Metaphors in Stand Up to Cancer (SU2C) animations

What is it about?

According to Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT), human beings can only understand complex phenomena by metaphorically comparing them to more concrete, sensorily perceived things (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980). Cancer is such a complex phenomenon. In recent decades, many studies have focused on this issue, but they are restricted to verbal cancer metaphors. This paper examines which verbal AND visual metaphors are used in 27 short animations supported by the “Stand Up 2 Cancer/SU2C” charity.

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Photo by Ubaid E. Alyafizi on Unsplash

Photo by Ubaid E. Alyafizi on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Communication becomes less and less purely verbal, and increasingly uses visuals, often in combination with language (and sometimes music, and sound). Since in animation, everything is under the control of the makers, it is an excellent medium for persuading people of certain views in a quick and transparent way. SU2C, supported by the entertainment industry, has produced many short animations that hope to convince people to donate for cancer research as well as to get more cancer patients to volunteer for testing new medicines. It is found that the dominant metaphors, just as in studies on verbal metaphors, are "dealing with cancer is a journey" and "dealing with cancer is a battle." Moreover, often malignant cancer cells are portrayed as monsters. But some other metaphors are found too. It is good to be aware which cancer metaphors dominate easily-accessed YouTube animations, since each metaphor has its own internal logic: a "battle" stresses winning or losing; a "journey" allows for development, co-travellers, detours, etc.

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