Curriculum and Social Inquiry Commons^™

The Language Of Money: How Verbal And Visual Metonymy Shapes Public Opinion About Financial Events, Theresa Catalano, Linda R. Waugh

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

Much recent work on metonymy has concentrated on its definition, properties and functions (Benczes, Barcelona & Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez, 2011) but few studies have examined the combination ofverbal and visual metonymy or the benefits of multimodal metonymical analysis in issues of social justice. In this paper eleven news articles regarding issues in financial discourse such as the financial crisis, fiscal cliff, underwater homeowners and entitlements are examined visually and verbally from a variety of online newspaper sources. Results reveal intricate visual and verbal metonymies such as EFFECT FOR CAUSE, RESULT FOR ACTION, INSTITUTION FOR PERSON, DEFINING PROPERTY FOR CATEGORY …