Satirising the Nigeria Police Force: a Multimodal Discourse Analytical Study of Selected Cartoons of TELL Newsmagazines

Abstract

This paper analysed some selected cartoons from TELL newsmagazines. The purpose was to describe the visual components and communicative devices employed by the cartoonist to send his message to the viewer/readers. The cartoons essentially were used to satire represented phenomenon.  Data for the study were drawn from both primary and secondary sources. The main data for the study comprised 4 cartoons purposively selected from 2012 editions of TELL newsmagazines. The selection of the cartoons was predicated upon the subject under consideration. Analysis of the data is based on multimodal discourse analysis as explicated by Gunter Kress and Theo Van Leeuwen (2001). The result showed that semiotic resources such as colour, image, symbols and icons, gaze and posture enhance the semantic quality of the cartoons. This study revealed very strongly and established the potentials of visual images to convey meaning beyond the verbal language in any human society.

Keywords; satire, multimodal discourse analysis, semantic quality, semiotic resources.