A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF INTERPERSONAL MEANING IN AMERICAN AND VIETNAMESE CARICATURES FROM MULTI MODAL PERSPECTIVE

This study mainly investigates visual and verbal meanings in Americanand Vietnamese caricatures based on the frameworks of Visual Grammar byKress and van Leeuwen 2006 and Appraisal Theor

HUỲNH THỊ DIỄM NHƯ

HUỲNH THỊ DIỄM NHƯ

PHÂN TÍCH ĐỐI CHIẾU NÉT NGHĨA LIÊN NHÂN TRONG TRANH BIẾM HỌA MỸ VÀ VIỆT NAM TỪ GÓC NHÌN ĐA PHƯƠNG THỨC

Chuyên ngành: Ngôn ngữ Anh

Người hướng dẫn: TS Võ Duy Đức

I hereby declare that this thesis “A contrastive analysis of

Interpersonal meaning in American and Vietnamese caricatures from multi-modal perspective” is my own work All references and extracts have

been distinguished by quotation marks and all resources of information havebeen specifically acknowledged I further certify that I have not submitted thisthesis at any other institution in order to obtain a degree

Binh Dinh, 2019

HUỲNH THỊ DIỄM NHƯ

With the great help of my supervisor and all the lecturers of the course, this thesis has been possible to complete on time.

First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor Dr Võ Duy Đức for his patience, encouragement, and immense knowledge, and for valuable materials of a very new linguistic field and for the time he spent reading my drafts and for his precious comments Without his great experience and support, this thesis could not be done He also inspired me to choose the topic for my research.

My thanks particularly go to the lecturers who have been provided me with important knowledge and foundation for this thesis.

I am also grateful for source of materials and helpful suggestions on visual analysis in my thesis of Dr Peter R R White.

Also, my sincere appreciation goes to the Head of Foreign Language Department, Assoc Prof Dr Nguyễn Quang Ngoạn for giving me the best infrastructures and materials for following this course of M.A degree in English Linguistics as well as the most convenient time for doing this thesis.

I am deeply grateful to my colleagues and close friends for sharing me helpful materials, experiences and necessary sources of information about the study.

Last but not least, my great gratitude is devoted to my family, especially my mother They have helped me overcome a lot of difficulties about the fee as well as the time in order to complete this thesis smoothly.

This study mainly investigates visual and verbal meanings in Americanand Vietnamese caricatures based on the frameworks of Visual Grammar byKress and van Leeuwen (2006) and Appraisal Theory by White and Martin(2005) Fifty American and Vietnamese caricatures were collected to exploreprominent visual and attitudinal features in terms of visual and attitudinalmeaning The findings indicate that in Interactive meaning, Offer Gazebetween the viewers and the participants is the dominant type, Long shot isthe most frequent choice, and Frontal angle and High angle are mostly used inAmerican and Vietnamese caricatures Moreover, in exploration of Attitudinalmeaning in caricatures, Appreciation was found to be used with the highestpercentage The caricaturists in both languages seem to express their feelingsand their evaluation about the people and the current society Besides thesimilarities, some differences were observed in the two data sources Onedifference between them is that Vietnamese caricaturists tend to use implicitassessments more than American ones Based on the results of data analysis,some implications and suggestions for further research were drawn out.

an overall view on Appraisal Theory and Visual Grammar will enable us toknow more about arts discourse in general and caricatures in particular A

small amount of language is utilized to partially identify morecomprehensibly the idea of the images According to Brown and Yule (1983,

p 1), language is a system for expression of meaning: “primary functionbeing interaction and communication” It is believed that the language used incaricatures is considered as a means of comprehension, an aid Moreover,caricatures in different countries have different cultural and social contexts

As a result, it is extremely obvious that the research on both American andVietnamese caricatures leads to the difference What’s more, as a sub-category of caricatures, social caricatures bring us a tremendously sharp view

of modern society It is not surprising that a lot of linguistic studies areconcerned with evaluation the meanings and the language in images Forinstances, Economou (2009)’s study investigated verbal-visual news mediatexts basing on social semiotic theory, critical discourse analysis and SystemicFunctional theory Chen (2009) carried out a study on how linguistics andvisual semiotics resources are used to convey Interpersonal meaning inmultimodal textbooks However, to my best knowledge, no research has beendone on American and Vietnamese caricatures with the employment of VisualGrammar and Appraisal Theory as a theoretical framework For these reasons,

it is essential to conduct the thesis “A

contrastive analysis of Interpersonal meaning in American and Vietnamese caricatures from multi-modal perspective”.

