MULTIMODALITY AND THE CONSTRUAL OF REALITY IN POLITICAL CARTOONS – THE CASE OF SERBIA-EU RELATIONSHIP

Abstract

Complementing the broad framework of Conceptual Metaphor Theory (Lakoff & Johnson 1980; Johnson 1987; Benczes, Barcelona, & Ruiz de Mendoza Ibanez 2011; etc.) and Critical Metaphor Analysis (Charteris-Black 2004; Musolff 2006) with research on multimodality from a cognitive viewpoint (Forceville 1996, 2008; Forceville & Urios-Aparisi 2009; Bounegru & Forceville 2011; etc.), in this paper we address the topic of Serbia-EU relations unfolded in pictorial and multimodal discourse in news media in order to explore how this topic is communicated via metaphors and other cognitive instruments in newspaper cartoons. The data collection for our analysis consists of 15 cartoons published in the Serbian daily newspaper Politika in the period 2009-2015, which depict the concept of the EU in relation to Serbia and the varied political and social issues associated with it. Modelling our method of analysis on Bounegru and Forceville (2011), we try to show not only how pictorial and multimodal metaphors reveal the underlying metaphor scenarios, those of journey, school, sport and liquid, but also how multimodal discourse becomes a powerful tool of conveying different evaluative content and rhetorical impact when set within a specific socio-political context.