Part of the English Language and Linguistics Research Seminar Series
About this talk
Anna Piata, University of Neuchâtel, will be presenting a paper on 'Visual metaphor and the representation of migrants in political cartoons'.
The use of metaphors has long been considered a prominent strategy used to legitimise social processes of othering (cf. Reisigl & Wodak 2001; Baker et al. 2008; KhosraviNik 2010; Musolff 2015). A case in point is the way we commonly talk about migration; in terms of a ‘flood’, a ‘wave’ and/or a ‘tide’, which essentially evokes a dehumanising representation of migrants and refugees (see Abid et al. 2017 and references therein).
This talk will shift the focus from verbal to visual metaphor, and the ways in which visual metaphor has been used to represent the refugee crisis in political cartoons that have appeared in both online and traditional media from 2015 until 2018. On the assumption that “visual framing may convey meanings that would be more controversial or might meet with greater audience resistance if they were conveyed through words” (Messaris & Abraham 2001: 215), this study seeks to explore the potential of visual metaphor as a device that can be used to communicate both inclusive and anti-migrant sentiments alike. Our findings suggest that the visual framing, implicit as it may be, is often dehumanising and/or based on narratives that perpetuate a negative stereotypical representation of the relevant population.
Against this background, the talk will tentatively consider the extent to which visual metaphor can be (consciously or subconsciously) used to solidify the dichotomy of ‘us versus them’ and discuss possible implications for the manipulative potential of metaphor at large.
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