A Cognitive Semiotic Analysis of Cartoon in Egyptian Newspapers

Research Abstract

In the present study, a cognitive semiotic analysis of a corpus of twenty different types of cartoon was conducted in the light of Blending Theory, Attardo and Raskin's (1991) General Theory of Verbal Humor (GTVH) and Simpson's (1993) notion of point of view. The cartoons under study tackled some political, social, economic and educational issues in the Egyptian society or abroad created by different cartoonists during the years 2010 – 2011. The detailed analysis has yielded the following findings: Firstly, conceptual integration or blending is the basic cognitive operation that readers use to grasp the meaning of cartoons as a semiotic genre. Secondly, conceptual blending works according to a group of systematic and organized mechanisms. Thirdly, producing meaning is a dynamic process. Fourthly, the novel inferences created through blending help readers to completely understand the meaning of cartoons. Fifthly, humor in cartoons is created through the interaction of logical mechanisms and script oppositions as concluded by Attardo and Raskin's (1991). Sixthly, applying Simpson's (1993) types of point of view, it was found that the cartoonists can convey their points of view successfully on the verbal and pictorial levels. The above mentioned findings have been validated by employing a new model of cognitive semiotic analysis of cartoon. The new model combined El-Arousy's (in press) adaptation of Brandt's (2004) semiotic model of metaphor analysis, a modified version of Attardo and Raskin's (1991) GTVH and Grice's theory of implicature. All these theories have been integrated in one model to illustrate the aims of the study.

Research Keywords

A Cognitive Semiotic Analysis of Cartoon in Egyptian Newspapers