D. van Sas10851631Take Home Exam 1Multimodal MetaphorCharles Forceville01-03-2015

Task 1. Texts to be used: Barthes (1964), Pateman (1983), Unsworth and Clrigh (2009), Forceville (1996: H. 4). Find a static (i.e., non-moving) representation that consists of the two modes/modalities: language and image(s). Include [a link to] the representation with the task. Discuss this representation, taking into account the following questions:1. What are the denotative aspects and connotative aspects of the various linguistic and non-linguistic messages?1. Would you discuss the relationship between the messages in the different modes in terms of anchoring or relaying (Barthes)? If so, how is this achieved? If you think the relation is one of anchoring, what anchors what? If neither of these Barthesian concepts apply, why is this so?1. In what respects, if any, would an analysis by Unsworth and Clirigh be different from a Barthesian one?1. To what genre does the representation discussed belong? Show, using Patemans insights, how the genre-attribution both steers and constrains the potential/possible interpretations. Think of a genre in which the possible interpretation of this representation would strongly or marginally change.

First thing that should be noted when considering the linguistic messages, is that they are separated from each other. There are four, possibly five, instances of linguistic communication spatially separated on the poster. The first (no hierarchical order intended) reads Michael Jackson and denotes a name, in all probability a first and last name. The second states A Quercus Book which denotes the concept book and as well as a publisher's name Quercus. Unless the word quercus, the Latin family name for oak tree, makes grammatically sense in combination with the word book, I take it to be a proper noun. Over 200 stories for those with no time to waste conveys the content of the book that is advertised here. Thus the sentence conveys that what can be found in the book are 200 stories that according to the makers or advertisers, are short and for people with little time on their hands. The fourth group of linguistic text is featured on the cover of the advertised book, which consists of a title Life in Five Seconds and the repetition of the subtitle Over 200 Stories for Those with No Time to Waste. As it is a short and somewhat suggestive title the denotative aspect consists of a juxtaposition between Life and five seconds, where life to most people denotes a long period of time and five seconds a short period of time, in particular in comparison to Life. The bare minimum of meaning denoted by the drawn figures are three vertically standing persons and one lying down or horizontally floating. Additionally three horizontal arrows pointing to the right separate the four drawings. Even the identification of the gender would probably entail knowing the iconic sign for man as we find them in public places, for example a public toilet. I am not entirely convinced this is a universal knowledge. The connotative aspects in this advertisement are difficult to disentangle. The words Michael Jackson, if it were to make any kind of sense beyond the denotative, refers to the pop star Michael Jackson. As Michael Jackson was a pop star he enjoyed quite a lot of media coverage and as a result the connotations that can be elicited from his persona are boundless. Thus some connotations are pop star, dancer, singer, alleged paedophilia, African American, Neverland Ranch etcetera. As for the pictorial elements some connotative elements consist of iconicity, narrative, change, man, toilets, public places, and probably both advertisement as well as art. The relationship between the different modes can be discussed in terms of both anchoring and relaying, however this is theoretically only helpful up to a point (Barthes 28). It doesn't explain the reciprocity between image and language. The words Michael Jackson in the simplest terms identify the person in the image. And as such four figures are anchored to represent only the one person, namely Michael Jackson. The titles of the book as well as its subtitle suggest that the arrows should be read as a progression. As Barthes claims all these elements are already present in the image, the manner in which they can be understood are anchored by the linguistic elements and as such made salient over others (29). Because the figure represents a single person the arrows can be explained as an action, passing of time. Furthermore Life in five seconds also connotes a narrative, albeit an abbreviated version. It is precisely of this anchoring function of language, the way it guides the interpretation of the arrows as a sequence that the relaying function of language comes to the fore (Barthes 30). One way of understanding the different shading of the