Pictorial metaphor in the portrayal of corruption In the Daily nation newspaper

Abstract

Cartoons use language as an artistic medium in which various options are explored for effective communication. The language of cartoons is indirect unlike the language of news reporting in that it is characterized by satirical and metaphorical pictures; and codified and connotative wordings which makes it socially appropriate and relevant to inform, educate and entertain the general public. Cartoons are used to satirize and lampoon socio-political abuses like corruption. In Kenya, corruption poses one of the greatest challenges facing the Kenyan government and reports on corruption scandals in the media are the order of the day. Political cartoon therefore has enabled the cartoonist to deal with political issues mockingly in an indirect way through cross - domain mappings, to ridicule dictators and corrupt figures without fear of victimization. The present research studied the unique nature of the language of cartoons with focus on portrayal of corruption. It analysed pictorial metaphors in the portrayal of corruption in the print media cartoons. The specific objectives were: to examine the source-objects depicting corruption in the political cartoons in the Daily Nation Newspaper; to determine the modality of political cartoons of corruption in the Daily Nation Newspaper and to establish the metaphorical meaning of texts integrated in the multimodal political cartoons of corruption in the Daily Nation Newspaper. The research was guided by the tenets of the pictorial metaphor model founded by Charles Forceville (2006) within the conceptual metaphor theory. The study was limited to political cartoons depicting corruption in the Daily Nation Newspaper in 2018 and 2019, a period characterized by mega corruption scandals in Kenya. This was also the period of the ‘handshake’; the advent of a new regime in Kenya that declared zero tolerance on corruption. The study adopted the analytical research design. The study population comprised 150 political cartoons in the Daily Nation Newspaper in 2018 and 2019. Random purposive sampling technique was used to select the relevant cartoons and the sample size was dictated by saturation sampling. From the study population of 150 cartoons, a total of 41 political cartoons were sampled using saturation sampling method as some of the themes were repetitive. Based on the third objective of the study, which focused on metaphorical expressions, a total of 15 metaphorical expressions were purposively sampled from the 41 political cartoons. The present study employed corpus compilation checklist as data collection tool. To test reliability of the data compilation checklist, the researcher carried out a pilot study. The data was then coded and analyzed qualitatively into themes of the respective source-objects. The findings were that the source-objects that depict corruption in the Daily Nation Newspaper are CORRUPTION IS DIRT, CORRUPTION IS AN ANIMAL, CORRUPTION IS A GIANT, CORRUPTION IS CRIME, CORRUPTION IS EXPLOITATION, CORRUPTION IS GREED, CORRUPTION IS A DISEASE, CORRUPTION IS BRUTALITY, CORRUPTION IS WAR, CORRUPTION IS ELUSIVE, CORRUPTION IS A BURDEN and CORRUPTION IS A SHAME. It was also established that metaphorical expressions integrated in pictorial metaphors are dependent on the pictorial metaphors for accurate interpretation. The study concluded that the cartoonist has used varied source-objects including humans, objects, smoke, stench, filth, mud, worms, reptiles, birds, beasts, mythical beings and gluttonous animals and that pictorial metaphors of corruption are largely multimodal but there are a few mono-modal ones too. The present study contributes knowledge in the fields of semiotics and cognitive linguistics.