Rishi Sunak vs Keir Starmer: Cartoon Representation in the Context of the 2024 General Election

This research is devoted to the images of personalities in the modern world political arena from the point of view of linguistic analysis. The purpose of the article is to identify the specific representation features of the dramatic results of the parliamentary elections in Great Britain in the news Internet discourse at the non-verbal level of the text. The study is conducted through cognitive discourse analysis of images and metaphors based on creolized texts. The selected cartoons are attributed to two stretches of time as regards their release dates: the anticipation of the 2024 UK General election and on the date of election (July 4, 2024) or within a month afterwards. The caricatures were classified according to who was featured: Rishi Sunak alone, Keir Starmer alone, or both of them contrasted. The results of the research were obtained by means of a complex 7-step analysis. It is concluded that it is the combination of images / motifs incorporated within one cartoon that might make it especially powerful at leaving its imprint on the target reader. Regardless of the tactics applied by the cartoon authors to formulate the connotative vectors in the sample, one may see that each image / motif is supported by two prominent means. That is metaphorical transference that alters the cartoon space, action or appearance of the politicians so as to converge two differing phenomena of reality and characterise one through another. Allusions to events or previously made utterances are another basis for the sampled cartoons. The essential point that stems from the conducted research is that the English-language cartoons of Rishi Sunak are harsher than the ones of his opponent and concurrently the winner of the election. Although many of them appeal to negative connotations, some still represent Keir Starmer neutrally (e.g. a cleaner) or even positively (e.g. a winner of a sports competition). The inclusion of allusive elements is particularly characteristic of the cartoons representing Keir Starmer.

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