Making cross-cultural meaning in five Chinese promotion clips: Metonymies and metaphors

2.1 Metonymy

Metonymy is a trope in which one concept is presented instead of another concept from the same semantic domain. Sometimes it is equated with “synecdoche,” in which the part stands for the whole (as in: “all hands on deck,” where the source “hands” stands for the target “sailors” to which the hands are attached), but in fact there are many other ways in which a source can metonymically cue a target. Lakoff and Johnson also mention producer for product (“he bought a Ford”), object used for user (“the sax had the flu today”), controller for controlled (“Napoleon lost at Waterloo”), institution for people responsible (“the Senate thinks abortion is immoral”), place for institution (“Wall Street is in a panic”), and place for event (“it’s been Grand Central Station here all day”) (1980: 38–39). Many scholars have since refined, adapted, and expanded these categories (e. g. Kövecses and Radden 1998; Barcelona 2000; Dirven and Pörings 2002; Ruiz de Mendoza 2000, 2007; Ruiz de Mendoza and Galera-Masegosa 2011; Littlemore 2015). In this paper, we will not be concerned with these refinements. Our aim is not to evaluate the relative merits of the various metonymy models proposed, but to convince scholars with no or little knowledge of cognitive linguistics approaches to metaphor and metonymy that these tropes provide useful tools for the analysis of commercial clips such as the ones under consideration here. In fact metaphor and metonymy interact, as Goossens (1990) was the first to emphasize by introducing the concept of “metaphtonymy” (see also e. g. Ruiz de Mendoza and Díez 2002; Mittelberg and Waugh 2009; Urios-Aparisi 2009; Pérez-Sobrino 2017; Kashanizadeh and Forceville forthcoming), and indeed often yet other tropes play a role. But rather than trying to integrate all these in one overarching model, we take the complex data of the five clips as a starting point, and examine how an awareness of metaphor, metonymy, and other tropes constitute recurrent practices of making sense.

For the purposes of this paper it therefore suffices to understand metonymy as a conceptual mechanism that can be characterized as follows:

1. A metonym consists of a source concept/structure, which via a cue in a communicative mode (language, visuals, music, sound, gesture …) allows the metonym’s addressee to infer the target concept/structure.

2. Source and target are, in the given context, part of the same conceptual domain.

3. The choice of metonymic source makes salient one or more aspects of the target that otherwise would not, or not as clearly, have been noticeable, and thereby makes accessible the target under a specific perspective. The highlighted aspect often has an evaluative dimension (Forceville 2009: 58, emphasis in original).

In addition it is useful that, as emphasized by Ruiz de Mendoza and Díez (2002), often metonymic meaning-making is not simply a matter of a metonymic source cueing a metonymic target, but of a concept metonymically cueing another concept, which in turn metonymically cues a third concept. An example of such a “double metonymy” is “Wall Street is in panic”: place for financial institution for people working in the institution (2002: 514). Pérez-Sobrino discusses “double metonymy” under the label “multimodal metonymic chain,” which she defines as “the interaction of several metonymies, which are exclusively or partially rendered in different modes” (2017: 102). We will follow this definition.

2.2 Metaphor

Ever since Aristotle, metaphor had been studied as a uniquely verbal trope until Lakoff and Johnson (1980) demonstrated that metaphor first and foremost structures our thinking, actually constituting a mechanism without which we would not be able to reason about abstract things at all. They point out that “the essence of metaphor is understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another” (1980: 5, emphasis in original), calling the first “thing” the metaphor’s target domain and the second “thing” its source domain. Apart from postulating metaphor as “not a figure of speech, but a mode of thought” (Lakoff 1993: 210), their theory – which has become known as Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) – presented two pioneering insights. In the first place, human beings tend to understand abstract, complex phenomena in terms of concrete, embodied phenomena; and in the second place they do so systematically, and largely subconsciously. CMT is thus rooted in the assumption that knowledge pertaining directly to sensory perception and motor functions comes so naturally to us that we deploy that knowledge to structure more complex phenomena. Because of this, CMT has been called an embodied theory of metaphor (for overviews, see Gibbs 2008; Kövecses 2010). Here are examples of how this embodied cognition routinely transpires in metaphorical language about the target domain understanding:

1. understanding is seeing: “I see what you mean”; “blind blames the ditch”; “obscure reasoning”;

