Representation of Social Actors in Medical Humanities: A Multimodal Study of Selected English and Arabic Infographics on COVID-19

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Faculty of Language Studies, Arab Open University (AOU), Egypt

Abstract

Uncertainty has prevailed following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, especially since the quarantine inflicted some people with fear and anxiety. During these critical times, medical humanities has played a vital role in aiding the distressed mentally, physically, and psychologically. Infographics as a form of medical humanities integrates verbal and visual elements which facilitate patients’ acquisition of information. The World Health Organization (WHO) and the Egyptian Ministry of Health (MoH) released infographics to address mental health issues following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. The present study traces the depiction of the social actors represented in the selected English and Arabic infographics to reveal how they are included/excluded in overcoming COVID-19 mental health-related issues. The study adopts a multimodal approach based on van Leeuwen’s (2008) Social Actors Framework to investigate the interconnectedness between the verbal and the visual representation of social actors. It concludes that there are common verbal and visual strategies employed by the English and Arabic infographics to account for the degree of inclusion of social actors in mental health awareness. 

Keywords

Cairo Studies in English
Volume 2021, Issue 2
December 2021
Pages 124-144

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