Meaning Construction Of Multimodal Metaphors In Editorial Cartoons---a Conceptual Blending Theory Perspective

Through nearly30years’research, it has been commonly acknowledged in linguistics that metaphors are not only linguistic phenomena, but cognitive tools for human beings to perceive and conceptualize this world. In order to further prove the idea that metaphors are cognitive tools which can be expressed by language, it is necessary to demonstrate whether and how they can occur non-verbally and multimodally, as well as purely verbally. In today’s multimodal social context, the study of non-verbal metaphors and multimodal metaphors are promoted by the rise of metaphor research from the angle of cognitive linguistics. And the past decade has witnessed the development of multimodal metaphors abroad, while the related research is still in its infancy in China.Based on Conceptual Blending Theory put forward by Fauconnier&Turner, this thesis attempts to explore the dynamic meaning construction of multimodal metaphors in editorial cartoons. The present study analyzes mental space construction, cross-space mapping and the emergent structure in the blend in the hope that it can provide a new perspective to the study of multimodal metaphors and give more data support for Conceptual Blending Theory.The two main research questions are:1) How is meaning of multimodal metaphors constructed in editorial cartoons?2) How is meaning of multimodal metaphors constructed in different blending networks? Conceptual Blending Theory holds that people constructs various mental spaces when they talk and think. And then these mental spaces are integrated into a blended space, generating an emergent structure. The elements and structures of the input spaces are projected electively into the blended space by mapping. And at last the metaphorical meaning is generated from the emergent structure through combination, completion and elaboration. By employing Conceptual Blending Theory put forward by Fauconnier&Turner, this thesis provides a new perspective to the exploration of multimodal metaphors, achieving a new theoretical perspective. In addition, this thesis shows its detailed working mechanism of the dynamic meaning construction of multimodal metaphors. Besides, this study can also become an evidence for the conceptual essence of metaphor. Last but not least, this study increases people’s awareness of multimodal literacy, which is an important ability for people nowadays.