Paula Pérez-Sobrino starts EMMA project
On October 5, 2015, dr. Paula Pérez-Sobrino will start her Marie Curie project: EMMA.
EMMA (European Multimodal Metaphor in Advertising) aims to redress the combination of metaphor and metonymy in multimodal settings (such as advertising) by testing figurative complexity and emotions, the impact of these on comprehension, accuracy of interpretation and advertising effectiveness. This project involves an interdisciplinary study that combines cognitive and physiological psychology with linguistic and marketing interpretations. A mixed-methods approach of lab experiments and qualitative inquiry will assess the speed and depth of comprehension, the perceived appeal, and the physiological effect of static and video advertisements on participants from three linguistic and cultural backgrounds (English, Spanish, and Chinese). If advertisers, charities and NGOs target, and are sensitive to, linguistic and cultural differences in metaphors, local and international communities can benefit from specific, appropriate and ethical advertising.
This project is based at the University of Birmingham and will run for two years.
People
- Paula Pérez-Sobrino (Research Fellow, Department of English Language and Applied Linguistics): expertise on interactional patterns between multimodal metaphor and metonymy.
- Jeannette Littlemore (Principal Investigator, Department of English Language and Applied Linguistics): expertise on metaphor, cross-linguistic variation and linguistic analysis.
- David Houghton (Co-Investigator, Department of Marketing, Birmingham Business School): expertise on marketing, viralisation, and experimental experience.
Partner institutions
Academic
- Metaphor Lab at the University of Amsterdam & Free University of Amsterdam, (Amsterdam, The Netherlands): Prof Gerard Steen and Dr Charles Forceville will provide their expertise in multimodal metaphor identification analysis. Likewise, EMMA will establish a connection with Marianna Bolognesi (Marie Curie fellow), who coordinates the annotation of Vismet, the first broad scale corpus of visual metaphors) in order to coordinate the joint organisation of workshops, conference panels, and training sessions. The Metaphor Lab will provide access to data and contact with people working in advertising both in the public and private.
- University of Nottingham-Ningbo (Ningbo, China): Dr Margaret Dowens will bring her expertise on psyhcolinguistics and will provide facilities for the testing Chinese participants.
- University of La Rioja (Logroño, Spain): Prof. Ruiz de Mendoza and Dr. Lorena Pérez Hernández will assess the project on theoretical issues. Additionally, they will provide facilities for the testing Chinese participants.
Non-academic
EMMA will get real by collaborating with the private sector.
Three advertising companies will posit real world problems and needs. The aim beneath these collaborations is to achieve a more down-to-earth, skilled, and business-oriented analysis and consideration of the data.
- Publicis Chemistry London (http://www.publicischemistry.com/)
- VCCP Spain (http://www.vccp.es/)
- Anuncios.com (http://www.anuncios.com/)