A Hermeneutical and Semiotic Reading of Little Amal: A Walk through Brex-e-Lit

Abstract

This study explores the pervasive socio-political implications of the refugee crisis in the language and narrative structure of the interactive fiction of Little Amal: The Walk. Hermeneutics and semiotic compositional elements contribute to the on-going meaningful interaction between the interlocutors within the context of the successive narrations in the story. In this paper, we investigate the multimodal semiotic elements in conjunction with the cultural and political implications intended. The study contributes to interactive fiction through the modelled methodological framework. Using the Four-Legged Stool hermeneutical approach (Mburu 2019) and a hybrid of two approaches, namely, Visual Grammar (Kress and Van Leeuwen 2006) and Semiotic Elements (Machin and Laden 2018), the study pursues approaching Little Amal to delve into its hidden implications. The study adapts Mburu’s approach to become a three-legged stool, where the language and the narrative structures support the cultural, theological, and biblical interpretation of the narrative, hence the political implication in any literary text, especially the interactive ones. The study results confirm that Britain invades both ‘first- and third-world’ cultures, linking it to Brexit and British superiority over the world. The Walk, reveals how Brexit can be viewed as a British nostalgia for the lost empire.