A Pragmatic Study of English Caricatures

Caricatures are depictions, whether written or visual, that emphasize or exaggerate particular traits or attributes of a person, thing, or circumstance. This research is concerned with analyzing caricatures pragmatically. The aim of this research is to investigate the illocutionary and perlocutionary acts of some selected caricatures according to Searles (1979) and Leech (1983) classifications, as well as the types of implicatures used by the cartoonists and the Grices maxims violated by them. The researchers hypothesize: First, that pragmatic aspects are important in interpreting and understanding caricatures. Second, the ideas included in the texts and images of the caricatures are interpreted and understood differently by different readers. The data used in this research are selected from different English newspapers, magazines and websites. Finally, researchers have concluded that pragmatics is very important for the interpretation of the caricature art, and a single caricature may have different interpretations and different effects on the readers.