Political cartoonas a genre of political discourse

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Political cartoonas a genre of political discourse

Natalia M. Dugalich

RUDN University



Abstract

The article is devoted to the consideration of the modern political cartoons on foreign policy and socially-significant topics in Arabic and French. Political cartoon is a genre of political discourse that entered the scope of linguistic problems in the middle of the 20th century and is an actual problem of modern linguistics. Political discourse has such characteristics as anthropocentrism, multi- disciplinarity, expansionism, functionalism and explanatoriness. The genres of political discourse can be characterized as a homogeneous and creolized text; political cartoon is a creolized text that unites iconic and verbal levels and has paralinguistic characteristics.

The object of the carried out analysis is the creolized text of the modern Arabic-language and Frenchspeaking political cartoon. The subject of the study in this work was the structural, cultural-specific and linguistic characteristics of the political cartoon text in Arabic and French. The material of the study was selected to be more than 100 cartoons on political topics in Arabic and French. An appeal to the genre presentation of political discourse and comparative analysis of political cartoons is a topical issue of linguistics in the absence of a sufficient number of scientific works touching on this topic. It should be noted that the well-known works devoted to political cartoons use material which is contemporaneous with the author of the study. political discourse arabic language

The study of political cartoon phenomenon in various linguistic cultures is a sphere of the actual multidisciplinary research as the author's creative beginning at the level of the text and drawing interacts in the political cartoon with the tradition and its genre frames, producing a volume-rich multi-layered creolized text, decoding of which requires the addressee to have the language, logical and extra-linguistic presuppositions and skills of analyzing the political cartoon.

Key words: political discourse, political cartoon, creolized text, verbal component, iconic component, the French language, the Arabic language

Политическая карикатура как жанр политического дискурса

Н.М. Дугалич

Российский университет дружбы народов

Статья посвящена рассмотрению современной политической карикатуры на внешнеполитические и общественно-значимые темы на арабском и французском языках. Политическая карикатура является жанром политического дискурса, который вошел в лингвистическую проблематику в середине 20 века и является актуальной проблемой современного языкознания. Политический дискурс обладает такими характеристиками, как антропоцентризм, мультидисциплинарность, экспансионизм, функционализм и экпланаторность. Жанры политического дискурса могут быть охарактеризованы как гомогенный текст и креолизованный текст; политическая карикатура является креолизованным текстом, который объединяет иконический и вербальный уровни и обладает паралингвистическими характеристиками.

Объектом проведенного анализа является креолизованный текст современной арабоязычной и франкоязычной политической карикатуры. Предметом исследования в данной работе стали структурные, культурно-специфические и языковые характеристики текста политической карикатуры на арабском и французском языках. Материалом проведенного исследования были выбраны более 100 карикатур на политические темы на арабском и французском языке. Обращение к жанровому представлению политического дискурса и сопоставительному анализу политической карикатуры является актуальным вопросом лингвистики в виду отсутствия достаточного количества научных трудов, затрагивающих данную проблематику. Необходимо отметить, что известные работы, посвященные политической карикатуре, используют материал, современный автору исследования.

Изучение феномена политической карикатуры в различных лингвокультурах представляет собой сферу актуальных мультидисциплинарных исследований т.к. авторское креативное начало на уровне текста и рисунка взаимодействует в политической карикатуре с традицией и ее жанровыми рамками, продуцируя емкий по объему многослойный креолизованный текст, декодирование которого требует от адресата наличия языковой, логической и экстралингвистической пресуппозиций и навыков анализа политической карикатуры у адресата.

Ключевые слова: политический дискурс, политическая карикатура, креолизованный текст, вербальный компонент, иконический компонент, французский язык, арабский язык



INTRODUCTION

A political cartoon is a universal instrument of a political dialogue between government and society, a reflection or reaction of society to a political event, a series of events or a person of the national or world level. The goals and tasks of a political cartoon, mechanism of influence over addressees and peculiarity of its genre have a common tradition and certain common components. The description of the universal and specific linguistic and extra-linguistic traits of Arab and French political cartoons is the subject of our study.

In the modern world, a political cartoon has not lost its relevance and expanded its location: along with the publication in the editorials of newspapers or in allocated pages for newspaper comics, Internet cartoons including flash animations have become widespread. In the context of globalization and inclusion of periodicals in different languages in the general media space, a political cartoon in a foreign language becomes more accessible for the reader. An important component of a cartoon publication is the translation of its text as well as the emerging problem of the adequacy and completeness of such translation.

