In recent years, Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) has moved beyond language to explore how visual and multimodal media convey metaphor. In this framework, metaphor is understood as the cognitive process of understanding one thing in terms of another. Metaphors like love is a journey are not just linguistic expressions but deeply rooted cognitive structures that shape our understanding. Metonymy—where one thing stands in for another within the same conceptual domain (like the crown for the monarchy)—has received similar attention. But what happens when metaphor and metonymy interact in the visual media? And how do these interactions differ across cultures?

In our study, we explored how visual advertisements employ metaphor and metonymy—two core cognitive tools—for persuasive and often culturally nuanced meaning-making (Kashanizadeh & Forceville, 2020). Using a corpus of Iranian and Dutch print ads, we examined how these tropes interact visually and multimodally, building on both Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980) and Conceptual Metonymy Theory (Langacker, 1993; Radden and Kövecses, 1999). Our work expands on Ruiz de Mendoza & Díez’s typology (2000) of metaphor-metonymy interaction—first developed for verbal language—and adapts it to the visual realm of advertising.

Why Ads?

Print ads are fertile ground for figurative meaning. They are designed to be fast, persuasive, and memorable. Because they often combine text and image, they are inherently multimodal. Advertisers rely heavily on cultural cues and shared knowledge to compress complex messages into one striking image or slogan. And they frequently use metaphor and metonymy to do so.

For example, a Dutch ad for a pet-sitting service shows a small dog being chased by a shark, suggesting: taking your pet abroad is dangerous; better leave them home. Here, the shark metonymically stands for danger, and the dog metonymically represents all pets. 

In an Iranian ad for toothpaste, a stripe of toothpaste is shaped like a crescent moon—a symbol of Ramadan. The image and the accompanying text (“You are God’s guest”) cue viewers to connect the product to religious devotion and cultural rituals. The crescent moon metonymically evokes Ramadan, while the ad invites consumers to align personal hygiene with religious observance.

Metaphtonymy: When Metaphor and Metonymy Interact

Some of the most compelling ads use both metaphor and metonymy at once. For example, a Dutch ad for a barbershop shows a bear with a well-trimmed mustache. The tagline: “Tame the Beast.” Here, the metaphor is untamed man = wild animal, and the metonymy is bear = beast. To decode the message, viewers must first expand “bear” to “beast” (a category metonymy), then map that beast onto an unshaven man. The humor and creativity lie in this layered figurative thinking.

We identified four patterns of interaction between metaphor and metonymy, all of which can be found in visual ads: metonymic expansion of a metaphoric source, metonymic expansion of a metaphoric target, metonymic reduction of a metaphoric source, and metonymic reduction of a metaphoric target. These patterns capture how metaphor and metonymy can reinforce or transform each other in visual communication. For each category, we provided illustrative visual examples from Iranian and Dutch advertisements to demonstrate how these interactions function in practice.

These ads require viewers to activate both metaphorical and metonymic reasoning—drawing on cultural knowledge and symbolic associations. They don’t just show; they ask the viewer to think.

The Role of Culture 

Cultural knowledge is essential to understanding these multimodal messages. While the shark-as-danger metaphor may be widely understood, others—like the goldfish as a symbol of Nowruz (Persian New Year)—are culturally specific. A Dutch viewer might not immediately grasp the significance of a goldfish in an Iranian New Year ad, just as an Iranian viewer may miss a reference to Van Gogh in a Dutch advertisement for the Van Gogh Museum’s café, where a broken cup handle visually evokes the artist’s severed ear.

These cultural layers are not barriers; they are part of the richness of multimodal metaphor. The more background knowledge the viewer brings, the more rewarding the interpretation.

Why It Matters

Understanding how metaphor and metonymy interact in advertising reveals the cognitive sophistication of seemingly simple media messages. It also shows how figurative meaning travels across modes (text, image, gesture) and across cultures. For advertisers, this is a powerful tool. For scholars, it offers a way to track how concepts like identity, tradition, or innovation are leveraged.

In a world of global media, multimodal metaphor is more than a stylistic device —it is a key to cross-cultural communication. And metonymy, often overlooked, plays a critical supporting role. By unpacking these figurative strategies, we gain insight into not just how media persuade, but how audiences engage with and decode figurative messages.

References:

Kashanizadeh, Z., & Forceville, C. (2020). Visual and multimodal interaction of metaphor and metonymy: A study of Iranian and Dutch print advertisements. Cognitive Linguistic Studies, 7(1), 78-110.

Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors we live by. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Langacker, R. (1993). Reference-point construction. Cognitive Linguistics, 4(1), 1-38.

Radden, G., & Kövecses, Z. (1999). Towards a theory of metonymy. In K. -U. Panther & G. Radden (Eds.), Metonymy in language and thought (pp. 17-59). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Ruiz de Mendoza, F., & Díez, O. (2002). Patterns of conceptual interaction. In R. Dirven & R. Pörings (Eds.), Metaphor and metonymy in comparison and contrast (pp. 489–532). Berlin: Mouton de

Gruyter.