A Socio-pragmatic Study of Some Caricatures in Iraqi TV. Media

Abstract

The aftermath of the Gulf War in the liberation of Iraq (2003) brought about endless sufferings for Iraqi people. The use of caricature in Iraqi Media has been an outlet and a means of presenting the corruption, violence, marginalization and other social vices present in the society. The paper is an attempt at carrying out a socio-pragmatic study of selected media caricatures culled from Al-Baghdadia TV. Channel, drawn by Salim Al-Rubayee, an Iraqi caricaturist ⁽¹⁾. The study will depend on Grice's maxims to find out whether these maxims are obeyed or not, and the socio-pragmatic factors governing language use or choice derived from the social situational context Surrounding each caricature. The analysis reveals that Grice's maxims have been observed except quality maxim which is flouted intentionally for humorous or sarcastic reasons, looking for conversational implicature through irony or metaphor. All the analyzed caricatures appear as a reflection of the current socio-pragmatic events in the country, thus they are intertextually related to caricature as a recognizable discourse genre of media, and intratextually related to caricature as TV media subgenre.

Key Words: caricature, maxims, context, implicature, intertextuality