Visual Metaphors in Advertising: A Cognitive-Pragmatic Interface

Abstract

The article focuses on the analysis of the visual metaphors in advertising from a cognitive-pragmatic perspective using the method of conceptual blending theory, tools of inferential pragmatics, and visual design grammar. The aim of the article is to identify the cognitive-pragmatic interface of visual metaphor presented in commercial advertising of modern transnational brands from the point of view of metaphorical explicatures, implicatures in their connection with the stages and procedures of reconstructing the metaphorical meaning. It is found that visual metaphors are represented by three main types – juxtaposition, fusion, and replacement, which differ in the level of their explicitness depending on the representation of the source and target of the metaphor in the visual plane of advertising, their merging into one gestalt, or the absence of visualization of input spaces. In metaphors of juxtaposition and fusion types, the restoration and/or detailing of the source and target are carried out at the level of explicatures, establishing a connection between the presented objects. At the implicature level, information about the product characteristics, which are the goal of specific visual advertising, is restored, forming secondary signified – connotations (power, fantasy, stability) intended to create stable associations with the brand and its products. In the case of replacement, implicatures restore both the source and the target spaces, as well as the secondary signified. In all types of metaphors, implicature about the secondary signified is triggered by a violation of the maxim of quality of information through visual metaphorical means, combined with deviations from other maxims as the metaphor becomes more complex. The implicature is restored in the blend of the metaphor as a result of selecting attributes of the generic space with their refinement as the blend develops and elaborates, relying on verbal anchors and background information about the brand and its products.