Article published In:
Metaphor and the Social WorldVol. 12:1 (2022) ► pp.1–22
How visual metaphors can contradict verbal occurrences
A cross-linguistic and multimodal analysis of the imprint of climate change
We investigate the different interpretations related to the metaphorical
imprint
of climate change in English and French media discourses. This cross-linguistic perspective is motivated by the particularities of both languages which have been assumed to promote different understandings of climate change-related concepts. We focus on the metaphor
carbon footprint
whose meaning can be compared to another climate change metaphor in English:
fingerprint
. These two source domains share a highly specific and concrete meaning interpreted from lexical constructions enabled by the English language. In French, however, such a specification cannot be interpreted from the meaning of the metaphor
empreinte carbone
(
carbon imprint
) which defines a similar concept. We rely on visual representations of these metaphorical expressions in English and French to discuss the characteristics associated with each source domain: we show that visual metaphors can contradict expectations emerging from the interpretations of verbal metaphors.
Keywords: carbon footprint, fingerprint, imprint, climate change, English, French, multi-modal metaphor, media variation of meaning
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.The explanatory characteristics of a metaphor
- 3.Methodology
- 4.Verbal metaphors in English and French
- 4.1The metaphors carbon footprint and fingerprint in English
- 4.2 empreinte carbone: A footprint or a fingerprint?
- 5.
footprint, fingerprint
, and
empreinte
in short animated videos about climate change
- 5.1English visual metaphors reflect source-specific selection of features
- 5.2 empreinte carbone and its visual representations
- 6.Discussion
- Note
-
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