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Article published In:
Pragmatics & Cognition
Vol. 27:2 (2020) ► pp.474–499

Metaphor and metonymy in Chinese and American political cartoons (2018–2019) about the Sino-US trade conflict

| Northeast Normal University
| University of Amsterdam

Political cartoons make meaning by drawing on scenarios that must be immediately recognizable by their intended audience. Crucial meaning-making mechanisms in these scenarios are verbo-visual ensembles of metaphors and metonymies. In this paper we investigate 69 Chinese and 60 American political cartoons published in 2018 and 2019 that pertain to the two nations’ trade conflict. By examining the cross-cultural similarities and differences between metaphors and metonymies, we chart how Chinese and American cartoonists portray this trade conflict. We end by showing how a complete interpretation of the cartoons requires enrichment with insights provided by yet other analytical instruments.

Keywords: visual metaphor, visual metonymy, Chinese political cartoons, American political cartoons, intercultural pragmatics, intertextuality, trade conflict
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Metaphor and metonymy: A very brief characterization
  • 3.The Sino-US trade conflict
  • 4.Data and method of analysis
  • 5.Results
    • 5.1Conceptual metaphorical source domains recurring more than five times
      • 5.1.1 trade conflict is war/fight
      • 5.1.2 trade conflict is game/sports/play
      • 5.1.3 trade conflict is an interrupted journey
      • 5.1.4 trade conflict is a natural disaster
      • 5.1.5 world is a person
    • 5.2Other conceptual, and creative, metaphors
    • 5.3Recurring metonymies for the US and China
      • 5.3.1 flag for country
      • 5.3.2 uncle sam for us; trump for us; american citizen for us
      • 5.3.3 xi for china; chinese citizen for china; panda/dragon for china
      • 5.3.4 spiked cudgel for aggressive trade conflict measures
  • 6.Discussion of metaphors and metonymies in the cartoons
  • 7.Methodological issues and meaning-generating mechanisms beyond metaphor and metonymy
    • 7.1Multimodality: Interaction between visuals and language
    • 7.2Intertextuality
    • 7.3Idioms and expressions
    • 7.4Themes and topoi
    • 7.5Pictorial runes and other stylistic resources from comics
    • 7.6An example of a cartoon combining different meaning-making resources
  • 8.Concluding remarks
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
Published online: 6 October 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/pc.20013.zha
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