Current political cartoons are characterized by the following set of topics: political leader as a person, political leader and his politics; economic reforms; pre-election struggle; military conflicts; shadow politics and economics; reputation of the country; domestic policy of the state.

For the correct and voluminous perception of the author's intentions in a political cartoon it is necessary to have certain presuppositions; their set represents a wide range of special linguistic, political, logical and extra-linguistic skills.

The peculiarity of a modern political cartoon as a social phenomenon is general high dynamism of publication activity of a particular publication and authors. At present, several countries have Institutes that document political cartoons, for example, the Center for the Study of Political Graphics in the USA and the British Caricature Archive. The significance of a political cartoon in the contemporary political discourse confirms the fact that the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Caricatureing has been awarded since 1922 as well as the award from the news house Press Gazette “Caricatureist of the Year”, which is presented in Britain.

From the point of view of the language, one of the distinguishing features of a political cartoon is the interaction of verbal, iconic and paralinguistic components within it, i.e. its creolized text.

Our study of creolized texts of political cartoons on the material of the modern Arabic and French languages included the analysis of more than 300 cartoons in the Arabic and French languages on political issues. As a research material, 60 cartoons were taken. During the selection the following political cartoons were excluded:

— on religious topics, offending the feelings of believers; mentioning names and precedent images of saints and prophets;

— discriminatory on the basis of gender, for example, degrading women or discussing sexual orientation of politicians and high-ranking officials;

— cartoons that offend the dignity of a person, for example, containing obscene words towards political leaders;

— racially discriminatory, for example, black Africans in the Arab African countries;

— from the sources with scandalous reputation.



1. POLITICAL DISCOURSE IN THE MODERN LINGUISTICS

Political discourse is an object of study of political linguistics, a scientific direction that was formed in the second half of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st century: “at the present stage of science development it becomes increasingly clear that political linguistics, which previously was united only by the material for research (political communication, “the language of the power structure”) becomes an independent scientific direction with its own traditions and methods, with its authorities and scientific schools” [Budaev, Chudinov 2006: 19]. The terminology of this new direction is controversial, as is the very concept of “discourse”, which, according to T.V. Larina and Douglas M. Ponton “does not have an unambiguous definition and varies depending on the context in which it is used” [Ponton, Larina 2016: 7]. Thus, modern science offers two approaches to the definition of the subject of political linguistics:

1) “the subject of political linguistics is political discourse as a set of discursive practices that identify participants in political discourse as such, or form a concrete topic of political communication” [Baranov 2001: 245--246];

2) the subject of political linguistics is defined as political communication; i.e. speech activity aimed at inducing citizens to political actions of various types [Chudinov 2006: 6].

Thus, political discourse in the second approach is presented as “the totality of all speech acts used in political discussions, as well as a set of public speech rules, illuminated by tradition and proven experience” [Baranov, Kazakevich 1991: 6]. In other words it is speech activity oriented to propagation of certain ideas, emotional impact on carriers of a certain language of a certain country and their motivation for political actions for the development of their public consent, adoption and justification of sociopolitical solutions. It is important to note that the field of political linguistics concerns not only the transfer of political information, but also the field of perception and evaluation of political reality in the process of communicative activity [Chudinov 2006: 6].

This linguistic discipline is closely connected with sociolinguistics, social psychology, culture studies and political science, which in their turn are connected with political linguistics via the basis, methods and objects of research. Modern linguists include in the concept of political communication all speech formations related to politics, as well as the addressee and the subject. At present, the notion of political linguistics is not controversial, however, there are several points of view on the scope and title of this discipline. Thus, V.Z. Demyankov believes that the essence and purpose of political linguistics require some combination of political science literary and linguistic studies within the framework of political science philology [Demyankov 2002: 32--43]:

1) political science literary studies analyze macro-structures of political discourse: change and motivation of plots, motives, genres, etc. -- in other words, considers discourse with the help of literary tools;

2) political science linguistic studies deal with micro-level, its subject is the following matters:

— syntactics, semantics and pragmatics of political discourse;

— staging and interpretation models of these discourses. In particular, it is naming of politologically significant concepts in political use in comparison with everyday language.

