A Multimodal Discourse Analysis Of Caricatures Associated with Russia Ukraine War

Abstract

The rhetorical investigation of multimodality in caricature art is a growing concern for researcher adopting critical discourse analysis approaches. The popularity of the visual medium has become the prime example of how both visual and linguistic meaning can be constructed and interpreted based on prevailing social, cultural, and political setting adopting a multimodal critical discourse analysis approach. This study sought to investigate multimodality in political discourse in the Ukrainian and Palestinian context by examining 6 selected caricatures based on Russia-Ukraine War that becomes world war. The sample is selected from Cartoon movement website. This study employed a multimodal discourse analysis as pioneered by the works of Halliday who describe the concept of multimodality as well as Kress and van Leeuwen (1996) multimodal discourse analysis. The results reveal that the selected caricatures have explicit and implicit meanings and they can be interpreted verbally and non-verbally. Some of them are read with particular words to render the intended meaning to the target audience, whereas the rest of them represent particular concepts that encompass huge issues that reflect the reality. The reader can elicit their meanings from the visual features of the photos, such as color, expressions, and symbolism. The ultimate goal of the caricatures is manifested in reflecting the agony, suffer, and resentment of Ukrainian people to prompt people to take an action that will change their current situation. Besides, the selected caricatures reflect Putin’s bad intentions in terms of weakening and destroying Ukraine.