2. understanding is hearing: “I hear what you say”; “a dialogue between the deaf”: “c’est le ton qui fait la chanson” (“it’s the melody that makes the song,” i. e. it’s not what you say, it’s the way you say it that matters);

3. understanding is eating/tasting: “to devour books”; “unpalatable theories”; “spoon-feed students”; “sweet/bitter news”;

4. understanding is smelling: “he smelled a rat”; “to sniff out abuse of power”; “to nose around”; “this proposal stinks”;

5. understanding is touching: “come to grips with a theory”; “a thorny problem”; “hold on to that insight”;

6. understanding is moving: “getting closer to the solution of the problem”; “descend into the dark caves of the pervert’s mind”; “recoil from the terrible truth.”

While the first generation of CMT studies almost exclusively focused on the embodied nature of metaphorizing, more recent studies have emphasized that culture is inextricably interwoven with embodiment. Thus, as Golden and Lanza, drawing on Kövecses (2005), insist, “metaphorical thought is relevant to an understanding of culture and society” (2013: 295).

In the context of this paper, three conceptual metaphors are especially pertinent. The first is purposive activities are journeys (e. g. Kövecses 2010: 288). The journey domain is a fundamental way for human beings to conceptualize goal-directed activity, presumably because it is very rich: one meets helpful and unhelpful people during one’s journey; journeys require vehicles (each with their own specific affordances and constraints); journeys have rivers and ravines to be crossed and blockades to be negotiated; beautiful and depressing scenery; weather conditions that may affect physical progress, etc. Many of these source domain-related features can be applied to (“mapped onto” in CMT terminology) the target domain of achieving goals. The journey metaphor ties in with another crucial metaphor, time is space. Since the human body typically moves in a forward direction, most cultures map the orientations of the human body onto the abstract idea of time: the present is here, the past is behind us, and the future is in front of us (see e. g. Yu 2009; Kromhout and Forceville 2013; Forceville 2017; but cf. Núñez and Sweetser 2006).

A second pertinent metaphor is good is up (e. g. Lakoff and Johnson 1980: 16): we tend to think of good things as high, on top, above us (“things are looking up”; “be on cloud 9”; “be in high spirits”), while we understand bad things usually as low, at the bottom, underneath us (“he has hit rock-bottom”; be depressed”; “low standards”).

A third important metaphor is good is light: good things are light and white (“his face lit up”; “always look on the bright side of life” (Monty Python); “every cloud has a silver lining”), whereas bad things are dark and black (“a shady person”; “dark forces”; “Rage, rage against the dying of the light” (Dylan Thomas).

Unsurprisingly all three metaphors lend themselves eminently to visualization in film (e. g. Forceville and Jeulink 2011; Forceville and Renckens 2013; Winter 2014; see also Ortiz 2011, 2015), while they can also be combined.

3.1 Promotional clip for Hangzhou

Description. The first shot shows the name of the city in Chinese and English on a black background, shifting to the image of a butterfly coming out of its cocoon and spreading its wings. The Chinese string instrument tune we initially hear soon gives way to “heroic” Western music. After that, we get an alternation – and sometimes a mixture – of Chinese and Western-sounding music. The butterfly flies over live-action and animated parts of Hangzhou, presenting a birds-eye view of its attractions. The montage of the numerous shots is fast, often in speeded-up form, but also sometimes in slow-motion. A series of assertions appears intermittently in the left-hand bottom corner, supported by the visuals we see (e. g. “This is a historically and culturally famous city”; “In 1138 the Southern Song Dynasty established their capital here”; “This is a city that enjoys a good quality of life” … ending with “The G20 Summit will ignite hope for the world economy”). Throughout the clip, we see the Chinese characters “杭州” (“Hangzhou”) written in the right-hand bottom corner.

3.1.1 Metonymies

Product for source. A fish and a meat dish are visually showcased as trademark Hangzhou specialties, but also verbally characterized in the written mode as “West Lake Vinegar Fish” and “Dongpo Pork.” The visuals’ verbal “anchoring” (Barthes 1986 [1964]: 28) thus ensures that these metonymies for Hangzhou are understood as such by global no less than by Chinese audiences. By contrast, there is no such verbal explanation when we see leaves being picked and being prepared for a cup of tea (Figure 1(a)). The global viewer will thus see merely generic tea leaves, whereas for the informed Chinese viewer the 1200 year-old “West Lake Longjing tea” is a metonymy for Hangzhou, evoking specific connotations such as high quality, a relaxing fragrance, and aesthetic pleasure. Indeed, Zhao and Feng (2017: 33) discuss this kind of interpretation in terms of cultural metonymy.

