Hybrid Indo-Trinidadian identities and tasty food: a multimodal critical discourse analysis of ‘Doubles with Slight Pepper’

Abstract

Abstract The purpose of the proposed paper – which places itself within the field of Postcolonial Critical Discourse Studies (see Esposito, E. (2021). Politics, ethnicity and the postcolonial nation – a critical analysis of political discourse in the Caribbean. John Benjamins Publishing Company) – is to analyse the multi-semiotic practices contributing to the characterisation of the protagonist of Trinidadian short-film “Doubles with Slight Pepper” as a cinematic portrayal of the hybrid Indo-Trinidadian identity. By way of a Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis (Kress, G. and van Leeuwen, T. (1996). Reading images: the grammar of visual design. Routledge, London, Kress, G. and van Leeuwen, T. (2001). Multimodal discourse. The modes and media of contemporary communications discourse. Hodder Educations, London, Kress, G. and van Leeuwen, T. (2006). Reading images: the grammar of visual design, 2nd ed. London: Routledge; O’Halloran, K.L. (2004). Multimodal discourse analysis. Continuum, London), the study aims to cast light on the strategies exploited by the filmmaker (1) to depict the protagonist (Dhani) as an in-betweener whose ambitions are inhibited by his social status stemming from generations of subjugation and misuse by colonialists; and (2) to promote Indo-Trinidadian cultural specificities. Following an introduction to the key concept of individual and collective identity with a focus on Trinidad and Tobago, and an outline of diasporic cinema as applied to the Indo-Trinidadian community, the Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis is carried out on the verbal, non-verbal, and visual sub-corpora gathered up in sequences according to the main three identitarian traits exhibited in the short-film: ‘religion/folklore’, ‘food’, and ‘lineage’.