,
phenom-enon, whose function is to facilitate the understanding of a more abstract and thus less easily available concept in terms of another more concrete and thus more readily graspable concept. The connection between the two entities, which belong to different domains, is guaranteed by systematic correspondences, mappings, between the source and the target domain. The classic example of life and journey illustrates how metaphor works.
(1) She has gone through a lot in life.
(2) My life is at a crossroads now.
As shown in examples (1)–(2), we tend to talk about life in terms of journeys. The basis of the life is a journey conceptual metaphor is the correlation of bodily experiences between one’s journeys and one’s life (that is, between the source domain of journey and the target domain of life). The experience of being in motion and on a journey, which are inseparable parts of our lives, can be perceived to have a similar structure with the experience of living. The two domains share numerous fundamental correspondences.
journey life traveler person co-travelers partners obstacles difficulties crossroads choices destinations goals etc. etc.5
4 Lakoff – Johnson 1980.
5 Naturally there are a lot of features in which the two domains do not correspond with each other.
Why they still can be connected together is explained with their similar meaning focus (Kövecses, in press).
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Since the majority of our metaphors are based on embodiment, they are more or less universal.6 To connect the sensation of happiness-sadness to verticality (in a way that happiness is correlated with activeness and upness, while sadness with passiveness and downness) is also a universal and basic metaphor (see examples (3)–(4)). Their experiential basis is easy to see: when we are happy, we tend to be more active, which necessitates most frequently the upright body position. Whereas sadness pulls us down, in a passive-defensive mood, which is usually coupled with a bowed posture.
(3) The good news cheered me up.
(4) He has been down ever since they parted.
Visuality is not without metaphors either. Forceville’s studies pointed out that while pictorial metaphors do have their peculiarities, their basic properties are the same as their verbal counterparts.7 Let us examine the above mentioned metaphor, now applied in a (verbo-) visual context (see fig.1). Even without the text, one has no difficulties identifying when Jon feels up and when he (or Garfield) feels down. The posture, the mouth, and the eyes illustrate and visualize the connection between emotional states and verticality.
Anger, another abstract emotion, has even more expressive visual representations.
Continuing with the genre of cartoons, there is a noticeable tendency to place the angry person before a red background, which implicitly or explicitly con-nects the emotional state either with fire or natural force. In verbal contexts the conceptual metaphors of anger is fire, anger is heat, and anger is a natural
6 Kövecses 2002: 163.
7 Forceville 1996, 2006, 2009.
Figure 1: happy is up, sad is down
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force (examples (5)–(7), respectively) are among the most frequent and universally occurring types.8
(5) He was breathing fire.
(6) She was boiling with anger.
(7) It was a stormy discussion.
8 Kövecses et al. (ms).
Figure 2: Anger is fire in Superman (DC Comics)
Figure 3: Anger is a natural force in Batman (DC Comics)
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Figure 2 serves as a transparent illustration of anger in a visual context. An edgy facial expression, fiery eyes, clenched fists, and the dominance of the red color are unmistakable signs of an agitated emotional state. On figure 3 lightening is an additional indicator of anger, next to the signals of the face and the colors.
The above examined examples have shown that metaphor is a key tool of com-munication, be it verbal or visual (or else). Metonymy is another ubiquitous process that governs both our verbal and visual communication.
3. METONYMY
There exist several different approaches to metonymy in the Cognitive Linguistic literature. The most prominent ones include idealized cognitive models,9 con-ceptual mappings,10 or domain highlighting.11 Despite the different viewpoints, cognitivists seem to agree on the basic function of metonymy: it serves to provide access to a less easily available entity (like an emotion) through another, related entity (like the physical effects of the emotion). Metonymy, therefore, is a reference point construction whose role is to activate a related entity.12
As it is built on contiguity, every metonymy incorporates some form of the part-whole relation. In the following examples, it is the part that activates the the part-whole:
the face/head, as the central part of the human body, stands for the person.
part for whole
(8) We need some new faces in the team.
(9) Two heads are better than one.
Another frequent metonymic relation is when the whole entity is used to evoke only a part of it. It is (most probably) only the point of the pencil and the ink of the pen that is meant in the sentences below.
whole for part
(10) My pencil has broken.
(11) Could you give me a red pen?
9 Lakoff 1987: 78.
10 Kövecses – Radden 1999: 39.
11 Croft 2002: 162.
12 Langacker 1999: 199.
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