Pragmatic Analysis of Selected Political Cartoons.

Political cartoons function as influential instruments of socio-political commentary, employing multimodal strategies to distill complex ideological narratives through satire and symbolism. This study conducts a pragmatic analysis of editorial cartoons depicting Kamala Harris and Donald Trump during the 2020–2024 U.S. election cycle, addressing a gap in research on how linguistic and visual pragmatics shape political discourse. The primary aim is to explore how cartoonists use pragmatic elements, such as implicature, inference, speech acts, intention, and mutual contextual beliefs, to communicate socio-political messages and influence interpretation. Methodologically, the study employs qualitative pragmatic analysis of five purposively sampled cartoons from The New York Times and The Washington Post (2023–2024), that ensures representation of both candidates and a wide coverage of key political themes. The analysis, grounded in Speech Act Theory, Grice’s Cooperative Principle, Relevance Theory, and the concept of Mutual Contextual Belief as well as Mutual Belief Contextual Model. The findings reveal that cartoonists frequently used satire and implicature to critique campaign rhetoric, reinforce ideological positions, and challenge the credibility of political figures. Shared contextual knowledge proved essential in decoding these cartoons, as meaning was often layered and depended on the audience’s familiarity with current events and cultural references. The study concludes that pragmatic devices allow editorial cartoons to reinforce ideological positions while influencing public discourse, democratic participation and political communication.