The relevance of conceptual complexes for advertising

Abstract

This article aims to show that the array of inferences triggered in multimodal environments, such as adver-tising, can be steered and constrained by a finite set of cognitive operations (in this case, metaphor in interaction with metonymy). In this article I explore several meaning construction strategies in several examples of printed advertising, in which I analyze four specific issues: (1) How does the interplay be-tween the textual and the visual mode contribute to the identification of the metaphor/metonymy? (2) How do metaphor and metonymy interact? (3) How does this interaction cue the interpretation of the adver-tisement? And (4) how does this multimodal concep-tual complex reinforce and expand the communicative impact of the advertisement? These meaning con-struction processes in multimodal contexts are: me-tonymy, metonymic complex, metaphor, metaphton-ymy, and metaphoric amalgam. The conscious use of these mechanisms by the creative team can help advertisers to release more effective campaigns and to control the manner in their audiences interpret their messages; in turn, information scientists can analyse and represent the advertisements more effectively.