Metaphor, Metonymy and Conceptual Integration in Satirical Discourse: British and American Political Cartoons

Verbal and visual metaphorical and metonymic images are key instruments of political satire, enabling the concise and expressive conveyance of evaluative attitudes toward socio-political realities. However, the multi-level mechanism of creating and decoding such figurative constructs in polycode cartoon texts has not yet received a systematic account. The aim of this study is to identify the stages of encoding and decoding metaphorical and metonymic images, expressed visually and/or verbally in English-language political cartoons, and to establish the role of linguistic and pictorial codes in meaning-making through conceptual integration. The empirical material comprises 200 political cartoons (100 British and 100 American) published as editorial illustrations in The Guardian and The U.S. News & World Report from May 2024 to May 2026. The study draws on Conceptual Metaphor Theory (Lakoff, Johnson), Conceptual Integration Theory (Fauconnier, Turner), and the principles of Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis (O’Halloran); Trim’s (2024) six-level framework for monomodal political media texts is adapted to model the stages of figurative creation and decoding. The findings reveal that Trim’s six-level model is transformed into a five-level structure: cultural and political contexts are integrated at a single level, while the visual/verbal metaphor, metonymy, or metaphtonymy is distinguished as the initial decoding stage. The analysis identifies the dominance of the pictorial code and three types of intersemiotic ties between the visual figurative unit and the verbal component: weak (the linguistic element is uninformative), elaborative (the verbal code provides minor clarifications of reference and/or enhances the satirical message), and key (the linguistic component determines the reference domain of the visual image). Special attention is given to cases of metaphtonymy, in which metaphor and metonymy function inseparably within a single polycode sign. The study contributes to the investigation of metaphorical encoding and decoding stages in semiotically heterogeneous texts and opens avenues for a comparative analysis of British and American satirical traditions.

1. Abdel-Raheem, A. (2021). Conceptual blending and (im)politeness in political cartooning. Multimodal Communication, 10(3), 245–264. https://doi.org/10.1515/mc-2021-0002

2. Balakina Yu.V. (2021). Politicheskaya karikatura v zarubezhnuh media [Political cartoons in foreign media]. Vestnik Moskovskogo Universiteta. Seriya 10. Zurnalistika. № 6, 95– 115. https://doi.org/10.30547/vestnik.journ.6.2021.95115

3. Belyaeva E.V. (2023). Politicheskaya karikatura v sovremennom mire: poniatiye I suschnost’ [The concept and the essence of political cartoon in the modern world]. Communicology (Russ.). 11(4), 162–170. https://doi.org/10.21453/2311-3065-2023-11-4-162-170

4. De Bruyn, J. (2025). Donald Trump’s photo op: politics or faith? Ten days the Bible featured prominently in editorial cartoons in June 2020. The European Journal of Humour Research, 13(2), 86–110. https://doi.org/10.7592/EJHR.2025.13.2.948

5. Dugalich, N. M. (2023). Sredstva sozdaniya komicheskogo effekta v karikature meditsinskogo diskursa [Means of creating comic effect in medical discourse cartoons]. Teoriya yazyka i mezhkul’turnaya kommunikatsiya, (4(51)), 46–58.

6. Dugalich N.M. (2024). Medicinskaia karikatura v russkom I arabskom yazukah: obschee I specificheskoie [Medical caricatures in Russian and Arabic: general and specific features] Inostrannye yazyki v vysshej shkole. (4(71)), 69–75. https://doi.org/10.37724/RSU.2024.71.4.009

7. Dymova A. V., V. Yu. Kareva, A.I. Zolotaiko. (2024). Rishi Sunak vs Keir Starmer: Cartoon Representation in the Context of the 2024 General Election. Filologicheskie nauki v MGIMO, Vol. 10, No. 4, 114–131. https://doi.org/10.24833/2410-2423-2024-4-41-114-131

8. Egorova, O. A., & Kalashnikova, V. V. (2016). Kognitivno-pragmaticheskie parametry konceptual’noj metafory v britanskom politicheskom diskurse [Cognitive-pragmatic parameters of conceptual metaphor in British political discourse]. Filologicheskie nauki v MGIMO, (8), 39–53.