iconic figures is by means of relay. Although strictly speaking the shading itself, taken as a form of progression goes from dark to light, the words Michael Jackson specify this progression from dark to light. From the combination of Michael Jackson and the four figures progressing from light to dark we understand that it refers to Michael Jackson's skin colour. His skin colour became increasingly lighter as his life progressed. This aspect of the advertisement is difficult to theoretically disentangle. On the one hand there is strictly speaking a sequence of figures (if one accepts the arrows as representing change) that changes from dark to lighter at each step. Thus Michael Jackson anchors in the sense that it merely points to this progression already present in the image. Yet the iconic status of the image and the graphic nature of the image utilises the linguistic message to move beyond what is literally denoted. Furthermore the words Michael Jackson do not literally denote a progression from black to white, this meaning can only be produced in the combination between text and image and it is difficult if not impossible to determine whether the text anchors/relays the image or whether the image anchors/relays the linguistic message. Michael Jacksons star persona is riddled with connotations and whether the images guide us to select his changing skin colour as the connotation or whether the term Michael Jackson helps us recognise that which is depicted as a persons skin colour changing is difficult to determine. Barthes does not explicitly acknowledge such reciprocity. Unsworth and Clrighs method of analysis would at the least allow for this reciprocity to come to the fore. Perhaps it will not solve anything in terms of hierarchies or firsts, but they also acknowledge that reciprocity prevents such hierarchies. Because of the iconic quality of the images many of the epistemological commitment features of the visual mode as described by Unsworth and Clrigh are cancelled, while the connotations of the star Michael Jackson assumes the role of the epistemological commitment normally associated with the visual mode (153-154). In other words here there occurs a role reversal. Even though Michael Jackson and Life in Five Seconds connote sequential relations, it is strictly speaking found in the image. There is no need for the images to visualize the qualities (shape, colour, texture) of the identified participant, because to most the words Michael Jackson are sufficient to do so (Unsworth and Clrigh 156). Moreover the iconicity of the images work with minimum of distinctive features that can be understood as qualifying and visualising Michael Jackson. The verbal components Michael Jackson and Life in Five Seconds lack the verbs that would indicate the semantic relation of process that Unsworth and Clrigh identify as part of the linguistic mode of epistemological commitment (156).The advertisement seems sparse and simple, implicitly creating a link between the advertisement of the book and the genre of the book itself. Here we find an implicit acknowledgement of the book's own embedding within a media/image saturated world, since the stylistic properties of the books miniature posters aim for attention, brevity and a quick punch-line. It is significant that, while advertised as conveying histories of the world in brief images, these images can almost exclusively be understood properly when these histories were already a part of the audience's cultural schemata. Instead of spreading new knowledge it can at most remind us of something anew and perhaps at most expose some relationships heretofore missed or unthought of. Its genre as an advertisement is limiting in that sense. It is difficult imagining this poster in a different genre. The graphic and stylistic layout of the book's content is of the type that can be associated with the single page/frame advertisement genre itself. Because of the initial association with the advertisement genre, the book's relationship with the advertisement becomes one of cross-fertilisation or reciprocity. The poster as it is encountered could be in either a magazine or as a poster on a billboard. As such the line Over 200 stories for those with no time to waste directly refers to people who come across advertisements such as the one in question, where brevity and limited space are often applicable, and extend this connotation to the book itself. Were the publisher's name left out it stops becoming branding and this reciprocity is less rigidWhen it is used as online video content one could imagine it carrying connotations of simple web-based content in keeping with Life in five seconds perhaps slightly more removed from the advertising genre and style. However bearing in mind that the Internet's genre demarcations are becoming increasingly blurred.

