Multimodal Metaphorical Meaning Construction Of Where The Wild Things Are From The Perspective Of Conceptual Blending Theory

Along with development of the times,visual media has become the main channel for people to access to information.Among them,children's picture books have attracted the attention of many linguists as a kind of multimodal discourse which apply the pictorial and verbal signs as expressive devices.However,most research have been done from the systemic functional perspective which mainly focus on the interplay of pictures and words while ignore the multimodal metaphors and narrative structure in a picture book.Therefore,this thesis aims to illustrate the meaning construction of a picture book through the interpretation of multimodal metaphors based on the narrative structure and children's cognitive features.This thesis puts forward the following research questions:Firstly,what are the main factors influencing the meaning construction of a picture book?Next,what is the working mechanism of multimodal metaphors and its relation with the narrative structure?And finally,how does children's cognitive mechanism work in the process of meaning construction?To explore the online meaning construction in children's minds,this study applies Conceptual Blending Theory as its theoretical framework.A Mode Space is added into the integration network model firstly.According to the narrative structure of Where The Wild Things Are,the main body will be divided into three parts as characters,setting and plot.Implied meaning of metaphors carried by multiple modes will be described at first and then three kinds of blending networks will be applied to present the cognitive process when a child reads The Wild.Through analysis,this thesis draws the following conclusions:Firstly,the meaning construction of a picture book depends on the unity of four aspects:the interaction of multiple modes,multimodal metaphors,narrative structure and children's cognitive mechanism.Secondly,multimodal metaphors in a picture book indwell not merely in the multiple modes but also in narrative structure.The narrative structure should be considered when analyzing the meaning construction,and it will help to interpret the implied meaning more comprehensively.Finally,children's experience and their mental simulation play a key role in the meaning construction of a picture book.All in all,it can be confirmed from the analysis that the new-built blending network model based on the Conceptual Blending Theory does contribute its own efforts to the meaning construction of a picture book.The process of online integration to interpret a picture book is dynamic and subjective.So the Conceptual Blending Theory will give us an insight into children's cognitive world and provide some practical implications for the reading and teaching activities as well as the design of picture books.