A linguistic and literary analyses study of selected cartoons on the novel Covid-19 pandemic in Nigeria

Abstract

ABSTRACT The world is currently facing a global pandemic, code-named the Covid-19, which is seriously wrecking a devastating blow on world health care system. Since the first index case was reported in Lagos, Nigeria, in February, 2020, the Federal and State Governments have put measures in place to curtail the spread of the deadly virus in the country. Some of the measures include the constitution of the Presidential Task Force (PTF), provision of isolation and treatment centres for confirmed cases, and the pronouncement of lockdown order by the President and some State Governors. Amidst these measures, cartoonists (artists, or authors in literary context) have taken to the media to creatively present humorous and satirical depictions of the pandemic and social realities in the fight against it. This study, thus, analyses the humorous and satirical depiction of the pandemic, the state of the Nigerian health sector, and the country’s major actors in the fight against the scourge, using selected cartoons from the Nigerian context. These cartoons can be classified as graphic literary texts that can be subjected to different interpretations. The cartoons/texts are selected from the Facebook pages of popular Nigerian cartoonists/authors. A total number of ten (10) cartoons/texts were randomly selected between March and April 2020. The number of cartoons was limited to ten (10) in order to accommodate the rigour of qualitative analysis, which, in turn, informed one of the limitations of the study. This study adopts two (2) models/theories in interpreting the cartoons, which are Suls’s (1983) Incongruity Resolution (IR) model, a linguistic tool of lexicalisation, re-lexicalisation, and shared sociocultural knowledge used to explicate humour and satire in the cartoons, and Structuralism, which requires human behaviour (as represented in texts or cartoons) to be understood in the context of a broad social system (otherwise called structures) in which they exist. This study observed that the cartoons are not just independent texts or images, but that they are products of the Nigerian social condition, and that understanding them requires a level of familiarity with their contexts of production.It also revealed that, as a means of visual communication, the cartoons exposed the realities in the country and refused to be relegated to simply satirical images of issues and events in the country’s history. The analysis showed that cartoons are an important part of the discourse on the pandemic. Equally, the paper revealed that, the cartoonists have deployed both verbal and non-verbal incongruity to present comical images that show beliefs of Nigerians about the pandemic and the level of the country’s preparedness in flattening the curve of the contraction of the virus. Although the paper is concerned with Covid-19 in the Nigerian context, it is limited to the linguistic and literary analysis of the pandemic in selected cartoons.