Critical metaphor analysis of cosmetics metaphorical advertising slogans

Metaphor is regarded as a figure of speech in traditional linguistics, but in Cognitive Linguistics (CL), it is “a cognitive phenomenon in which people understand abstract target domains in terms of concrete source domains” (Lakoff and Johnson 1980: 8). In addition to its cognitive basis, metaphor is also culture-dependent (Kövecses 2005). Charteris-Black (2004) stated that metaphor is central to CDA since it deals with forming a coherent view of reality, but it has been largely neglected in mainstream CDA. This study attempts to conduct critical metaphor analysis of cosmetics metaphorical advertising slogans from a cross-cultural perspective by adopting Charteris-Black’s (2004) Critical Metaphor Analysis (CMA) framework. Data include 10 English metaphorical advertising slogans and 10 Chinese ones. The findings demonstrate that critical metaphor analytic approach is a useful tool to view advertising discourse through the lens of Cognitive Linguistics within the critical paradigm, and to unveil people’s values, beliefs, and attitudes hidden in these ideology-loaded cosmetics advertising slogans.