A Semiotic Analysis of Political Cartoons in Jordan in Light of the Arab Spring
-
Kawakib Al-Momani
Kawakib Al-Momani is an associated professor of applied linguistics at the Department of English Language and Linguistics, Jordan University of Science and Technology, Jordan. She earned her B.A at and Yarmouk University in Jordan and her M.A. from Salford University, UK; And her doctorate degree in Linguistics from Herriot Watt University, UK. Her research interests focus on semiotics, critical discourse analysis, discourse analysis, Genre analysis, and pragmatics.
,
Muhammad A. Badarneh
Muhammad A. Badarneh is Associate Professor of Linguistics at the Department of English Language and Linguistics, Jordan University of Science and Technology, Jordan. His research interests focus on pragmatics, discourse and communication.
Fathi Migdadi is an associate professor in linguistics and the director of the Language Center at Jordan University of Science and Technology. He earned his B.A and M.A. from Yarmouk University in Jordan and his doctorate degree in Linguistics from Ball State University, USA. His research interests focus on discourse analysis, conversational analysis, semiotics and speech act theory. He has published in cross-cultural communication, the pragmatics of religious expressions in Jordanian Arabic and the politeness strategies of callers in complaint calls in phone-in programs.
Abstract
This paper provides a semiotic analysis of political cartoons published in Jordan prior to and during the 2013 elections. It seeks to depict the sociopolitical context after the 2011 Arab Spring and focuses on the changes to people’s practices and stances toward politics and politicians. The data consist of political cartoons by the Jordanian cartoonist Imad Hajjaj drawn during the parliamentary election campaigns in 2007, 2010, and 2013. This paper argues that the humor generated in cartoons conveys strong messages that require an analysis of the interaction between the different signs in cartoons and their social and ideological implications. A model of analysis derived from Barthes’ perception of denotation and connotation theories is adopted. This model is comprised of three types of messages: linguistic, literal, and symbolic. The analysis identifies different messages in the cartoons before and after 2011. Unlike the cartoons from 2007 and 2010, the linguistic and denoted messages in the cartoons of 2013 connoted a sense of salvation, achievement, victory, freedom, dignity, and democracy, merits that had rarely been highlighted in previous cartoons. This attitude is reflected by themes such as the positive image of the young, public awareness of political and national issues, and resistance towards corruption. The study sheds light on this neglected area of visual communication in the Arab world and hopes to provide new insights into the fields of semiotics, pragmatics, multimodal analysis, and critical discourse analysis.
About the authors
Kawakib Al-Momani is an associated professor of applied linguistics at the Department of English Language and Linguistics, Jordan University of Science and Technology, Jordan. She earned her B.A at and Yarmouk University in Jordan and her M.A. from Salford University, UK; And her doctorate degree in Linguistics from Herriot Watt University, UK. Her research interests focus on semiotics, critical discourse analysis, discourse analysis, Genre analysis, and pragmatics.
Muhammad A. Badarneh is Associate Professor of Linguistics at the Department of English Language and Linguistics, Jordan University of Science and Technology, Jordan. His research interests focus on pragmatics, discourse and communication.
Fathi Migdadi is an associate professor in linguistics and the director of the Language Center at Jordan University of Science and Technology. He earned his B.A and M.A. from Yarmouk University in Jordan and his doctorate degree in Linguistics from Ball State University, USA. His research interests focus on discourse analysis, conversational analysis, semiotics and speech act theory. He has published in cross-cultural communication, the pragmatics of religious expressions in Jordanian Arabic and the politeness strategies of callers in complaint calls in phone-in programs.
Acknowledgement
We the authors of this article hereby extend our deepest thanks and gratitude to the famous cartoonist Imad Hajjaj who gave us permission to use his cartoons for research purposes.
References
Ahmad, Mazen Fawzi. 2007. On the relationship between Grice’s maxims and humor discourse. Adab Al Rafidain 45. 49–66.Suche in Google Scholar
Al Kayed, Murad, Amal Kitishat & Hana Farajallah. 2015. Violation of the Grice’s maxims in Jordanian newspapers’ cartoons: A pragmatic study. International Journal of Linguistics and Literature 4(4). 41–50.Suche in Google Scholar
Badarneh, Muhammad A. 2011. Carnivalesque politics: A Bakhtinian case study of contemporary Arab political humor. Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 24(3). 305–327.10.1515/humr.2011.019Suche in Google Scholar
Barthes, Roland. 1964. Elements of Semiology (trans. Annette Lavers & Colin Smith). London: Jonathan Cape.Suche in Google Scholar
Barthes, Roland. 1972. Mythology. New York: Noonday Press.Suche in Google Scholar
Barthes, Roland. 1977. Image-Music-Text. London: Fontana.Suche in Google Scholar
Chandler, Daniel. 2002. Semiotics: The basics. London: Routledge.10.4324/9780203166277Suche in Google Scholar
Chen, Khin Wee. 2013. The Singapore Mass Rapid Transport: A case study of the efficacy of a democratised political humour landscape in a critical engagement in the public sphere. European Journal of Humour Research 1(2). 43–68.10.7592/EJHR2013.1.2.chenSuche in Google Scholar
Cheong, Yin Yuen. 2004. The construal of ideational meaning in print advertisements. In Kay L. O’Halloran (ed.), Multimodal discourse analysis: Systemic functional perspectives, 163–195. London: Continuum.Suche in Google Scholar
Eco, Umberto. 1986. Semiotics and the philosophy of language. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Suche in Google Scholar