Modern political linguistics is represented by the following main areas of research:

1) general problems of political communication, the research object is the difference of political discourse from other types of discourses, in this direction the research object is considered from the point of view of the linguistic tradition (as a text);

2) genre representation and genre variety of political discourse on the basis of political slogans, political programs (radio, television, Internet), political leaflets, political cartoons, political newspaper articles, speeches of public and political figures, parliamentary debates, etc. and peculiarities of political texts functioning; in this direction the research object is considered from the point of view of the linguistic tradition (as a text or a creolized text);

3) problematics of individual styles of individual politicians, political parties and directions, by which we mean the analysis of strategy, tactics and methods of political communication at the level of composition, linguistic (primarily lexical and paremio- logical) means, the use of means for creating imagery of political texts; in this direction the research object is considered both from the point of view of linguistic and individualhermeneutic traditions;

4) political conceptology (for example, the idea of the key concept) of a specific language and addressing problems of understanding political realities of one or another state by citizens of other states, comparative study of political communication in different countries at different stages of development of one society [Chudinov, Baranov, Voroshilova 2001].

In the opinion of linguists dealing with problems of political discourse, for example, A.N. Baranov (1997), E.V. Budaev (2006), P. Bourdieu (1993), R. Vodak (1997), T.A. van Dyck (1998), P.B. Parshin (2002), E.A. Popova (1995), D.V. Shapochkin (2012), E.I. Sheygal (2000), the main function of political discourse is the use of politics' language as an instrument of political power structure, which is expressed by a set of specific functions. Among other functions there are:

1) the function of social control, i.e., for example, manipulation of public consciousness;

2) the function of legitimization of the power structure, which is understood as argumentation of decisions of the authorities, for example, in the course of allocating public resources;

3) the function of reproduction of the power structure, i.e. strengthening of commitment to the system in the society;

4) the orientation function, i.e. creation and strengthening of goals, tasks, prospects of political life in the society;

5) the function of social consolidation conducted for the whole society or individual social groups;

6) the agonal function of creating social conflicts, expressing protests against the actions of the authorities;

7) the actional function expressed in carrying out activities with the aim of mobilizing supporters of the power structure and diverting attention of the inactive or hostile part of the population.

The functions of political discourse which are not included in this list due to various aspects of expression of the struggle for the power structure can be described in pairs in five groups [Sheygal 2000: 43]:

¦ integration vs. differentiation of group agents of politics;

¦ development of the conflict vs. establishment of consensus;

¦ implementation of verbal political actions vs. informing about them;

¦ creation of the policy language reality vs. its interpretation;

¦ manipulation of consciousness vs. control over the actions of politicians and society.

An important characteristic of political discourse is its effectiveness, since the social significance of political discourse consists in giving the addressee politically correct coordinates.

While giving the speech politicians operate with symbols, and its success is predetermined by how much these symbols are consonant with the mass consciousness: a politician must be able to touch the necessary string in this consciousness; the statements of a politician must fit into the “universe” of opinions and assessments (that is, in the whole multitude of internal worlds) of its recipients, “consumers” of political discourse.

The works devoted to the study of political discourse that is aimed at suggestion (for example, of political, religious ideas) take into account the system of views of the potential interpreter and predict potential reactions, intentions and actions of the group of people at which the communicative vector is directed. As A. Schopenhauer once noted, the art of persuasion consists in skillfully using completely different, almost incompatible concepts of a particular individual. This causes transitions from one belief to another, which may seem random and unsystematic, sometimes unexpected even for the speaker himself [Schopenhauer 1973: 58].

This tactics in political discourse can be characterized by a certain degree of intimacy and sympathy for the proponent, which is directly related to the level of trust of the addressee and the oratorical skill of the speaker. “Only by creating a recipient's feeling of voluntary acceptance of someone else's opinion, interest, relevance and satisfaction, the speaker can succeed in this suggestion” [Grac 1985: 16]. By V.Z. Demyan- kov, speaking of tactics and strategy of suggestion and overcoming it, the addressee always expects something from the speech of his interlocutors, which affects the acceptance or rejection of the suggested points of view. Speech behavior that violates normative expectations of the appropriate types of behavior can reduce the effectiveness of the impact (if the surprise is unpleasant for the recipient) or dramatically increase it -- when something more pleasant than expected all of a sudden occurs from the side of the addressee. There are situations with passive perception, active participation and resistance to suggestion from the addressee.