Figure 1:

(a) Famous West Lake Longjing tea. (b) President Xi Jinping’s words on a rock. (c) Lady with traditional oil-paper umbrella. (d) Model citizen Zhang Chengliang. (e) A light sky over Hangzhou, the city’s name occurring on the right. (f) Protagonists in the Butterfly Lovers Yue opera.

Language for geographical provenance. At 1’46” a beautiful lady with an oil-paper umbrella is seen touching a red Chinese text on a rock (Figure 1(c)). To global viewers, the scene presumably presents a metonymy for generic “Chinese-ness.” For Chinese viewers, the traditional oil-paper umbrella triggers more detailed connotations. In the local story “The legend of the White Snake” (also referenced in the opera section at 3’24”), Xu Xian and Bai Suzhen get to know and fall in love with each other thanks to an oil-paper umbrella. The characters “有美” that the lady touches on the rock remain untranslated, and mean “being beautiful.” As in the case of the Longjing tea, the text 有美 is for the knowledgeable Chinese viewer a metonymic source, not so much for the target domain “Chinese language” or “Chinese culture” in general but for the specific target domain “(lovable/beautiful) Hangzhou.”

Writing for author. At 2’24” we see at the bottom of the screen Chinese characters, whose English translation underneath runs: “In modern times [Hangzhou] is a leading light in China’s green development.” The visuals here show a rock with red Chinese characters written on it (Figure 1(b)). It is customary in China to ornament rocks in parks with texts originating from highly respected sources (Scollon and Wong-Scollon 2003: 111–112). The text on the rock itself, however, is not translated, and thus remains opaque to global viewers. Chinese viewers, by contrast, not only understand its meaning as “lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets,” but also in all likelihood know that this is a text emanating from president Xi Jinping. For the latter viewers, unlike for the former, the text thus functions as a source of a metonymy of which Xi Jinping is the target domain, which could be verbalized as chinese text on rock for xi jinping/xi jinping’s wisdom. It is even possible to infer, via this metonymy, that Xi Jinping is somehow responsible for Hangzhou’s “green development.”

Member for category. At 3’57” a sequence begins in which four Chinese persons are singled out (e. g. Figure 1(d)). A global viewer will presumably see them as examples of Hangzhou citizens. Only a knowledgeable Chinese viewer would recognize them as Zhang Chengliang, Wu Juping, Shen Tingchun, and Kong Shengdong – citizens that in various ways served the Hangzhou city to an exceptional degree. During the sequence (3’36” – 4’08”), we hear the “Butterfly Lovers” violin concerto, based on the legendary love affair between Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingta, which allegedly took place in Hangzhou. Not only do the four individuals for the Chinese viewer metonymically cue specifically “model Hangzhou citizen”; the music further enhances these citizens’ loving and altruistic nature.

3.2 Promotional clip for Beijing

Description. A gull flies over an animated, later a realistic landscape, literally presenting a bird’s-eye view of the historical development of the settlement Ji Yan into Beijing (Figure 2(a). Text: “山河相拥”/ “Mountains embrace rivers”). The speeded-up tempo and brevity of the shots suggest the fast development from ancient city to modern metropolis. Superimposed texts in Chinese and English celebrate the city’s qualities, accompanied by triumphant Western music. At 46”, with the appearance of a girl in a yellow shirt holding her hand to her ear, the rhythm slows down, and we now see the Beijing logo appearing in the right-hand bottom corner. A new “chapter” begins, introduced by the superimposed text “You can hear,” accompanied by a calmer musical theme, and a sequence of brief shots showing people hearing or listening to things. The next chapter, “You may touch,” beginning at 1’31”, emphasizes instances of experiencing via a second perceptual sensation. Again, it is accompanied by a new musical theme. The third chapter, “You shall taste,” starts at 2’28”, and more or less continues the musical theme of the previous section. The chapter “You will see” (from 3’41”) has an upbeat, rocky theme that gradually merges with typical Chinese music. In all four chapters (there is no chapter on smell), the visuals are supported by diegetic sounds. The final chapter (from 4’32”) resumes the initial chapter’s sequence of iconic Beijing places, and is accompanied by the same triumphant musical theme, thus linking beginning and end.

