Multimodal Metaphors In Chinese Anti-corruption Political Cartoons:Classification Issue And Construction Of Anti-corruption Theme

Since the publication of Multimodal Metaphor,multimodal metaphor study has become a thriving research direction in the field of metaphor studies.Previous multimodal metaphor research focuses largely on upholding cognitive approach to metaphor(Forceville,2009a;Forceville&Urios-Aparisi,2009),discussing the ontological issues of multimodal metaphor,for example,its definition and characteristics(Forceville,2009a;Forceville&Urios-Aparisi,2009;Lan&Zuo,2016),and also on applying multimodal metaphor view to a host of socio-cultural discursive settings(Bounegru&Forceville,2011;Yu,2009,2011),However,as multimodal metaphor research is still in its budding phase,a majority of the studies are dependent on case studies,and there is a shortage of quantitatively orientated multimodal metaphor research.Moreover,disputes remain in terms of the multimodal metaphor classification as based on mode configuration patterns.With regards to the specific topic of anti-corruption,few scholars have conducted a multimodal metaphor analysis on it.The present research,on the strength of 683 Chinese anti-corruption political cartoons,takes a quantitative and qualitative method to analyze the 347 multimodal metaphors in these cartoons.Focus goes to two major topics:the multimodal metaphor classification issue and the multimodal metaphorical construction of the Chinese anti-corruption theme.The major findings of the research are as follows:(1)Multimodal metaphors in political cartoons fall into two broad categories:bi-modal metaphors and tri-modal metaphors.Under the two categories are four major multimodal metaphor types:pictorial-verbal metaphors,pictorial-indexical metaphors,verbal-indexical metaphors and pictorial-verbal-indexical metaphors.The discovery of the indexical type multimodal metaphors contributes to broadening the previous multimodal metaphor types(primarily the pictorial-verbal type)in static multimodal discourses.(2)The 347 multimodal metaphors analyzed are respectively derived from three conceptual metaphors,HIGHER LEVEL THING/CONCEPT IS LOWER LEVEL THING,LOWER LEVEL THING/CONCEPT IS HIGIGHER LEVEL THING and ACTION IS EXERTION OF FORCE,which can be categorized into two metaphor systems:Great-Chain-of-Being metaphors(Kovecses,2010;Lakoff&Turner,1989)and Event Structure metaphors(Kovecses,2010;Lakoff,1993).Grounded on the three conceptual metaphors,the multimodal metaphors perform the strategy of self-legitimization and other-delegitimization(Charteris-Black,2005;Chilton,2004),which,in turn,completes the construction of the anti-corruption theme.In a sense,the finding gives support to the conceptual and socio-cultural claims on metaphor from a multimodal metaphorical perspective.(3)Additionally,in the process of data analysis,it is found that the looser definition of multimodal metaphor(Eggertsson&Forceville,2009,Lan&Zuo,2016)is less rigid and is able to be applied to more multimodal metaphor types,for example,the implied multimodal metaphors.Moreover,contextual cue plays a significant part in multimodal metaphor identification and interpretation.It is also worth noting that the interaction between metonymy and metaphor is notable in the present research,and deserves a further investigation.