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Ilaria Sorice
LINGUA E TRADUZIONE INGLESE
MULTIMODAL
Diverse tipologie di diverse modalità di linguaggio, tutto ciò che è in grado di comunicare: immagini, segnali, simboli, spazio… Socio-Semiotic Landscape (semiotica: scienza che studia i segni/simboli + socio = fa riferimento a come all’interno di una società un gruppo di parlanti tali segni vengano utilizzati)
WHAT IS COMMUNICATION?
Communication is →
- convey a message from part A to part B
- share/say something Communication is the transfer of information from one person to another, whether or not it elicits confidence; but the information transfered must be understandable to the receiver. – G.G. Brown LSP: language for specific purposes → più aumenta il linguaggio formale, più ogni parola diventerà univoca, con un unico significato (non sarà più polisemica) Communication is a process of exchanging information, ideas, thoughts, feelings and emotions through speech, signals, writing, or behavior. In communication process, a sender (encoder) encodes a message and then using a medium/channel sends it to the receiver (decoder) who decodes the message and after processing information, sends back appropriate feedback/reply using a medium/channel.
SPEECH ACTS
J.L. Austin (1962) “How to Do Things with Words” Attraverso la semiotica sociale, viene studiata non più come una lingua sia formata al suo interno, ma come una lingua sia formata al suo esterno, quali sono gli effetti che essa ha sul contesto sociale. Ci troviamo nel livello della pragmatica, cosa voglio fare con il mio linguaggio.
- Atto locutorio/A locutionary act → atto di parlare, senza prendere in considerazione né il significato né il senso del messaggio. the act of pronouncing sounds ‘with sense and reference’ using the proper syntax and the right vocabulary. It is the act of communicating information. ( concrate act of speaking ).
- Atto illocutorio/An illocutionary act → quali sono le nostre intenzioni con questo linguaggio, cosa vogliamo fare con esso, dal punto di vista del mittente. the act that we do in uttering a sentence in a given situation (persuade, promise, warning, control, throat, etc). The context helps in signifying which illocution was performed. ( intention )
- Atto perlocutorio/A perlocutionary act → Fa riferimento alle conseguenze e gli effetti che ha il mio parlare. the act that we do by uttering a sentence. The results, consequences of our utterance to the receiver. The context helps in signifying which perlocution will be performed. ( effect ) In order to understand the differences between the different acts it is necessary to look at "the total speech act in the total speech situation" Dire → avere l’intenzione di dire qualcosa → avere la conseguenza di dire qualcosa. Tre atti che se analizzati in un determinato contesto ci possono portare ad un determinato scopo comunicativo. Stesse frasi se dette in altro contesto potrebbero avere un altro significato.
TYPES OF COMMUNICATION
- Verbal communication Se non rispetto le regole/il canale della comunicazione essa non andrà a buon fine. Verbally communication → the message is transmitted verbally (communication by words)
- Written communication : letters, emails, reports, documents etc. Precise, rigid and permanent communication. It can be used for future references, but it is time-consuming, and it does not provide immediate feedback. ( Visual channel )
- Oral Communication : conversations, speeches, meetings, conferences etc. Flexible communication, it provides immediate feedback and opportunity to check whether the message is clear, but it is less authentic and more informal than written communication, and not as organized as written communication. ( Acoustic channel )
- Nonverbal communication The message is transmitted through facial expressions, body language, pictures, colours, icons, eye contact, tones, etc. Visual channel:
- Appearance : clothing, hairstyle, neatness, use of cosmetics.
- Body language : facial expressions, gestures, postures and movements.
- Paralanguage : handwriting style, spatial arrangement of words, or the physical layout of a page. Acoustic channel:
- Sounds and noises.
- Paralanguage : voice quality, pitch, volume, speaking style, prosodic features such as rhythm, information, and stress.
Non ci può essere margine d’errore, in quanto potrebbe portare anche a danni irreparabili (lavoro di medico o pilota) English for Academic Purposes (EAP) → es quando si parla di articoli scientifici anche in ambito universitario. LSP Semi-autonomous, complex semiotic system based on and derived from the general language. Their effective use is restricted to people who have received a special education and who use this language for communication with their peers and associates in the same or related fields of knowledge. People who share knowledge and linguistic skills related to specific domains form communities of speakers are called specialists Communication among specialists should fulfil 3 conditions:
- Knowledge condition → expertise in a specific field (competenza settoriale);
- Intention condition → I want to share something to the others, sharing of communicative intentions.
