Amnesty International's Campaigns Against Torture in Light of Geoffrey Leech's Seven Types of Meaning

Abstract

Torture is considered a violation of human rights worldwide according to the Declaration of Human Rights. Many countries accept torture as a crime and aim to prevent torture with various penal sanctions. In addition, Amnesty International (AI) tries to raise awareness against torture in the international public opinion by giving various messages against torture through public service announcements in its campaigns. In the study, the messages that AI wanted to give for the prevention of torture in the anti-torture campaigns carried out in various countries. For this purpose, the public service announcements used by AI in anti-torture campaigns were analyzed semiotically through British linguist Geoffrey Leech's Seven Types of Meaning (conceptual, connotative, social, affective, reflected, collocative, thematic meaning) in this study. In the light of the findings obtained within the scope of the study, it was revealed that messages that torture can be prevented by actively participating in the anti-torture struggle through the visual and written indicators in the public service announcements in the anti-torture campaigns. In this way, it was concluded that the number of anti-torture activists in the international community is sought to be increased through the campaigns carried out by AI.