Figure 2:

(a) A bird’s eye view of Beijing. (b) Young boy in clothes from the Song Dynasty, reading from Three Character Classic. (c) Foreigners in Chinese language class, chanting verses from Three Character Classic. (d) Man practicing calligraphy. (e) A rising sun over Beijing. (f) Beijing as the center of the universe?

3.3 Promotional clip for Xiamen, host city of BRICS National Summit 2017

Description. Accompanied by heroic music, the “prologue” presents a quick sequence of containers on a ship, wild animals in the savannah, roads, and trains, all filmed with a “flying” camera to suggest movement over multiple landscapes across the earth. The prologue ends with the texts “The Belt and Road” and “We are Xiamen” (both in English and Chinese) superimposed on an aerial view of the city. In the next chapter, a girl is seen and heard singing a serene piano-accompanied song (“Waves of Gulangyu”) on the beach (Figure 3(a)), followed by images and sounds of sea waves and chirping birds. We see a series of shots of historical architecture and “intangible cultural heritage,” as a superimposed text clarifies. These famous sites are identified bilingually, in written texts. People are shown working, performing, playing. At some moments we hear Chinese music in the background. The chapter ends with the superimposed text “Confidence Modesty.” The next chapter showcases iconic Xiamen buildings in aerial views; we then see and hear a class of Chinese children reciting a text, schoolchildren outside, and men carrying a dragon boat over their head while chanting (Figure 3(b)). The quiet piano music now gives way to a trumpet, while schoolchildren stand in line to salute a Chinese flag being hoisted. Next, the men are in the dragon boat, racing against other boats (sound: the drum that is beaten to pace their rowing, and bubbling water). The rowing contest is intercut with images of people working in labs and factories, and with modern vehicles of transport. The fast pace is emphasized by the quickening drum sound, quick montage with some speeded-up images, and occasional diegetic sounds. This third chapter ends with the bilingually rendered “Courage Innovation.” The fourth chapter displays a children’s choir and an orchestra performing a local song (“Xiamen is like a song/Let us sing our songs to the whole world,” Figure 3(c)). The rhythm of the song is calm, and several shots are in slow-motion. Intercut with the performance are nocturnal views of the city, and scenes in which people walk, eat, dance, cycle. The sequence ends with an aerial view of the statue of national hero Zheng Chenggong on Gulangyu Island (Figure 3(d)) and the superimposed text “量如江海” / “Inclusiveness Tolerance.” The last chapter, accompanied by the same song, but now in a light, piano-only version, shows a sequence of people from all walks of life, and with different ethnic backgrounds, all looking into the camera, saying in different languages, “We are Xiamen!” The clip ends with the superimposed “We are Xiamen,” while a girl signs “I love Xiamen” in Chinese (Figure 3(e)).

Figure 3:

(a) A girl sings “Waves of Gulangyu” … and points upwards against the background of the sun. (b) Dragon boat race with a drum pacing the rowing tempo. (c) The choir sings “Amoy is like a song,” in Minnan dialect. (d) The statue of national hero Zheng Chenggong on Gulangyu Island. (e) A girl signs in Chinese: “I love Xiamen.” (f) Scoring in a football match.

3.4 Promotional clip for 15th China-ASEAN Expo, September 2018

Description. The clip begins with a drop of water falling on land, accompanied by the text “water of cooperation … nurtures fertile lands” and a calm upbeat tune. A butterfly, a cocoon, and other visuals show the process of preparing silk for its use in textiles (Figure 4(a)), accompanied by diegetic sounds. A new, faster “Xiyu/Western Regions” musical theme accompanies an animated map and the text “Silk and Road in ancient times,” followed by the text “sharing of silk production technology” (Figure 4(b)). Next, we read “Maritime silk road in ancient times” while we see boats sailing across the sea. A number of silk dresses and textiles is shown (written text: “gorgeous silk apparel”), after which a “swoosh” sound introduces visuals of industrial activity, transport (Figure 4(c)), and a series of South-East Asian flags. Superimposed texts highlight important moments in the development of the China-ASEAN partnership, celebrating its 15th anniversary in 2018. Accompanying the text “Fertile lands beaming with vigor and vitality,” and triumphant music, we see shots of people in typical dresses and bodily poses in some ten South-East Asian countries. The sequence ends with a girl looking at a silkworm cocoon she holds between her fingers (Figure 4(d)), against the background of a generic cityscape and the contours of the China-ASEAN Expo building. The camera zooms in on the silkworm cocoon. After a series of shots of smiling (groups of) children, two young girls dressed in white sing a song – and the clip rather abruptly ends there (Figure 4(e). Text: “同样的阳光”/ “Bathing in sunshine”).

