Multimodal pragmatics in the political logo

To the question of correlation between visual and verbal pragmatics

Abstract

 This article proposes an integrative approach to the analysis of political logos by combining relevance theory, speech act theory, the Gricean cooperative principle, and the grammar of visual design. The findings show that both the verbal and visual elements of a logo can be pragmatically interpreted through weak and strong implicatures, speech acts, and the flouting of conversational maxims, as they function as ostensive stimuli that prompt cognitive effort toward optimal relevance. When stimuli are incongruent, greater inferential effort is required to derive coherent meaning. The analysis identified multiple sources of incongruity both within and between modes: (a) mismatches between formal indicators of speech acts and their felicity conditions, often undermined by visual context or verbal vagueness; (b) discrepancies within the visual mode itself – between ideational, interactive, and compositional meanings – or between these visual layers and the verbal message; (c) conceptual inconsistencies between a slogan and the visual representation. These incongruities stimulate deeper cognitive processing but can hinder optimal relevance and increase the likelihood of unintended interpretations. Special attention is given to visual cues. At the ideational level, logos incorporate symbolic elements; the interactive level includes modality cues aligning with the sincerity condition of speech acts. Compositionally, the right part of the visual field signals new or rhematic information, affecting conceptual strength, while the upper part corresponds to “promise”, reinforcing or weakening commissive illocutionary force. In sum, ambiguity or inconsistency in multimodal cues can compromise the communicative effectiveness of political logos by violating relevance-based expectations.