Conceptual metaphors - “useful tool” in advertising slogans

Abstract

The paper aims to investigate the use of conceptual metaphors in advertising slogans and their linguistic impacts. Linguistic analysis and statistics methods are used on the basis of the research data consisting of 400 advertising slogans from 12 product categories to identify the types and frequency of metaphors in these slogans while 5-scale questionnaires are employed to investigate the linguistic impacts of metaphors. Research findings reveal that metaphors are used extensively in advertising slogans and bring positive impacts as they make slogans more impressive, stimulate readers’ thinking and emotion, and have cultural relevance. Based on the research findings, some proposals are made to help design more effectively advertising slogans.