A Multi-modal Analysis of Metaphors and Metonymies in News Cartoons

Multi-modal metaphors and metonymies possess powerful expressive capabilities. For instance, cartoons convey complex meanings through simple images and minimal text, enabled precisely by their underlying multi-modal metaphorical and metonymic constructions. As a carrier of such expressions, editorial cartoons are increasingly used in publications and news. Unlike pure text, they leverage text-image synergy to map from source to target domains, generating emotional and expressive effects unattainable through words alone. Analyzing metaphors and metonymies in cartoons thus offers an effective approach to understanding current events and social issues. Conceptual Blending Theory (CBT) provides a theoretical framework for interpreting these multi-modal mechanisms. CBT posits that meaning construction requires activating two inter-mappable input spaces. Their shared structures project into a generic space for integration, then selectively blend into a blended space, where content is combined, matched, or supplemented against existing knowledge. This study applies CBT to analyze COVID-19 editorial cartoons from China News Cartoon Network (post-lifting of restrictions). By decoding multi-modal metaphors and metonymies and their intentions, it aims to deepen public understanding of the pandemic. The analysis reveals that while China’s pandemic response achieved significant positive outcomes with an overall improving trajectory, the fight against COVID-19 entails ongoing complexities and challenges.