With the passive perception of suggestion, the addressee expects that the level of fear, the depth of affected opinions and the intensity of verbal suggestion will correspond to the norm. Thus, the means of influence for the considered type of perception should be of low intensity. Strategically low-intensity attack is more successful in overcoming resistance to suggestion, which is used after an important tactical component in the form of a supporting, refuting or mixed preparation.

In the situation with the active perception of suggestion, the recipient on his own helps to convince himself of the correctness or possibility of accepting suggested points of view, especially if he hopes that everything happens in his interests. There is observed a direct correlation between the intensity of the speech tools used in an actively carried out attack and the overcoming of resistance, which is the result of a supporting, refuting or mixed pre-preparation.

If the addressee is actively resisting suggestion, a number of situations arise that require consideration:

1) in the situation when the preliminary explanatory work was carried out, the “impressiveness” of the main attack is inversely proportional to the effectiveness of the preparing statements. Disproving preliminary actions gradually warn the addressee about the nature of upcoming attacks. Therefore, if attacking statements do not violate the expectations created by the refuting preliminary action, resistance to suggestion is maximum;

2) in the situation where the linguistic properties of attacking statements violate the expectations developed as a result of a “disproving preparation” (either in the positive or in the negative direction), resistance decreases;

3) when the addressee is presented with more than one argument in favor of the same thesis, the justifiability or unjustifiability of expectations at the first argument affects the adoption of the second argument. Therefore, if speech expectations are violated positively as a result of the first argument, this argument becomes significant, but the change in the attitude to the starting position occurs only after the presentation of subsequent arguments supporting the same position directed against the established installation;

4) when speech expectations are violated in the negative direction as a result of the first argument, this argument is not impressive, but the addressee is more inclined to believe the arguments in the subsequent speech arguing in favor of the same thesis directed against the established attitude [Grac 1985].

2. POLITICAL CARTOON AS A CREOLIZED TEXT

The subject of political discourse analysis is a political text, including a creolized one. The main difference of the political text is its ideology and communicative strategy directed at the impact and persuasion.

In the opinion of M.A. Boyko [Boyko 2006], who summarized data of special studies, despite the absence of the difference between the significance of verbal and iconic signs at the level of speech and signs, the information is perceived by recipients in different ways: text message information is received and assimilated in the volume of less than 10%, adding voice data increases this value to 40% and the addition of iconic series -- up to 55%.

Visually accepted message “is faster and easier to be accepted as the truth, causes less fear” [Vojtasek 1981: 190], “it seems more democratic” [Chudakova 2005: 189] and is usually perceived as some kind of objective beginning, in contrast to verbal information, which authorship is clearly or potentially known and gives subjective character to the message. Thus, one can draw the conclusion about the proven influential effect of a creolized text in political discourse at the present time. This predetermined its increasing popularity in political discourse.

A creolized text in political discourse is represented by the following genres: agitation leaflets; political posters; political cartoons; images in the frames of the agitation text. Here are their main genre characteristics:

1) an agitation leaflet -- the genre of the agitation and political literature, exists in two forms -- only with a text component and in combination of text and iconic components; components of agitation leaflets are texts that include an appeal; character; font, punctuation signs, color and composition;

2) a political poster -- “a single work of art, a laconic, catchy, usually colored image with a short text (usually on a large sheet of paper), made for the purposes of agitation, promotion, information or education” [Democfenova 1962: 15]; a political poster differs by its stereotypical character. The components of a political poster are non-verbal (drawing, color, font, composition) and verbal (name, slogan, information). Under a figure can be understood as the actual figure as well as the combination of pictures, figures and photographs. It should be noted that a political poster is distinguished by its simplicity, entertainment, certain degree of individualization and certain programmatic orientation. The defining factor for this format is formal, spatial structuring and information limitation. According to the researcher of this genre T.S. Magera, “the nucleus in a political poster is realized in the verbal mode, and the visual mode serves as an obligatory addition and continuation” [Magera 2006: 127];

3) a political cartoon -- an image that usually contains a text component. The distinguishing features of a political cartoon are the actuality of facts, hyperbole and satire in the representation of iconic and verbal components;

4) a political illustration is a kind of a creolized text that is used in publicistic texts of political orientation or dedicated to political issues. The main feature of this genre of political discourse is subordinate relationships of the text and illustration: the focus of the research is aimed at the correlation of components of this type of creolized political text, as the verbal iconic component does not represent a “sum of semiotic signs”, their meaning is integrated and “forms a complex meaning” [Anisimova 2003].