9. El Refaie, E. (2009). Metaphor in political cartoons: Exploring audience responses. In C. Forceville & E. Urios-Aparisi (Eds.), Multimodal metaphor (pp. 173–196). Berlin/ New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

10. Fauconnier, G., & Turner, M. (1995). Conceptual integration and formal expression. Metaphor and Symbolic Activity, 10(3), 183–204. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327868ms1003_3

11. Forceville, C. (2009). Metonymy in visual and audiovisual discourse. In E. Ventola & A. J. Moya Guijarro (Eds.), The World Told and the World Shown: Multisemiotic Issues (pp. 56–74). London: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230245341_4

12. Forceville, C. (2024). Identifying and interpreting visual metaphors in political cartoons. In M. Romano (Ed.), Metaphor in Socio-Political Contexts: Current Crises (pp. 255–278). Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter Mouton. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111001364-011

13. Goossens, L. (1990). Metaphtonymy: the interaction of metaphor and metonymy in expressions for linguistic action. Cognitive Linguistics, 1(3), 323–342. https://doi.org/10.1515/cogl.1990.1.3.323.

14. Heinemann, S. (2026). On metaphor in political cartoons between mono and multimodality – France in the corona crisis. Multimodal Communication, 15(1), 21–39. https://doi.org/10.1515/mc-2025-0034

15. Hidalgo-Downing, L., & O’Dowd, N. A. (2023). Code Red for Humanity: Multimodal Metaphor and Metonymy in Noncommercial Advertisements on Environmental Awareness and Activism. Metaphor and Symbol, 38(3), 231–253. https://doi.org/10.1080/10926488.2-022.2153336

16. Hidalgo-Downing, L. (2025). Creative visual and multimodal metonymy in noncommercial advertisements on substance use. Metaphor and the Social World, 15(2), 288–313. https://doi.org/10.1075/msw.24028.hid

17. Karasik, V. I. (2019). Komicheskie attraktivy v setevom diskurse [Comical attractives in network discourse]. Zhanry rechi, (3(23)), 227–233. https://doi.org/10.18500/2311-0740-2019-3-23-227-233

18. Kashanizadeh, Z., & Forceville, C. (2020). Visual and multimodal interaction of metaphor and metonymy: A study of Iranian and Dutch print advertisements. Cognitive Linguistic Studies, 7(1), 78–110. https://doi.org/10.1075/cogls.00050.kas.

19. Khazagerov, G. G. (2022). Neyasnosti v teorii allegorii i simvola [Uncertainties in the theory of allegory and symbol]. Vestnik Khakasskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta im. N. F. Katanova, (4(42)), 76–84.

20. Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980). The metaphorical structure of the human conceptual system. Cognitive Science, 4(2), 195–208. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15516709cog0402_4.

21. Littlemore, J. (2015). Metonymy: Hidden shortcuts in language, thought and communication. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (227 p.)

22. Marín-Arrese, J. I. (2020). Metaphorical creativity in Political Cartoons: The Migrant Cri sis in Europe. In L. Hidalgo-Downing & B. Kraljevic-Mujic (Eds.), Performing Metaphoric Creativity across Modes and Contexts (pp. 153–173). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

23. Maslova, Zh. N. (2009). Metafora, metonimija i simvol v kognitivnoj pojetike [Metaphor, metonymy and symbol in cognitive poetics]. Izvestija Volgogradskogo gosudarstvennogo pedagogicheskogo universiteta, (2(36)), 130–134.

