Linguistics and Literature Studies Vol. 3(5), pp. 240 - 247
DOI: 10.13189/lls.2015.030507
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A Multimodal Corpus-based Study on Co-speech Metaphorical Gestures in Political Speeches

Qian Wang ^*
School of Foreign Languages of Northwestern Polytechnical University, China

ABSTRACT

With the assistance of multimedia annotation software ELAN, this study employs corpus-based approach to explore the inner mechanisms and characteristics of multimodal meaning construction in the co-speech metaphorical gestures in political speeches. Research findings show that in multimodal meaning making process, three patterns like "Metonymy within metaphor", "Metonymy-prominent" and "A-ING IS B-ING" can be identified. Metonymy is crucial in multimodal meaning construction for they can either be used to form a similarity relation between the source domain and target domain in the first interactive pattern, or to achieve its referential function in the second pattern, or to be used to motivate metaphorical mapping process level upon level in the third interactive pattern. lexical categories as verbs, verbal phrases and nouns are most frequently occurring words that accompany metaphorical gestures, which reveal the importance of metaphorical gestures in highlighting the language focus.

KEYWORDS
Political Speech, Metaphorical Gestures, Pattern, Characteristics

Cite This Paper in IEEE or APA Citation Styles
(a). IEEE Format:
[1] Qian Wang , "A Multimodal Corpus-based Study on Co-speech Metaphorical Gestures in Political Speeches," Linguistics and Literature Studies, Vol. 3, No. 5, pp. 240 - 247, 2015. DOI: 10.13189/lls.2015.030507.

(b). APA Format:
Qian Wang (2015). A Multimodal Corpus-based Study on Co-speech Metaphorical Gestures in Political Speeches. Linguistics and Literature Studies, 3(5), 240 - 247. DOI: 10.13189/lls.2015.030507.