Interaction of Multimodal Metaphor and Metonymy in Public Service Advertising: A Case Study

This paper provides an analysis of a public service advertising in terms of a metaphor: A SEAT BELT IS A FAMILY, a variant of the metaphor A CAR IS A LIVING ROOM. The analysis shows how aspects of metaphors and metonymies surface in various modes and how metaphor and metonymy interaction fulfils different cognitive and persuasive roles in a multimodal genre. This paper proposes that two domains are reversible in multimodal discourse; metonymy is more fundamental than metaphor and the former serves as the basis and motivation for the latter. Because of genric features of PSA, the “embodied” aspects of metaphors and metonymies need to be universally comprehensible.