In the works devoted to theoretical problems of political linguistics, a number of approaches to the study of creolized texts of political discourse are formulated:

¦ communicative direction, where the focus of researchers' attention is focused on the analysis of communicative strategies and tactics in political discourse;

¦ rhetorical direction, which studies textual and iconic components of a creolized text and their interaction;

¦ semiotic direction, which the works of linguists are added to, for example, in accordance with the conceptual metaphorics. It was in the framework of semiotic studies that the foundation for the study of creolized texts was laid. An image was considered as a special sign system, the role of graphic means in the semantic understanding of a text was separately studied; the most important works in this field are the works of L.V. Golovina [Golovina 1986], D.D. Zuev [Zuev 1981], Yu.A. Sorokin and E.F. Tarasov [Sorokin, Tarasov 1990], L. Bardin [Bardin 1978], U. Kraft [Kraft 1978], M. Muckenhaupt [Muckenhaupt 1986], B. Spillner [Spillner 1982] and many others.

Common provisions for the linguistics of a text, including a creolized one, can be considered the following statements:

1) pragmatic nature of the text is a generally accepted statement in linguistics;

2) coherence of the text implies the consideration of a text as a combination of super-phase elements, which are connected by logical and semantic, grammatical and stylistic characteristics;

3) intentional nature of the text is related to the realization of the author's intention and has a pronounced focus and subjectivity;

4) situational nature of the text is the result of the cognitive activity of a person in a particular situation;

5) communicative character of the text is connected with its communicative function as a means of transferring the accumulated information. A text should be relevant and correspond to the intentions of the addressee;

6) inter-textual character of the text is practically a constant characteristic of it.

A text as a product of a person's discursive activity reflects one of the “possible worlds”, for “objectification of which the addressee uses various language tools that activate certain features of the language” [Kubryakova 2004: 519]. In the modern language science the description of linguistic phenomena is based on their evaluation as facilitating the realization of the communicative function of the language.

The communicative point of view is characterized by the analysis of linguistic means in the verbal behavior of people and evaluation of communicative tasks and attitudes [Arutyunova 1990; Grishaeva 1998; Semochko 2004].

For the cognitive analysis, the role of linguistic means is important in the processes of cognition of the world, knowledge and experience of the society [Anderson 2002; Babushkin 1996; Popova&Sternin 2002; Kretov&Boriskina 2003; Laenko 2005].

3. GENRE FEATURES OF A POLITICAL CARTOON

The concept of the genre has long been formed in the linguistic tradition. At the heart of its definition there are a number of generalized ideas about the structure, content, author's attitude and accompanying extra-linguistic components, for example, of a text. Thus, B.A. Zilbert wrote about the genre that it was formed on the basis of generalization of specific features, signs of directly perceived texts [Zilbert 1986: 75]. A similar definition is given in the works of V.E. Goldin, M.M. Bakhtin, S. Gaida and M.Yu. Fedosyuk.

M.M. Bakhtin singled out primary and secondary genres, which in S. Gaida's works are designated prime and secondary, and M.Yu. Fedosyuk describes them as elementary and complex. According to these classifications, a political cartoon can be defined as the secondary genre. Secondary genres appeared in discourses in the situation of developed cultural communication and are distinguished by a complex construction and reactive essence [Bakhtin 1996: 161--162; Gaida 1999: 110; Fedosyuk 1997: 104].

The reactive nature of the secondary genres of political discourse is related to their origin, in fact, it is a reaction and response to primary genres -- political speeches, debates, negotiations and other politicians' speeches, whereas a cartoon is a kind of commenting on primary genres. The secondary nature of the genre of political cartoons provides the existence of a citatory and critical beginning in their texts and iconic components.