1.2 Significance of the study

Analyzing American and Vietnamese caricatures has an important rolenot only to linguistic learners studying how language works with imagestogether and its effects but to artists who would like readers to get a preciseobservation of contemporary life The findings of the study will present ananalysis of the evaluative meanings in terms of attitude in caricatures as well

as visual analysis It will offer a detailed description of the attitudinal features

of caricatures, contribute to answer the question of how to achieve theeffectiveness of caricatures to readers Moreover, the contrastive analysis ofvisual and evaluative meanings in American and Vietnamese caricatures ishoped to be useful for learning as well as teaching the Amerian andVietnamese culture and serving as a reference for researchers who areinterested in evaluating visual and verbal meanings in images

1.3 Aims and objectives

1.3.1 Aims

This thesis is carried out to investigate Interpersonal meaning inAmerican and Vietnamese caricatures Moreover, the final goal is to explainthe similarities and differences between American and Vietnamese caricaturesfrom multi-modal perspective

1.3.2 Objectives

The objectives of the study are to:

- identify the visually interactive and verbally evaluative meaningsoperating in American and Vietnamese caricatures based on Grammar of VisualDesign by Kress and van Leeuwen (2006) and White and Martin (2005)’sAppraisal Theory

- point out the similarities and differences between American andVietnamese caricatures in terms of how Visual and Attitudinal resources are used

in the light of Visual Grammar and Appraisal Theory

1.4 Research questions

To achieve this aim, the following research questions are raised:

1 How do the images in American and Vietnamese caricatures carry Interactive meanings?

2 What are the sub-types of Attitude used in American and Vietnamese caricatures and how frequently are they used?

3 What are the similarities and differences between American and

Vietnamese caricatures from multi-modal perspective?

1.5 Scope of the study

In this research, I particularly focus on the multi-modal meaningsconveyed in American and Vietnamese caricatures With Visual Grammar,there are three modes of meaning: Representational, Interactional, andCompositional; however, due to lack of time, space as well as relevantmaterials, the study just focused on Interactive meanings In the same way,Appraisal Theory has three main types: Attitude, Engagement, andGraduation but only Attitude is under the investigation

1.6 Organization of the study

The study is organized into five chapters as follows:

Chapter 1, Introduction, contains the rationale, aims, and objectives,

research questions, the significance of the study, the scope of the study andthe organization of the paper

Chapter 2, Literature review, presents Caricatures, Visual Grammar,

Appraisal Theory, then the previous studies related to the features of thesetheories are given

Chapter 3, Methods and Procedures, mentions research methods, the

data collection, and the data analysis Besides, reliability and validity of thedata are addressed in this chapter

Chapter 4, Findings and Discussions, focuses on the results of the data

analysis to find out how images in American and Vietnamese caricaturesconvey Visual meanings and Attitudinal meanings The discussion based onthe research results is also made.

Chapter 5, Conclusions and Implications, summarizes the main

findings of the study which satisfy the research questions, draws conclusionsand pedagogical implications, limitations, and puts forward suggestions forfurther studies

“individuation” and “exaggeration”, “humor”, “idealization”, “defects”, and

“personality” It can be seen that now the definition may be tried on a freshdomain, the cluster of problems surrounding the use of animal-like figures incaricatures and cartoons The accurate reflection of the nature of specialsituations in the form of pictures is brief, concise as well as there is thebiggest influence; therefore, the caricature is considered as an extremelyessential part of the indigenous literature on the political and social history ofhuman beings With the great powers, at the end of the nineteenth century andthe beginning of the twentieth century, the caricature was introduced inschools in developed countries like England, Germany, USA, Australia, etc.Caricatures are not only beneficial to entertainment but also important toeducation Caricatures play an influential social and political role Caricatures

can illustrate the sufferings of citizens by tackling the issues of society,analyzing economic problems, and analyzing problems (Hafiz, 2006).Caricatures have been widely used as a modern teaching tool in social studies.

