VISUALIZING LOST CHILDHOOD: A MULTIMODAL SEMIOTIC ANALYSIS OF CHILD LABOUR THROUGH THE SYMBOL OF TAKHTI

Abstract

Child labour is not simply an economic and legal issue but also a visual and cultural narrative, that is a means of representing childhood, poverty, education and marginalisation. This research is based on selected visual works of art dealing with the issues of child labour and the takhti, a symbol of traditional South Asian writing board, which is related to early literacy, schooling, discipline and childhood learning. The study is carried out through qualitative multimodal critical discourse, which is based on the visual grammar of Kress and van Leeuwen, van Leeuwen's representation of social actors, Fairclough's critical discourse and Barthes' semiotic theory of denotation, connotation and myth. The analysis dwells upon colour, gaze, posture, framing, salience, spatial arrangement, symbolic objects and the visual contrast of education and labour. Findings indicate that the takhti turns into a metaphor of denied schooling, interrupted childhood and social exclusion. Children are depicted as anonymous, vulnerable and marginalised, and social actors within the scope of exploitation are barely present. The study posits that visual art can be used as a social critique to reveal the educational deprivation, and to question the normalization of child labour within the South Asian society.