Unveiling the Construction of Overall Meaning: A Social Semiotic Analysis of the Anti-War Discourse in Lynn Nottage’s Ruined

Abstract

Lynn Nottage’s drama, Ruined, depicts the profound and far-reaching consequences of warfare on both individuals and communities. With deliberate emphasis on the harrowing experiences of Congolese women, this play is concerned with the intricate web of human rights challenges that plague conflict-ridden regions. Halliday’s social semiotics understands and analyzes how meaning is constructed in various discourses, which can provide a framework for probing the relationships between language, communication, and society, and how these entities interplay to convey meaning and mediate social interactions. This paper delves into the discursive cues that construct the overall meaning of Ruined through the lens of Halliday’s social semiotics, and further explores the social-cultural contexts constructed by Nottage as well as the anti-war keynote embedded within her play. By examining the ideational, interpersonal, and textual expressions throughout the text, this analysis suggests that the adopted framework can provide valuable insights into understanding how discursive strategies serve character development, relational dynamics between characters, and the underlying message of the targeting play, which can also be taken as an attempt at multidisciplinary interpretations on literary works.