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CHAPTER 1
“MAKING ACTIVE CHOICES: LANGUAGE AS A SET OF
RESOURCES”
In this chapter there are some principles and concepts of multimodal critical discourse analysis. The communication is composed by language, images or sounds through a set of semiotic resources, options and choices. A word or element might suggest kinds of identities, values and ideologies that are hidden in the language. These are produced by authorities, ruling group, institutions or individual face to face situations.
Communication through a system of choices there is a relationship between language and thought. This explain the theory of communication and visual communication used by humans that is subject to social, cultural and economic situations.
Linguistic determinism
- Language use is based on the Sapir- Whorf hypothesis (the American linguists Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf) They think that humans don’t live in an objective world, but rather this is shaped for them by the language that is a medium of expression in their society; language explains what you think of a Real World.
- We talk about Linguistic determinism because our thinking is determined by our language, in fact, few linguists accept this strong view, but rather think about how the world might be INFLUENCED by kind of language we believe than is DETERMINED by it.
- We have focused on the importance of social context of the language; we use certain types of language in certain settings because of the social pressures. Until 1970s, Structuralism views of language deriving from the work of Saussure were prevalent; the idea is that communication is the base of the language, the idea is to use the same words to mean the same thing. These words haven’t natural relationship to the thing in the world, but are arbitrary. Language is as a code where the parts are relational rather than referential.
A social semiotic theory of communication
This approach to language is different as it is interested to the social context and it is language to create society; the language is as a system or a set of resources. A social semiotic is interested to describing the choices of signs and understand how the people use them. The social semiotics studies the language through images, gestures, sounds, signs… People are conscious that the words and visual elements offer a potential mean. This approach to communication and society draws on the work of Halliday. He thought that language creates disposition in people while in same time allowing the possibility of open interpretations of the world. When we code events in language this involves choices among options which are available in grammar. Kress points out that all such choices can be viewed as ideologically significant. In fact, some important words are used to describe people or a processes: Woman can be describe as a wives and mother. Or you can represent a process as a noun. Example : “Knowledge of each other is the way to avoid conflicts”. Conflict is perceived and also who has responsibility and what the remedy is, by concealing what is actually need to know through simply starting with “Knowledge". Linguistics like Fowler, Hodge, Kress and Trew began a tradition of Critical Linguistics; Halliday begin to explore language can be used for build the world and not for represent it. Language shapes and maintains a society’s ideas and values, it can serve to create and legitimize certain kinds of social practices (use knowledge to prevent conflicts). A social semiotic assumes that all processes of communication are based on rules, although the nature of these rules can be immense, as communicate through sound and music. Social semiotic theory is used for describing and documenting the resources available to those who want communicate particular meanings. A social semiotic view of visual communication, choice of visual elements and features do not represent the world, but constitute it. Semiotic approach is used to
communicate ideas, moods, attitudes and identities, through the signs. The signs can be also represented with a symbol (flag symbolize a nation). A social semiotic is interested to the details of things like colors, shape, and their interrelationship. Example : Woman in Cosmopolitan Magazine: the photograph want to manipulate the realism of the structure, this image don’t want to document the activities of a particular woman at a particular time and place, nobody asks who this woman is? Or what job she do? But, indeed, it is a symbolic image.
Discourse, semiotic choices and signification
The term “discourse” is central in CDA; it is language in real contexts of use. In other words, discourse operates above the level of grammar and semantics to capture what happens when these language forms are played out in different social, political and cultural areas. Foucault describes discourses as a models of the world. The process of CDA involves choices of words and grammar in texts in order to discover the discourse and ideologies. A discourse can highlight ideologies or hide others. Example: “immigrants are a threat to a national culture” this is a model of events associated with the idea that there isn't unified nation and national identity. “Britain will be scarcely recognizable in 50 years if the immigration (metaphor) deluge continues”. The sentence shows how “we” need to “defend” our “indigenous culture”, but who are "we" remains unspecified, as does the nature of our “Indigenous culture”. Immigrations is described using the term "deluge" (alluvione), a metaphor that draws (richiama) the idea of rainfall that overspill, creating floods and damage. The author of this text at pains to point out that they are not racist, everything suggests that they are anti- immigration and racist. There are other discourse about nation and national identity. They are for the most part invented, with a short history. Marxist thinkers think that emphasize differences according to national identity is a way to hide the social division between rich and poor and that nationalism is used to meet the interests of the powerful. Van Leeuwen and Wodak suggest that we should think about discourses including of kind of participants, values, goals and locations. Example : Daily Mail discourse involves participants: real British people and immigrants; VALUES: or an INDIGENOUS CULTURE, it specifies that we must defend this culture or not. It is through language that we constitute the social world and the way we talk about the world influences the society we create, the knowledge that we celebrate or despise, and the institutions that we build. Example : if in a society the discourse that dominates our understanding of crime is that it is simply wrongdoing that need punishment, for this reason we built prisons and lock people away. Most people who end up in prison are poor or more vulnerable: this is because of the complex relationship of poverty, race and inequality. The discourse can also be signified through visual semiotic choices. For example in the image of Cosmopolitan magazine challenge the idea of the woman as homemakers, mother and wife. In cosmopolitan it isn’t never clear what work woman do, the work is minimalist and the setting is modern, we focus only on the glamorous and sensual. The cosmopolitan shows a woman independent with an exciting and interesting life.
