D.

van Sas
10851631
Take Home Exam 1
Multimodal Metaphor
Charles Forceville
01-03-2015
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:
a.
What are the denotative aspects and connotative aspects of the various linguistic and nonlinguistic messages?
b.
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?
c.
In what respects, if any, would an analysis by Unsworth and Clirigh be different from a
Barthesian one?
d.
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 punchline. 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 rigid When 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:

a.

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?

a.

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.

a.

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).

a.

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

a.

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).
a.
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 textinternal (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:

Target

Source

WORLD

IS

CLOCK

A complex of physical, natural, social -------------- A complex of connected parts in a machine

and 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.

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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

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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

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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.

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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
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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.

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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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