Conceptual Metaphors in still pictures, a theoretical review

Abstract

Metaphors in antiquity were considered an element of decoration in poetry and rhetorical discourse, but in recent decades metaphors have become an element more closer to thought than language. Metaphor of thought or conceptual metaphor is a figurative comparison in which an idea (or conceptual domain) is understood in terms of another conceptual domain (Pascual & Silvestre-López, 2015). The main objective of the present study is to show how conceptual metaphors function, how they are classified, and how our previous social and cultural experiences are an important factor in their understanding. To achieve our goal, we focus our attention to the publication of the book Metaphors We Live By (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980), which is considered the starting point of the investigation of conceptual metaphors. In addition, following the research base of verbal metaphors, we will also focus our attention on visual metaphors, taking the study of visual metaphors in the billboards as a reference (Forceville, 1996), which have had a growing interest since the 1990s . Therefore, we also deal with the classification of visual metaphors according to Forceville (2007), and how social and cultural factors help us to interpret their meaning (Bulmer & Buchanan-Oliver, 2004) . In my opinion, it seems quite obvious that both conceptual metaphors and visual metaphors can not be understood without being a part of thought, because in the emergence of these metaphors there is a close relationship with social and cultural factors, beliefs and previous experiences that help us to understand the meaning of these metaphors. However, although the world today is quite globalized, there are small differences that can lead to a misunderstanding. On the other hand, I believe that visual metaphors are replacing verbal forms in ads because we live in a stressful way with no time to stop and read ads, and using visual metaphors allows us to capture the message of the visual metaphor at a simple glance.