Document Type : Research Paper
Authors
1
Department of linguistics, Faculty of Language and humanities, Bu-Ali Sina University, Hamedan, Iran.
2
PhD in General Linguistics, Department of English Language and Linguistics, Faculty of Literature and Languages, Bu Ali Sina University
Abstract
Introduction
Humans communicate with others by using language. they use words and sentences to build a bridge to the outside world and convey to others what is happening in their mind. A creative metaphor is a novel linguistic concept that captures the listener's attention. These metaphors are also known as poetic metaphors, literary metaphors, original metaphors. Linguists define metaphor as a cognitive mechanism in which one experiential domain is relatively mapped onto another experiential domain (Lakoffof & Kovecses, 1987). In the meantime, one of the criticisms of conceptual metaphor theory is that it defines metaphors as static conceptual structures that consist of mappings between the source domain and the target domain (Kovecses, 2006). Usually, one of the domains is more objective than the other, which is known as the origin domain. The other domain, which is more abstract and mapping is done on it, is called the destination domain. The relationship between two domains is called mapping and it shows which element of each domain has similarities for communication with the element of the other domain. If this definition is correct, this view cannot easily explain the creativity used in novel metaphors. In this way, what distinguishes this research from other researches is the attention to the concept of new metaphors and the influential elements of the construction of these factors in the field of advertising. We are now in a position to discuss two important issues about metaphorical creativity. First, one can ask what the sources of metaphorical creativity are, and secondly, one can examine the extent of the influence of contextual factors in the production of metaphorical creativity.
Materials and methods
Metaphorical creativity in discourse can include different types. This creativity is inferred by the context in which metaphorical conceptualization takes place. This type of creativity has not been systematically studied in the cognitive linguistic literature on metaphor. Kovecses considers the creativity that is based on the context of metaphorical conceptualization as the creativity caused by the context (Kovecses, 2023). A particular metaphorical expression is creativity due to context due to the influence of some aspects of discourse. Specifically, five such contextual aspects or factors seem to produce unconventional and original metaphors: 1) the linguistic context itself, 2) the main elements participating in the discourse, 3) the physical environment, 4) the social environment, and 5) the context environment. Cultural.
The concepts that participate in the discourse may give rise to conventional or unconventional linguistic metaphors. The author states that metaphorical expressions can be chosen based on the linguistic context, that is, when we need a word or phrase to express a specific meaning, the concepts that surround the conceptual space influence our choice. In other cases, it seems that it is our knowledge about the elements involved in the discourse that plays a role in the choice of human metaphors in real discourse. The main elements of the participant in the discourse are the speaker, the listener and the topic that is being talked about. The physical environment may also influence the selection and use of specific metaphors in discourse. The physical environment includes, among other things, the physical events and their consequences that constitute or are part of the environment. When we use metaphors, we also use them in a social context. Community means a group of related people who live together in a certain area and are related to each other. In this way, factors such as power, relationships and finally social roles are addressed in the social context. Social context can be very variable. This can include anything from the social relations that exist between the participants in the discourse through the gender roles of the participants to the various social occasions in which the discourse takes place. When we have to deal with social roles, social relations and social power, it is easy to distinguish the social environment from the cultural context. However, the social environment is not clearly distinguishable from what the author considers the "cultural context" in many other cases. The situation he describes in this section is probably more cultural than social because it lacks direct social elements and characteristics such as power, relationships, and roles. In other words, sometimes we need the cultural context in the discourse to understand a completely original metaphor. Culture refers to a set of beliefs, practices, learned behavior and moral values that are passed down from generation to generation. Paying attention to people's religious beliefs and applying these values shows the influence of cultural context in metaphorical concepts.
Certainly, one of the fields in which innovative and creative metaphors are used is the field of advertising. Advertising is a form of communication that operates with goals and strategies and leads to various types of effects on consumer thoughts, feelings, and actions. The deviation of metaphors from their conventional usage makes them an attractive tool to attract consumers' attention. Forceville believes that metaphor in advertising focuses on continuous creativity and thereby creates a positive impression on the customer towards the product( Forcevile, 2008). This issue also shows the importance of the data that is examined. In this way, 200 data needed for the study were obtained from the website https://mediaarshiv.com/fa/?current=view&Sel=3150 from 2013. These 200 numbers were equal to the number of data selected from advertisements by experts in the field of advertisements.
Result and discussion
Linguistic context refers to the context within the discourse, that is, the relationship between the words, phrases, sentences and even paragraphs (Song, 2010). It is predominantly observed in most advertising messages. Linguistic context is formed by different conceptual frameworks and symbolic units that represent and activate the frameworks. Metaphors, in the way they are in examples, are placed in a flow of frames and words at appropriate points. Therefore, the most common context in which metaphorical expressions are used is the linguistic context. More precisely, the frames that occur further provide a slot into which linguistic metaphors can be inserted. This flow of discourse can be thought of as a line of consecutive frames that are not necessarily chronologically ordered, but as frames that have nested frames within them.
In most cases, the metaphor was selected and elaborated as a result of what the conceptualizer knows about the topic.It is also possible to find cases where the selection of a metaphor depends on knowledge that the conceptualizer has about himself or herself. What is especially intriguing about such cases is that the author’s knowledge about him- or herself does not need to be conscious.
Discourses do not happen in a vacuum. There are three important types of situations which include physical environment, social environment and cultural context. This means that the speaker and the listener communicate with each other about a topic in a specific physical, social and cultural context. Furthermore, as mentioned above, each of these contextual factors occurs in different distinct ways and can influence each other. Finally, all factors can simultaneously affect the use of metaphors in discourse, or they can do so in different combinations. We can imagine these three factors as frameworks that are placed in each other, so that the physical environment as the outermost framework includes the social framework, which also includes the cultural framework, where the speaker, the listener, and the topic are located within. The discourse flow diagram is also the innermost framework. These contextual factors can, alone or in combination, create the use of conventional or unconventional metaphorical expressions in discourse.
Table 1:The frequency of the discussed factors
Conclusion
Finally, the obtained results showed that the topic of the advertisement was shown metaphorically in most cases. Also, the use of linguistic context has been one of the other contextual factors that can be seen abundantly in advertisements. In view of such phenomena, it can be said that advertising language is different from the language used, for example, in politics, journalism, literature, science, etc., because it "has a very precise material goal". In a very limited time and space, in a highly competitive market, the advertiser is obliged to bring innovative and surprising elements to the product and present the language in a different way to satisfy and attract the customer's needs. Paying attention to these points that the time of advertising messages is very short and the producers of these advertisements try to choose the most productive messages during this period that have the greatest impact on the audience. In the field of advertising, this amount of influence is created through the metaphors used, the images and the type of words that are chosen. These background factors are not alone and always creating a certain level of influence as a combination of factors. In the continuation of the studies of this research, the impact of these background factors in other fields such as politics, economics, and literature can be investigated.
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