- Code condition → proficiency in using proper language; Specific domains: some examples → informarics, archeology, chemistry, biology, tourism, fashion, business, medicine, law… LSP → effectiveness and efficiency
LSP PECULIARITIES
How do LSP differ from general language?
- Domain
- Text types – textual level
- Syntax – syntactic level
- Vocabulary (terminology ) – lexical and morphological level The lexicon of special languages is their most obvious distinguishing characteristic.
DEFINITION OF TERMINOLOGY
- The set of practices and methods used for the collection, description and presentation of terms.
- A theory, i.e. the set of premises, arguments and conclusions required for explaining the relationship between concepts and terms which are fundamental for a coherent activity under
- A vocabulary of a special subject field.
THE TERMINOLOGICAL UNIT
A terminological logical unit, or a term, is a conventional symbol that represents the concept defined with a particular field of knowledge Single terms → complex terms/phrasal terms
MONOREFERENTIALITY AND STANDARDIZATION
- Monoreferentiality: Terminological units are intended to achieve precision and monosemy in an attempt to obtain an efficient and effective communication
- Standardization ISO (International Organization for Standardization) worldwide federation of national standards bodies working on the International Standard. “Which establishes the basic principles and methods for preparing and compiling terminologies (…) and describes the links between objects, concepts and their terminological representations. It also establishes general principles governing the formation of terms and appellations and the formulation of definitions”
DEGREE OF SPECIALISATION
“The degree of specialization reflects the pre-knowledge the receptor is assumed to possess” Specialized communication does not occur only between specialists, but it frequently involves non- specialist participants. Non-specialists:
- Do not possess technical knowledge of the topic.
- Reduced degree of abstraction using different linguistic means to discuss the subject Communicative situations depending on which the level of abstraction and specialization varies:
- Communication between specialists.
- Communication between specialists and non-specialists.
- Communication between non specialists Pragmatic issues like text function, addressee, and communicative intention are individued in the choice of specific textual typologies and genres in LSP (conversational frameworks, textual features, conceptual and rhetorical development). Despite the need for standardization, terminology may vary:
- Diaphasic variation : LSP show different degree of abstraction and different levels of register depending on different communicative settings.
- Diastratic variation : LSP degree of specialization changes according to the interlocutors and the social group they belong to;
- Diatopic variation : some fields, like the legal one, show differences and heterogeneity due to the cultural values and historical and social factors linked to different places and countries.
- Diachronic variation : is recorded over the years in relation to the birth of neologisms and the substitution of archaic forms.
LSP AND COMMON LANGUAGE
Constant interplay between special languages and common languages. Special languages as subsets of the general language
- Area of highly specialized special languages
- The middle – ground for special languages
- Transition area between general language and special languages The analysis of a special language must take into account:
- The different levels of abstraction.
DEFINITION OF TEXT
Qualsiasi tipologia comunicativa in grado di inviare un messaggio. Non deve per forza esserci l’intenzione comunicativa, essa può variare in base a colui che manda il messaggio. A text is “any combination of sensory signs carrying communicative intention” Modalità linguistica: quando nell’immagine c’è il testo Modalità acustica: quando si sente una musica che guida
MULTIMODALITY AND MULTIMODAL TEXTS
In which we can find different modes (reading, writing, listening, speaking, viewing). They may be live, paper, or digital. Si strutturerà per ognuna in modo diverso. "Multimodality is the co-presence of various semiotic modes in a given overall text. Among the major modes are: language, picture and sound (music/noise). It seems difficult to neatly distinguish modes as they frequently overlap, intermingle and combine." Analizzare ogni singola modalità come se fosse un pezzo del puzzle, cercare di comprendere come tale modalità cerca di avere un significato.