TASK 3:

Texts to be used: Black 1977, Forceville 1996, chapter 2. Find a real-life, short verbal passage (please include it and provide a source) containing a metaphor as defined by Black and Forceville but not already given in an A is B format. Discuss and reflect on this metaphor, dealing at least with the following questions:

1. To what conceptual A is B format can the metaphor be traced? Is it evident how the A and B are to be labelled or is there more than one possibility?

1. What is the target (primary subject, tenor, topic) and what is the source (secondary subject, vehicle) of the metaphor? How do you know that this it is not the other way round? Mention elements (both denotative and connotative) that can be found in the domain of the target and source, respectively.

1. Interpret the metaphor in terms of the features/properties that must/can be mapped from source to target. Are there any mappings that are potentially controversial between different interpreters? What role is played by text-internal and text-external context (think of genre!) in the interpretation of the metaphor? Create a scheme for the mapping as in Forceville (1996: 11).

1. Is the metaphor emphatic? resonant? strong? Why (not)?

1. Create an alternative for your metaphor, retaining the original target but imagining a novel source. Discuss it briefly.

There was a small stand of trees nearby, and from it you could hear the mechanical cry of a bird that sounded as if it were winding a spring. We called it the wind-up bird. Kumiko gave it the name. We didn't know what it was really called or what it looked like, but that didn't bother the wind-up bird. Every day it would come to the stand of trees in our neighborhood and wind the spring of our quiet little world (Murakami 9).1. The conceptual format of the metaphor above can be traced to various forms that differ in specificity rather than in radical deviation, as I will explain later. Generally speaking it pertains to a mechanism metaphor, which describes the target in terms of mechanical device or process. In the present example it could thus be traced to WORLD IS MECHANISM. The target is as such the world (a very broad concept) and the source can be further specified from mechanism to a mechanism that needs winding. The verb to wind (-up) does not sit well with the target world and thus it seems this problem has to be solved in the terms of experiencing the world in a different capacity than the literal meaning. As such it becomes clear that the world is target rather than source. In other words the focus the salient word or expression, whose occurrence in the literal frame invests the utterance with metaphorical force, is wind the spring as a world does not literally consist of mechanical parts such as a spring, not to mention a bird winding it (Black 439). The caveat in deciding on the conceptual format or identifying the target and source subject lies in the given that this excerpt is quoted from a larger piece of literary work. Although it is presented as a more or less unified piece of text it undoubtedly will benefit from an analysis of the full novel. Particularly since the metaphor employed by the author is thematic for the whole novel, while remaining a little obscure nonetheless. Black argues that as much of the relevant verbal context or the non-verbal setting should be quoted for an adequate grasp of the actual or imputed speaker's meaning, however the conceptual metaphor it employs is a familiar one it should therefore be possible to approximate the meaning that the perceiver in a particular context understands (Black 437). The world is of course a very broad concept and perhaps a little abstract in this instance and as a result its denotative and connotative elements are myriad. As Hanna Pulaczewska argues this metaphor pertains to an extended metaphor whose recipient domain is not confined to a particular class of physical phenomena but embraces the whole of natural phenomena (162). Moreover Pulaczewska is speaking from the context of scientific discourse, thus in the case of the above example the number of connotations is even greater. This shows how the employed metaphor can be both a means of making certain elements in the target domain salient and productive of new ways of perceiving the target. Some elements of the target domain that come to mind in denotative fashion are globe, round, environment, earth, people and way of living. Depending on the context some connotative elements that can be identified are complexity, threatened, wars, disasters, unitary system, centre of the universe or alternatively insignificant part of the universe and one could go on. In similar vein the source mechanism has a plethora of both denotative and connotative meanings. A mechanism can refer to a machine, or more specifically the arrangement of connected parts in a machine or a particular process by which something is achieved or comes about or when referring to people and the social it means a particular way of thinking, being or acting (The Free Dictionary). Connotatively it can also be understood as a rigid system, working a long the lines of cause and effect, and ideological oppression. However as a clock it denotes a mechanism with a specific function; keeping time or telling time. Of course in hindsight the concept of time (and history) is essential in thinking about the world, because time is the substance in which the world revolves.There are three contextual scales that should be taken into account. These consist of text-internal (the passage quoted), text-internal (full novel) and text-external in the context of genre and in the context of the authors thematic tropes. As a piece of fiction a novel always refers to a diegetic world, which may or may not work and revolve according to the physical laws of the actual world of the reader. Because the metaphor in fiction always refers to an alternate world it is possible to take some of the projections more literal than we would normally do. Also while the conceptual metaphor is old and worn out even, the literary contexts allows it to be explored anew within this context of an alternate world. From Haruki Murakamis oeuvre and in this novel specifically there are always strange forces abound that affect cause and effect relations in more or less convoluted ways. In other words there are actors, both literally and figuratively, that set events in motion or change the narrative events that are palpable in almost a literal sense; as if a hand sets a mechanism in motion. The figurative and literal quality of this metaphor is also captured in the passage itself. Initially the bird sounds as if it were winding a spring, but at the end of the passage it would wind the spring of our little world as if taken literally (Murakami 9). Schematically the mappable features would look like the table below:

TargetSource

WORLDISCLOCK

A complex of physical, natural, social --------------A complex of connected parts in a machineand cultural phenomena. x--------------Needs winding before movement is possible ------------ Needs winding before movement is possible x-------------- Time is discontinuous ------------- Time is discontinuous

