A Study on Multimodal Metaphor in Coca - Cola and Pepsi’ Television Commercials

Abstract

There is no shadow of doubt that human beings have been employing metaphor in almost all aspects of life even though they are sometimes unaware of the fact. And the professional world of scholars has already taken the notion of metaphor into account. Especially after the publication of the work named Metaphors We Live By in 1980 by Lakoff and Johnson, the notion of metaphor was exploited conceptually and seemed to have more practical applications. The research was done to investigate how multimodal metaphor has been used in Coca- Cola and Pepsi’ television commercials accompanied by a comparison between two companies. The present study includes four main chapters: literature review, methodology, findings and discussion, and conclusions. Findings show that both brands take full advantage of visual, verbal and sonic modes, despite different degrees, to represent groups of metaphorical themes. Similar and different aspects in their usage of multimodal metaphor were also disclosed in the study.