Dysphemistic Representation of Tory Leaders in Editorial Cartoons Published by the British Conservative Press: from John Major to Theresa May

• Luis Francisco López López ^[1]
  1. [1] Universidad Complutense de Madrid

     Universidad Complutense de Madrid

     Madrid, España

     
• Localización: Thresholds and Ways Forward in English Studies / coord. por María Lourdes López Ropero, Sara Prieto García-Cañedo, José Antonio Sánchez Fajardo, 2020, ISBN 978-84-1302-079-2, págs. 211-223
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • Set within the field of British politics, this paper analyses metaphorical and metonymical conceptualisation of leadership in the British Conservative Party used by editorial cartoons in the British conservative press. A corpus of 90 cartoons published in two widely-circulating British newspapers was collected. The analysis offers quantitative and qualitative data thanks to an integrative approach which combines cognitive and discourse approaches departing from Sorm and Steen’s (2013), adapting Kövecses’ (2010) taxonomy of source domains and the model of metonymy proposed by Ruiz de Mendoza and Otal (2002); but also applying Charteris-Black’s (2014) Critical Metaphor Analysis and Musolff’s (2016) scenario-based approach. It reveals that one of the main conceptualisation strategies used by cartoonists is to carry a process of semantic pejoration through mapping of undesirable animal characteristics and habits onto Conservative leaders. Metaphor and metonymy are consistently used by cartoonists with dysphemistic purposes when portraying difficult situations for the main Conservative Party leaders. Thus, conservative leaders are consistently depicted through metaphors activating the source domains of animals or movement and direction, mapping negatively evaluated qualities onto their political prospects. Due to the political bias of the newspaper analysed here, further research might be needed in the form of a synchronic study on how British Conservative Party policies are perceived by newspapers with opposing political allegiances.