Constitutional genre signs of a political cartoon are described in the linguistic literature in continuation of the statement of Yu.L. Lotman that “the text contains the folded system of all links in the communicative chain” [Lotman 1999: 88]. The model of a communicative act can be represented as the following set: communicator, communicative goal; attitude of the communicator to the communicative goal and to the addressee; message itself (subject, topic); form of the message; message function and the addressee [Yakobson 1960].

A communicator in a political cartoon is its author (or newspaper's editorial staff), therefore the study of originality of a political cartoon as a special type of a creolized text marks a pronounced individual-authoring principle, from the idea to the embodiment. The communicative goal of a political cartoon is to satirically criticize a particular political event or action of a particular political leader. The attitude of the communicator to the communicative goal, as a rule, is critical, sarcastic; the message is usually devoted to a recent or actual political event. Political cartoons on long-past events are quite rare since the important component of this type of communication is the addressee's response. It is necessary to note the appeal to precedent phenomena in political cartoons.

4. ARAB AND FRENCH POLITICAL CARTOONS IN A COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE

In the modern world there is a globalization rapprochement of traditions of political cartoons of various civilizations; nevertheless, the cultural-specific difference between the Arab and French political cartoons is fixed:

1) French political cartoons have a long history in the course of development of European political cartoons; for Arab countries, a political cartoon is a relatively new phenomenon that emerged in the social life of the Middle East as a product of the expansion of the Ottoman Empire into the Arab East;

2) the main components of French political cartoons: topic, heroes, problems, techniques of performance -- are developed consistently as a combination of visual and text humor/grotesque; Arabic political humor has literary roots, as the tradition of visual genres did not exist for religious reasons;

3) Arab political cartoons are rapidly gaining popularity, while in France political cartoons have their special place in the system of genres of political discourse.

The analysis of the content and language of modern cartoons in the Arabic and French languages revealed a number of features such as:

1. The verbal component of a creolized text of a political cartoon has the following characteristics: volume, composition, language expression, normativity, imagery. Its content can coincide with the similar characteristics of an artistic and journalistic text. The average volume of the verbal component of a political cartoon is from 1 to 30 words. A distinctive feature of the organization of political cartoons text is the prevalence of dialogues and monologues. The frequent means of creating imagery in a political cartoon is an allusion, which is explained by the appellative character of a creolized text, modality of a cartoon as a genre, limited volume of text and iconic series; allusion in a creolized text should be considered at the text and image level.

The comparative analysis of linguistic means of Arab and French political cartoons revealed the existence of universal and culturally specific features of the research subject. The most significant universals of a creolized text of a political cartoon are the use of semiotic codes, grammatical, lexical and textual means.

At grammatical level, the cartoons studied in the Arabic language indicate cases of deviation from the norm, related to the genre features of the cartoons, violation of etiquette norms and dialectal phenomena. In the French language, grammatical errors in the texts of the political cartoons can be characterized as intentional (with subsequent decoding by the addressee) and colloquial.

The peculiarity of the use of lexical means in the political cartoons of the languages in question is the use of colloquial language, slogans, political clichйs and proverbs.

2. One of the linguistic features of a political cartoon is the problem of an adequate translation of its verbal component, which “is particularly acute, primarily due to the reason that the values of verbal and iconic (visual) components are not simply formed, but closely intertwined” [Anisimova 2003: 11]. The process of translating a creolized text thus means creating a new text that should be equivalent to the first one, containing the result of decoding visual series and analyzing the content of the indirect version,

i. e. precedent, metaphorical, specific socio-cultural data and other paradigms of both textual and iconic type.

We believe that creolized texts of written communication, which a political cartoon belongs to, can be divided into a group of fully translated texts where the verbal and iconic components of the translation fully correspond to the original; partially translatable creolized texts where the iconic component is not understood by the addressee, the text is understood partially/the iconic component and the text are understood partially by the addressee/ the iconic component is understood partially, the text is not understood and as well texts that are translated with considerable difficulties and it is necessary to use significant explanations.

3. The analysis of a political cartoon at the level of the iconic component demonstrates the use of such techniques as a collage, cartoon, sketch, drawing in the animated technique. According to the color scheme, a political cartoon can be monochrome and color.

The color in a creolized text is not an obligatory element, but it has an attractive, appealing and semantic function and enters into complementary relationships with the verbal component. The correlation of the color and the meaning characterizes the national-cultural specificity of the ethnos, which leads to the problem of decoding the visual semantic sign.

