Article published In:
Metaphor and the Social WorldVol. 6:1 (2016) ► pp.20–51
Pictorial-verbal metaphors in Chinese editorial cartoons on food safety
Based on a corpus of 120 cartoons collected from the website http://cartoon.chinadaily.com.cn, this study attempts to give an account of pictorial-verbal metaphors in Chinese editorial cartoons on food safety from the perspective of Conceptual Metaphor Theory and multimodal metaphor theory. The findings are as follows: (1) Four major mode configuration patterns are observed: cross-modal mapping, mono-modal mapping, multimodal mapping and implied mapping. (2) The pictorial-verbal metaphors centre around five major target domains: unsafe food, consumer, producer/seller, supervision authority and food safety law/standard. (3) A large number of scenario metaphors are observed in the data, which can be further divided into those that are cross-culturally perceivable and those that are heavily embedded in Chinese culture. The working mechanism of scenario metaphors can be accounted for by Conceptual Blending Theory. The study helps delineate the food safety situation that we are facing in China from a metaphorical perspective. It also extends the application of multimodal metaphor theory to a Chinese context and contributes to the refinement of the theory.
References
Bounegru, L., & Forceville, C
(2011) Metaphors in editorial cartoons representing the global financial crisis. Visual Communication, 10(2), 209–229. 
Caballero, R
(2009) Cutting across the senses: Imagery in winespeak and audiovisual promotion. In C. Forceville & E. Urios-Aparisi (Eds.), Multimodal metaphor (pp. 73–94). Berlin: Mouton De Gruyter.
Eggertsson, G.T., & Forceville, C
(2009) Multimodal expressions of the human victim is animal metaphor in horror films. In C. Forceville & E. Urios-Aparisi (Eds.), Multimodal metaphor (pp. 197–212). Berlin: Mouton De Gruyter.
El Refaie, E
(2003) Understanding visual metaphor: The example of newspaper cartoons. Visual Communication, 2(1), 75–95.
(2009) Metaphor in political cartoons: Exploring audience responses. In C. Forceville & E. Urios-Aparisi (Eds.), Multimodal metaphor (pp. 173–196). Berlin: Mouton De Gruyter.
Fauconnier, G., & Turner, M
(2002) The way we think: Conceptual blending and the mind’s hidden complexities. New York: Basic books.
Feng, D
(2011) The construction and categorization of multimodal metaphor: A systemic functional perspective. Foreign Language Research, 125(1), 24–29.
Forceville, C
(2007) Multimodal metaphor in ten Dutch TV commercials. The Public Journal of Semiotics, 1(1), 15–34.
(2008) Metaphor in pictures and multimodal representations. In R.W. Gibbs, Jr (Ed.), The Cambridge handbook of metaphor and thought (pp. 462–482). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
(2009) Non-verbal and multimodal metaphor in cognitivist framework: Agendas for research. In C. Forceville & E. Urios-Aparisi (Eds.), Multimodal metaphor (pp. 19–48). Berlin: Mouton De Gruyter.
Forceville, C., & Urios-Aparisi. E
(Eds.) (2009) Multimodal metaphor. Berlin: Mouton De Gruyter.
Koller, V
(2009) Brand images: Multimodal metaphor in corporate branding messages. In C. Forceville & E. Urios-Aparisi (Eds.), Multimodal metaphor (pp. 45–72). Berlin: Mouton De Gruyter.
Kövecses, Z
(2002) Metaphor: A practical introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
(2005) Metaphor in culture: Universality and variation. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Kress, G
(2009) What is a mode? In C. Jewitt (Ed.), The Routledge handbook of multimodal analysis (pp. 54–67). London: Routledge.
Lakoff, G
(1993) The contemporary theory of metaphor. In A. Ortony (Ed.), Metaphor and thought (2nd ed.) (pp. 202–251). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Lakoff, G., & Turner, M
(1989) More than cool reason: A field guide to poetic metaphor. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Pan, Y
(2011) Multimodal metaphors and identity construction in political cartoons. Foreign Language Research, 125(1), 11–15.
Qin, S
(2008) Understanding metaphors in American political cartoons on 9.11. Art Observation, 61, 126–128.
Schilperoord, J., & Maes, A
(2009) Visual metaphoric conceptualization in editorial cartoons. In C. Forceville & E. Urios-Aparisi (Eds.), Multimodal metaphor (pp. 213–240). Berlin: Mouton De Gruyter.
Shen, Y
(1999) Principles of metaphor interpretation and the notion of ‘domain’: A proposal for a hybrid model. Journal of Pragmatics, 311, 1631–1653.
Teng, N.Y
(2009) Image alignment in multimodal metaphor. In C. Forceville & E. Urios-Aparisi (Eds.), Multimodal metaphor (pp. 197–212). Berlin: Mouton De Gruyter.
Xu, H
(2014) Regarding food safety, who are we to trust. Food Safety Guide, 141, 1–5.
Yu, Y
(2013) A study on news cartoon multimodal metaphorical representation: Classification, underlying mechanism and genre features in terms of mode arrangement. Foreign Language Research, 137(1), 1–9.
Yus, F
(2009) Visual metaphor versus verbal metaphor: A unified account. In C. Forceville & E. Urios-Aparisi (Eds.), Multimodal metaphor (pp. 147–172). Berlin: Mouton De Gruyter.
Cited by
Cited by 6 other publications
Khatin-Zadeh, Omid & Hooshang Khoshsima
2021. Homo-schematic Metaphors: A Study of Metaphor Comprehension in Three Different Priming Conditions. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 50:4 ► pp. 923 ff. 
Stead, Oliver & Chern Li Liew
2020. Editorial cartoon collections: a review of indexing challenges. Aslib Journal of Information Management 72:3 ► pp. 421 ff.
Zhang, Cun
2021. The Sino–US trade war in political cartoons: A synthesis of semiotic, cognitive, and cultural perspectives. Intercultural Pragmatics 18:4 ► pp. 469 ff.
Zhang, Cun & Charles Forceville
2020. Metaphor and metonymy in Chinese and American political cartoons (2018–2019) about the Sino-US trade
conflict. Pragmatics & Cognition 27:2 ► pp. 474 ff.
Zibin, Aseel
2022. Monomodal and multimodal metaphors in editorial cartoons on the coronavirus by Jordanian cartoonists. Linguistics Vanguard 8:1 ► pp. 383 ff.
Zibin, Aseel & Abdel Rahman Mitib Altakhaineh
2023. A blending analysis of metaphors and metonymies used to depict the deal of the century by Jordanian cartoonists. Language and Cognition ► pp. 1 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 21 february 2023. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.