A Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis of Five Cartoons on Paris Attacks (2015 & 2020)

Document Type : Academic research papers

Authors

1 English Department, Women's College, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt

2 English Department, Faculty of Education, Ain Shams University, Egypt

3 English Department, Faculty of Women for Arts, Science & Education, Ain Shams University, Egypt

Abstract

The 2015 French attack, which happened after the controversial issue of the public portrayal of Prophet Mohammed’s caricatures in Charlie Hebdo issue, as well as the 2020 French attack which happened after the republishing of the same controversial cartoons, had stirred up controversy all over the world. The world had an uproar whether opposing the attack and piling up support of freedom of speech or portraying Muslims as terrorists. The international response was not only represented linguistically, but also visually. The research investigates a selection of cartoons obtained from a number of websites published commenting on Paris attacks. The theoretical framework upon which this study is conducted incorporates Kress and van Leeuwen's (2006) Grammar of Visual Design, and Machin and Mayr's (2012) Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis (MCDA) approach for the analysis of the cartoons and the linguistic elements within them. The analysis reveals that the five analysed cartoons, through specific verbal and visual choices, embed ideological messages and aim at rallying support for Charlie Hebdo specifically, and freedom of speech generally.

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Buhūth
Volume 2, Issue 3 - Serial Number 3
Social Sciences & Humanities
March 2022
Pages 1-36

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