MULTIMODAL CONSTRUING OF GRAPHIC NARRATIVES IN AUSTRALIAN ARTISTIC DISCOURSE (CASE STUDY OF PET GRANT’S GRAPHIC NOVEL “BLUE”)

Abstract

The article focuses on the features of construing Australian graphic narratives for children and young adults (a case study of Pat Grant’s graphic novel “Blue”). The research is carried out in terms of modern multimodal narratology and is based on the graphic narrative theory. Graphic narrative is a special hybrid type of narrative represented visually and verbally in packed panels and gutters, which acquire their meaning only in sequential combination with other panels and episodes and register its temporality spatially. Graphic narratives in Australian artistic discourse are distinguished by the meanings embodied visually and verbally in the elements of narrative construction. The paper aims to identify and characterise the main multimodal techniques and means of constructing the story in Australian graphic narratives. Accordingly, the tasks are to demonstrate the features of construing narration, the focalizer’s point of view, the images of the narrator and characters, and the artistic space in the case study of Pat Grant’s graphic narrative “Blue”. The article presents the results of a multimodal narratological analysis of the graphic narratives construing, which is characterized by the sequential combination of narrative episodes and panels in their visual and verbal modes into a single narrative through a specific visual language, narrative multimodal techniques and means of its creation. The research reveals visual and visual-verbal means of creating the focalizer’s point of view, multimodal techniques of representing the narrator, his speech, thoughts and comments, features of the various characters’ introduction, as well as the artistic space in which deep implicit meanings are embodied. Constructing Australian graphic narratives for children and young adults enables readers to understand complex and ambivalent themes and meanings presented multimodally. The specifics of creating artistic space reflect the ethnocultural characteristics of the Australian language and culture.