Controlling time is power: an analysis of filmic metaphors in the lotus advertisement “shine”

Abstract

According to Lakoff and Johnson (1980), a metaphor is a tool which helps us understand one conceptual domain in terms of another conceptual domain. Initially, metaphors were explored solely verbally; however, later on, a great bulk of research proved that they could also be examined from other perspectives. For instance, it is likely to find research devoted to analyze metaphors in still pictures (Forceville, 2016b), in newspaper cartoons (El-Refaie, 2003), or even in TV commercials (Forceville, 2007). The main aim of the present paper is to demonstrate that brands make use of metaphors in their TV advertisements. In order to carry out with this investigation, a TV commercial from a famous brand is going to be analyzed with the application of FilMip (Filmic Metaphor Identification Procedure, Bort-Mir in prep.). FilMip is an analytical method which is divided into seven different steps that allow us to identify filmic metaphors from an empirical point of view. Therefore, not only the present method is going to be introduced, but also some suggestions to enlarge the research in order to cover other gaps of research is going to be appointed.