As can be seen depending on the context, whether the metaphor is perceived only in this passage, or whether the metaphor is taken a theme for the whole novel and a physical force within the novel, these features are either mappable or not mappable. With regards to the above argument the metaphor can be regarded as both weak and strong. If the metaphor is taken a purely descriptive feature with the function of creating an atmosphere and detailed rendering of the world the implications of the metaphor are small (Black 440). There is no need to dwell on them other than grasping the nature of the noise the bird makes. Yet when it is considered as a thematic trope it is a strong metaphor. Its strength lies particularly in the manner in which it invites the reader to reconsider the metaphor-theme (conceptual metaphor) on which is based, the world as mechanism, in terms of the tension between the metaphoric and literal features. The metaphor connotes the mechanical features of the clock and this is important. If the sound of the bird would be likened to the sound of an alarm clock ringing, it would both eliminate the mechanics of the clock and the affordance of manipulation. Although it would still have a clock as a source it would not hark back to the WORLD IS MECHANISM conceptual metaphor and it would arguably become a weak metaphor.

Task 4. Texts to be used: Black (1977), Forceville (1996: H6) and Maalej (2001). Find two static (non-moving) representations that, according to Forcevilles definition, contain a phenomenon that must/can be construed as a pictorial metaphor. Analyse these, using the three criteria deemed crucial by Forceville (1996: 108). To which of the subtypes do your two examples belong? Or do they show characteristics of more than one subtype? Argue for the validity of your answer. What role, if any, is played by genre? Give, in the spirit of Maalej (2001), a real or invented example of a (sub)cultural situation or context in which the interpretation deviates from the one you originally provided. How does the new situation affect the analysis?

http://www.creativeadawards.com/makes-your-horses-purr/

The first representation is an advertisement for motor oil. Let's start off with identifying the two terms of the metaphor. The two terms of the conceptual metaphor can be identified as a horse and a cat, of which the horse is the target and the cat is the source. How does one know? Well there are several steps to take, before one can make this conclusion. Pictorially there is something not right with a horse playing with a ball of yarn, which is something we simply do not associate with horses, it is however a well-known cultural connotation associated with the concept cat. Moreover in order to conclusively infer that the horse is not a literal horse but rather a metonymy for an engine it can be argued that the linguistic pay-off as well as the advertised product are required to be present within the same representation. This also answers the question how the target and the source are differentiated, namely by the pictorial and verbal context. The car engine is signified by a horse, as in colloquial car talk the engine's power is expressed in the number of break-horse-power (bhp) and we know this by the anchoring of the verbal text as well as the actual product being advertised in the bottom-righthand- corner (Forceville Pictorial Metaphor 117).Thus more specifically the metaphor can be rendered as ENGINE IS HORSE BEHAVING LIKE A CAT. The most important feature that is projected from the source domain upon the target domain is the ability to purr. It is commonly accepted that when a cat purrs it is pleased. As a horse is not known to purr, act of purring is projected upon the horse and in extension upon the engine. Once the metonymy is recognised the purring makes more conclusively sense. Whilst purring is not something we directly associate with engines, they do produce sounds that, when running smoothly, should be uninterrupted, quiet, and monotonous, perhaps not unlike a cat that purrs. Connotatively a purring cat is perceived as a happy cat and this is projected upon the engine. With regards to the subtype of the pictorial metaphor the advertisement, this represents a metaphor with two pictorially present terms (MP2), in which both subjects are present pictorially or metonymically associated with the depiction (Forceville, Pictorial Metaphor 121). However there is one issue that remains. Because the ball of yarn only metonymically refers to cat and the horse ultimately metonymically refers to car engine it is the action of the cat that is crucial for the metaphor. Contextual factors are very important here. Going from ball of yarn to cat and then from purring cat to purring horse (engine) will be a great leap without the verbal context and advertisement's product that defines the genre for us. Also it does not show a hybrid single entity that characterises most MP2s (Forceville, Pictorial Metaphor 138).Apart from selling a product, what the ad does taken as a whole, context, verbal context and pictorial context; it transforms a verbal simile to a metaphor. Conventionally we would say that your engine purrs like a cat, yet the pay-off reads makes your horses purr. The former is a simile and the latter a metaphor. The pictorial metaphor is its equivalent, partly because the horse metonymically suggests engine, partly because of the absence of the cat. Perhaps assigning this advertisement to a subtype is difficult. The metaphorical aspects are separately depicted, but as the metaphor ultimately represents an action rather than an action that is mapped from source to target, the simile horse is like cat is untenable. Since both elements are present pictorially a MP2 comes to mind, but Charles Forceville describes this type of metaphor as a hybrid metaphor, which has the general characteristic of having a single gestalt (Forceville, Pictorial Metaphor 163). There is no sign of single gestalt, the two elements remain separated, and so the integrated metaphor is not applicable either. Arguably in transforming a simile to a metaphor, the advertisement problematises categorisation, at least within the categories Forceville has delineated.

