| The implementation of the double reduction policy is a significant event for China’s education.As one of the main platforms for promoting national policies,news cartoons significantly publicize the double reduction policy through verbo-pictorial metaphors.Although studies on verbo-pictorial metaphors are common,few scholars have precisely focused on the verbo-pictorial metaphors in Chinese news cartoons on the double reduction policy.Against this background,this study takes verbo-pictorial metaphor as the theoretical foundation,and collects 165 Chinese news cartoons on the double reduction policy from China News Cartoon Network(http://newscartoon.chinadaily.com.cn)and Baidu Images(https://image.baidu.com/),then adopts a combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches to explore the following three questions:(1)What are the representational types of verbo-pictorial metaphors in Chinese news cartoons on the double reduction policy?(2)What themes are reflected and what metaphorical meanings are constructed by the different representational types of verbo-pictorial metaphors?(3)What design strategies of verbo-pictorial metaphors are used to realize the metaphorical meanings?The following conclusions are drawn:(1)A total of 211 verbo-pictorial metaphors are identified in the 165 selected news cartoons,which contain four representational types: cross-modal mapping(49.76%),multi-modal mapping(23.70%),implicit mapping(14.69%),and mono-modal mapping(11.85%).It is worth noting that the double reduction policy is an abstract concept,which is difficult to express clearly with images only.Therefore,cross-modal mappings and multi-modal mappings,in which the target domains are represented by verbal mode or verbal mode supplemented by pictorial mode,appear more frequently.And mono-modal mappings and implicit mappings,which are mainly realized through pictorial mode,appear less frequently.(2)Chinese news cartoons on the double reduction policy contain five main themes: the double reduction policy(39.39%),off-campus training institutions(18.19%),homework burden and off-campus training burden(9.70%),education equity(9.70%),and students in compulsory education(5.45%).In addition,some basic conceptual metaphors are presented in the data of this study: “POWERFUL IS UP,POWERLESS IS DOWN”;“POWERFUL IS BIG,POWERLESS IS SMALL”;“HAPPY IS UP”;“GOOD IS UP,BAD IS DOWN”.Based on these typical conceptual metaphors,the metaphorical meanings constructed by the cartoonists in depicting the themes can be summarized as THE DOUBLE REDUCTION POLICY IS UP,EDUCATION VIOLATION IS DOWN.From the cognitive linguistic perspective,the cartoonists use verbo-pictorial metaphors to combine spatial dimensions and abstract concepts together,to clarify the double reduction policy to readers.(3)And the metaphorical meanings are achieved with the help of some design strategies.The research finds that the cartoonists first use some layout strategies such as POWERFUL IS BIG;POSITIVE IS COLORFUL,and POSITIVE IS WARM COLOR;POSITIVE IS FORWARD,and POSITIVE IS UPWARD;and using common sayings to attract the readers’ attention;then adopt the semantic conflicts generated by juxtaposition,fusion,and substitution to stimulate readers’ curiosity;finally resonant with readers by mobilizing their negative or positive emotions,to achieve the purpose of letting the readers understand and support the double reduction policy.In terms of the research significance,this research not only provides new ideas for the research on news cartoons,but also advances the development of the verbo-pictorial metaphor theory and broadens its research scope.In addition,this study is also a guide for readers to understand the double reduction policy and for cartoon designers to improve their design skills. |
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