The relationship between the verbal-visual cohesive chains of serial comic strips and their generic configuration

Abstract

After all, what is the relationship between text and genre? Based on Hasan's (1989) systemic-functional linguistics and Textual Linguistics postulations on verbal-visual cohesion (Ramos, 2012), our research investigates whether there is a relationship between the cohesive chains and the structural movements of the strips. With the help of NVIVO, we analyzed this hypothesis in 20 serial comic strips by Ed Mort, by Veríssimo and Paiva (1991). We found that the rectangular format favors the realization of visual and verbal anaphors; that the referential introduction of characters takes place through the plane of total vision; and that the referential introduction of new scenarios is carried out through the general vision plan. The detail view plane performs the recategorization of the objects of the speech, as well as the use of the lower viewing angle, the aspect-to-aspect frame transition, the absence of frame, the visual metaphor and the foreground view plane. The serialization is reinforced by the realization of the verbal-visual encapsulators. We conclude that in the serial comic strip, cohesion is articulated with the structural movements of the text. Cohesion, therefore, appears as an element that articulates text and genre and, for us, must become the core of text analysis.