DEFINITION OF MODES
Modes are the semiotic resources, such as speech, images, sounds, writing, gestures, moving images which are used to represent and communicate meanings. All modes of representation are, in principle, of equal significance in representation and communication, as all modes have potential for meaning, though differently with different modes. (Una modalità non sarà più o meno importante rispetto all’altro)
MULTISEMIOTIC VS MULTIMEDIAL TEXTS
- Multisemiotic texts use different graphic sign systems, verbal and nonverbal (e. g. comics or print advertising).
- Multimedial texts (in English usually called audiovisual O AVT) use technical and/or electronic media involving both sight and sound (e. g. material for film or television, sub- /surtitling – sopratitolaggio usato spesso per le opere teatrali, in cu lo spettatore non vede la parte scritta, visibile solo agli attori sul palco, YouTube videos, commercials).
Alcune forme multimodali sono anche multisemiotiche ma non sempre accade viceversa SOTTOTIOLAGGIO E DOPPIAGGIO
- Sottotitolaggio : modalità linguistica, acustica, ha delle regole maggiori rispetto alla comunicazione libera. Libertà di scelta, ma la multimodalità (ad es. utilizzare colori di contrasto per i sottotitoli) ci permette di avere un risultato comunicativo efficace.
- Doppiaggio : è il processo mediante il quale si sostituisce la voce originale di un prodotto audiovisivo (film, serie TV, documentario, ecc.) con una nuova registrazione in un’altra lingua, eseguita da attori doppiatori. Il fine è rendere comprensibile il contenuto a un pubblico diverso da quello della lingua originale, mantenendo al contempo coerenza con il labiale, il ritmo e le emozioni del parlato originale. Il doppiaggio coinvolge competenze linguistiche, attoriali e tecniche, ed è parte integrante della localizzazione audiovisiva.
SEMIOTIC RESOURCES OF MULTIMODAL TEXTS
Verbal and non-verbal components of multimodal texts: Verbal elements:
- Linguistic code : dialogue, monologue, comments, reading (audio)
- Paralinguistic code : intonation, accents (audio)
- Literary and theatre codes : plot, narrative, sequences, drama, progression (audio)
- Graphic code : letters, headlines, street names, subtitles (visual) Non-verbal elements:
- Sound arrangement code and musical code : special sound effects, soundtracks (audio)
- Paralinguistic code : voice quality, pauses, silence, volume of voice (capital letters), vocal noise (audio)
- Iconographic code : icons (visual)
- Photographic code : lighting, perspective, colours (visual)
- Scenographic code : visual environment signs (visual)
- Film code : shooting, framing, cutting/ editing (visual)
- Kinesic code: gestures, manners, postures, facial features, gazes (visual)
- Proxemic code : movements, use of space, interpersonal distance (visual)
- Dress code : clothes, hairstyle, make-up (visual)
HOW DIFFERENT COMPONENTS COMBINE IN MULTIMODAL TEXTS
- Complementarity : when the various elements depends on each other in conveying the full meaning.
- Redundancy : when partial or total repetitions are made at the same level or on different levels (words, images, sounds etc...)
- Contradiction : when some elements are incongruent with each other, it is used to create irony, satire, paradox, humor...
- Incoherence : when the elements are not meaningfully combined.
- Separability : when the different items can work even better separately from the others. E. g. good soundtracks.
- Aesthetic quality : when the beauty of the combination of the single elements has priority on the semantic value of these elements (Zabalbeascoa, 2008). Pur utilizzando attrattiva estetica,
HOW TO EXPLORE MULTIMODAL COMMUNICATION – THE VISUAL CHANNEL Verbal vs non-verbal: some perspectives In his 1964 essay 'Rhetoric of the image' (Barthes, 1977), and also elsewhere, for instance in the introduction to Elements of Semiology (Barthes, 1967), Roland Barthes argued that the meanings of images (and of other semiotic modes such as dress, food, etc.) are always related to, and in a sense dependent on, language. By themselves, images are, he thought, too 'polysemous', too open to a variety of possible meanings. To arrive at a definite meaning, language must come to the rescue. Visual meaning is too indefinite; it is a 'floating chain of signified'. Hence, Barthes said, 'in every society various techniques are developed to fix the floating chain of signified in such a way as to counter the terror of uncertain signs; the linguistic message is one of these techniques'. “Contrasting photographic images with words, Metz (1971) argued that photographic images can never be generic, while words are always generic and can only become specific in a given context: 'The image of a house can never mean "house" but only ever "Here is a house"'.
