A Metaphor Approach To Face Art As Visual Language

Based on semiotics and metaphor-related theories of cognitive linguistics, thispaper attempts to explore the functions and meanings of visual signs in face art,describe its cognitive structure and cognitive mechanism, and probe into issues relatedto cross-culture communication.Based on Lakoff and Johnson’s Conceptual Metaphor Theory and Fauconnierand Turner’s Conceptual Blending Theory, as well as Peirce’s Semiotic Theory, thispaper explores the construction of visual signs and illustrates three modes ofmetaphors related to the cognitive mechanism of face art, that is, symbolic metaphor,iconic metaphor and indexical metaphor. Face art, like other forms of art such asdance, singing, film and so forth, is an exchange activity for expressing abstract ideasin tangible form. It is actually not only a kind of personal image design but also acommunication channel, which mainly represents a person’s nature, character andemotions. In the expression of these abstract social properties, face art, mainly drawson color metaphors and shape metaphors, that is to say, the mappings between colorsand emotions as well as shapes (e.g. up and down orientations) and emotions. Inaddition, in the presentation of a person’s personality and moral character, face artalso draws support from iconic signs and indexical signs which are easy reminders ofthe historical figures. Generally speaking, a face-art product is often a result ofintegrative function of three modes of metaphors. Citing examples of Peking Operafacial paintings, Halloween facial paintings and some modern face makeup, this papertentatively reveals the cognitive structure, cognitive mechanism and cognitivemotivation of face art.In the end, in the light of Sperber and Wilson’s Relevance Theory, and on thebasis of the above research findings, the paper presents a preliminary discussionregarding the issue of cross-culture communication of face art, relating the degree ofdecoding difficulty and the amount of decoding efforts to the basic cognitiveconstruction of a piece of face-art work. The research of the paper may contribute tothe appreciation, communication (especially cross-cultural communication) and the teaching of face art.