Semiotics of Visual Metaphor in Mexican Electoral Discourse: Case-Study of the 2024 Presidential Election Campaign

Abstract

The relevance of the study is explained by the need to consider the functioning of the mechanisms of discursive sensemaking and an impact on the recipients of information, taking into account the new linguosemiotic opportunities which modern political communication provides and which are manifested not only in the real life, but also in the virtual digital environment. The multimedia technologies are gaining an increasing role, allowing to encode discursive messages, using semiotically polycode format, combining the traditional verbal way of presenting information along with iconic, color, graphic, metatext and other formats. The aim of the study is to prove that semiotic parameters of visual metaphor as a polycode sign functioning in the discursive environment within the framework of the pragmatic situation “Elections”, determine its interpretative and semantic potential and interacting with other sign codes result in new meanings and interpretations. The materials for the study of visual metaphors are the official logos used during the 2024 election campaign in Mexico. The research methodology, which allows for a systematic study of visual metaphors semiotics, is based on the interdisciplinary and polyparadigmatic model of discourse studies and implies an integral approach that combines the general scientific methods of analysis and synthesis, comparison and analogy with the method of sociolinguistic interpretation, semantic, interpretive, linguocognitive and discourse analysis. It has been found out that the linguosemiotic paradigm of Mexican electoral discourse integrates verbal and non-verbal semiotic codes to express meanings, conceptualize and categorize reality. By using of various semiotic codes, the metaphor-logo condenses the semantic content and, as a cognitive model based on analogy, acts as a means of sensemaking, modelling the perception of the world in the interests of the addresser. The use of polysemantic iconic signs-images, understandable to a wide audience of voters, translates connotative, ideological and social meanings. Thus, a visual metaphor as a way of logical comprehension and verbalization of reality functions as a significant component of the cognitive space within electoral discourse.

Keywords

• color symbolism
• iconic sign
• polycode
• decoding