Modal functioning of rhetorical resources in selected multimodal cartoons

Bibliographic Data

ID4474357
AuthorsAna Pedrazzini (0000-0003-0524-0305, Grupo Vinculado de Estudios Culturales y Cognitivos, Instituto Patagónico en Humanidades y Ciencias Sociales (IPEHCS) , CONICET – UNCO , Pasaje Gutiérrez 1490 , Bariloche , Río Negro 8400 , Argentina, corresponding author), Nora Scheuer (0000-0002-3273-9323, Grupo Vinculado de Estudios Culturales y Cognitivos, Instituto Patagónico en Humanidades y Ciencias Sociales (IPEHCS) , CONICET – UNCO , Bariloche , Río Negro , Argentina)
Year2019
Volume2019
Issue230
Pages275-310
Publication date2019-10-25
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSemiotica (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0037-1998 • E-ISSN: 1613-3692
PublisherWalter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.1515/sem-2017-0116
OpenAlexW2962695524
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited58

Firstly, this paper aims to analyze how verbal and visual modes contribute to build two basic components of cartoons: the referenced situation and the fictional situation. Secondly, it aims to unravel the semiotics of this discursive genre by offering a fine-grained picture of modal variations and continuities of the rhetorical resources deployed, by means of which the fictional situation is displayed. The corpus is composed of 50 multimodal cartoons chosen by cartoonists of 22 nationalities as the most representative of their work in the frame of a wide questionnaire. Category analysis and non-parametric statistics were applied. We identified and fleshed out four different types of modal functioning of resources: visual preference, verbal preference, modal flexibility, and genuine multimodal functioning. Even if visual and multimodal metaphor were often in charge of transferring meaning from fiction to the referenced situation, results show that other resources such as antithesis, irony, and syllepsis can become the key resources of cartoons. Findings highlight the multilayered functioning of cartoons, among which plastic features can play a significant role, and provide further evidence in favor of the hyperdetermination of humor hypothesis proposed by Attardo

Antithesis · Cognitive psychology · Irony · Linguistics · Meaning (existential) · Metaphor · Modal · Preference · Rhetorical question · Semiotics · Social semiotics · Sociology · Computer Science · Discourse Analysis in Language Studies · Humor Studies and Applications · Language, Metaphor, and Cognition · Mathematics · Philosophy · Psychology

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