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Metaphors are believed to be a very common device employed by cartoonists to convey their ideas in euphemistic or humorous ways (Philippe, 1982; Morrison, 1992; Edwards, 1997; Templin, 1999). As a bridge between fact and fiction, cartoons can combine real-life events with imaginary scenarios. Based on the genre characteristics of cartoons, scholars at home and abroad have been carrying out many multimodal metaphor studies in cartoons on specific topics. In this section, these studies will be elaborated on thoroughly.

2.1.1 Previous Studies on Multimodal Metaphors in Cartoons Abroad

The study of multimodal metaphors can be traced back to the 1980s. The metaphor in pictures draws scholars’ attention on that the source domain and the target domain are visually presented, which is different from the verbal metaphor, like linear art and illustrations (Kennedy, 1982) and film images (Whittock, 1990). In 1996, Forceville formally proposed pictorial metaphor in his famous book Pictorial Metaphor in Advertising and extended studies on metaphor into the realm of multimodality, which marked the birth of multimodal metaphor. Pictorial metaphors were classified into four kinds in 1996, which include pictorial metaphors with one pictorially term (MP1s), pictorial metaphors with two pictorially terms (MP2s), verbal-pictorial metaphors (VPMs), and pictorial similes. In 2008, Forceville reclassified pictorial metaphor into four types including hybrid metaphor (originally named MP1), contextual metaphor (originally named MP2), pictorial simile, and integrated metaphor.

2.2 Previous Studies of Relevance Theory Applied in Multimodal Discourse

Although domestic and foreign researches on Relevance Theory are fruitful, most of them focus on language communication. The research on other modalities of communication is relatively insufficient (Fan & Guo, 2019). In this section, studies in multimodal discourse from the perspective of Relevance Theory are critically reviewed.

The history of applying Relevance Theory to multimodal discourse has been relatively long. In terms of theoretical construction, some scholars analyze the advantages and main problems of Relevance Theory in multimodal discourse. They try to construct a comprehensive multimodal discourse analysis theoretical framework model based on Relevance Theory. Fan and Guo (2019), for example, compare four mainstream multimodal metaphor theoretical models including Relevance Theory, conceptual metaphor, visual grammar, and conceptual integration, whose aim is to advance the theoretical study of multimodal metaphor and provide some reference for the future development of this field. Forcevill (2020) demonstrates the universality of Relevance Theory by extending its scope from face-to-face verbal communication to visual communication and multimodal mass communication, from an original perspective of evolutionary approach, or rather from the perspective of the two fundamental goals of humans. He integrates paradigms of semiotics, psychology, linguistics and other science disciplines, and uses numerous case studies to verify the feasibility of Relevance Theory, which blazes a new trail for multimodal discours本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。