An Empirical Study On Multimodal Metaphoric Competence:Cases Of Political Cartoons

Multimodal metaphorical competence(MMC),the ability to produce,interpret,and comprehend multimodal metaphors,has been drawing increasing attention from scholars in multiple disciplines.As a bourgeoning field,a natural extension of metaphorical competence,so far the existing studies on MMC have been confined to theoretical explorations,leaving empirical research under-investigated.The present study is an empirical research to explore the essential factors that affect readers' comprehension of MMC,by focusing on correlations among cognitive style,multimodal metaphorical representation(MMR)and MMC.Cognitive style,defined as an individual's characteristic and consistent approach when information is organized and processed,has been extensively studied to explore the influence of individual difference on comprehending metaphors.Previous studies of cognitive styles show that different representations of information may make a difference when subjects process different cognitive tasks.Therefore,the present study intends to explore the relationship among cognitive styles and multimodal metaphorical representations(MMR)and MMC by using political cartoons which can be regarded as one typical type of multimodal discourse owing to its unique discourse characteristics.A double variance research is conducted with two variables: cognitive style(objective imagery style,spatial imagery style and verbal style)and MMR(replacement,juxtaposition and fusion).The stimulus materials are selected from online cartoons database and are a pilot study on the stimulus materials selected was conducted by a group consisting of 1 professor and 4 postgraduates of linguistics major.32 political cartoons are classified into seven categories on themes and three types in terms of MMR.As to the subjects,67 postgraduate students,37 females and 30 males participated in the interpretation test.They are divided into three groups according to their cognitive styles,and then are tested by a MMC questionnaire.Besides,6 research participants,selected as representative participants for case study,are interviewed for talk-loud investigation over their cognitive process towards interpretation of the multimodal metaphors.Quantitative and qualitative data collected by questionnaires and interview are respectively analyzed by SPSS 21.0 and on grounded theory to explore the relationship among cognitive styles,MMR and MMC.The major findings include:Firstly,double variance analysis of cognitive style and MMR proves that these two factors have no significant interaction on participants' understanding of multimodal metaphors in political cartoons.However,cognitive style has main effect on MMC,while MMR has no main effect on MMC.It suggests that cognitive styles and MMR combined cannot exert a significant impact on MMC,whereas cognitive style alone can make a difference.Secondly,as for cognitive style,the descriptive analysis shows that not only the number of object-imagery participants accounts for the most,but also their average score is higher than the that of the other two types.And it also proves that the MMC level of object imagery participants is much higher than that of spatial imagery and verbal participants.Besides,the MMC level of spatial imagery participants and verbal participants is similar to each other,with the former slightly higher.Reasons behind such phenomenon may lie in the fact that object imagery participants have a better command of image processing ability,and it is suggested that most of the photographers and pianists belong to object imagery cognitive style.As for MMR,it is easy to notice that participants feel the type of replacement easier for them to understand than the other two forms,while the type of fusion,the most difficult.Thirdly,apart from cognitive style and MMR,other possible essential factors in MMC may be discovered through case study.It is found that background information and verbal information play significant roles in affecting interpretations of multimodal metaphors in political cartoons.Target domains and source domains are usually placed in scenarios which can be triggered by contextual information.In addition,political cartoons,different from children's picture books,are largely employed to represent complicated political issues,therefore,their interpretations are in general quite demanding,accounting for the preference to verbal information by our subjects,who,as adults,habitually rely on verbal mode to get deep understanding in spite of the rich load of visual information.This study has profound implications for both theoretical research and application.On one hand,it casts new light on metaphor competence in general and multimodal metaphor in particular.It extends the studies of metaphor from verbal form to multimodal representations,which is important for comprehensive understanding of metaphor mechanism.On the other hand,the findings are insightful for multimodal literacy as well as for multimodal design.