Beggary behind the Closed Door of United Nations Security Council; Conceptual Metaphor, Metonymy and Blending in Political Cartoons

Political cartoons are powerful and effective tools that serve to express the political concepts and views. They use cognitive mechanisms of conceptual metaphor, metonymy and blending abundantly. For the past eight years, ‘JCPOA’ has been the most important issue in Iran's foreign policy, which has also been widely reflected in domestic political cartoons. One of the issues that became a dispute between the United States and other countries member of “Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action” (JCPOA), in 2020 is the “Trigger Mechanism”. In the present research, two political cartoons on the subject of trigger mechanism from Tasnim News Agency have been extracted and investigated within the framework of three theories of Conceptual Metaphor (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980; Lakoff, 1993), Multimodal Metaphor (Forceville, 1996, 2006, 2009) and Conceptual Blending (Fauconnier & Turner, 2002). The results of the study show that one of the cartoons is formed around the conceptual blending of two mental spaces of “beggary” and “activation of the trigger mechanism”, while the other is based on metaphor “THE TRIGGER MECHANISM IS A GUN”. In addition to conceptual metaphor and blending, two basic conceptual metonymies are also found in cartoons: One is “PERSON FOR COUNTRY/ GOVERNMENT” and the other is “PLACE FOR INSTITUTION/ ORGANIZATION”. Using these cognitive mechanisms, the cartoonist portrays Trump and his government’s attempt to activate the trigger mechanism as a desperate effort that is doomed to failure.
 
1. Introduction
Political cartoons are important communicational devices which are simultaneously utilized for engaging/ defusing attention, humor, criticizing and interpretation. In political cartoons, the cognitive mechanisms of metaphor, metonymy and blending are abundantly used to express cartoonist’s political ideas and views in a creative, satirical and effective way. For the past eight years, nuclear agreement between Iran and 5+1 group, known as “Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action” (JCPOA), has been the most important subject in Iran foreign policy. In the middle of 2020, the JCPOA trigger mechanism has been a source of dispute between the US and Iran. Given the importance of this issue in Iranian foreign policy, the purpose of this study is to investigate the role of conceptual metaphor, metonymy and blending in analysis of political cartoons related to the JCPOA and specifically its ‘trigger mechanism’.
 
2. Theoretical framework
The theoretical framework of the research consists of three theories of conceptual metaphor theory (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980; Lakoff, 1993), conceptual blending theory (Fauconnier & Turner, 2002) and multimodal metaphor theory (Forceville, 1996, 2006, 2009). According to the conceptual metaphor theory, metaphor is a cognitive and conceptual phenomenon rather than a purely linguistic one. Conceptual metaphor is a systematic set of correspondences, or mappings, between two domains of experience. The multimodal metaphor theory is a complement to the conceptual metaphor theory that seeks to examine the manifestation of metaphor in nonverbal modes such as images, cartoons, paintings, films, music and the other products of the human mind. multimodal metaphors are metaphors whose target and source are each represented exclusively or predominantly in different modes. The theory of conceptual blending aims to provide a general cognitive model for the meaning construction and for how novel concepts emerge. Conceptual blending requires at least two mental spaces, which are called input spaces, and their fusion leads to the creation of a blended space.
 
3. Methodology
In this research, two political cartoons related to the JCPOA and specifically about ‘the trigger mechanism’ will be examined. Both cartoons were published in August 2020 four days apart in Tasnim News Agency, which is affiliated with the principalists. The two cartoons have at least three important points in common; First, the main issue for both is the trigger mechanism; Second, in both of them there is a reference to the previous US attempt to extend the arms embargo on Iran, which was opposed by the UN Security Council and thus failed. Third, in both cartoons, Donald Trump, the former US President, is portrayed in a state of humiliation and begging behind closed doors of the Security Council. The cartoons are investigated in the frameworks of Conceptual Metaphor Theory, Conceptual Blending Theory and Multimodal Metaphor Theory. The main research question is “how are cognitive mechanisms of metaphor, metonymy and blending used to convey message of the cartoon?”
 
4. Results & Discussion
The results show that the cartoon 1 is formed around the conceptual blending of two mental spaces: ‘beggary’ and ‘activation of the trigger mechanism’. Following this blending, several metaphorical mappings are formed between elements of the input mental spaces which express the main intended message and meaning of the cartoon. In other words, using the aforementioned blending, the cartoonist portrays Trump and his government’s attempt to activate the trigger mechanism as a desperate effort that is doomed to failure.
The cartoon 2 is based on metaphor ‘the trigger mechanism is a gun’ in which the JCPOA trigger mechanism is conceptualized as a gun at the hands of the US government using it as a tool to threaten and pressure Iran. The metaphor implies the coercion and bullying of the US government and Trump himself, who, despite leaving the JCPOA and imposing economic sanctions on Iran, is trying to illegally vote for the trigger mechanism in the UN Security Council and activate it. On the other hand, the way in which Trump is depicted sitting on the ground and knocking at the closed door of the Security Council pleadingly, implies the weakness and desperation of the US government in winning the votes of other members of the JCPOA, as well as members of the Security Council. Thus, using the above-mentioned metaphor, the cartoonist has put together two opposite concepts of coercion and desperation related to the US government.
In addition to conceptual metaphor and blending, two conceptual metonymies are also found in cartoons: ‘person for country/government’ and ‘place for organization/institution’. Since the concepts of ‘country/ government’ and ‘organization/ institution’ are much more abstract than the concepts of ‘person’ and ‘place’ and hence are more difficult to be depicted, cartoonists use the latter ones. Therefore, these two metonymies enable cartoonists to represent their intended concepts easily.
 
5. Conclusions & Suggestions
The research findings are in line with the view of researchers such as Kövecses (2010) who considers cartoons as a rich source for nonverbal representation of metaphors in which conceptual metaphors are depicted visually. Moreover, the prominent presence of metaphor (as well as metonymy) in political cartoons confirms this important principle of conceptual metaphor theory that metaphor is not a figure of speech, but a mode of thought which underlies not only the language but also the other human mental products, including cartoons.
 
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