Cognitive processing of visual metaphor from the perspective of Conceptual Metaphor Theory

The relevance of this study lies in the ongoing debate surrounding the cognitive processing of visual metaphor within the framework of modern cognitive linguistics, particularly Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT). The aim of the article was to develop and test an algorithm for analysing visual metaphors based on a modified version of CMT, drawing on the ideas of Z. Kövecses and taking into account the influence of domain visualisation as well as the characteristics of relative and situational analogical mapping in cognitive processing. The study employed a comprehensive methodology that integrated the analysis of visual metaphor according to domain visualisation criteria, classical cognitive analysis of conceptual metaphor, and an analytical model grounded in the extended and modified version of CMT proposed by Z. Kövecses. The research identified that the sequential cognitive operations involved in processing unconventional visual metaphors include: establishing the visualised source and target domains of the metaphor; identifying metonymic connections in the referent and correlate that provide access to the metaphor’s conceptual domains; identifying the conventional component within the metaphor’s conceptual structure – namely, the “general-level” conceptual metaphors; identifying the main meaning foci of the sources used for conceptualising aspects of the target domains; identifying unconventional mappings – meaning components in visual metaphor that go beyond conventional conceptualisations, based on the cognitive strategies of extension, elaboration, and completion; and deriving the overall meaning of the metaphor through the integration of conventional and unconventional mappings. An approach that applies an extended version of Z. Kövecses’s Conceptual Metaphor Theory to the analysis of non-conventional fusion visual metaphors with relational mapping – one of the most cognitively complex types – enhances understanding of how metaphorical images are visualised and cognitively processed through both conventional and unconventional conceptualisations