4. Particular attention in a creolized text of political cartoons deserves paralin- guistic means: synergraphic (unmotivated use of punctuation marks), supra-graphic (font-based variation) and topographic (plane-type placement of the font).

5. The comparative analysis revealed the presence of universal and culturally specific features of political cartoons in the Arabic and French languages, the special features of the studied cartoons are:

a) the expression of connection of the verbal component with the color in the Arab cartoon; signatures are used on the subjects and attributes of a political leader; frequent use of supra-regional symbolics; female images are used in the meaning of motherland/revolution/mother; there is noted the use of religious and dialect vocabulary and the tendency to use complete sentences;

b) black and white cartoons are noted in the French language; frequent font-based variation; the use of civilizational phenomena and world symbols; female images are used in the meaning of a strong woman/partner/politician; the use of colloquial language for the speech characteristics of cartoon characters; preferential choice of a monologue in the cartoon; the dominance of complete sentences over incomplete ones.

6. We proposed a technique for analyzing a political cartoon to effectively perceive its meaning: a political cartoon as a political text evaluates an event or a person in politics and belongs to the type of creolized texts where codes of different semiotic systems interact. In the course of the analysis, we developed an algorithm for examining layers and codes of a creolized text.



CONCLUSIONS

Based on the carried out research, the following main conclusions can be drawn.

1. The anthropocentrism of a modern political cartoon in the Arabic and French languages is initiated by its theme and the purpose of creation: to tell people about a person-politician. The expansional character of cartoons actualizes attention of such scientific disciplines as political science, art history, linguistics, sociology, semiotics, etc. The applied character of a political cartoon as a genre of political discourse determines the functionalism of our research and a creolized text as an object of research -- its explant character.

2. The phenomenon of the political cartoon has a long cultural history in France; in the Arab countries, a political cartoon is a new genre of political discourse, the product/result of the expansion of the Western civilization. The lack of one's own tradition in the Middle East is associated with religious restrictions, as well as the shift in attention to the word, rather than to the image in satirical works. Globalization processes and the presence of a common virtual space brings together Arab and French political cartoons at the content and formal levels on the one hand and on the other creates the problem of decoding and translatability of its verbal components for the mass reader.

3. At the structural level, a political cartoon is a creolized text, i.e. a union of semiotic series of iconic and verbal levels, components compatibility of which determines the originality of a cartoon. Characterological features of a creolized text of a political cartoon are locality, intertextuality, temporality, modality and coherence of its elements. The feature of a number of genres of political discourse, including a political cartoon, is the significant use of synergraphic, supra-graphic and topographic tools with the domination of the iconic component.

4. The textual level of a political cartoon is characterized by volume, composition, linguistic expression, normativity and imagery; the iconic component, represented as a monochromatic and colored cartoon, collage or sketch also contains kinesic information.

5. The most common means of creating imagery in a political cartoon are an allusion, represented at the level of text and image as well as the play of words, expressed by polysemy and homophony.

6. The semiotics of a political cartoon is universal and uses codes such as color that is not obligatory but appellative, attractive and enters into complementary relationships with the iconic component, and verbal and iconic precedent, the types of which are classified as universal precedent phenomena, civilizational and supra-regional onyms, events and phenomena. The cultural-specific differences between Arab and French political cartoons are the correlation of a particular color and its meaning and a number of precedent phenomena used.

7. The universal phenomenon of creolized texts of political cartoons in the Arabic and French languages is the violation of grammatical forms (verb forms, choice of graphemes, etc.), lexical (clichйs, colloquial language, dialectal vocabulary, etc.) and etiquette norms that can be characterized as intentional and versatile or dialectal. Specific features of the Arabic language result to be the use of religious vocabulary, neologisms- borrowing, frequent use of grammatical and lexical dialectisms. In the French language, there can be traced the dominance of complete sentences over incomplete ones, the priority of a monologue over a dialogue and the use of expressive vocabulary and interjections.

8. At the level of the content, Arab political cartoons are distinguished by the use of female images in the meaning of the homeland/revolution/mother and the frequent use of regional and religious symbols. French cartoons are distinguished by their performance in a monochrome version, using font variations and female images in the meaning of a strong woman/partner/politician; the characteristic of French cartoons is the existence of civilizational phenomena and world symbols.



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