→ Si mette in discussione la lingua, che la lingua sia generica e che solo diverge in base ad un
determinato contesto, la parola è ambigua in quanto io immagino in base alle mie esperienze vissute. Se io invece vedessi rappresentata una casa non potrei immaginarla in quanto l’immagine mentale è ciò che vedo, non devo sforzarmi per vedere dato che c’è, esiste ed è davanti a me. “Today every website menu uses the same generic 'house' icon to signify 'homepage'. Computer icons have become commonplace, and the Internet provides a range of lexicons with finite numbers of highly stylized images purporting to cover the whole of specific semantic fields. Such images have moved a long way from images as 'uncoded reality’ and increasingly blend in with alphabetic writing .” → Nei giorni d’oggi il significato di casa è Venuto a significare qualcosa di ancora più astratto, il simbolo o ciò che noi pensiamo sia simbolo di casa viene utilizzato in internet, per intendere “homepage”. Siamo noi che attribuiamo a quel logo l’homepage di internet, di un sito web. Magari per altre culture invece è differente. (Favola dei 3 porcellini) Continuo rapporto tra lingua cultura e società (chat gpt). Si influenzano l’un l’altra. La lingua riflette la società e viceversa. Il rapporto tra lingua, cultura e società è profondo e continuo:
- Language is not only a means of communication, but reflects the values, beliefs and cultural practices of a community.
- In turn, culture influences the way messages are spoken, written and interpreted.
- Society shapes language through power relations, social dynamics and historical changes (e.g. globalisation, migration, technology). Solo il contesto può aiutarci con la comprensione. E discendere il significato dal significante.
VISUAL
Questa pubblicità degli M&M’s utilizza diversi strumenti linguistici per attirare l’attenzione e creare un impatto emotivo. Elementi linguistici chiave: Ironia e umorismo – La frase scritta a mano “DO NOT EAT THIS NEW PRODUCT!” sembra un avvertimento, ma è in realtà una strategia ironica per rendere il prodotto ancora più desiderabile. Invece di scoraggiare il consumo, incuriosisce il pubblico. Personificazione – L’M&M’s è rappresentato come un personaggio animato con un’espressione preoccupata e scarpe da ginnastica. Questo lo rende più simpatico e coinvolgente, creando una connessione emotiva con il pubblico. Call to action implicito – La frase “The feeding frenzy has begun!” (lett. “La frenesia alimentare è iniziata!”) suggerisce che tutti vogliono provare il nuovo prodotto, creando un senso di urgenza. Significato complessivo: La pubblicità usa un mix di ironia, umorismo e coinvolgimento emotivo per promuovere il prodotto in modo originale. Il messaggio paradossale (non mangiare!) spinge inconsciamente il consumatore a fare il contrario, rendendo il prodotto ancora più attraente. Metafora : consumo della sigaretta porta alla morte, sensibilizzazione al non fumare. Non supportato da messaggio linguistico, ma l’immagine stessa esprime il concetto. Questa immagine è una potente rappresentazione visiva del danno causato dal fumo. Mostra una sigaretta che si consuma, trasformandosi in una figura umana fatta di cenere e fumo, che sembra dissolversi o lottare per muoversi.Dal punto di vista linguistico, l’immagine utilizza la metafora visiva per trasmettere un messaggio forte: il fumo distrugge progressivamente il corpo umano. L’uso della cenere per formare una persona suggerisce che chi fuma si sta letteralmente consumando e autodistruggendo, sottolineando gli effetti nocivi del tabacco. È un esempio di comunicazione persuasiva che si affida all’impatto emotivo più che alle parole per convincere le persone a smettere di fumare o a non iniziare.
- Si adatta alle nuove tecnologie: L’intelligenza artificiale, la realtà aumentata e il metaverso stanno cambiando il modo in cui interagiamo con l’informazione. Un approccio multimodale permette di essere più efficaci e competitivi in questo scenario digitale.
