This link has been bookmarked by 1 people . It was first bookmarked on 29 Aug 2006, by Ole C Brudvik.
-
29 Aug 06
-
For example, Kress and van Leeuwen (1996) proposed that images, like language, also always simultaneously realize three different kinds of meanings. Images construct not only representations of material reality but also the interpersonal interaction of social reality (such as relations between viewers and what is viewed). In addition images cohere into textual compositions in different ways and so realize semiotic reality. More technically, the “grammar of visual design” formulated by Kress and van Leeuwen (1996) adopted from SFL the metafunctional organization of meaning-making resources: • representational/ideational structures verbally and visually construct the nature of events, the objects and participants involved, and the circumstances in which they occur. • interactive/interpersonal verbal and visual resources construct the nature of relationships among speakers/listeners, writers/readers, and viewers and what is viewed. • Compositional/textual meanings are concerned with the distribution of the information value or relative emphasis among elements of the text and image. -
SFL and its link to the situational variables of social contexts that has provided a common theoretical basis for the development of similar “grammatical” descriptions of the meaning-making resources of other semiotic modes. -
Any communicative context can be described in terms of these three main variables that are important in influencing the semiotic choices that are made. The first of these, F IELD , is concerned with the social activity, its content or topic; the second, T ENOR , is the nature of the relationships among the people involved in the communication; and the third, M ODE , is the medium and channel of communication. -
According to SFL, the structures of language have evolved (and continue to evolve) as a result of the meaning-making functions they serve within the social systems or cultures in which they are used. Language is considered as a meaning-making system where the options available to individuals to achieve their communicative goals are influenced by the nature of the social context and how individuals are positioned in relation to it. However, although Halliday focused on language, he was very clear that this was only one semiotic system among many other modes of meaning in any culture, which might include … both art forms such as painting, sculpture, music, the dance, and so forth, and other modes of cultural behaviour that are not classified under the heading of forms of art, such as modes of exchange, modes of dress, structures of the family, and so forth. These are all bearers of meaning in the culture. Indeed we can define a culture as a set of semiotic systems, as a set of systems of meaning, all of which interrelate (Halliday & Hasan, 1985, p. 4). -
Finally, I will suggest – on the basis of research reporting the pedagogic efficacy of the metalanguage of SFL, some work on the pedagogic use of the grammar of visual design, and the discussion in previous sections of the emerging research on descriptions of image-language interaction – that teachers, teacher-educators and researchers consider further the pedagogic potential of existing and emerging metalanguage drawing on systemic functional semiotic approaches to multimodal texts. -
The subsequent section, and main body of the paper, will outline recent research dealing with the development of descriptions of meaning-making resources of image-language interaction. -
In the next section of the paper I will outline the key tenets of systemic functional semiotic theory that facilitate its use in describing meaning- making resources within and across a variety of modes of meaning including language, images, music and gesture. -
an introductory example of one type of meaning made at the intersection of language and image in Anthony Browne’s (1994) picture book Zoo. -
The purpose of this paper is to outline recent work addressing this challenge, and in so doing to indicate the pedagogic utility of formulating such a metalanguage of multimodality for the development of the multiliteracies education needed by students to engage with contemporary multimodal texts and texts of electronic multimedia. -
Faced with the requirement to address the multimodality of texts, the prescription of verbal grammar, and the absence in syllabi of comparably theorized resources for describing the meaning-making resources of images, some teacher educators and teachers have made use of the “grammar of visual design” developed by Kress and van Leeuwen (1996), extrapolating from SFL accounts of language. The commonality of the systemic functional theoretical approach to language and image as social semiotic systems facilitates an articulation of visual and verbal grammar as descriptive and analytical resources in developing students’ comprehension and composition of multimodal texts. However, beyond accounting for the independent, albeit sometimes strategically aligned, contributions of language and image to the meaning of composite texts, is the challenge of systematically theorising and describing resources for the construction of meaning at the intersection of language and image -
No such comparable accounts of a metalanguage describing the meaning-making resources of images and image/text interaction accompany these government curriculum documents and syllabi. -
The increasingly integrative use of images with language in many different types of texts in electronic and paper media has created an urgent need to go beyond logocentric accounts of literacy and literacy pedagogy. Correspondingly there is a need to augment the genre, grammar and discourse descriptions of verbal text as resources for literacy pedagogy to include descriptions of the meaning-making resources of images. Some augmentation along these lines has involved the articulation of Hallidayan systemic functional descriptions of language, mainly focussed on verbal grammar, with the social semiotic descriptions of the meaning-making resources of images described in a grammar of visual design proposed by Kress and van Leeuwen. However, current research indicates that articulating discrete visual and verbal grammars is not sufficient to account for meanings made at the intersection of language and image. This paper adopts a systemic functional semiotic perspective in outlining a range of different types of such meanings in different kinds of texts, suggesting the significance of such meanings in comprehending and composing contemporary multimodal texts, and the importance of developing an appropriate metalanguage to enable explicit discussion of these meaning- making resources by teachers and students. KEYWORDS: Multiliteracies, new literacies, metalanguage, visual literacy, visual grammar, image-text relations, multimodality, systemic functional linguistics, social semiotics
-
Would you like to comment?
Join Diigo for a free account, or sign in if you are already a member.