Key Features:
- No of Pages: 72
- No of Chapters: 4
Introduction:
Abstract
Artists, especially, cartoonists have made vigorous effort to portray the society by familiarizing people with the on-going events in such society. This work aimed at investigating how pragmatic elements could be deployed to properly interpret the ways in which cartoons and their utterances depict and satirize socio-political realities in Nigeria. In this regard, sixteen “pocket cartoons” were selected from Vanguard editions between June and Sep., 2010 and they were analysed using pragmatic elements such as speech acts, contexts, presupposition world knowledge, implicature, inference and deixis. It was discovered that utterances used in these cartoons were mainly “assertives” and ‘directives’ meaning that they (those utterances) signified the state of socio-political affairs in the country. We also found out that an utterance can have more than one ‘illocution’ and ‘perlocution’ and the perlocutions may vary with regard to the addresses. Indeed, it was noted that context and world knowledge were essential indices of understanding and interpreting cartoons.
Table of Content
Title page irnCertificationiirnDedicationiiirnAcknowledgementsivrnTable of ContentsvrnAbstractviiirnrnCHAPTER ONE: rnINTRODUCTIONrn1.0General introduction1rn1.1Purpose of the study2rn1.2Justification2rn1.3Scope and limitation2rn1.4Research methodology3rn1.5.0 Nigerian Newspapers4rn1.5.1 Vanguard-A Nigerian Newspaper4rn1.6 Summary 5rnrnCHAPTER TWO: rnLITERATURE REVIEWrn2.0 Introduction6rn2.1.An Overview of Pragmatics6rn2.2.0Goals of Pragmatics 7rn2.3.0Theories of Pragmatics 8rn2.3.1Speech Acts Theory8rn2.3.2Implicature Theory12rn2.3.3Intention and Inference Theory13rn2.3.4Contextual Theory14rn2.4.0Pragmatic Elements17rn2.4.1 Presupposition17rn2.4.2 World Knowledge18rn2.4.3Deixis 19rn2.4.4Non-verbal Language20rn2.5.0Cartoons – Meaning and Brief History20rn2.5.1Forms of Cartoons21rn2.5.2Functions of Cartoons 22rn2.5.3Summary 23rnrnCHAPTER THREE: rnDATA ANALYSIS rn3.0 Introduction24rnDatum one 24rnDatum two26rnDatum three28rnDatum four30rnDatum five33rnDatum six35rnDatum seven37rnDatum eight39rnDatum nine40rnDatum ten42rnDatum eleven44rnDatum twelve46rnDatum thirteen48rnDatum fourteen49rnDatum fifteen51rnDatum sixteen53rnData Discussion 56rnrnCHAPTER FOUR: rnSUMMARY, SUMMARY OF FINDINGS AND rnCONCLUSION. rn4.0Summary58rn4.1Summary of findings58rn4.2Conclusion61rnBibliography62
Introduction
Pragmatics is a shift from strict grammatical rules to a situational language use.It is a linguistic theory that studies meaning from the perspectives of language users, communication code and socio-cultural conventions. Hence, Mey (2007:6) asserts that “Pragmatics Studies the use of language in human communication as determined by the conditions of society”.rnCartoons are “Comic strips”. They create humour by portraying “observable characters in a society” (Bitner, 2003:306). Cartoons serve as a medium through which people are informed, educated and entertained by presenting societal happenings in hillarious manner. They are found in newspapers, magazines and newsletters.rnVanguard is a Nigeria Newspaper that centres on politics, education, sports, local and national news etc. It has a section named “pocket cartoon” which portrays socio-political events in the country. rnWith a view to studying pragmatics, Babatunde and Odepidan (2009) carry out a “Pragama- rhetorical strategies in selected speeches of President Olusegun Obasanjo (Former Nigeria President).Adetunji (2009) also conducts analysis of selected acts. However, they did not focus on non-verbal aspects of language.rnThis work is therefore, borne out of a desire to study the workings of pragmatics (including non-verbal language) in selected pocket cartoons from editions of Vanguard so as to discover how utterances used in these cartoons reflect Nigerian socio-political realities.
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