Fathi, Ibrahim. 1991. Kumīdya al-hukm al-šumūliyy [The comedy of totalitarian regimes]. Cairo: Egyptian General Book Commission.Suche in Google Scholar
Heitzman, Ray. 1998. The power of political cartoons in teaching history. Occasional paper. National Council for History Education. http://www.nche.net/document.doc?id=31. Accessed November 20, 2015.Suche in Google Scholar
Ibrahim, Riyadh. 2014. A socio-pragmatic study of some caricatures in Iraqi TV Media. Research on Humanities and Social Sciences 4. 165–175.Suche in Google Scholar
Kanaana, Sharif. 1995. Palestinian humor during the Gulf War. Journal of Folklore Research 32(1). 65–75.Suche in Google Scholar
Kishtainy, Khalid. 1985. Arab political humour. London: Quartet.Suche in Google Scholar
Kuipers, Giselinde. 2011. The politics of humor in the public sphere: Cartoons, power and modernity in the first transnational humor scandal. European Journal of Cultural Studies 14(1). 63–80.10.1177/1367549410370072Suche in Google Scholar
Levinson, Stephen C. 1983. Pragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511813313Suche in Google Scholar
Lewis, Paul ed.. 2008. The Muhammad cartoons and humor research: A collection of essays. Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 21(1). 1–46.10.1515/HUMOR.2008.001Suche in Google Scholar
Mascha, Efharis. 2008. Political satire and hegemony: A case of ‘passive revolution’ during Moussolini’s ascendance to power 1919–1925. Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 21(1). 69–98.10.1515/HUMOR.2008.003Suche in Google Scholar
Martin, Rod A. 2008. Thoughts on the Muhammad cartoon fiasco. Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 21(1). 16–21.10.1515/HUMOR.2008.007Suche in Google Scholar
Najjar, Orayb. 2007. Cartoons as a site for the construction of Palestinian refugee identity. Journal of Communication Inquiry 31(3). 255–285.10.1177/0196859907302455Suche in Google Scholar
Peirce, Charles Sanders. 1958. Collected Writings (8 vols.). Charles Hartshorne, Paul Weiss, and Arthur W. Burks (eds.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Suche in Google Scholar
Qassim, Andreas. 2006. Arabic political cartoons: The 2006 Lebanon War. Available at http://www.andreasqassim.com/download/MA_thesis.pdf.Suche in Google Scholar
Raskin, Victor. 2008. On the political impotence of humour. Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 21(1). 26–30.10.1515/9783110198492.1Suche in Google Scholar
Royce, T. D. 2007. Intersemiotic complementarity: A framework for multimodal discourse analysis. In T. D. Royce & W. L. Bowcher (eds.), New directions in the analysis of multimodal discourse, 63–109. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Suche in Google Scholar
Samson, Andrea & Oswald Huber. 2001. The interaction of cartoonist’s gender and formal features of cartoons. Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 20. 1–25.10.1515/HUMOR.2007.001Suche in Google Scholar
Shehata, Samer S. 1992. Politics of laughter: Nasser, Sadat, and Mubarak in Egyptian political jokes. Folklore 103. 75–91.10.1080/0015587X.1992.9715831Suche in Google Scholar
Sherbiny, Najem A. 2005. America: A view from Egypt. Social Research 4. 831–856.10.1353/sor.2005.0019Suche in Google Scholar
Stöckl, Hartmut. 2004. In between modes: Language and image in printed media. In Eija Ventola, Cassily Charles & Martin Kaltenbacher (eds.), Perspectives of multimodality, 9–30. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.10.1075/ddcs.6.03stoSuche in Google Scholar
Sturken, Marita & Lisa Cartwright. 2001. Practices of looking: An introduction to visual culture. New York: Oxford University Press.Suche in Google Scholar
Saussure, Ferdinand de. 1983 [1916]. Course in general linguistics (trans. Roy Harris). London: Duckwort.Suche in Google Scholar
Tsakona, Villy. 2009. Language and image interaction in cartoons: Towards a multimodal theory of humor. Journal of Pragmatics 41(6). 1171–1188.10.1016/j.pragma.2008.12.003Suche in Google Scholar
Tsakona, Villy & Diana Elena Popa (eds.). 2011. Studies in political humor: In between political critique and public entertainment. Amsterdam: John Benjamins10.1075/dapsac.46Suche in Google Scholar
©2016 by De Gruyter Mouton
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- The role of economic conditions on humor generation and attitude towards humorous TV commercials
- A Semiotic Analysis of Political Cartoons in Jordan in Light of the Arab Spring
- Bridging notions of language play and language awareness
- The development of a humor styles questionnaire for younger children
- A humor typology to identify humor styles used in sitcoms
- The seriousness of ethnic jokes: Ethnic humor and social change in the Netherlands, 1995–2012
- Book Reviews
- Moira Marsh: Practically Joking
- Daniel Bowles: The Ends of Satire: Legacies of Satire in Postwar German Writing
- Gian Luigi De Rosa, Francesca Bianchi, Antonella De Laurentiis, and Elisa Perego: Translating Humor in Audiovisual Texts
- Erratum
- Erratum to: Faith and laughter: Do atheists and practicing Christians have different senses of humor?
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- The role of economic conditions on humor generation and attitude towards humorous TV commercials
- A Semiotic Analysis of Political Cartoons in Jordan in Light of the Arab Spring
- Bridging notions of language play and language awareness
- The development of a humor styles questionnaire for younger children
- A humor typology to identify humor styles used in sitcoms
- The seriousness of ethnic jokes: Ethnic humor and social change in the Netherlands, 1995–2012
- Book Reviews
- Moira Marsh: Practically Joking
- Daniel Bowles: The Ends of Satire: Legacies of Satire in Postwar German Writing
- Gian Luigi De Rosa, Francesca Bianchi, Antonella De Laurentiis, and Elisa Perego: Translating Humor in Audiovisual Texts
- Erratum
- Erratum to: Faith and laughter: Do atheists and practicing Christians have different senses of humor?