In the past, caricatures often reflected politics truly but today they alsoindicate the negative aspects of modern life There are not many researchesstudying deeply caricatures because of barriers of society Ibrahim (2014)investigated the use of caricature in Iraqi Media, which bases on Grice'smaxims to find out whether these maxims are obeyed or not, and the socio-pragmatic factors governing language use or choice derived from the socialsituational context surrounding each caricature In Vietnam, Nguyễn KhắcHuy (2015) carried out a study about the process of formation anddevelopment of caricatures in Vietnamese newspapers and then he gave somesuggestions to effectively exploit the power of caricatures for the press,especially the type of print This study mainly investigates the caricaturesrepresenting the issue of society

This study focused on the meaning of visual and evaluative language inAmerican and Vietnamese caricatures via the use of Visual Grammar byKress and van Leeuwen (2006) and Appraisal Theory by White and Martin(2005) as the theoretical framework The following sections will present theseframeworks

2.2 Grammar of Visual Design

According to Halliday (1994), Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) is

a theory of language which focuses on analyzing structure, meaning, and thepurpose of language Halliday and Matthiessen (2004) stated that SystemicFunctional Grammar (SFG) attempts to explain and describe the organization

of “meaning-making resources” Basing on SFL, Kress and van Leeuwen(2006) suggested that meaning of images can be expressed “through the

choice between different uses of color or different compositional structures”(Kress & Leeuwen, 2006, p 2) According to Kress and Leeuwen (2006),

“Analysing visual communication is, or should be, an important part of the

“critical” disciplines” (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006, p 14) Because of itsessence, the Visual Grammar is obviously utilized to find out how language isexpressed in social interaction and how it emerges with images innewspapers, magazines, reports, government publications, or even intextbooks Kress and van Leeuwen (2006)’s theory describes the combination

of components into meaningful wholes by dealing with a system of threemetafunctions They are called differently: Representation, Interaction, andComposition The sections that follow discuss the three modes of meaning indetail with a focus on Interactive meaning as it is the theoretical framework ofthe study

2.2.1 Representational meaning

Visual Grammar introduces Representational meaning which functionswell in visual mode "Any semiotic mode has to be able to represent aspects

of the world as it is experienced by humans In other words, it has to be able

to represent objects and their relation in a world outside the representationalsystem" (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006, p 42) Representational meaningrefers to how semiotic system display objects or elements called

“participants” Every semiotic includes two main types of participants:represented participants (people, things, and places depicted in an image) andinteractive participants (people who communicate with each other throughimages including image producers and viewers) Kress and van Leeuwen(2006) stated that Representational meaning is classified into two categories:Narrative representation and Conceptual representation

Conceptual

ClassificatoryAnalyticSymbolical

Figure 2.1 Main types of visual representational structure (Kress & van Leeuwen,

2006, p 59)

2.2.2 Interactive meaning

Up to this point, this review has discussed Kress and van Leeuwen’sdescription of the ways that various kinds of visuals organize and representtheir meanings representationally (Ideational) This section deals with adiscussion of the ways that visuals attempt to address their potential viewers

in Interactional (Interactive) terms in their Visual Grammar In theirdiscussion of Interactive meaning in their Visual Grammar, Kress and vanLeeuwen (2006) recognized that visual forms of communication also utilizeresources which both constitute and maintain interaction between theproducer(s) and viewer(s) of a visual In this meaning, Kress and vanLeeuwen (2006) stated that images involve two kinds of participants,represented participants (the people, the places and things depicted in images)and interactive participants (the people who communicate with each otherthrough images, the producers and viewers of images) Three main systemsconsisting of Contact, Social distance, and Attitude are presented below

SocialdistanceInteractive

meaning

Attitude

Demand

OfferIntimate/ personal

SocialPublic

Involvement

Viewer powerEquality

Representation

Action orientationObjectivity

of the viewers, the image is described as a Demand, where the Demand image

is assumed to ask the reader to have a virtual relation with the represented

interaction between the viewer and the depicted person is indirect or does notoccur, and the image is called an Offer.

Figure 2.3 Contact of Offer (VC7)

The image in Figure 2.3 shows a Contact of Offer in which therepresented participant does not look directly at the viewer The old woman islooking at the fruit in the tree

2.2.2.2 Social distance

Kress and van Leeuwen (2006, p 124) suggested that the size of the frameoption through the Close, Medium or Long shot is said to express the socialdistance between the represented participant and the viewers In images, therelation between the represented participant and the audience is imaginary and ashot can convey a Personal, Social or Public distance According to Kress andvan Leeuwen (2006), as cited in Hall (1966), there are different meanings of thesize of the shot: a “very close” image that shows the head or face of a personsuggests an “intimate distance”, a “close image” through which a person isrepresented by her/his head and shoulder conveys a “close personal distance”,whereas a “far personal distance” is communicated through a “medium close”image that shows a person up to the waist “Close social distance” is conveyed

through depicting the whole person in a “medium long” image, but when theperson is shown as surrounded by space in a “long” image, this conveys “farsocial distance” In representing a number of people by their trunk in a “verylong” image, “public distance” is suggested.

