How visual metaphors can contradict verbal occurrences

Abstract

We investigate the different interpretations related to the metaphorical imprint of climate change in English and French media discourses. This cross-linguistic perspective is motivated by the particularities of both languages which have been assumed to promote different understandings of climate change-related concepts. We focus on the metaphor carbon footprint whose meaning can be compared to another climate change metaphor in English: fingerprint . These two source domains share a highly specific and concrete meaning interpreted from lexical constructions enabled by the English language. In French, however, such a specification cannot be interpreted from the meaning of the metaphor empreinte carbone ( carbon imprint ) which defines a similar concept. We rely on visual representations of these metaphorical expressions in English and French to discuss the characteristics associated with each source domain: we show that visual metaphors can contradict expectations emerging from the interpretations of verbal metaphors.