Conceptual Blending in Visual Discourse: Cognitive Insights from Socio-Cultural Cartoons

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Ph.D. candidate of Linguistics, Department of Linguistics, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran.

2 Associate Professor, Department of Linguistics, Faculty of Humanities, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran (Corresponding Author)

3 Associate Professor, Department of Linguistics, Faculty of Humanities, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran.

10.22075/jlrs.2026.39630.2786

Abstract

The present study examines conceptual blending as a fundamental cognitive mechanism involved in the production and comprehension of socio-cultural press cartoons. It is based on the assumption that such visual texts employ complex cognitive processes to convey abstract concepts, humor, and social criticism. Drawing on the conceptual blending framework proposed by Fauconnier and Turner (2002), the study adopts a qualitative and frequency-based approach to analyze a corpus of 1,000 socio-cultural cartoons collected from the "Iran Cartoon" website. The primary aim is to identify and classify instances of conceptual blending in these cartoons. The analysis shows that conceptual blending is a highly prevalent cognitive strategy in this genre: 310 out of the 1,000 cartoons examined contain at least one instance of conceptual blending. The distribution of blending types reveals a clear pattern. Double-scope blends are the most frequent, with 210 cases, followed by single-scope blends with 100 cases, while mirror and simple blends are entirely absent. These findings suggest that socio-cultural cartoons predominantly rely on complex blending structures that integrate distinct conceptual domains or exploit internal metaphorical relations to achieve their communicative goals. The high frequency of double-scope and single-scope blends demonstrates their effectiveness in generating novel, insightful, and often humorous critiques of social phenomena. By offering a systematic analysis of a socio-cultural cartoon corpus a genre that has received comparatively less scholarly attention than political cartoons this study contributes to the existing literature and provides new insights into the cognitive processes underlying the communicative power of visual satire.

Keywords

References

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Journal Of Linguistic and Rhetorical Studies
Volume 17, Issue 43
In progress
March 2026
Pages 153-188

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