Figure 2.4 Picture taken from very Long shot (AC13)

In Figure 2.4, the image shows that a very Long shot is illustrated becausethe whole figure of the three people is presented with space around them

2.2.2.3 Attitude

In this system, the subjective image, perspective, is mentioned because

of the absence of human beings Perspective relates to relations betweenrepresented participants and the viewer, which is realized through theselection of an angle, a “point of view” “The point of view is imposed notonly on the represented participants but also on the viewer, and the viewer’s

“subjectivity” is therefore subjective in the original sense of the word, thesense of “being subjected to something or someone” (Kress & van Leeuwen,

2006, p 131) There are two types of angles used in pictures: Horizontal anglewhich can be further divided into Frontal angle and Oblique angle, and

Vertical angle which is classified into High angle, Eye level and Low angle.

Horizontal angle

In the Horizontal angle, images may be Frontal or Oblique, where aFrontal image means “involvement”, in that “what you see here is part of ourworld, something we are involved with” (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006, p.136) On the other hand, an image from an Oblique angle suggests

“detachment”, in that “what you see here is not part of our world; it is theirworld, something we are not involved with”

Figure 2.5 Oblique angle (VC15)

Vertical angle

Vertical angle refers to power between the represented participants andthe viewers, in which three meanings can be communicated through threechoices of representation A person can be depicted through the options of aHigh angle, Eye level, or Low angle, which suggest hierarchical socialrelations If a represented participant is seen from a High angle, the reviewer

is more powerful than the represented participant Representing a participant

at Eye level suggests that the relation between the represented participant andthe viewer is equal An image from a Low angle is likely to convey that therepresented participant’s power is more than that of the viewer In Figure 2.6,

here the viewer observes the participants from a High angle, which makes theparticipants (the fish) look small This type of angle places the viewer in aposition of more symbolic power than the fish.

Figure 2.6 High angle (VC4)

In short, the Interactional meanings concern with the relation betweenthe represented participant and the viewer through the following realizations

Table 2.1 Realizations of types of interactional meanings

(Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006, p 148)

Represented participant power Low angle

In conclusion, the Interactional meanings correspond to the socialrelations between represented participants and the viewer by Gaze, SocialDistance, Horizontal and Vertical angles As previously mentioned, theInteractional meanings are the focal points of the study The next sectionwould present the last mode of meanings in Visual Grammar - Compositionalmeaning.

2006, p 177)

- Information value: Information value is achieved by the layout of visual

elements in the image The placements of the elements, left and right, top and down,

as well as center and margin, endow them with specific information values relative toeach other (Kress & Leeuwen, 2006, p 181) In composition, there are Given andNew, for example, Given would be on the left side and the New would be on the rightside of a page Besides, there is also Ideal and Real and they can be presented as what

is Ideal on the top and what is Real at the bottom Moreover, information value can befrom center and margin, such as having a picture in the middle and texts around it.With all of these structures, Kress and Leeuwen (2006) stated that “Given-New anIdeal-Real can combine

with Centre and Margin.” (Kress & Leeuwen, 2006, p 196)

- Salience: Salience means different degrees of attraction by the visual

elements in images for viewers It can be realized by various ways such asplacement in the foreground or background, relative size, and difference in

sharpness For example, in an advertisement poster, one might have a product really big and bright so it will capture the viewers’ eyes.

- Framing: Framing is concerned with the fact of whether there exist framing

devices to separate or connect visual elements in an image Some of the things thathave different ideas can be framed so the viewers will know that they do notbelong together

To summarize, in Visual Grammar, the visual meanings in images areoften identified through three sub-categories: Representational, Interactive,

and Compositional meaning Representational meaning mentions the

relationships which exist between things in the world and within us

Interactive meaning refers to the interaction between the viewers and the

represented participants Whereas Compositional meaning relates to the way

in which the representational and interactive elements are made to relate toeach other, and the way they are integrated into a meaningful whole.However, this study only focuses on analyzing Interactive meaning The nextsection deals with Appraisal Theory by White and Martin (2005), a theoreticalframework to explore verbal interpersonal meanings