Figure 4:

(a) Collecting cocoons as part of making silk. (b) A caravan of camels travelling on Silk Road in ancient times. (c) A train speeds forward over a bridge. (d) A silk cocoon between the fingers of a girl transforms into the sun. (e) Two girls dressed in white sing a song. (f) Hands held up toward the sun.

3.5 Promotional clip for the China International Import Expo (CIIE), Shanghai

Description. An aerial view of a city identified in Chinese and English as Shanghai, the location of the CIIE, shows characteristic aspects of its skyline, including the Oriental Pearl Radio & TV Tower, and then presents the CIIE venue from various angles. A four-leaf clover rises up from the building, accompanied by visual effects and a “magic” music theme. After the text “In the era of economic globalization, there is no island completely cut off from the rest of the world,” we see four-leaf clovers flying over the surface of the earth, connecting countries and the goods therein produced. All of the goods are verbally labelled both in Chinese and in English, while – apart from two “Chinese” bell sounds at the very beginning – an upbeat “international” (i. e. non-Chinese) theme constitutes the musical mode. Some visuals are accompanied by sound effects reinforcing the actions and events portrayed. At 2’07”, after the written text “天空足够大，地球足够大，世界也足够大。”/“the sky, earth, and world are big enough,” the clover multiplies into many specimens flying over the globe, which in turn transform into the flags of the countries participating in CIIE. In the next sequence, various personified consumer products enter Shanghai: cars fly over and into the city and wine-bottle junks sail up the river Huangpu. People from various ethnic backgrounds look at the goods, point at them, and run along with the commodities, presumably toward the expo center where the trade fair will take place. The final “China will not close its doors to the world; we will only become more and more open” is the clip’s only spoken text.

3.5.1 Metonymies

Characteristic for entity. Thanks to visual similarity with it, the four-leaf clover functions as a metonymy for the Shanghai expo building (Figure 5(a)). Since the building is in turn a metonymy for the expo event itself, we here have a “metonymic chain”: clover for expo building for expo event. But because of its transformative nature in the clip the clover also becomes a metonymical source domain for two other target domains: growth of the natural environment and growth of the global economy.

Figure 5:

(a) Visual similarity between four-leaf clover and CIIE building. (b) An astronaut moves toward a four-leaf clover-shaped light. (c) Children are flying over sea, transported by four-leaf clovers functioning like helicopter blades. (d) Jimmy Choo’s diamond-studded shoes, on display at CIIE. (e) Four-leaf clovers fly over hybrids of Shanghai buildings and consumer goods. (f) The four-leaf clover appears in the middle of a transparent globe.

Utterance for speaker. The voice-over text at the end of the clip is spoken by president Xi Jinping – something most Chinese but few global viewers will recognize.

Instance of category for category. This holds for products and services: specific national product/service for category of products/services, such as olive oil for Syria and Amarula liquor for South Africa, but also for persons: ethnically specific person for ethnic group. At several moments (at 1’13”, 2’23”, 2’40” – 2’47, 3'04”) we see people from different ethnic/national groups interacting in a single shot.

5.1 Visual hyperbole, personification, and pun

While in the Shanghai clip (at 2’38”) the $4.5 million diamond-studded shoe by celebrity designer Jimmy Choo (Figure 5(d)) metonymically cues the consumer products displayed at CIIE (part for whole), due to its excessive size it also functions hyperbolically (see Callister and Stern 2007; Pérez-Sobrino 2017: 111–113), and due to its self-propelling motion it exemplifies personification – a favorite trope in advertising (Delbaere et al. 2011). Similarly, whereas the aerial view of the city at 2’49” shows some buildings and a park having been replaced by giant consumer products (such as a lipstick, a loudspeaker, and a cake – Figure 5(e)) may be interpreted as constituting a double metonymy (e. g. lipstick for building for products at ciie), we could also identify an element of “visual punning” here (cf. Abed 1994), as the products’ contours physically resemble the actual Shanghai buildings. In short, other tropes than just metonymy and metaphor may occur visually and multimodally. And, as Burgers et al. (2016) have claimed for their verbal varieties, some tropes may co-occur.

