A Study Of Resolution Mechanism Of Multimodal Metaphor In American Political Cartoons Based On Conceptual Integration Theory

The publication of Metaphor We Live By written by Lakoff and Johnson in 1980 opened a brand new door to the cognitive linguistics. It is widely accepted that metaphor is a cognitive tool instead of a mere decoration. But the conceptual nature of metaphor indicates that not only can language be utilized as an efficient means of metaphorical representation, pictures, gestures,sound and other modalities can trigger metaphors as well. Recent years has witnessed a rapidly growing research interest in multimodal metaphors but there has been few attempts to account for the meaning construction process of multimodal metaphors in political cartoons and a precise delineation awaits further research.Hence, the thesis is to make an exploratory research on the resolution mechanism of multimodal metaphors in political cartoons from the perspective of Cognitive Integration Theory(CIT). The optimality principles of CIT, namely partial cross-space mapping and selective projection, contribute together to the construction of emergent structure in the blend, which endows CIT with great explanatory power. But it should be noted that readers must draw on the broader contextual or background information in identifying the source and target domains together with the metaphorical meaning of the cartoon. So the thesis presents two mental spaces which are considered to be crucial in interpreting multimodal metaphors in political cartoons and which enable us to account for the critical stance of political cartoons in a more efficient way.Based on above, the thesis establishes a modified integration network, including two input spaces, a generic space, a representation space, a background space and the blend.The thesis mainly adopts a qualitative research method. In order to testify the validity of the modified integration model, the thesis selects four pieces of American political cartoons to conduct an in-depth analysis, which origin from The Economist and www.politicalcartoons.com.Topics range from China-related social-political affairs to American domestic and international social-political affairs. Following the modified model, the thesis presents a clarification of the meaning construction process of multimodal metaphor in the cartoons. The finding indicates that the supplementary representation and background space are imperative to obtain a thorough understanding of political cartoons and the modified integration model is qualified forillustrating the meaning construction process of American political cartoons.