A Critical Cognitive Study of Metaphor in TV Commercials in Iran: A Case of Recreation Centers

This is a critical-cognitive study of the various ways in which conceptual metaphor and related cognitive processes are exploited for persuasive purposes in recreational place advertising texts andaccompanying images. The focus is on the elaboration of conventional metaphors and their use as apersuasive basis, rather than on their mere identification, and although the textual content forms the starting point, significant attention is also paid to the interplay between text and image. To put itdifferently, the study attempts to find the answers to the following questions: 1) What specific features are mapped from the source domain to the target one to convey a specific meaning in TV Commercials of recreational place? 2) What factor(s) determine(s) the source domain there? 3) Howthe contextual, pragmatic and nonlinguistic factors affect the projection? The material consists ofmore than 30 TV recreational place commercials broadcasted from the state television of Iran in 2012 from among which three commercials were selected and analyzed based on Critical Metaphor Analysis (Charteris-Black, 2004). The results show TV commercials centered around a specificconceptual metaphor often rely on projecting positive features for their persuasive effect. This is also the case that the social- cultural context plays an important role in opting the source domain and highlighting its special elements. The results also confirm the essential role of pictorial context,characters and their behaviors involved in the commercial in easing the act of conveying the intended message. Moreover, the meaning of the color involved most as well as the name of the product or service affect the projection.