Abstract: By adopting a cognitive linguistics-oriented and multimodal metaphor-based approach,the metaphors and metonymies in three different public crisis cartoons will be analyzed with the consideration of genre features and social context in this paper.The cultural connotation behind their source domains and target domains will be explored to obtain a better understanding of their multimodal information and cultural values.Meanwhile,the genre scope of multimodal studies is therefore expanded to verify and supply relevant theory of conceptual metaphor,providing beneficial revelation to the prevention,management and treatment of public crisis.

Key words: public crisis, cartoon, multimodal metaphor, cultural connotation