2.3 Appraisal

According to White and Martin (2005), Appraisal is “the language ofevaluation” It means the language is used to express feelings, opinions, orjudgment of speakers about someone or something Through the use ofevaluative language, communication is more effective White and Martin(2005) state that “Appraisal Theory offers a framework for the exploration ofspeakers/writers’ style in their positive or negative assessment of people,places, things, happenings and states of affairs” (White & Martin, 2005, p 2).They also show that the theory focuses on how speakers express feelings, howthey intensify them, and how they may integrate additional voices in their

discourses Moreover, they explain that the Appraisal framework bases on thenotion of viewpoint: “Appraisal is probably most closely related to theconcept of stance” (White & Martin, 2005, p 40), which subject to theopinion that “whenever speakers (or writers) say anything, they encode theirpoint of view towards it” (White & Martin, 2005, p 92) The Appraisalframework is used to analyze how the feelings/ opinions of the speakers orwriters are expressed For instances, when the authors do not express directlytheir viewpoints, the Appraisal framework is used to shed light on the authors’position.

White and Martin (2005) separate the Appraisal framework into threemain sub-systems: Attitude, Engagement, and Graduation These sub-systems

of Appraisal are indicated in Figure 2.7

monoglosss

A ENGAGEMENT

PP

AI

heteroglossAFFECTJUDGEMENTAPPRECIATION

A GRADUATION

L

lowerFORCUS sharpen

and aesthetics” This means “emotional reactions, judgments of behavior andevaluation of things” It consists of three regions of feelings: Affect,Judgement, and Appreciation.

2.3.1.1 Affect

According to White and Martin (2005), Affect relates to “positive andnegative feelings” happiness, sadness, excitement, interest and so on There aretwo sub-types of Affect: Observed Affect/Non-Authorial and Authorial Affect.When the writer or speaker uses Observed Affect, this is the writer/ speaker’sobservation of others’ emotional responses and report In contrast, the authorial

is the feeling of the writer/ speaker that he/she would like to express

According to White (2001), Affectual positioning may be indicated indifferent ways as follow:

- through verbs of emotion (Mental Processes) such as to love/to hate,

to frighten/to reassure, to interest/to bore, to enrage/to placate - (Your offer pleases

me, I hate chocolate.)

- through adverbs (typically Circumstances of Manner) such ashappily/sadly (Sadly the government has decided to abandon its commitment tothe comprehensive school system.)

- through adjectives of emotion happy/sad, worried/confident,angry/pleased, keen/uninterested - (I'm sad you've decided to do that, I'm happyshe's joining the group, She's proud of her achievements, he's frightened of spiders,and so on.)

- through nominalization (the turning of verbs and adjectives intonouns) joy/despair, confidence/insecurity ( His fear was obvious to

all, I was overcome with joy)

According to White and Martin (2005), Affect involves the

sub-categories of Un/happiness, In/security, and Dis/satisfaction that is presented

in Table 2.2.

Table 2.2 The system of Affect (White & Martin, 2005, p 51)

Un/Happiness cheerful buoyant, sad, melancholy, despondent; cut-up,

jubilant; like, heart-broken

love, adore broken-hearted, heavyhearted, sick at

heart; sorrowful …grief-stricken,woebegone … dejected …;

dejected, joyless, dreary,cheerless, unhappy, sad;

gloomy, despondent, …downcast, low, down,down in the mouth,depressed …; weepy,wet-eyed, tearful, in tears …

assured;

comfortable,confident,trustingDis/satisfaction involved, flat, stale, jaded; cross, angry, furious;

engrossed;

satisfied,pleased, chuffed/

impressed,charmed,thrilled

- Un/happiness is construed in terms of emotions that relate to the

“affairs of the heart” as “misery” and “antipathy” for Unhappinessand “cheer” and “affection” for Happiness (White & Martin, 2005,

p 51) In Figure 2.8, the sentence “That’s her hungry cry.” showsthat the feeling of unhappiness is made through affection in the

attribute “cry” in a Relational process.

“The baby just sent a text saying,WaaaaaWaaaWaaaaaaWaaaa! That’s her hungry cry.”

Figure 2.8 Example of Un/happiness Affect (AC14)

- In In/security, the emotional responses relate to “ecosocial”

well-being in terms of “disquiet” and “surprise” for insecurity and

“confidence” and “trust” for security (White & Martin, 2005, p 50)

In Figure 2.9, the attitudinal meaning of security is expressed as

trust in a Relational process through the attribute “an toàn”.