5.2 Symbols?

Although one of its key journals is called Metaphor and Symbol, cognitive linguistics has hitherto not developed a coherent theory of symbolism. Traditionally, this trope has been mostly studied in literary studies and art history. Wales defines it as “a sign, whether visual or verbal, which stands for something else within a speech community” (2001: 379). Lakoff and Johnson claim that “cultural and religious symbolism are special cases of metonymy” (1980: 40). An example in Christianity they discuss is dove for holy spirit, pointing out the symbol is not arbitrary: the dove is “beautiful, friendly, gentle, and, above all, peaceful. […] [I]ts natural habitat is the sky, which metonymically stands for heaven, the natural habitat of the Holy Spirit. The dove is a bird that flies gracefully, glides silently, and is typically seen coming out of the sky and landing among people” (1980: 40). Symbols need not be grounded in metonymy, however. The lamb as a symbol for Christ derives from a metaphor: christ is a sacrificial lamb (Eve Sweetser, personal communication, ICLC 2015). Importantly, symbols provide meanings that are relatively independent of context. The cross is a widely understood symbol of Christ’s suffering, and by extension of Christianity, as is a rose for love. That being said, recognizing a symbol (1) requires background knowledge of the speech community/(sub)culture and/or the specific context within which it functions, and is thus not necessarily universally comprehensible; and (2) must be more or less emphatically signalled – not every lamb is a symbol for Christ.

In the five clips, there are just a few instances that represent generally recognized symbols: the four-leaf clover for good luck, and the dove-with-olive branch for peace (both in the Shanghai clip); water for fertility; and the bridge, “often regarded as a symbol of connection to the outside world and a symbol of communication among people” (Yao and Zhuo 2018: 125; see also Strack 2004). Although the Xiamen clip emphasizes the concept of piano in various ways to attentive global viewers, only knowledgeable Chinese audiences are likely to actually recognize the instrument as a symbol for Gulangyu Island, and by extension for Xiamen.

But there are several other situations where the salient simultaneous cueing of two phenomena suggests text-internal symbolism. For instance, since the butterfly occurs both at the beginning of the Hangzhou clip and at its end, both times together with the text “Hangzhou,” and since it recurs several times in between, some people may come to see it as a symbol for the city. The background music in the Hangzhou clip,the Butterfly Lovers violin concerto, is based on the well-known Chinese love story “Liangzhu.” Yao and Zhuo, analyzing this selfsame clip, indeed suggest that “the image of butterfly symbolizes romantic love, innovative spirits and hope of people in Hangzhou city” (2018: 125).

The last shot of the Beijing clip zooms out from an aerial view of Beijing by night, ending in a display of the city’s logo in the middle of a starry night (Figure 2(f)). Not only can the creative metaphor beijing is a central star/planet be construed; we may even be surreptitiously invited to understand Beijing as symbolizing the heart of the universe. A similarly subtle hint is the cocoon that toward the end (4’56”) of the Xiamen clip transforms into the sun, accompanied by the text “The silk road, our common home.” The cocoon for silk metonymy here thus develops into the metaphor cocoon is sun; by extension the sun in this context turns into a symbol for belt and road itself.

The Shanghai clip locates the four-leaf clover at 2’17” in the middle of a transparent globe, with national flags revolving around it, suggesting four-leaf clover (and by extension CIIE) is heart of the world (Figure 5(f). Text: “共有 82 个国家 3 个国际组织参与本届中国国际进口博览会国家展”/ “A total of 82 countries and 3 international organizations will showcase their achievements in country pavilions.”) – an image that recurs in the final shot of the clip. Within the context of the clip the four-leaf clover may thus even be taken as symbolizing the world. It is worth mentioning here that whereas for Western viewers the heart is the locus for emotions and feelings, specifically love, in Chinese culture it is additionally the locus of thinking and understanding, and more generally as the central faculty of cognition (Yu 2007). As a consequence, the features that qualify for mapping from source to target are not identical for global and Chinese viewers.

