Identifying and interpreting visual metaphors in political cartoons
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Charles Forceville
Abstract
Metaphors abound in political cartoons. This is unsurprising, as visual metaphors are excellent rhetorical tools to provide, in one glance, an evaluation of a newsworthy person or state of affairs in the world. Analysts of cartoons, however, are faced with the challenge of examining and categorizing any visual metaphors in a systematic and replicable manner. In this chapter I revisit my own earlier, coauthored work on metaphor in political cartoons (Bounegru & Forceville 2011; Forceville & Van de Laar 2019; Zhang & Forceville 2020), rooted in Black (1962, 1979), to zoom in on criteria for identifying and interpreting visual metaphors. The chapter, which includes a critical discussion of the visual metaphor identification procedure (VISMIP) proposed by Šorm and Steen (2013, 2018), ends by giving some practical advice to aspiring analysts of corpora of discourses featuring visual metaphors.
Abstract
Metaphors abound in political cartoons. This is unsurprising, as visual metaphors are excellent rhetorical tools to provide, in one glance, an evaluation of a newsworthy person or state of affairs in the world. Analysts of cartoons, however, are faced with the challenge of examining and categorizing any visual metaphors in a systematic and replicable manner. In this chapter I revisit my own earlier, coauthored work on metaphor in political cartoons (Bounegru & Forceville 2011; Forceville & Van de Laar 2019; Zhang & Forceville 2020), rooted in Black (1962, 1979), to zoom in on criteria for identifying and interpreting visual metaphors. The chapter, which includes a critical discussion of the visual metaphor identification procedure (VISMIP) proposed by Šorm and Steen (2013, 2018), ends by giving some practical advice to aspiring analysts of corpora of discourses featuring visual metaphors.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter I
- Contents V
- Merging tenets and tools in socio-political metaphor analysis 1
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I Construing reality through metaphor
- Similes vs. metaphors. A case study on the conceptualisation of Covid-19 pandemic 23
- From the closet to the stars. Metaphoric construals of gender identity in tumblr. A case study 51
- “A wall of human misery”: Critical metaphor analysis and the discursive representation of Ukrainian refugees in British news articles 81
- Polarising metaphors in far-right populist tweets: A comparative crosslinguistic study 107
- Imagine a cell as a medieval fortress: Metaphor as a tool of explanation and persuasion in the Serbian pro-vaccination discourse 135
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II Contesting the world through metaphor
- War metaphors and conspiracy theories 159
- Fighting metaphors: Social resistance to mainstream metaphors 177
- The construction and survivability of “blaming” metaphors on Chinese social media 207
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III Performing ideology through multimodal metaphor
- Metaphorical perspectives on women in armed conflicts. Female depictions in the murals of Northern Ireland 229
- Identifying and interpreting visual metaphors in political cartoons 255
- Image-schematic structuring of metaphor in visual art from the perspective of socio-political context. A case study of Jerzy Kalina’s sculpture Pomnik Anonimowego Przechodnia ‘Monument of an Anonymous Passer-by’ 279
- Fire, war and revolution: Metaphor in media discourses of political protest 307
- Index 333
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter I
- Contents V
- Merging tenets and tools in socio-political metaphor analysis 1
-
I Construing reality through metaphor
- Similes vs. metaphors. A case study on the conceptualisation of Covid-19 pandemic 23
- From the closet to the stars. Metaphoric construals of gender identity in tumblr. A case study 51
- “A wall of human misery”: Critical metaphor analysis and the discursive representation of Ukrainian refugees in British news articles 81
- Polarising metaphors in far-right populist tweets: A comparative crosslinguistic study 107
- Imagine a cell as a medieval fortress: Metaphor as a tool of explanation and persuasion in the Serbian pro-vaccination discourse 135
-
II Contesting the world through metaphor
- War metaphors and conspiracy theories 159
- Fighting metaphors: Social resistance to mainstream metaphors 177
- The construction and survivability of “blaming” metaphors on Chinese social media 207
-
III Performing ideology through multimodal metaphor
- Metaphorical perspectives on women in armed conflicts. Female depictions in the murals of Northern Ireland 229
- Identifying and interpreting visual metaphors in political cartoons 255
- Image-schematic structuring of metaphor in visual art from the perspective of socio-political context. A case study of Jerzy Kalina’s sculpture Pomnik Anonimowego Przechodnia ‘Monument of an Anonymous Passer-by’ 279
- Fire, war and revolution: Metaphor in media discourses of political protest 307
- Index 333
