Cover not available

Article published In: Metaphor and the Social World
Vol. 13:2 (2023) ► pp.293–315

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
EPUB logo with download linkDownload EPUB
authorization required

Metaphors and metonymies in the multimodal discourse of whaling

A cross genre comparative study

 | Akita University
Published online: 10 January 2023
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/msw.22008.yua
Abstract
Metaphors and metonymies are considered complex phenomena dependent on various factors. This paper looks at genre (as one of the many factors) to verify to what extent the subjective descriptions of a highly controversial and complex social topic such as whaling can be driven by discourse type. The whaling discourse was chosen because antiwhaling activist NGOs’ have had great success with their extensive social campaigns worldwide, while it is a highly controversial and politically charged topic. These unique features resulted in the emergence of advertising and political cartoons. By examining the similarities and differences between metaphors, metonymies, and other meaning-making tropes such as irony and hyperbole, the observed difference concerns both the intention behind the selection of source domains and a preference for favoring certain evaluative metaphorical expressions in one genre as opposed to another to have a distinct impact on its intended audience.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Whaling controversy and the two distinctive genres
  • 3.Corpus
  • 4.Method and identification process
  • 5.Results
    • 5.1Metaphors across genres
      • 5.1.1WAR metaphor
      • 5.1.2journey metaphor
      • 5.1.3eating metaphor
      • 5.1.4Other distinguished metaphors
    • 5.2Metonymies across two genres
      • 5.2.1Metonymies on the whale, whaling ship, and whaling
      • 5.2.2Other prominent metonymies
    • 5.3Other meaning-making tropes across genre
  • 6.Discussion
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
References (41)
References
Bounegru, L., & Forceville, C. (2011). Metaphors in editorial cartoons representing the global financial crisis. Visual Communication, 10(2), 209–229. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Burgers, C., Konijn, E. A., & Steen, G. J. (2016). Figurative Framing: Shaping Public Discourse Through Metaphor, Hyperbole, and Irony: Figurative Framing. Communication Theory, 26(4), 410–430. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Burgers, C., van Mulken, M., & Schellens, P. J. (2011). Finding Irony: An Introduction of the Verbal Irony Procedure (VIP). Metaphor and Symbol, 26(3), 186–205. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Catalinac, A. L., & Chan, G. (2005). Japan, the West, and the whaling issue: Understanding the Japanese side. Japan Forum, 17(1), 133–163. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cohen, J. (1988). Statistical Power Analysis for the Behavioral Sciences. Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Craig, T. Y., & Blankenship, K. L. (2011). Language and Persuasion: Linguistic Extremity Influences Message Processing and Behavioral Intentions. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 30(3), 290–310. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Culpeper, J. (2011). Impoliteness: Using language to cause offence. Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Culpeper, J., Bousfield, D., & Wichmann, A. (2003). Impoliteness revisited: With special reference to dynamic and prosodic aspects. Journal of Pragmatics, 35(10–11), 1545–1579. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
El Refaie, E. E. (2009). Multiliteracies: How readers interpret political cartoons. Visual Communication, 8(2), 181–205. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2003). Understanding visual metaphor: The example of newspaper cartoons. Visual Communication, 2(1), 75–95. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2005). ‘Our purebred ethnic compatriots’: Irony in newspaper journalism. Journal of Pragmatics, 37(6), 781–797. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Flusberg, S. J., Matlock, T., & Thibodeau, P. H. (2018). War metaphors in public discourse. Metaphor and Symbol, 33(1), 1–18. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Forceville, C. (2021). Chapter 40. Multimodality. In W. Xu & R. T. John (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics (pp. 676–687). Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2005). Addressing an audience: Time, place, and genre in Peter van Straaten’s calendar cartoons. Humor, 18(3), 247–278. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2020). Visual and multimodal communication: Applying the relevance principle. Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2009). Chapter 2. Non-verbal and multimodal metaphor in a cognitivist framework: Agendas for research. In Forceville, C. & Urios-Aparisi, E. (Eds.), Multimodal Metaphor. Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 19–42. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jeong, S. (2008). Visual metaphor in advertising: is the persuasive effect attributable to visual argumentation or metaphorical rhetoric? Journal of Marketing Communications. 14 (1), 59–73. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Johnson, M. (1993). Moral imagination: Implications of cognitive science for ethics (Paperback ed). Univ. of Chicago Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kalland, A. (1993). Whale Politics and Green Legitimacy: A Critique of the Anti-Whaling Campaign. Anthropology Today, Vol. 9, No 6 (Dec 1993), pp.3–7. [URL].
Kövecses, Z. (2005). Metaphor in Culture: Universality and Variation (1st ed.). Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lakoff, G. (2009). Metaphor and War: The Metaphor System Used to Justify War in the Gulf. Cognitive Semiotics, 4(2), 5–19. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. L. (1999). Philosophy in the flesh: The embodied mind and its challenge to western thought. Basic books.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors we live by. University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lin, T. Y.-Y., & Chiang, W. (2015). Multimodal Fusion in Analyzing Political Cartoons: Debates on U.S. Beef Imports Into Taiwan. Metaphor and Symbol, 30(2), 137–161. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Master Metaphor List (1991). 1st edn compiled by George Lakoff, Jane Espenson & Adele Goldberg; 2nd edn compiled by George Lakoff, Jane Espenson & Alan Schwartz.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Morishita, J. (2006). Multiple analysis of the whaling issue: Understanding the dispute by a matrix. Marine Policy, 30(6), 802–808. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Newman, J. (1997). Eating and drinking as sources of metaphor in English. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(Ed.). (2009). The Linguistics of Eating and Drinking (Vol. 841). John Benjamins Publishing Company. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pérez-Sobrino, P. (2017). Multimodal metaphor and metonymy in advertising. John Benjamins Publishing Company. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2016). “Shockvertising”: Conceptual interaction patterns as constraints on advertising creativity. Círculo de Lingüística Aplicada a La Comunicación, 651, 257–290. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pershing, A. J., Christensen, L. B., Record, N. R., Sherwood, G. D., & Stetson, P. B. (2010). The Impact of Whaling on the Ocean Carbon Cycle: Why Bigger Was Better. PLoS ONE, 5(8), e12444. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Powell, H., Jonathan, H., Sarah, H., & Iain, M. (2009). “Glossary.“ In Helen Powell, Jonathan Hardy, Sarah Hawkin, and Iain MacRury (eds.), The Advertising Handbook (3rd ed., 218–226). London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
R Core Team. (2016). R: A language and environment for statistical computing. Vienna: R Foundation for Statistical Computing. Retrieved from: [URL]
Rocci, A., Mazzali-Lurati, S., & Pollaroli, C. (2018). The argumentative and rhetorical function of multimodal metonymy. Semiotica, 2018(220), 123–153. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rocha, R. C., Clapham, P. J., & Ivashchenko, Y. V. (2014). Emptying the oceans: A summary of industrial whaling catches in the 20th century. Marine Fisheries Review, 76(4), 37–48. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez, F. J., & Galera Masegosa, A. (2014). Cognitive Modeling: A linguistic perspective (Vol. 451). John Benjamins Publishing Company. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Steen, G. J., Dorst, A. G., Herrmann, J. B., Kaal, A., Krennmayr, T., & Pasma, T. (2010). A Method for Linguistic Metaphor Identification: From MIP to MIPVU (Vol. 141). John Benjamins Publishing Company. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tay, D. (2017). Metaphor construction in online motivational posters. Journal of Pragmatics, 1121, 97–112. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (2)

Cited by two other publications

Yuan, Xiaoben
2025. Various ways of supporting society. Cognitive Linguistic Studies 12:2 ► pp. 322 ff. DOI logo
Guan, Shaoyang & Yuhua Sun
2023. Multimodal metaphor and metonymy in political cartoons as a means of country image construction. Russian Journal of Linguistics 27:2 ► pp. 444 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 27 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue