The Discourse of Trauma and Representations of Resilience: A Semiotic and Discursive Analysis of the Film Sudan: A Hospital Under Siege
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17507/tpls.1606.33Keywords:
Critical Discourse Analysis, social semiotics, documentary film, Nuba Mountains, traumaAbstract
This study examines the documentary film Sudan: A Hospital Under Siege, focusing on how it frames a discourse of marginalization and resistance through linguistic and visual techniques. Employing a qualitative approach that draws on critical discourse analysis (Fairclough, 1995; van Dijk, 1993) and multimodal semiotics (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2001; Halliday & Hasan, 1989; Aiello, 2020), the study reveals how spoken testimonies and visual imagery collaborate to expose institutional neglect and convey stories of resilience. Key findings include the film's satirization of the "absent authority" through the foregrounding of infrastructural collapse and its reimagining of victims as subjects of moral resilience. Visual signs, such as malnourished children, bombed-out classrooms, and operating room teamwork, are texts fraught with ethical and political meaning. The paper argues that the film is not only a documentary but also a semiotic intervention that disrupts language, images, and power relations. It is an indictment of injustice and a validation of silenced voices in a forgotten war zone.
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