Figure 2.9 Example of In/security Affect (VC8)

- Dis/satisfaction, where dissatisfaction is expressed through ‘ennui’

and ‘displeasure’, while ‘interest’ and ‘admiration’ convey satisfaction (Martin,

2000, pp 151-152) For example, in Figure 2.10, Dissatisfaction is realized in a

relational process through the attribute “jealous”.

“But mom, how do I know I’m having a great time if I don’t get some

jealous comments on Facebook?”

Figure 2.10 Example of Dis/satisfaction Affect (AC2)

2.3.1.2 Judgement

White and Martin (2005) stated that Judgement concerns with thepositive or negative Judgement of human behaviours Judgement consists ofSocial Esteem and Social sanction Social Esteem relates to admiration andcriticism such as Normality, Capacity, and Tenacity Normality shows howunusual someone is, while Capacity is concerned how capable they are, andTenacity reveals how dependable they are Social Sanction involvesassessments of morality such as Veracity (how truthful someone is), andPropriety (how ethical they are) Realization of Social Esteem and SocialSanction is demonstrated in the following tables

Table 2.3 The system of Judgement of Social Esteem (White & Martin, 2005, p 53)

SOCIAL Positive (admire) Negative (criticise)

cool, stable, predictable …; dated, daggy, retrograde …;

in, fashionable, avant garde obscure, also-ran …

…;

celebrated, unsung …

Capacity powerful, vigorous, robust mild, weak, whimpy …;

adult, mature, experienced …;

witty, humorous, droll …; slow, stupid, thick …;

insightful, clever, gifted …; flaky, neurotic, insane …;

balanced, together, sane …; naive, inexpert, foolish …;

sensible, expert, shrewd …; illiterate, uneducated, ignorantliterate, educated, learned …;

successful, productive … unsuccessful, unproductive …

Tenacity plucky, brave, heroic …; timid, cowardly, gutless …;

reliable, dependable …; unfaithful, disloyal, inconstantfaithful, loyal, constant …; …;

flexible, adaptable, stubborn, obstinate, wilful …accommodating

Table 2.4 The system of Judgement of Social Sanction

(White & Martin, 2005, p 53)

SANCTION

“mortal”

Veracity truthful, honest, credible dishonest, deceitful, lying …;

Propriety good, moral, ethical …; bad, immoral, evil …;

(ethics) law abiding, fair, just …; corrupt, unfair, unjust …;

“how far sensitive, kind, caring …; insensitive, mean, cruel …;

altruistic, generous, selfish, greedy, avaricious …

greedy, avaricious …For instance, in Figure 2.11, Appraisals are judgmental of the

participants’ behavior as epithets in terms of Normality in “khùng” and Propriety in “giết”

Figure 2.11 Example of Judgement (VC9)

In addition, Judgement can be explicitly or implicitly expressed UnderExplicit Judgement, the evaluation is overtly presented by means of lexicalitems which carry the Judgemental value such as good, bad, politely, rudely,lazy, desperately, skillful, and so on On the other hand, White and Martin(2005) claimed that Implicit Judgement refers to tokens of whole sentence ortext, and are realized through ideational meanings and lexical metaphors

Figure 2 12 Example of Implicit Judgement (AC12)

In Figure 2.12, the caricaturist tends to use the word smart to imply the

positive meaning but the whole sentence seems to show the negative meaning

It can be seen that the people are so silly and look like a robot when they usesmartphones too much.

2.3.1.3 Appreciation

According to White and Martin (2005), Appreciation involvesevaluation of things and aesthetic evaluation of humans Appreciation isdivided into three terms: Reaction, Composition, and Valuation, which arerelated to “affection”; “perception”; and “cognition”, respectively

Table 2.5 The system of Appreciation (White & Martin, 2005, p 56)

Reaction impact “did it arresting, dull, boring, tedious

remarkable, notable,

unremarkable,pedestrian …quality “did I okay, fine, good bad, yuk, nasty …;

like it?” lovely, beautiful, plain, ugly, grotesque

appealing, repulsive, revolting,

welcome …

Composition balance “did balanced, unbalanced,

detailed, precise … simplistic …

innovative, original, derivative,

inimitable,exceptional, unique

…;

genuine …;

valuable, priceless,worthwhile …;

appropriate, helpful,effective …

dime-a-dozen, everyday, common; fake, bogus, glitzy …;worthless, shoddy,pricey …;

ineffective, useless,

write-off …

Figure 2 13 Example of Appreciation (VC15)

