Intrafamilial Violence towards Children and Teenagers: Intercontextuality of Verbal and Visual Significations

Abstract

This paper aims to investigate signs of intrafamilial violence towards children and teenagers found in verbal and visual meanings in the digital game The Binding of Isaac (2011), drawing attention to its multimodality. The research’s theoretical-methodological framework brought some specific concepts from Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and the Grammar of Visual Design (GVD), in order to detect possible visual processes, intertextualities, as well as interdiscursivities that could reveal signs of intrafamilial violence against children and teenagers as a social practice in the game. The results confirmed that the main character has all the features usually found in victims who experienced such kind of abuse. We conclude that the game acts as communication vehicle because it possesses the function of introducing and alerting players about such theme. With support of CDA, we hope this research can further contribute to the Social Semiotics consolidation, as an effective framework to investigate social practices.

Keywords:
Intrafamilial Violence; Critical Discourse Analysis; Grammar of Visual Design