Contexts and pragmatic strategies of COVID-19 related cartoons in Nigeria

Abstract

Abstract The global outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic has been experienced differently by people depending on their socio-cultural contexts. These varied experiences are expressed in various forms of communication, including cartoons. This paper examines the pragmatic resources inherent in COVID-19-related cartoons depicting the impact of the virus on Nigerian society. Forty COVID-19-related cartoons, circulated on social media, were collected on Twitter and WhatsApp platforms between March and April 2020 as data. Multimodality and presupposition served as theoretical framework and descriptive research design was adopted. Findings reveal five socio-contextual domains, religion, health, economy, politics and governance nd family, characterizing the social experiences of Nigerians during the pandemic. Through the evocation of situational reality, pragmatic sarcasm, punning, and orientation to government insensitivity, the cartoonists evoke pragmatic functions of informing and warning about social behaviours in the religion, family and health domains; recreating situational realities on socioeconomic impacts in the domain of economy; and satirizing government policies and mocking politicians’ insincerity in the domain of politics and governance on sociopolitical experiences of Nigerians before and during the pandemic. The study concludes cartoons are a strong means of portraying societal realities and people’s experiences comically and graphically.