http://www.creativeadawards.com/dirty-bomb/

Another example pertains to an advertisement commissioned by Unicef in a campaign to create awareness for the problem of polluted drinking water and the deaths of children as a consequence. It is an example of an integrated metaphor, a type of MP2 in which a unified object or gestalt is represented in its entirety in such a manner that it resembles another object or gestalt even without contextual clues (Forceville, Metaphor in Pictures 468). The pictorial element is water frozen in the action of a splash. To determine the two aspects of the metaphor it is important to recognise the shape of the splash. Although it is not completely dissimilar to a normal splash it has the shape of the iconic mushroom cloud associated with an atomic detonation. I propose that the metaphor found here is WATER IS ATOMIC BOMB. The verbal anchorage offers the solution to which element is the primary subject and which the secondary subject. As this advertisement is verbally construed as a campaign against the pollution of drinking water and especially against the deaths that the polluted drinking water causes among the world's population of children. Most if not all of the features that can be projected from the atomic bomb are related to death. However death by atomic bomb has a number of aspects. Historically it had caused a large number of deaths in an instant, yet the number of deaths related to radiation illness is possibly even greater. These two aspects are projected from the secondary subject to the primary subject: scale and accumulation. Pollution is often regarded as a process of accumulation and the damage it causes, is often described as slow violence. Despite the slowness in which pollution accumulates the consequences are widespread and severe, thus describing drinking water metaphorically as an atomic bomb bypasses the fact that pollution often goes unnoticed and the fact that the consequences for the affected population are for them often unavoidable, as water is a basic need for human life. It should be noted that both examples are targeted at a Western audience. It is conceivable that in non-Western cultures the power of engines are not expressed in terms of horse power or even that balls of yarn and playing cats are not a common knowledge. Arguably even in the context of the Western world, the first advertisement benefits hugely from the verbal pay-off, but even when makes your horses purr appears in the context of Mongolia, for example, their particular relationship with horses could render the relationship horses and cars antonymic rather metonymic. Similarly as the water in the second advertisement is represented as crystal clear, rather than polluted, it is of the utmost importance that the mushroom cloud should be recognised as such. While the mushroom cloud is iconic in our visual culture, the people strongly affected by polluted drinking water, as is the case in the communities living in approximate distance of the Ganges, its pollution is inconceivable because of the holy aspects of the Ganges. It is literally impossible for the Ganges to be polluted for it is a divine entity. Were this advertisement part of a campaign targeted at communities surrounding the Ganges, it would very well be possible that the mushroom cloud is not recognised or that it is even thought of as sacrilege.

Literature

Barthes, Roland. Rhetoric of the Image. The Responsibility of Forms. Ed. Roland Barthes. Oxford: Blackwell, 1986. 21-40.

Black, Max. More about Metaphor. Dialectica 31.3-4 (1977). 431-456.

Forceville, Charles. Pictorial Metaphor in Advertising. London: Routledge, 1996.--- Metaphor in Pictures and Multimodal Representations. The Cambridge Handbook of Metaphor and Thought. Ed. Raymond W. Gibbs, Jr. Cambridge: CUP, 2008. 462-482.

Murakami, Haruki. The Wind-up Bird Chronicle. Trans. Jay Rubin. New York: Vintage International, 1998.

Paluczewska, Hanna. Aspects of Metaphor in Physics: Examples and Case Studies. Tubingen: Niemeyer, 1999.

Unsworth, Len, and Chris Clrigh. Multimodality and Reading: The Construction of Meaning through Image-text Interaction. The Routledge Handbook of Multimodal Analysis. Eds. Carey Jewitt. London: Routledge, 2009. 151-163.

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