Multimodal Metaphor

Metaphor pervades discourse and may govern how we think and act. But most studies only discuss its verbal varieties. This book examines metaphors drawing on combinations of visuals, language, gestures, sound and music. It investigates texts including advertising, political cartoons, comics, film, songs and oral communication.

"Metaphor studies" has over the past 30 years become a discipline in its own right, mainly because of the cognitive linguistic claim that metaphors characterize thought, not just language. But most metaphor scholars hitherto focus exclusively on its purely verbal expressions. Since both persuasive and narrative discourses in contemporary society increasingly draw on modalities other than language alone, sustained research into a broader range of manifestations of metaphor is imperative. This volume is the first book-length study to investigate multimodal occurrences of metaphor, and is of interest to scholars interested in metaphor as well as in multimodal discourse. Each chapter investigates metaphors whose identification and interpretation depend on the co-presence of at least two of the following modalities: language, visuals, gestures, sound, music. On the basis of case studies in a variety of discourse genres (advertising, cartoons, films, comics, conversation, music, amply represented in photographs, logos, drawings, film stills, and musical scores), the contributors demonstrate that, and how, metaphor can occur multimodally, providing ideas and methodological angles enabling further theorizing and testing in this rapidly expanding field. Covering creative as well as conceptual metaphors, and where appropriate evaluating cultural factors governing metaphor interpretation, the contributors provide a wealth of material for studying the conceptual and rhetorical force of metaphor in contemporary society.

"Allein durch die Abdeckung des weitgespannten Phänomenbereichs [...] ist der Bd. vor allem auch für die Literatur- und Kulturwissenschaft äußerst interessant ‒und lesenswert."
Thomas Wägenbauer in: Germanistik 3/4/2010