The strategic use of the visual mode in advertising metaphors

Metaphors present one kind of thing (a "target") in terms of another (a "source"), and are therefore ideal instruments for advertisers to make claims about products (the metaphors’ targets) efficiently and creatively. Since the intended interpretation of metaphors is often not spelled out, advertisers often get away with suggesting meanings without taking responsibility for them by making skillful use of visuals as part of metaphors. This chapter explains how visual and multimodal metaphors in advertising work, and discusses some cases to show how metaphor analysis can be a critical tool in the evaluation of advertising.

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