Visual Metaphtonymy in Automobile Femvertising

Sami Chatti

doi:10.18778/1731-7533.18.4.05

Authors

Sami Chatti University of Manouba, Tunisia

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18778/1731-7533.18.4.05

Keywords:

automobile femvertising, women driving, metaphor, metonymy, visual metaphtonymy

Abstract

In a 2017 landmark reform, Saudi authorities decided to lift the ban on women driving in this conservative society. In tribute to women's newly-gained freedom to drive, major automakers turned to Twitter to launch creative femvertising campaigns that vividly articulate the female empowering motto 'driving is feminine'. Building on the eloquence of visual rhetoric, which combines the communicative force of figurative language with the expressive potential of visual imagery, automobile advertisers resorted to visual metaphtonymy to efficiently target prospective female consumers. The selection of this visual compound, which emerges from the intricate interplay between metaphor and metonymy, allows for a dynamic interaction between the highlighting function of metonymy and the mapping role of metaphoric thought to establish informed parallels between femininity and automobility. Analysis of survey data on the likeability, complexity and effectiveness of a representative sample of four digital automobile advertisements asserts the role and value of visual metaphtontonymy in automobile femvertising.

Author Biography

Sami Chatti, University of Manouba, Tunisia

Dr. Sami Chatti is an Assistant Professor of Linguistics at the University of Manouba, Tunisia, and a certified translator in English, French and Arabic. He holds a Doctorate and a Master in English Linguistics from the University of Sorbonne Nouvelle, and obtained a second Master in translation from the ESIT School of Interpreters and Translators in Paris. His research interests include cognitive semantics, translation studies and corpus linguistics. He has recently published a book on the Semantics of English Causative Verbs (Paf, 2012), and contributed several articles to specialised journals in linguistics and translation.

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