Manuscript Title:

CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF THE STREET ART OF LAHORE CITY

Author:

KHADIJA BINTE NASIR

DOI Number:

DOI:10.5281/zenodo.10848731

Published : 2024-03-23

About the author(s)

1. KHADIJA BINTE NASIR - Bachelor Honors Graduate in Applied Linguistics from Kinnaird College for Women University, Pakistan.

Full Text : PDF

Abstract

This research carries out a critical discourse analysis of the street art of Lahore city, Pakistan. It aims to advocate the concrete manifestation of culture, heritage, values, diverse stylistic execution, unarticulated thoughts and emotions, and promotion of egalitarianism through the street art of Lahore city. The methodology used in this research is photo elicitation in which the pictures of significant street art of Lahore city are captured and the ideology behind them is illustrated. A classical view holds true for analysis and discussion of representation in art, thus imbuing street art with a deeper significance as the artist’s vision. Furthermore, each of the wall art categories evaluates the social context of the pictures concerning the culture, lifestyle, and traditions of the people of Pakistan using Visual social semiotics theory (Jewitt and Oyama 2001) which tends to explain that every image is not just a single element rather encodes multiple social contexts, processes and depicts a collective identity of people. It can be seen explicitly how the dynamics of the contemporary city of Lahore are encoded in the dialectics of its art through street art graffiti analyzed with another theory named Social Actors’ theory (Van Leeuwen 2008) which interprets the pictures in terms of Social actors being shown actively or passively corresponding to the real-life inclusion and exclusion of humans in terms gender, age or profession, etc. in a specific society. The research examines the various tensions that are inherent in the production of that art as a product to be consumed. Simultaneously, the research also looks at street art as a meaningful activity whose meaning is encoded in its presentation.


Keywords

Critical Discourse Analysis, Street Art, Lahore City, Visual Social Semiotics, Social Actors, Collective Identity, Inclusion, Exclusion, Social Context.