The Role of Text in the Identification of Visual Metaphor in Advertising

Abstract

In the last decades visual metaphor has been considerably researched, particularly in advertising. Several methods have been developed for the identification and analysis of visual metaphor (e.g. Forceville, 1996, Forceville, 2008, Phillips, 2003, Gkiouzepas and Hogg, 2011). Identifying the metaphorical meaning of the image on the basis of formal and conceptual categories is quite straightforward in these methods. In this paper we provide an insight into the role of text in identifying visual metaphor in ads through the quantitative analysis of a small sample of online ads. Although the image may stand out as a separate unit, the verbal element often helps to determine the metaphoricity of the image. The image-text interaction has been discussed by several scholars such as Barthes (1977) and Kress and van Leeuwen (2006). Whereas Barthes sees the relationship in terms of dependence of the image on the text, Kress and van Leeuwen claim that they are connected but independent. Our study leads us to postulate a metaphoricity scale of the image on the basis of its relationship with the text.