A Research On Meaning Construction Of News Cartoon From The Perspective Of Conceptual Blending Theory

News cartoon is a kind of comic form used for reporting news and commenting current affairs.It comes out of the daily life, originates from the social reality, and conveys the cartoonists’ironicviews to the public with vivid artistic images and humorous styles. On account of its traits incriticizing the current social evils sharply and reflecting the essence of issues profoundly, newscartoon not only has a strong social effect on public readers, but also gradually becomes a popularform of news express. It is unarguable that news cartoon can be categorized into multi-modaldiscourse because of its constitution, which consists of picture signs and language signs. However,this kind of multi-modal discourse hasn’t received much attention in the field of linguistics. Tillnow, the researches on multi-modal discourse are mainly on advertisements or videos, while fewstudies focus on news cartoons. There are certain related studies that are carried out from theperspective of Systematic Functional Linguistic Theory. Profound studies on the process ofmeaning construction of news cartoon from the perspective of cognitive linguistics are even less.Hence, this thesis is to discuss the process of meaning construction of news cartoon from theperspective of cognition on the basis of conceptual integration theory put forward by Fauconnierand Turner and the “symbol” conception in Pierce’s Semiotics theory.“Conceptual integration”refers to the projection and integration of conceptual elements in human’s cognitive mental space.The core framework of CIT is the conceptual integration network model that is dynamic projectionmodel among multi spaces, and usually includes four mental spaces. Through conceptualintegration, information from different spaces is projected selectively into the blending space. Andthen, an emergent structure generates in blending space by composition, completion andelaboration. The generation of every concept is the process of integrating the information inhuman’s mental spaces. So the interpretation of news cartoon’s meaning also involves theconstruction and interaction of mental spaces. Although there are various meanings of newscartoon, ironic meaning is the key concern for the present study. Picture signs play a dominant rolein news cartoons.According to Pierce’s Semiotics theory, every picture sign can be interpreted asother objects, which can be defined as symbol. This study suggests that explaining the symbolicmeaning of picture sign deeply can better highlight the ironic meaning of news cartoon. Based on these two theories, this study has established a new network model so as to explore the process ofironic meaning construction of news cartoon. The new network model adds one symbol space tothe primary four-space network in which the symbolic meanings of picture signs are explained.By establishing the new network model, this study aims to explore the process of meaningconstruction of news cartoon, aiming to provide a new theoretical viewpoint for analyzing themeaning construction of news cartoon cognitively.On the basis of the review of previous studies on conceptual integration theory and symbolconcept, as well as the analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of studies on news cartoon, thisresearch intends to propose a self-established new network model. The research data include100pieces of news cartoons published in The Economist from year2013to2014. Both qualitative andquantitative methods are employed in the study. News cartoons are classified into political news,economic news, military news and others according to different topics. In the case study, one piecefrom each group is selected and analyzed following three steps: picture description; the symbolicmeaning interpretation of the picture signs; the process of ironic meaning construction.Through analysis and discussion, it can be found that the ironic meaning construction of newscartoon is a process of integrating each mental spaces and further generating the emergent structurein blending space. In news cartoon, picture sign is the most important part, while the few wordsonly take a complementary or explanatory function. Hence, the information projected from thesymbol space, that is to say, the analysis of picture signs’ symbolic meaning is the key tointerpreting ironic meaning of news cartoon. The research has proved that the self-established newnetwork model is feasible and reasonable.From the research the following enlightenments can be gained: first of all, this study not onlyprovides a new network model for interpreting the meaning construction of news cartoon, but alsoproposes a new theoretical viewpoint for multi-modal discourse studies. Especially this study hasapplied CIT and the symbol concept in Pierce’s Semiotics theory for discussing the meaningconstruction of news cartoon from the perspective of cognitive linguistics. What’s more, the self-established new network model, to some extent, improves the conceptual integration network andrefines the process of meaning construction of news cartoon, further broadens the explanatorypower of this theory. Finally, in the aspect of practical application, the present study provides someimplications for the comprehension and appreciation of news cartoon.