An integrated study of visual metaphors in Chinese editorial cartoons

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 325-353
Author(s):  
Peipei Niu

Abstract Conceptual metaphor theory highlights that metaphor is a matter of thinking. This assumption indicates that metaphors exist not only in language, but also in other modes. This study examines uses of visual and visual-verbal metaphors in 50 Chinese editorial cartoons conceptualizing serious haze problem, with the intention of eliciting implicit meaning conveyed by visual signs alone or together with verbal texts. Both conceptual and critical discourse analysis of the metaphors are conducted. The study finds that the way a metaphor is realized visually and verbally in a cartoon determines the features mapped onto the topic, and further implicitly expresses a critical stance toward the topic under discussion. The metaphors in the cartoons evoke a general understanding of haze problem by activating the war scenario and familiar cultural or social context in viewers. It is found in this corpus that visual fusion and visual replacement are the most frequent kinds of visual metaphors. The study further affirms that visual metaphors are better in conveying rich and implicit conceptual and affective meaning, and can be direct manifestation of the conceptual metaphor without the mediation of language. In sum the study suggests the need for an integrated approach to visual metaphoric representation in multimodal analysis.

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 135-157
Author(s):  
Anne Golden ◽  
Toril Opsahl ◽  
Ingebjørg Tonne

In this article, we analyze the use of the term ‘morsmål’ (‘mother tongue’) in official Norwegian documents and in media texts to identify if and how its conceptualization has changed in the era of increasing globalization. Our point of view is explorative. When examining our data, we highlight the importance of reflecting openly about the instability of powerful concepts. We highlight two partly conflicting conceptualizations that we name the ‘traditional use’ and the ‘novel use’, respectively. Building on critical discourse analysis and conceptual metaphor theory we explore how the conceptualizations reveal certain aspects of ideologies and the potential management of multilingualism in society. A broader understanding of how conceptualizations of mother tongue(s) are played out in the Norwegian context may contribute to the dialogue about multilingualism as it is understood and recognized across diverse contexts.


2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Abidi Hajer

The present paper re-addresses metaphor based on Conceptual Metaphor Theory from a Critical Discourse Analysis perspective. The metaphors selected pertain to political discourse, precisely Trump’s statements on different occasions and from different sources (Twitter, YouTube). Analyzing metaphors was achieved by recourse to the identification of the source and target domains. It has been found that metaphors, albeit multi-functional persuasive tools, on so many occasions, are based on quibbles and clichéd linguistic expressions trajectories. Additionally, it has been found that metaphors acquire their effectiveness from contextual and lexical cues, in conjunction with the parameter of recipients’ knowledge. Interestingly, in some other cases, the implications of metaphors transcended the target of the speaker or writer to include some more unexpected dimensions of meaning like acquiring positive implications at the time when negative ones are anticipated, in addition to the fact that they are also a matter of feelings.Keywords: critical discourse analysis, conceptual metaphor.


2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 134-147
Author(s):  
Ogba ThankGod Igiri ◽  
Jacinta Onyekachi Awa ◽  
Martin Chukwuemeka Ogayi ◽  
Raphel I. Ngwoke

A political speech is usually characterized by the use of different linguistic techniques and strategies that allow politicians to convey their political messages and persuade people of their ideologies and thoughts. The American presidential inaugural address is therefore a form of political discourse that imbues the characteristics of both written and oral discourse. This study consequently looked at how Presidents Barrack Obama and Donald Trump of America have used Linguistic resources (Pronouns and metaphors) to construct individual and collective ideologies and persuade America to accept their political ideologies. This exploration was carried out within the frameworks of Lakoff and Johnson Conceptual Metaphor Theory, Charter is – Black’s Critical Metaphor Theory and the content method of data analysis. The corpus was drawn from the respective official websites of Barrack Obama and Donald Trump. It was discovered that their speeches were characterized by skilful choice of rhetorical strategies to make their speeches effective in order to convince the electorates. President Obama used more of inclusive pronouns and metaphors to support and advocate for multilateralism and internationalism while Donald Trump used pronouns and metaphors that distanced him from the corrupt government that led to unemployment in America while supporting and advocating a strong American interest.


2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-30
Author(s):  
Zoltán Kövecses

Abstract My goal in the paper is to examine a variety of visual experiences that appear to evoke visual metaphors. This is a range of experience types that extends from “sign-like” visual experiences to “non-sign-like” visual experiences. I propose that visual metaphors are evoked by paintings through winner’s podiums all the way to cityscapes and scenes in nature. The latter two (non-sign-like) cases, cityscapes and natural scenes, are not commonly subjected to serious examination from a CMT perspective. However, they provide us with new challenges in the study of visual metaphors, since they greatly extend the range of visual experience that might give rise to visual metaphors. I suggest, further, that the comprehension or interpretation of all of these visual experiences, including sign-like and non-sign-like alike, makes use of the same metaphorical processing mechanisms. The visual metaphors that are evoked by visual experiences can be based either on correlations or resemblance.