- Potenzia la comunicazione persuasiva: Le pubblicità e le strategie di branding usano immagini, slogan e video emozionali per influenzare il pubblico. Un messaggio multimodale è più efficace perché stimola diversi sensi e rende il messaggio più potente. Conclusione Oggi non basta più affidarsi solo al testo o alle immagini: il mondo è sempre più interconnesso e digitale. Un approccio multimodale permette di comunicare meglio, coinvolgere di più e adattarsi ai nuovi scenari tecnologici e culturali.
The key notion in any semiotics is the "sign'. Our book is about signs - or, as we would rather put it, about sign-making. We will be discussing forms (signifiers) such as color, perspective and line, as well as the way in which these forms are used to realize meanings (signified) in the making of signs. In this book, by contrast, we will concentrate on the way in which these elements are combined into meaningful wholes. Just as grammars of language describe how words combine in clauses, sentences and texts, so our 'grammar of the visual' describes how depicted elements - people, places and things - combine in visual statements' of greater or lesser complexity and extension. Un testo per avere significato deve avere coerenza e coesione, può mancare la coesione ma essere coerente, ma è più difficile avere un testo non coerente ma coeso. Halliday's metafunctions have been a key heuristic in our investigations. According to Halliday, speech and writing simultaneously fulfil three main communicative functions, doing so by means of specific sets of resources - the ideational , the interpersonal and the textual (metafunzioni che ci permettono di capire i fini della comunicazione situazionale sempre legata al contesto della cultura. Parto dalla lingua, per capire che cosa viene utilizzato a livello di lingua,. It is our assumption that these functions must be met by all semiotic modes, albeit by means of their own specific resources. That is the assumption we have used to structure this book.
HALLIDAY METAFUNCTIONS
- Ideational/experimential meanings → FIELD (what?)
- Impersonal meanings → TENOR (who?)
- Textual meanings → MODE (how?) Michael Halliday is considered the founder of Systemic functional linguistics (SFL) an approach that considers language as a social semiotic system. Halliday (1994) introduces the ideational, interpersonal and textual metafunctions to explain how language works arguing that languages are shaped and organised in relation to these three functions. Ideational → is used to talk about experience, people and things, their actions and relationships places, times or circumstances in which events occur Interpersonal → is used to enact social relationship, to cooperate, form bonds, negotiate, ask for things, instruct Textual → is used to link complex ideas together into cohesive and coherent waves of information The ideational (meta)function represents the world around and inside us' (which, most usually, we meet as already semiotically represented). To fulfil this function, 'semiotic modes - with their distinct affordances - have been developed, differently in different periods and cultures, with specific lexical and grammatical (in our case compositional) resources for relating represented elements to each other.
Expressing modality in images
[...] speech and writing have specific resources for expressing ‘as how true’ representations are meant to be taken. In Halliday’s theory this is referred to as ‘modality’ – the ‘auxiliary verbs’ may, will and must neatly express three degrees of modality: low, median and high (‘it may rain’, ‘it will rain’, ‘it must rain’). The visual mode does not have anything comparable to auxiliary verbs. It expresses modality differently [...] The photograph shows the tank in considerable detail, even if we do not know what all those hooks and flaps and other protrusions are for [...]; the cartoon, on the other hand, restricts itself to the essentials, the overall shape, the barrel and the road wheels and tracks. The photograph has a setting
- we can discern houses and trees in the background; the cartoon does not. The photograph uses a range of tonal shades, the cartoon only three – white, grey and black. These kinds of differences, in the context of newspapers, traditionally express ‘as how true’ the two representations are to be taken: for instance, photographs express facts, cartoons opinions, and the two belong in different sections of the newspaper, the ‘news’ pages and the ‘opinion’ pages.
IDEATIONAL METAFUNCTION (Narrative and conceptual principles)
ANALYSING IMAGES: SOME KEY CONCEPTS
Participants → represented people, places and things, including abstract things. Processes → the represented actions of these participants. Circumstances → e.g. the place where these actions occur [W]hile the English language – whether in speech or in writing – expresses processes by words of the category ‘action verbs’, visually they are expressed by elements that can be formally defined as vectors , and while language expresses locative circumstances with adverbs or prepositional phrases (e.g. ‘in the woods’), visually they are expressed by the formal characteristics that create the contrast between foreground and background.
