A Critical Study Of Multimodal Metaphors In The Front Covers Of China Daily European Weekly

Metaphor has always been a hot research topic for scholars.The main object of metaphor research is verbal metaphor.With the deepening of the research,scholars have found that the ubiquitous metaphors are not just limited to verbal metaphor;rather,they can be represented by other modes,such as music,image,gesture and so on.In the eyes of critical linguists,metaphor is not completely neutral;it can reflect the ideology of the user.At present,the existing researches on multimodal metaphor focus on its representation,but there is little discussion on the ideology behind it.The study of critical metaphor is also limited to the study of verbal metaphor.Considering the shortcomings of current studies on metaphor,this paper attempts to adopt the Critical Multimodal Metaphor Analysis based on the previous studies,namely,the Critical Metaphor Analysis,to study multimodal metaphor through three steps of metaphor identification,metaphor interpretation and metaphor explanation.Metaphor identification refers to the judgment of conceptual metaphor based on all pictorial representations such as colors,pictures,and actions in a multimodal discourse as well as the provided verbal information on the basis of the background knowledge.Metaphor interpretation analyses what characteristics of the source domain are mapped to the target domain.Metaphor explanation reveals the intention of the user by analyzing the ideological function behind metaphor.Based on 15 front covers of China Daily European Weekly collected from its website(http://europe.chinadaily.com.cn/)of 2018-2019,the thesis uses the Critical Multimodal Metaphor Analysis to give answers to the following four questions:(1)What conceptual metaphors are adopted in the front covers of China Daily European Weekly in describing China’s development?(2)What features are highlighted in the process of metaphor mapping?(3)What are the ideological functions of these multimodal metaphors?(4)What are the factors influencing the choice of metaphor in the front covers of China Daily European Weekly?According to the research,the front covers reporting China’s development of China Daily European Weekly use a lot of metaphors,such as animal metaphor,human metaphor,plant metaphor,machine metaphor,spatial metaphor,journey metaphor,and natural phenomenon metaphor.In the process of metaphor mapping,the metaphor user maps some characteristics of the source domain,such as being strong,vigorous,and advancing rapidly to the target domain of China’s development.Thus,China’s development is described as steady,vigorous and rapid.At the same time,the use of multimodal metaphors in China Daily European Weekly has its ideological functions,such as the increasing confidence in China’s development for readers home and abroad due to the promising future of China’s economy,science and technology.Also,China Daily European Weekly itself speaks highly of China’s performance on the world stage and the Chinese government.