Analysis of metaphors in cartoons

Abstract

Metaphors are tools that help us to conceptualize life by establishing links between two domains (Gibbs, 2006). Lakoff and Johnson (1980) introduced the study of metaphors from the point of view of cognitive linguistics and developed Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT). Although along the first years of CMT most interest was devoted to the study of linguistic metaphor, in the last few years the cognitive linguistics community has also developed an interest in the manifestation of metaphors along other modes (Forceville and Urios-Aparisi, 2009; Pascual and Silvestre 2015). In the particular field of visual metaphors, metaphors have been analysed in a wide series of manifestations like advertising, comics, cartoons, design or photography. Charles J. Forceville (2009) suggests four manifestations of visual metaphor through which he explains how our mind interprets the final meaning. Apart from the cognitive linguistics perspective, metaphors have also been studied from the perspective of semiotics by a different set of scholars. Charles Sanders Peirce offered a philosophical and logical view to the theory of the metaphor and he also established parameters in order to identify metaphors in images. This study presents a set of analytical instruments provided both by the cognitive linguistics and semiotic perspectives mentioned above in order to analyse a selection of cartoons arising from the attack on Charlie Hebdo magazine. The results of such analysis show how visual metaphors are present as a means of communication of ideas and feelings and also as a tool of persuasion.