A Cognitive Study Of Multimodal Metaphor

Conceptual Metaphor Theory holds that metaphor is pervasive in our daily life,it is not only a linguistic phenomenon,but also a way of thinking.Based on conceptual metaphor,Multimodal Metaphor Theory holds that metaphor is also widely used in other modes such as pictures,sounds and gestures other than language.A political cartoon mainly involves verbal and pictorial modes,therefore,it can be seen as one of the best genres for multimodal metaphor study.At present,researches on multi-modal metaphors both at home and abroad mainly focus on advertising,and researches on political cartoons are relatively fewer,let alone on Australian political cartoons.Based on the literature review of Conceptual Metaphor Theory,Multimodal Metaphor Theory and related studies,this thesis randomly collected 50 political cartoons from four Australian mainstream newspapers,namely the Australian,the Canberra Times,the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age,as our research data.The auther restricted research corpus to political cartoons which make reference to American president Donald Trump.This thesis conducts the study by the process of “identification—interpretation—explanation” and probe into the representing methods of multimodal metaphor in political cartoons and the interaction between different modes at the same time.This thesis focuses on the recurrent metaphor scenarios and source domains involved in Australian political cartoons about Donald Trump,in order to reveal how Australian political culture and ideology behind these cartoons are imbued into multimodal metaphor scenarios.This thesis finds that multimodal metaphors are pervasive in Australian political cartoons and carry certain political stances and biases.The findings show:(1)interaction between pictorial and verbal modes is obvious.Most political cartoons present source and target domains by pictorial and verbal modes respectively,so as to construct the multimodal metaphor.Accompanied with text descriptions,a small number of cartoons pictorially present both the source and target domains by fusing or juxtaposing them.However,some political cartoons do not contain any verbal elements,and the construction,identification and interpretation of multimodal metaphors in those cartoons depend on their original pages.(2)Metaphor scenarios are widely used to construct political facts,among which game/competition,war/disaster and journey scenarios are recurrent.By constructing multimodal metaphors through metaphor scenarios,the critical attitude of the author can be better transmitted.(3)With regard to the target domain “DONALD TRUMP”,the use of the source domains has a preference.Australian cartoonists are more likely to use ANIMAl,PATIENT,TODDLER and CLOWN as source domains to build a negative image of American president Donald Trump.This study points out that multimodal metaphors can better express communicative intention,and political cartoons should employ a variety of modalities to enhance their expression.