Browsing by Author "Klingbeil, Chantal J."

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    Time, space, and identity in Pope memes : a multimodal analysis
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2022-12) Klingbeil, Chantal J.; Oostendorp, Marcelyn; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of General Linguistics.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: nternet memes do not provoke a lot of debate or analysis, and serious scrutiny of them seems to be avoided. In this dissertation I want to argue that memes can be a useful area of study as they are a distinctive form of communication that makes it possible to analyze broader multimodal forms. This study makes use of a combination of multimodal discourse analysis (Kress and Van Leeuwen 1996; Iedema 2003a) and Bakhtin’s (1981, 1986) conceptualization of discourse to explore Pope Francis memes. The study probes the texts and discourses selected by meme creators and the way in which time and space is multimodally constructed in Pope Francis memes. The texts and discourses selected by meme creators to construct the identity of Pope Francis through these memes are also examined. This study seeks to provide a flexible theoretical framework, which could be used for the analysis of data that combines verbal and visual modes. It also wishes to demonstrate that internet memes, with their deceptive appearance of triviality, are a distinctive form of communication, the study of which can be useful in testing the theoretical underpinnings of communicative theory. The findings suggest that memes provide challenges to how discourse has generally been viewed in linguistic theory and argues for a chronotopic, multimodal, and dynamic view of communication.