2020 ◽  
Vol 28 ◽  
pp. 177-189
Author(s):  
Lorena Bort-Mir

Conceptual Metaphor Theory developed by Lakoff & Johnson (1980) suggested that we use metaphors to evaluate and communicate in our various environments. Although metaphors encompass a large variety of taxonomies, orientational metaphors are those that rely on spatial position to map concepts into other ones, referring to a relation of valence and verticality. Stated by Kövecses (2010) conceptual metaphors such orientational ones draw ‘upward’ and ‘downward’ spatial positions in which ‘upward’ is usually referred to as having positive connotations, whereby their opposites, ‘downwards’, are understood as negative. This paper seeks to unveil how the orientational metaphor good is up is employed in a filmic narrative of a language learning application for technological devices named Babbel. The present analysis is developed under the application of FILMIP (Filmic Metaphor Identification Procedure, Bort-Mir 2019). In the analyzed narrative, the orientational metaphor good is up is represented in the Babbel TV commercial (2018) as a tool for persuading customers that the best way of escalating positions at work is by learning new languages. This analysis demonstrates how orientational metaphors in multimodal media emerge as a convenient device for marketing campaigns in the context of social status improvement.


Author(s):  
Sona Hakobyan

The article is a critical analysis of metaphors applied in the US political discourse in line with the Armenian Genocide. The article keenly touches upon the method of “Critical approaches to metaphor” and Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) in the context of US ideology and its evasive policy on Armenian Genocide recognition. Correspondingly, the study is a corpus analysis with the data of the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA). Corpus studies of metaphor meticulously outline the intentions of the US presidents on the Armenian Genocide along with the motives of valuing the events of 1915 though the representation of conceptual metaphors.


2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 16-27
Author(s):  
Ewelina Prażmo

AbstractThe aim of the article is to examine the language used by an emerging online community known as incels. Incels are “involuntarily celibate” men who gather online to share their frustration and resentment. They blame their predicament on their alleged ugliness, as well as on the structure of modern Western society in general, and women’s behaviour in particular. Hate speech and violent language flourish on incel online forums to such an extent that most of their websites are taken down, one by one, due to breaches of rules around violent content. In the present article I aim to analyze the language used by incels, focusing on the dehumanizing metaphors used in order to describe women, who are the main target of incels’ hatred. This paper was realized within the theoretical framework of cognitive linguistics and critical discourse analysis with special emphasis on conceptual metaphor theory.


2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 115
Author(s):  
Bahram Kazemian ◽  
Somayyeh Hashemi

Drawing on overarching methodological frameworks of Hallidayan grammatical metaphor, Fairclough’s perspective on critical discourse analysis and rhetoric, this study attempts to posit a novel, integrated and practical approach to political, the media, advertisement and other discourses. To this end and based on the proposed approach, it aims to critically and eclectically exemplify and dissect three speeches delivered by Mr. Barack Obama, former president of the US, to first manifest the integrated approach practicality and adeptness through analysis; then by virtue of analysis to unveil how language is manipulated and distorted by orators in order to convey seamlessly intended messages and political creeds to the audience. Surveying recent annals of literature, to date no one has conducted an integrated study applying these disciplines in an individual paper and this study as a trial one can be useful for upcoming research. The analysis depicts practicality and efficiency of the integrated approach and displays that the speeches abound with nominalizations, modal verbs, parallelisms and antitheses. Furthermore, there are some three-part listing, the use of passivization, quotations and modality metaphors. Therefore, a tendency to utilize more nominalizations, parallelism and other devices by the speaker can be a fundamental reason for making his political language more powerful, impressive, persuasive and ambiguous as well. 


Author(s):  
Zoltán Kövecses

The chapter reports on work concerned with the issue of how conceptual metaphor theory (CMT) functions as a link between culture and cognition. Three large areas are investigated to this effect. First, work on the interaction between conceptual metaphors, on the one hand, and folk and expert theories of emotion, on the other, is surveyed. Second, the issue of metaphorical universality and variation is addressed, together with that of the function of embodiment in metaphor. Third, a contextualist view of conceptual metaphors is proposed. The discussion of these issues leads to a new and integrated understanding of the role of metaphor and metonymy in creating cultural reality and that of metaphorical variation across and within cultures, as well as individuals.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 65
Author(s):  
Omar Bani Mofarrej ◽  
Ghaleb Rabab'ah

The present paper examines the metaphorical and metonymical conceptualizations of the heart in Jordanian Arabic (JA) within the framework of Conceptual Metaphor Theory developed by Lakoff and Johnson (1980). The main aim is to explore how the human heart is conceptualized in JA, and to test the applicability of the different general cognitive mechanisms proposed by Niemeier (2003 and 2008) to those found in JA. The data were extracted from Idioms and Idiomatic Expressions in Levantine Arabic: Jordanian Dialect (Alzoubi, 2020), and other resources including articles, dissertations and books of Arabic proverbs. The findings revealed that all the four general cognitive mechanisms suggested by Niemeier (2003 and 2008) are applicable to JA. The findings also showed that the similarity derives from the universal aspects of the human body, which lends tremendous support to the embodiment hypothesis proposed by cognitive linguists. 


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