24. Meng Ru (2022). Polimodal’naya metafora v rossiyskoi karikature v kontekste teorii konceptual’noi integratsii (na primere temy epidemii COVID-19) [Multimodal Metaphor in the Russian Cartoon from the Perspective of Conceptual Blending Theory (On the Example of the COVID-19 Pandemic)]. Politicheskaya Lingvistika. (5(95)), 230–236. https://doi.org/10.26170/1999-2629_2022_05_25.

25. Milashchenko, N. G., & Pavlina, S. Y. (2025). Modifying stance in media translation. Medialinguistics, 12(3), 446–460.

26. Morris, R. (1993). Visual rhetoric in political cartoons: A structuralist approach. Metaphor and Symbolic Activity, 8(3), 195–210. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327868ms0803_5

27. Negro Alousque, I. (2013). Visual metaphor and metonymy in French political cartoons. Revista Española de Lingüística Aplicada, 26, 365–384.

28. O’Halloran, K. L. (2021). Multimodal Discourse Analysis. In K. Hyland, B. Paltridge, & L. Wong (Eds.), The Bloomsbury Handbook of Discourse Analysis (2nd ed., pp. 249–266). London: Bloomsbury.

29. Pavlina, S. Yu. (2025). Angloyazychnaya politicheskaya karikatura v sotsiokul’turnom kontekste [English-language political cartoon in a socio-cultural context]. Vestnik Rossiyskogo universiteta druzhby narodov. Seriya: Teoriya yazyka. Semiotika. Semantika, 16(1), 61–76. https://doi.org/10.22363/2313-2299-2025-16-1-61-76

30. Pedrazzini, A. (2024). The challenge of dissecting the frog: cartoonists analyze their creative process. Semiotica, 2024(261), 117–141. https://doi.org/10.1515/sem-2023-0078

31. Schilperoord, J., & Maes, A. (2009). Visual metaphoric conceptualization in editorial car toons. In C. Forceville & E. Urios-Aparisi (Eds.), Multimodal Metaphor (pp. 213–242). Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110215366.3.213

32. Stöckl, H., & Tseronis, A. (2024). Multimodal rhetoric and argumentation: Applications – genres – methods. Journal of Argumentation in Context, 13(2), 167–176. https://doi.org/10.1075/jaic.00026.tse

33. Talybina E.V., Minakova N.A. (2013). Karikatura kak vzaimodeistviye verbal’nuh i neverbalnyh znakovyh system [Caricature as interaction of verbal and non-verbal sign systems]. Rusistika. (1), 24–30.

34. Trim, R. (2024). French political symbolism and identity construction. Russian Journal of Linguistics, 28(1), 102–122. https://doi.org/10.22363/2687-0088-34560

35. Tseronis, A. (2021). From Visual Rhetoric to Multimodal Argumentation: Exploring the Rhetorical and Argumentative Relevance of Multimodal Figures on the Covers of The Economist. Visual Communication, 20(3), 374–396. https://doi.org/10.1177/14703572211005498

36. Van Leeuwen, T. (2005). Introducing social semiotics. London, New York: Routledge.

37. Vasil’eva, O. V. (2024). Zoomorfnye simvoly kak resurs gruppovoj identifikacii v Respublike Sakha (Yakutiya) [Zoomorphic symbols as a resource of group identification in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia)]. Ojkumena. Regionovedcheskie issledovanija, 1(68), 42–48.

38. Voroshilova, M. B. (2010). Krizis skvoz’ smekh: metaforicheskiy obraz mirovogo krizisa v russkoy politicheskoy karikature [Crisis through laughter: metaphorical image of the global crisis in Russian political cartoons]. Politicheskaya lingvistika, (1(31), 90–95.

39. Zolotaiko A.I. (2025). Metafora sporta v politicheskih karikaturah kak otrazeniye protivostoyaniya veduschih mirovuh val’ut [Sports Metaphors in Political Cartoons as a Reflection of Confrontation Between Major Global Currencies]. Political linguistics. № 6(114), 154–164.

40.