The appreciative instances are made through valuation in the epithets

“đẹp” and “xấu” in Figure 2.13

The above discussion shows that Affect refers to emotional responseswhile Judgement deals with evaluation of human behaviors, and Appreciationinvolves evaluation of aesthetic qualities of things

In short, Attitude is a resource of language that enables writers/speakers to express their attitude/ feeling towards people or events Attitude

deals with our feelings including Affect indicates the expression of positive and negative feelings; Judgement concerns with attitudes towards behavior

such as admiration or criticism; and Appreciation is the assessment of

appearance, form, composition or valuation of natural objects Due to theshortage of time, this study evaluates verbal meanings basing on only Attitudevalues The section that follows offers a brief description of Engagement andGraduation

2.3.2 Engagement

According to White and Martin (2005, p 35), Engagement “deals withsourcing attitudes and the play of voices around opinions in discourse” Theyalso state that Engagement is “directed towards identifying the particulardialogic positioning associated with given meanings and towards describingwhat is at stake when one meaning rather than another is employed” (White &Martin, 2005, p 97) It consists of two major resources: “Monogloss” (singlevoice), and “Heterogloss” (multiple voices) In “Heterogloss” resources,White and Martin (2005) divided into two categories: Expand, and Contract.With the Expansion, the writers or speakers would like to invite other views

to join the text or conversation On the other hand, Contraction allows thewriters or speakers to insist on their points of view and object to other views

2.3.3 Graduation

Graduation tends to “grading phenomena whereby feelings areamplified and categories blurred” (White & Martin, 2005, p 35) It is dividedinto two main resources:

- Force is used to raise and lower the intensity of an utterance Thereare two ways to separate the force resource It can be divided into “isolating” and

“infusing” Secondly, it can be in the form of:

“intensification”, “quantification”, and “repetition” This study will focus on analyzing Force according to this way

- Focus aims to sharpen or blur the focus of a value It is subdivided into “sharpen” (scale up) and “soften” (scale down).

In summary, Appraisal is concerned with linguistic resources by whichspeakers/writers can offer their positive or negative assessment of people,

their emotional response, things, and states of affairs With Appraisal,

language is examined in three different ways: Attitude, Engagement, andGraduation The system of Attitude was chosen as a useful theoreticalframework for the verbal analysis in this study

Visual analysis has become a new trend in discourse analysis attracting

a growing number of researchers Moreover, Appraisal Theory has beendeveloped for language analysis in different fields The next part presentsresearch works based on Visual Grammar and Appraisal Theory as well asstudies caricatures

2.4 Previous studies

Appraisal Theory has been developed for more than 20 years and so far,there have been a lot of studies carried out to investigate the evaluativemeanings of speakers/ writers based on this framework Using Appraisal as atool to analyze other genres has received considerable research such aswriting in secondary school history Coffin (1997), popular science Fuller(1998) and media discourse White (1998) Based on Appraisal Theory, Liu(2010) contributed a study on teaching of college English reading in China,with the hope of finding a new area of application for Appraisal Theory and anew way of teaching college English reading Read and Carroll (2012)described “the challenges presented by the Appraisal annotation study and themethodology employed during its course” and detailed “how inter-annotatoragreement was measured by analogy with scores used to evaluate informationextraction systems, and considers instances of systematic disagreement”

Auman (2014) examined online and print press coverage of the rise of the

“Red Devils”, Belgium's national football team based on Appraisal resources.This study applied the Appraisal theory to investigate the kinds of positiveand/or negative statements and attitudes mentioned in the coverage Inaddition, Ruo-mei (2016) investigated a study about the teaching of thecritical reading based on Appraisal Theory It can be claimed that the criticalreading on Appraisal Theory is a new exploration in College English readingteaching Appraisal systems are conductive in acknowledging creativepositioning, figuring out the effect of choices of language, recognizing thepurpose of writing, and understanding underlying values and ideology

In Vietnam, there has been some research focused on Appraisal Theory

Võ Duy Đức (2011) analyzed the stylistic, structural and ideologicalproperties of English and Vietnamese business news reporting Nguyễn ThịMinh Ngân (2017) investigated the evaluative meaning used in Englishadvertising slogans The findings of this study pointed out how the advertisersuse evaluative words in advertising slogans to inform potential customers

