Conceptual Metaphors of Skin and Beauty: Analysis of Skincare Advertising in English and Lithuanian
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.28925/2412-2491.2026.2619Keywords:
cognitive linguistics, conceptual metaphor., source and target domains, skincare advertisementsAbstract
The aim of the research is to identify and compare conceptual metaphors of skin and beauty in English and Lithuanian skincare advertisements, find their similarities and differences, and determine the frequency of their use in advertisements for women’s skincare products. The article discusses the premises underlying the emergence of the theory of conceptual metaphors in cognitive linguistics, and analyses the characteristics of metaphorical language in advertising discourse. It explains how advertisers often propose new and creative metaphors, and apply creative manipulations of conventional metaphors. This section also provides a more detailed overview of advertisements targeting women, their influence on the perception of beauty. It examines which standards of female beauty help marketers sell products and what women (unconsciously) associate with beauty, thereby falling into the advertisers’ traps.
The empirical part is analysing examples of advertisements featuring English and Lithuanian conceptual metaphors. Based on the systematic nature and thematic focus of linguistic elements, skincare advertisements were collected and compared, and four conceptual metaphors were identified within the domain of reference skin / skincare /skin beauty: skin is living being, skincare is a battle, skincare is a journey, skin beauty is glow. The analysis of the collected examples suggests that conceptual metaphors are frequently used in both English and Lithuanian beauty advertisements for skincare products, conveying that advertisers wish to impart to the advertised products. Although English and Lithuanian belong to different language types (analytic and synthetic), the figurative meaning conveyed in skincare advertisements largely overlaps across the two languages. The frequency calculations of conceptual metaphors show that the most frequent conceptual metaphor in English skincare advertisements is skincare is war, while in Lithuanian ones it is skin is a living being.
Downloads
References
1. Būdvydytė, A., & Jurgaitis, N. (2015). Sea in economic and political discourse: The analysis of conceptual metaphors. Res Humanitariae, 98–112. https://www.lituanistika.lt/content/62980
2. Citron, F. M., & Goldberg, A. E. (2014). Metaphorical sentences are more emotionally engaging than their literal counterparts. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 26(11), 2585–2595. https://doi.org/10.1162/jocn_a_00654
3. Donzé, P. Y. (2014). A business history of the Swatch Group. Palgrave Macmillan.
4. Erdman, S. E., & Poutahidis, T. (2014). Probiotic “glow of health”: It’s more than skin deep. Beneficial Microbes, 5(2), 109–119. https://doi.org/10.3920/BM2013.0042
5. Greenfield, S. (2018). When beauty is the beast: The effects of beauty propaganda on female consumers (Thesis). https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/university_honors_program/20
6. Hughes, T. (2020). 10 of the most significant battles in British history. History Hit. https://www.historyhit.com/most-significant-battles-in-british-history/
7. Jablonski, N. G. (2013). Skin: A natural history. University of California Press.
8. Kövecses, Z. (2010). Metaphor: A practical introduction. Oxford University Press.
9. Kövecses, Z. (2020). Extended conceptual metaphor theory. Cambridge University Press.
10. Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors we live by. University of Chicago Press.
11. Nouri, K. (2016). Beautiful skin: A dermatologist’s guide to a younger looking you. Nova Science Publishers.
12. Romova, Z., & Varley, S. E. (2017). Is there a housing crisis in New Zealand or is it only a metaphor? Results of a critical metaphor analysis. New Zealand Studies in Applied Linguistics, 23(2), 80–99.
13. Selmistraitis, L., Gadeikytė, I., & Krawiec, M. (2024). Conceptual metaphors in narrative advertisements for places: A comparative study between English and Lithuanian. Journal of Narrative and Language Studies, 12(24), 85–102.
14. Sobrino, P. P. (2017). Multimodal metaphor and metonymy in advertising. John Benjamins Publishing Company.
15. Stayman, D. M., & Kardes, F. R. (1992). Spontaneous inference processes in advertising: Effects of need for cognition and self-monitoring on inference generation and utilization. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 1(2), 125–142. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1057-7408(08)80053-8
16. Urbonaitė, J. (2022). Direct metaphor in selected TED talks on crime and criminal justice. In I. Šeškauskienė (Ed.), Metaphor in legal discourse (pp. 81–113). Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
17. Vaivadaitė-Kaidi, E. (2018). Konceptualiosios metaforos raiškos kaita katalikiškuose XIX–XX a. Biblijos vertimuose į lietuvių kalbą [Doctoral dissertation]. Vilnius University Press. https://www.lituanistika.lt/content/77498
18. Zaltman, G., & Zaltman, L. H. (2008). Marketing metaphoria: What deep metaphors reveal about the minds of consumers.
19. Zinken, J., Hellsten, I., & Nerlich, B. (2003). What is “cultural” about conceptual metaphors? International Journal of Communication, 13(4), 5–29. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/83654857.pdf
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Linas Selmistraitis, Viktorija Romanova
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