5.3 Blends

A meaning-mechanism developed in cognitive linguistics that, for reasons of space, we did not systematically discuss but that is pertinent is the “blend” (Fauconnier and Turner 2002). A blend is a hybrid in which two (or more) different elements (“input spaces”) are conflated into a new whole. This new unity (the “blended space”) imports selected features from the input spaces, and combines them in such a way as to generate meaning that was not present in the input spaces separately. An example of such a blend is Figure 5(e), where the input spaces “Shanghai buildings” and “(foreign) consumer goods” yield the blend “(foreign) consumer goods displayed at CIIE.” A more subtle example from the Xiamen clip – more subtle because it does not portray an “impossible” situation – is a shot in which Chinese-looking people tap-dance (2’25”) – a typically American dance. The two input spaces (Chinese people and American tap-dancing) result in the blend of “Chinese tap dancers.” A similarly clever blend is a shot depicting a Caucasian woman in traditional Chinese clothes in the Beijing clip (2’56”).

A filmic mechanism that has also been theorized in terms of a “blend,” and that occurs in all five clips is the alternation between shots depicting real, speeded-up, and slowed-down time, making for a varied rhythm. Specifically speeded-up time, or time compression, is a very useful tool to quickly sketch developments and communicate dynamism, and is “one of the human imagination’s favorite tools” (Fauconnier and Turner 2002: 317).

5.4 Non-tropical meaning

The analyses above by no means exhaust the meanings that can be derived from the clips. Apart from evoking various (potential) tropical meanings, the butterfly in the Hangzhou clip and the clover in the Shanghai clip fulfill yet other functions. By flying over both ancient and modern Hangzhou, the butterfly helps connect the two, while its occurrence at the very beginning as well as at the very end of the clip “brackets” the clip, narratively linking opening and closure. Moreover, the butterfly topos chimes with the background music: the Butterfly Lovers violin concerto and the traditional Butterfly Lovers Yue opera (Figure 1(f)), whose story presumably originated from Hangzhou. The four-leaf clover in the Shanghai clip also imposes this narrative coherence. It connects aerial views of Shanghai with those of other parts of the world, becoming a quasi-personified entity “witnessing” events across the globe, or “guiding” the viewer over it. And the lyrics of the song sung by the two girls in the China-ASEAN exposition clip (Figure 4(e)), “Living on the same planet/bathing in sunshine,” chime with the integrative theme of this exposition (“Building a maritime Silk Road in twenty-first Century and a China-ASEAN innovation community”).

Moreover, the clips emphasize general human experiences in yet other ways besides visually representing universal things, objects, and scenarios. For instance, it is telling that when diegetic sound is audible, its referent is often universally recognizable: the wind blowing, people laughing, bird wings’ flapping, birds’ screeching, the shutter of a photograph clicking, applause, textiles flapping in the wind, rustling paper, water being poured/boiling/lapping against-the-shore, baby sounds, crackling fire, clinking wine glasses … In the Beijing clip sensory perception, as captured in the four chapters on hearing, touching, tasting, and seeing, is of course highly embodied and thus universal.

At a more general level, other meaning-making mechanisms are pertinent. We already mentioned that the interpretation of the clips is strongly constrained by the genre to which they belong: promotional films steer audiences into interpreting positive claims about the cities and trade fairs advertised. Recognizing these claims, in turn, trivially but crucially depends on our ability to interpret what Peirce calls iconic signs (see Chandler 2017: 47): signs we understand because they resemble their referents. We have no problem visually recognizing impressive buildings and breathtaking natural scenes, as well as beautiful men and women, happy people, cute children, innocent babies, etc., which moreover evoke presumably universally positive attitudes. A theme that pervades all clips, moreover, is the juxtaposition of historical/traditional and modern aspects of life in the cities portrayed (we thank Han Li for pointing this out). This, too, presumably taps into a universal idea: it is good to be open to the new without ignoring the old.

Whereas all these mechanisms steer audiences by and large toward the same general interpretations, the details of these interpretations may differ, not just among groups of individuals, but also from one individual to another. In this respect, it is pertinent that much of the meaning of the clips is conveyed by visuals (which, paceKress and Van Leeuwen [2006], have no grammar), complemented by music and sounds, while voice-overs are used sparingly or not at all and written texts tend to be descriptive and general. Consequently, language plays a rather limited role in “anchoring” (Barthes 1986 [1964]) the visual track. The sophisticated, and fast-cut visuals subtly nudge viewers into construing all kinds of positive meanings that are not at all made verbally explicit by the clips’ makers – and for whose derivation by the audience the makers can therefore simply decline responsibility.