Abstract

It was on April 12th, 2015 that Hillary Clinton uploaded a presidential campaign advertisement on the Internet to inform citizens that she was to run for presidency in 2016. The two-minute video involves stories of varieties of groups, including the elderly, kindergarten children, entrepreneurs, housewives, Asian American graduates, homosexuals, blue-collar workers, etc. and strikes a chord among people alike. 

Metaphor, as a figure of speech, is ubiquitously used in our life. In videos, with the combination of different modes, metaphors are no longer confined to texts. Advertising designers employ metaphor nearly at a maximal level, providing a great number of research subjects for scholars. Presidential campaign advertisements, one of those types, share the characteristics.

The thesis focuses on the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s Getting Started via applying Charles Forceville’s Multimodal Metaphor and Lakoff & Johnson’s Conceptual Metaphor Theory. It firstly gives a synopsis of the advertisement, then elaborates the multimodal metaphors in the video based on different modes and the camera position has also been touched upon due to its indispensable role in creating different atmospheres. The interpretation of the campaign logo is written in a separate part of Chapter 4. 

The conclusions drawn in the research are listed below: (1) each story functions as the source domain in relative metaphor, and the target domain reflects the position, intention, direction and determination of the female candidate; (2) one significant element in the advertisement or even the campaign is the logo in blue, red and white, and the logo conveys a positive meaning, but some interpret it negatively and criticize it, due to its metaphorical meaning in a more profound way; (3) metaphors are prevalent in our daily life, and are what “we live by”; (4) a better understanding of multimodal metaphors and a vivid application of them can enhance the communication between advertising designers and the audience.

Keywords: Multimodal Metaphor, Conceptual Metaphor Theory, presidential campaign advertisement, Hillary Clinton, Getting Started.

Contents

Abstract

中文摘要

Chapter 1 Introduction-1

1.1 The background of the research-1

1.2 The significance and objective of the research-1

1.3 The organization of the thesis-2

Chapter 2 Literature Review-4

2.1. The studies of multimodal metaphor-4

2.1.1. The studies abroad-4

2.1.2. The studies at home-5

2.2 The studies on American presidential campaign ads-6

2.2.1 The studies of presidential campaign ads abroad-6

2.2.2 The studies of presidential campaign ads at home-6

Chapter 3 Theoretical Framework-8

3.1 Conceptual metaphor theory-8

3.1.1 The definition of conceptual metaphor-8

3.1.2 The classification of conceptual metaphor-8

3.2 Multimodal metaphor-9

3.2.1 The definition of multimodal metaphor-10

3.2.2 The features of multimodal metaphor-10

Chapter 4 Analysis and Discussion-12

4.1 Synopsis of Getting Started-12

4.2 Analysis of Getting Started-14

4.3 Analysis of the presidential campaign logo-23

Chapter 5 Conclusion-26

5.1 Major findings-26

5.2 Limitations of the study and suggestions for further studies-27

References-28

文献综述报告-31