Recovering from cultural blindness: multimodal Positive Discourse Analysis of metaphors in hand-drawn sketches about Islam

Abstract

This paper extends Nartey’s model of Positive Discourse Analysis (PDA), examining the visual metaphors (VM) in the representations of Islamic identity. The paper highlights how hand-drawings operate as a positive discourse resisting negative accusations in hegemonic discourses about Islam. This PDA study is an intellectual proximity between semiotics, VMs and cultural studies. Through the constructed framework, I argue that PDA can utilize VMs to construct/construe homogeneity and inclusiveness. Through the findings of this study, we can construe the imageries as a reflection of the physical and cultural environments whose cognition is attained by examining how semiotic signs reflect and are reflected by conscious awareness and perception. A major criticism of PDA is its lack of contextual framing, that’s why this paper provides a contextual framing mixing semiotic visuality and the sociocultural construal of discursive representation of Muslim identity. The interpretation of the findings is contextualized after the adaptation of the philosophical view of Molyneux’s question, the issue of blindness from birth, and the capability of seeing things properly if someone, hypothetically, gains his sight again.

Keywords

• culture
• islam
• molyneux’s problem
• multimodality
• positive discourse analysis
• social semiotics
• visual metaphors