TOTAL VIEWS: 516
This study is conducted to elucidate the mechanism of visual frame metonymy in Chinese environmental governance posters and discloses their functions in environmental governance issues. The study takes 142 posters advertised on Environment Day in 2023 as a corpus. It first identifies and describes what scenes are metonymically referred to by the visual elements in the posters. It then explores the mechanism of visual frame metonymy from a critical discourse perspective and finally evaluates its functions. The study reveals that the posters predominantly construct visual frames of mountain-river landscapes, city-townscape, human actions, ecological reserves, rare species, new technology projects, and national cultural heritages. The frames invoked by specific visual semiotics underscore the harmonious coexistence of humans and nature. The mechanism of visual metonymy employed in the posters offers an insight into understanding what nature is and what harmonious coexistence is. Furthermore, the study considers the function of visual frames in affecting public attitudes and behaviours in daily life. It concludes that the discursive practice of the “Two Mountains” concept of environment governance, which draws upon the traditional Chinese landscape philosophy, evokes emotional resonance among the public and stimulates their imagination of what harmonious coexistence is. This, in turn, can motivate their environmental protection actions.
Charteris-Black, J. (2004). Corpus Approaches to Critical Metaphor Analysis. New York: Palgrave MacMillan.
Cox, R. (2010). Environmental Communication and Public Sphere (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Dancygier, B. (2011). Modification and constructional blends in the use of proper names. Constructions and Frames, 3(2), 208-235. https://doi.org/10.1075/cf.3.2.03dan
Dancygier, B. (2023). Multimodal media: Framing climate change. Discourse Studies, 25(2), 220-236.
https://doi.org/10.1177/14614456231154724
Entman, R. M. (1993). Framing: Toward clarification of a fractured paradigm. Journal of Communication, 43(4), 51-58.
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.1993.tb01304.x
Fairclough, N. (2001). Language and Power. London: Longman.
Feng, W. D. (2017). Metonymy and visual representation: Towards a social semiotic framework of visual metonymy. Visual Communication, 16(4), 441-466.
https://doi.org/10.1177/1470357217717142
Forceville, C. (2009). Non-verbal and multimodal metaphor in a cognitivist framework: Agendas for research. In C. Forceville & E. Urios-Aparisi (Eds.), Multimodal Metaphor (pp. 19-42). Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Foss, S. K. (2004). Rhetorical criticism: Exploration & practice. Waveland Press.
Geise, S. (2017). Visual framing. In P. Rossler, C. A. Hoffner, & L. van Zoone (Eds.), The International Encyclopedia of Media Effects (Vol. IV, pp. 1-12). New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Gibbs, R. W. (1994). The poetics of mind: Figurative thought, language, and understanding. Cambridge University Press.
Goffman, E. (1974). Frame Analysis: An essay on the organization of experience. Boston, MA: Northeastern University Press.
Goffman, E. (1979). Gender Advertisement. London: Macmillan International Higher Education.
Halliday, M. A. K. (1987). Language as social semiotic: The social interpretation of language and meaning. Edward Arnold.
Hart, R. P., & Daughton, S. M. (2005). Modern rhetorical criticism (3rd ed.). Pearson.
Hidalgo-Downing, L., & O’Dowd, N. A. (2023). Code Red for Humanity: Multimodal metaphor and metonymy in non-commercial advertisements on environmental awareness and activism. Metaphor and Symbol, 38(3), 231-253.
https://doi.org/10.1080/10926488.2022.2153336
Ke, J. (2021). Traditional mountain-water culture elements in Xi Jinping thought on ecological civilization. Hubei Social Sciences, (9), 153-157.
https://doi.org/10.13660/j.cnki.42-1112/c.015717
Kress, G., & Van Leeuwen, T. (2006). Reading images: The grammar of visual design (2nd ed.). Routledge.
Lakoff, G. (1987). Women, fire, and dangerous things: What categories reveal about the mind. University of Chicago Press.
Lakoff, G. (2004). Don’t think of an elephant!: Know your values and frame the debate: The essential guide for progressives. White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green Publishing Company.
Lakoff, G. (2010). Why it matters how we frame the environment. Environmental Communication, 4(1), 70-81.
https://doi.org/10.1080/17524030903529749
Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors we live by. University of Chicago Press.
Lakoff, G., & Turner, M. (1999). More than cool reason: A field guide to poetic metaphor. University of Chicago Press.
Li, H. (2022). Semiotizing governance of environmental topics: Theories and pathways. Journalism and Mass Communication, (10), 33-41+51. https://doi.org/10.15897/j.cnki.cn51-1046/g2.20221024.001
Li, K., & Wang, X. (2015). A study of critical metonymy analysis from the perspective of rhetorical criticism. Modern Foreign Languages, (2), 183-291.
Liu, T. (2021). Visual Rhetoric. Beijing: Peking University Press.
Machin, D. (2013). What is multimodal critical discourse studies? Critical Discourse Studies, 10(4), 347-355.
https://doi.org/10.1080/17405904.2013.813770
Messaris, P., & Abraham, L. (2001). The role of images in framing news stories. In S. D. Reese, O. H. Gandy, & A. E. Grant (Eds.), Framing public life: Perspectives on media and our understanding of the social world (pp. 215-226). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers.
O’Dowd, N. A. (2024). The potential of creative uses of metonymy for climate protest. Discourse & Society, 35(3), 360-380. https://doi.org/10.1177/09579265231222005
Paavola, J. (2006). Institutions and environmental governance: A reconceptualization. Ecological Economics, 63(1), 93-103. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2006.09.026
Pan, Y. (2020). A critical multimodal metonymy analysis of war films. Foreign Languages Research, (2), 13-18.
https://doi.org/10.16362/j.cnki.cn61-1023/h.2020.02.003
Party Documents Research Office of the CPC Central Committee (Ed.). (2017). Excerpts from Xi Jinping’s Discourses on Socialist Ecological Civilization Construction. Beijing: Zhongyang Wenxian Publishing.
Radden, G., & Kövecses, Z. (1999). Towards a theory of metonymy. In K.-U. Panther & G. Radden (Eds.), Metonymy in language and thought (pp. 17-60). John Benjamins Publishing Company.
van Leeuwen, T. (2012). The critical analysis of musical discourse. Critical Discourse Studies, 9(4), 319-328.
https://doi.org/10.1080/17405904.2012.713204
Wodak, R. (1999). Critical Discourse Analysis at the End of the 20th Century. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 32(1-2), 185-193.
https://doi.org/10.1080/08351813.1999.9683622
Zheng, G. (1995). On the exploration of Chinese landscape culture research. Seeking Truth, (3), 65-71.
A Critical Discourse Analysis of Visual Frame Metonymy of Chinese Environment Day Posters
How to cite this paper: Suijun Wen. (2025) A Critical Discourse Analysis of Visual Frame Metonymy of Chinese Environment Day Posters. Journal of Humanities, Arts and Social Science, 9(5), 868-883.
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.26855/jhass.2025.05.002