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Article published In: Linguistic Landscape
Vol. 5:1 (2019) ► pp.28–51

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Reframing the linguistic to analyze the landscape

The role of metaphor elicitation for the critical interpretation of multimodal advertising media

 | University of British Columbia
Published online: 7 March 2019
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https://doi.org/10.1075/ll.18020.mic
Abstract
This article examines how eliciting metaphors from multimodal commercials can facilitate a critical interpretation of advertising media, which is ubiquitous in the LL and highly manipulative. Adolescent students, a population which is particularly vulnerable to advertising’s influence, utilized the analytic tool of metaphor elicitation to abstract away from the vast multimodal information that characterizes commercials, and simplify this information in the linguistic formulation of metaphor (e.g., super-pharm is a circus). The contrived link between the given brand (e.g., Super-Pharm pharmaceutical stores) and its metaphorically-attached source domain (e.g., circus) was emphasized to increase awareness of how the commercial was structured to deceive consumers. The study evaluated the intervention using a quasi-experimental design, showing that metaphor elicitation facilitated the knowledge, critical attitudes, and responsible behavioral inclinations of participants concerning advertising media. The study suggests that using the linguistic formulation of metaphor can help adolescents critically interpret the increasingly-deceptive commercial landscape.
תקציר
מאמר זה בוחן כיצד ניתוח מטאפורות (חילוץ המבנה הלשוני שלהן) מפרסומות רב-אופניות יכול לסייע לפרשנות ביקורתית של מדיה פרסומית, שמהווה חלק דומיננטי (ומניפולטיבי במיוחד) מהנוף הלשוני. תלמידים בגילאי נוער, שמהווים אוכלוסייה פגיעה במיוחד להשפעה של מדיה פרסומית, התבקשו להשתמש בכלי האנליטי של ניתוח מטאפורות כאמצעי להפשטה ולמיקוד של מידע רב-אופני ומפוזר – המאפיין פרסומות בדרך-כלל – וניסוחו במבנה הלשוני של המטאפורה (למשל, סופר-פארם הוא קרקס). הקשר המלאכותי והאבסורדי בין המוצר (למשל, מותג החנויות סופר-פארם) לבין התחום המושגי השונה לחלוטין שהוצמד אליו באופן מטאפורי (למשל, קרקס) הודגש על מנת להעלות את המודעות לדרכים בהן הפרסומת בנויה כדי להטעות צרכנים. המחקר העריך את ההתערבות באמצעות מערך קוואזי-ניסויי, והראה כי ניתוח מטאפורות סייע לידע, לעמדות ביקורתיות, ולנטיות התנהגותיות אחראיות של המשתתפים ביחס למדיה פרסומית. המחקר מציע כי שימוש במבנה הלשוני של המטאפורה יכול לסייע לבני נוער לפרש באופן ביקורתי את הנוף הפרסומי.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Theoretical background
    • 2.1Expanding the linguistic landscape: Multimodality, advertising, and education
    • 2.2Critical literacy, media literacy, and advertising literacy
    • 2.3Why metaphor?
  • 3.Methods
    • 3.1Study design and materials
    • 3.2Population
    • 3.3Research variables
      • Attitudinal advertising literacy
    • 3.4Analysis
  • 4.Findings
  • 5.Discussion
    • 5.1The potential of advertising literacy education: Knowledge, attitudes, and behavior
    • 5.2The importance of metaphor for the critical interpretation of commodified landscape
  • 6.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
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