DISCOURSE-ORGANISATION OF THE ENGLISH COMICS

Abstract

The author understands comics as a special type of discourse built up as a unity of different sign systems brought together by their common function. It is multimodal communication which exists as a peculiar quasi-literary form transferring ready-made images to the reader and, thus, sparing both the narrator’s and the reader’s mental efforts as to transmitting and digesting the information. The author gives a detailed survey of the comics formation as a unique form of literary communication where the impact on the reader is achieved by means of a multi-level hierarchical communicative construct. The investigation also highlights functional roles of separate elements of the synthesised semiotic system of comics. In the process of work, the following observation has been made. The comics as a type of discourse represent a borderland between oral, fictional and newspaper discourses brought together by means of graphic drawings. The latter don’t function as illustrative material only, serving here as an information carrier of full value and strong emotional force. The author outlines distinctive features of comics, such as their up-to-date urgency, social problematics and specific lingual representation which often depends on the space limits of the comics frame. The nonverbal comics elements are represented by graphics functioning as a backdrop for the action and clarifying the details of speech situations, this way making up for the sparse bits of narrative given in panel captions. Comics also manifest paragraphics, like capitalisation, different types of print, or size of letters. The still dynamics of comics drawings combined with a verbal message in them give the information conveyed a peculiar attractive and expressive effect. To sum it up, a conclusion is made about comics as a specific type of literature occupying an intermediate position within such communicative forms as “novel”, “film” and “video game”. The latter, in contrast to the perspective laid out in the comics from the very beginning, grants a gamer an illusionary opportunity of making a free choice.