Nonverbal Domination in George Orwell's Animal Farm: A Critical Discourse Analysis Approach

Abstract

This study adopts a critical discourse analysis approach to decipher the different nonverbal strategies of domination communicated by the visual and vocalic nonverbal codes in George Orwell's allegorical novella Animal Farm (1945). The primary purpose of the paper is to investigate the use of nonverbal practices as mechanisms for manipulative and coercive domination in the selected novel. In so doing, the paper draws on two analytical strands: the first is the critical discourse analysis approach as discussed by Fairclough (1995), van Dijk (2015), Wodak and Meyer (2015), and Weiss and Wodak (2007), and the second is Andersen's (1999) categorization of nonverbal communication strategies. The paper has three main findings: first, four strategies are identified as indicative in the production of domination in Animal Farm: the use of violence and gestures at the visual level, and the use of threat and intimidation (manifested in the dogs' growls) and the use of confusion and distraction (represented by the sheep's bleating) at the vocalic level. Second, nonverbal practices in Animal Farm are employed manipulatively and/or coercively to shape, reshape, and/or change characters' attitudes and behaviors towards particular attitudinal positions that serve the benefits of those in power. Third, nonverbal practices contribute to the dynamics of power in the discourse of the selected novel and augment the rhetorical influence of discourse interlocutors at the intradiegetic level of communication, particularly in amalgamating the authority of the powerful over the powerless.