1. PARTICIPANTS How do we identify participants? Participants are ‘visual objects’, defined on formal grounds as ‘volumes’ or ‘masses’, with a distinct ‘weight’ or ‘gravitational pull’. Participants can have different roles such as Actors or Goals, Carrier and Attribute, and so forth. Transactional structure (relation) Actors or Goals The two men (the participant from which the vector emanates) have the role of Actor, and the Aboriginal people (the participant at which the vector points) have the role of Goal in a structure that represents their relation as a Transaction, as something done by an Actor to a Goal Analytical structure Carriers or Attributes Here the participants have the roles [...] of ‘Carrier’ and ‘Attribute’. This image is not about something which participants are doing to other participants, but about the way participants fit together to make up a larger whole. [T]he ‘Carrier’, represents the ‘whole [...] and several other participants, the ‘Possessive Attributes’, represent the ‘parts’ [...], so the Antarctic explorer functions as ‘Carrier’, and the balaclava, the windproof top, the fur mittens, and so on, function as ‘Possessive Attributes’, as the parts that make up the whole.
The two images differ not only in what each includes and excludes (the left image, for instance, excludes the users of the technology, the right image includes them), but also in structure: their composition relates their elements to each other in different ways. Left image Right image The elements of the left image are arranged symmetrically, against a neutral background: axe, basket and wooden sword are represented as equal in size, placed at equal distances from each other and oriented in the same way towards the horizontal and vertical axes, so that the image as a whole creates a relation of similarity between the three elements. The image says, as it were: this axe, this basket and this wooden sword all belong to the same overarching category (a category, incidentally, which is only implied, and which conflates the notion of ‘tools’ and the notion of ‘weapons’). The right image represents technology in action. Where the left image is impersonal, this image is personal. Where the left image is static, this image is dynamic. Where the left image is dry and conceptual, this image is dramatic. It relates the ‘British’ and the Aboriginal people around the fire through a transactional schema in which the British are represented as the ‘Actors’, the ones who do the deed, and the Aboriginal people as the ‘Goal’, the ones to whom the deed is done
- the British stalk the Aboriginal people, one could say. It also relates the landscape to the British and the Aboriginal people in a ‘locative’ way (both are in the landscape). These relations can be transduced into (written) language, as we have just done, but the point is that they are here expressed visually. NARRATIVE STRUCTURES In action structures, the Actor is the participant from which the vector emanates [Figure 2.1.], or which, itself, in whole or in part, forms the vector (as with the triangle in Figure 2.6). In images they are often also the most salient participants, through size, place in the composition, separation from the background through colour saturation, sharpness of focus, and so on, and through the ‘psychological salience’ which certain participants (especially the human figure and, even more so, the human face) have for viewers.
Trasnactional structure: The Goal is the participant at whom or which the vector is directed, hence it is also the participant to whom or which the action is done, or at whom or which the action is aimed. Some transactional structures are bidirectional , each participant now functioning as Actor, now as Goal, as for instance in de Saussure’s well-known ‘speech circuit’ diagram, in which ‘A’ and ‘B’ are now speaker, now listener. When images or diagrams representing action processes have a single participant, this participant is usually an Actor. The resulting structure we call non-transactional. Non-transactional structures are also those where we cannot see what or who the vector is direct to. Reactional process When the vector is formed by an eyeline, by the direction of the glance of one or more of the participants, the structure is reactional, and we will speak not of Actors but of Reacters, and not of Goals but of Phenomena, another term we borrow from Halliday (1985). The Reacter, the participant who does the looking, must necessarily be human, or, more generally, a participant with visible eyes that can be represented as looking in a certain direction, and capable of facial expression. It is an advertisement for mineral water, the man is Actor in a transactional action process in which the water is Goal [...] This process (‘man drinks water’) then becomes the Phenomenon of a reactional structure in which the woman is Reacter – a vector formed by the direction of her glance and the angle of the left arm leads from her to the drinking man. She reacts to his action with a smile of approval (the precise nature of reactions is coloured in by facial expressions).