From visual analysis, Nobaew (2015) presented that his study focuses

on the role of visual grammar in relation to player perception in one of thesegames; the methods developed may lead to the study of other games in thisgenre or the genre itself Chen and Gao (2014) applied the Grammar of Visualdesigns proposed by Kress and van Leeuwen “to have an insightful discussionabout how semiotic tools function in realizing the representational meaning ofmovie posters” Furthermore, Economou (2009) studied the junction of socialsemiotic theory and Critical Discourse Analysis, applying systemic-Functional Theory to verbal-visual news media texts Vietnamese researchersparticularly concern with analyzing Visual Grammar on a variety of fields.Unsworth and Ngo (2015) carried out a study which uses Visual Grammar as

a tool to investigate the roles of the images in Vietnamese textbooks for theteaching of English as a foreign language (TEFL).

Hoàng Ly Na (2015) combined Visual and Appraisal perspectivesinvolving the interaction between verbal and visual components inAdvertising discourse This study investigated the evaluative and visualmeanings in beauty product advertisements in English Đoàn Trần ThúyTrang (2008) identified images and typography used in English beautyproduct advertisements for a common purpose- to attract consumer’sattention She also showed different kinds of images in those advertisementssuch as images of products, images of people and images of other elements aswell as the variety of typography in focused words

Investigation in art fields is widely carried out such as films,advertisements, or even cartoons As regards caricatures, however, only a fewlinguists investigated the way that caricatures affect and influence the cultural,social, and economic life, especially its reflection on negative social aspects.Ibrahim (2014) carried out a sociopragmatic study of selected mediacaricatures culled from Al-Baghdadia TV Channel, drawn by SalimAlRubayee, an Iraqi caricaturist He also looked for conversationalimplicature through irony or metaphor Therefore, all the analyzed caricaturesappear as a reflection of the current socio-pragmatic events in the country,thus they are intertextually related to caricature as a recognizable discoursegenre of media, and intratextually related to caricature as TV media subgenre.Burns (2004) presented a descriptive study of how different artists (styles)create freehand drawings of different animals (subjects) Next, a predictivemodel of how viewers compare contours when they recognize similarity insubject and style was presented Last, he found out a generative program thatcreates caricatures using automated algorithms to simulate the cognitive

processes of human artists The resulting drawings are shown to exhibit andexaggerate the style and subject of human drawings Salikhova, Safiullina,and Batyrshina (2016) carried out visual communication The isostere is one

of the effective and democratic means of musical journalism Caricatures oncomposers, performers and works reflect the audience attitude to historicaltendencies, art styles, questions of musical language evolution Therefore,they saw that the considerable volume of emotional information, providespeed of perception and judgment of the interpreted objects It can be seenthat several studies have been conducted on caricatures by the use of differenttheoretical frameworks; however, up to now, the combination of VisualGrammar and Appraisal for an investigation into visual and verbal resources

in caricatures has not been deployed Therefore, having further research onAmerican and Vietnamese caricatures by the employment of these theories isnecessary to fill the gap in the field The following chapter is concerned withthe research methodology and the procedures employed for the study

CHAPTER 3:

METHODOLOGY

This chapter is related to a description of methods and procedures fordata collection and data analysis of the study In addition, it also mentions thevalidity and reliability of the study

3.1 Research methods

Different methods were adopted to shed light on verbal and visualmeanings conveyed in American and Vietnamese caricatures Firstly, thestudy employed the combination of quantitative and qualitative methods.According to MacDonald and Headlam (2008), a qualitative research method

is concerned with human behavior, and why people act the way that they do.Therefore, I used qualitative methods for describing and analyzing the data tofind out the meanings conveyed in the images about human behavior andevaluative language used in American and Vietnamese caricatures Secondly,the quantitative approach was used to investigate the frequency of occurrence

of verbal and visual meanings conveyed in those caricatures

Besides the two main methods, the following approaches were alsoadopted First, a descriptive method was used to give the description of visualelements of the collected data According to (Kothari, 1990), “The majorpurpose of descriptive research is a description of the state of affairs as itexists at present” (Kothari, 1990, p 2) Second, comparative and contrastivemethods were utilized to compare and contrast verbal and visual featuresdepicted in American and Vietnamese caricatures What’s more, the analyticand synthetic methods were used to synthesize the outcomes of the study andgive the final conclusion for the whole research