Psycho Semiotic analysis of the psychological concept of “self-esteem” in the selected images of the film “Belfast”

Self-esteem is related to personal beliefs about skills, abilities, and social relationships, and it means a general evaluation of one s competence in a positive and negative direction, which is necessary for self -recognition which includes the external and internal world of a person, the individual awareness and experience. Here in this paper, selected images from the film are analyzed via symbols to investigate how the psychological concept of “self-esteem” is conveyed through Kress and van Leeuwen s image reading approach in Kenneth Branagh s film Belfast, which was screened during the Covid-19 pandemic. This research examines the signs using representational, interactive, and combined meanings based on Kress and Van Leeuwen’s approach including the technical codes of the film and the body language of the participants, how these signs are transmitted as a visual stimulus, and the determinant of self-esteem in covid time. The visual signs through the qualitative and analytical grammar approach of Kress and Van Leeuwen (such as color, shapes, lighting, location of facilities and equipment, characters, body movements and behaviors, gestures, and facial expressions) display the psychologically related concept of self-esteem. The results of this research can be beneficial to the researchers interested in the area of Psycho semiotics.