A Study Of Narrative In Single Caricatures

The narrative in single caricatures was once doubted by many scholars. Narrative language, which is an important proof of narrative in single caricatures, receives most of the attention from caricaturists, while the limited study of narrative language from linguistic aspects has been focused on the level of traditional grammar. This dissertation is a tentative endeavor to make a qualitative analysis of the features of narrative language in single caricatures synthetically from the linguistic and narrative perspectives.To start with, the dissertation makes an elaborate proof on the existence of narrative in single caricatures. The proof starts with the definition of narrative. The author collects major contemporary definitions about narrative and other scholars' theories about narrative in purpose of giving a relatively complete definition about narrative, that is, a series of reproduced symbols as the discoursal reproduction of facts or imaginary events, which should be considered in a larger social and historical dimension. On the basis of that definition, the proof of narrative's existence in single caricatures is carried on from three aspects. The production of single caricatures is people's choice of narrative point of view. The appearance of classes obliges people to express their encounters and rebellions indirectly by way of using symbolic pictures. From then on, single caricatures witnessed their step-by-step development because of then" mighty vitality and incomparable advantage of combing graphic and linguistic symbols. Based on the assumptions that narrative exists in single caricatures, the author exerts to classify single caricatures according to narrative structure.Since single caricatures are a type of narrative produced and received in a particular social-historical context, the author adopts J.B. Thompson's methodological framework of depth hermeneutics in analysis, which is a method used in Critical Discourse Analysis, including social-historical analysis, formal or discursive analysis and interpretation/re-interpretation analysis. But the authorimproves the methodology focusing on the first two analyses, which proves to be more operational.The dissertation also discusses artistic appeal in single caricatures, which comes from symbols used in the single caricatures. These symbols are the result of the exteriorization of the caricaturists' interior emotions. Single caricatures are mainly composed of graphic symbols (pictures) and linguistic symbols (language). People do not generally take the first part, the graphic symbols, as narrative language. But the author shares the same idea with Saussure and believes that all the symbols created to convey certain meaning are looked upon as language. Although the linguistic symbols are different from graphic symbols, yet they are not inferior to graphic symbols in artistic appeal. In addition, the information transmitted through the linguistic symbols is much more than that through the graphic symbols. In many cases, artistic appeal of single caricatures is realized not only by pictures, but also in the narrative language.The dissertation analyzes the three functions of narrative language in single caricatures, namely logic function, medium function and integrated function. The logic function is further discussed in chronological logic, serial logic and symbolic logic, the first two of which can be found also in other narrative texts, but the third is unique in single caricature. The medium function refers to the function of single caricatures which are employed to reveal people's feelings or emotions in their inner hearts by using fictional images or situations as the medium. The integrated function is similar to what Halliday named as textual function, that is, the narrative language in single caricatures which connects different symbols together to fulfill the narrative task.Finally a case study is given as a sample of the author's integrated analysis. In the conclusion, the author sums up her ideas about narrative language...