Ideology and power
The question of power has been at the core of the CDA project. The power comes from privileged access to social resources (education, wealth and knowledge), that gives authority to those who gain this access and enables them dominate, coerce and control of subordinate groups. The aim is to reveal what kinds of social relations of power are present in texts both explicitly and implicitly. Language isn’t simply a vehicle of communication, but a means of domination and social processes. The power can be more than simple domination from above; it can also be produced when people believe or are led to believe that dominance is legitimate in some way or other. Example : in Western democracies, people elect politicians because they believe that they have the authority to govern country. Gramsci describes the concept of hegemony as the ways which dominant groups in society use to persuade subordinate groups to accept the own moral,
associated with marriage and motherhood. For example: Sex and the City that represent woman that use their powers of seduction over men. The women take the control. The woman in the bar was saying something like: since you expect women to act in ways appropriate to a domestic model of gender roles and behavior, our actions shock and intimidate you. This is not explicitly, but is what is mean.
CHAPTER 2
ANALYSING SEMIOTIC CHOICES: WORDS AND IMAGES
Introduction
In this chapter we begin to introduce the toolkit for analyzing the way that people make semiotic choices in language and visual communication in order to achieve their communicative aims. One kind of linguistic analysis carried out in CDA is a lexical analysis: so looking the words there are in the text, in other word we ask what vocabulary an author use. Different lexical or word, can mean different discourses or different “lexical fields”. Van Dijk describe CDA as the study of “implicit” or “indirect meanings” in texts. He explain this implicit information as a mental process. A lexical field is like a map, this map is a “symbolic” representation of a territory. In a visual communication semiotic, the resources are used to communicate things that may be more difficult to express through language, since image do not tend to have such fixed meaning because it is open to various interpretations. For example : in the cosmopolitan photo the setting and colors helped to encourage the viewer to thing about certain kinds of identities and values in a way that language could not have done.
Word connotation
Language is a set of options.
Example: “Youths attack local buildings” “Youths attack local addresses” Greater moral outrage (grande sdegno morale) “Youths attack local family homes” In the last sentence, the lexical suggests something much more sacred than the first two who are much more
personal. “Family” and “Home” are the words that suggest something safe and stable in the society and common to all of us. It communicates something that should be protected and produces greater moral outrage, but the family can be demanding (impegnativa), overwhelming (travolgente), oppressive and destructive. The writer has not commented the behavior of the youths, but the association of home and family tend to carry particular connotations in a particular culture and this connotations help to place these events into particular frameworks of reference or discourses.
We can find that lexical choices in a discourses extract from an East Midlands Development Agency (EMDA): is one of regional organizations set up in Britain by the New Labor government to “Regenerate” part of country from an issues such as poverty, unemployment, urban decay and interracial tension. EMDA “Mission statement” The aim is for EMDA to become a fast growing, dynamic economy based on innovation. EMDA is a innovation strategy and action plan. They use the skills, and creativity of organization and individuals to build an innovation led (guidare) economy. A lexical analysis of the text reveals a predominance of words such as innovation, dynamic, competing, creativity, strategic, ambition, challenges, goals and strengths; while matters of unemployment or poverty are not mentioned. We find “partners” and “Stakeholders”. These kind of terms come from the language of business rhetoric, so it appears that poverty as a challenge, the poor as stakeholder and solutions in term of creativity and innovation. Despite terms like creativity, innovation and knowledge economy are exciting, they will not help us to resolve issues. Most authorities have a vision or mission statement rather that a simply identity or roles. The term vision connotes ambition.
Lexical Choices
- The meaning and structure of the maps are governed by the structural conventions appropriate to figuring the territory for a specific social purpose.
- We can think of the lexical choices used by an author in the same way.
- We ask which visual features and elements are foregrounded and which are backgrounded or excluded.
Overlexicalisation
Another way of describing what is going on in the EMDA text, with its seeming overemphasis on terms that connote movement and change, is “overlexicalisation". Overlexicalisation gives a sense of over persuasion and is normally evidence that something is problematic or of ideological contention; in this text we find overlexicalisation where they was an abundance of particular words and their synonyms. Ex : Male nurse Female doctor in this case there is an elaboration in terms of gender; this signals a deviation from social convention or expectation, there is a dominant ideology: the man is a doctor and the woman a nurse. Example that the enemies can be overlexicalisation: Certainly our Armed Forces victorious in the battle against the unpatriotic forces of Marxism subversion were accused of supposed violations to human rights. Overlexicalisation or excessive description in necessary to justify the violation of human right by the armed Forces. In this case there is an overlexicalisation of words that communicate an energetic action such as dynamic, innovation, competing, creativity, strategic, ambition, goals. This overuse suggests that something is problematic here.
Suppression or lexical absence
We can find suppression where certain terms that we might expect are absent. There are two texts; the first is an international news agency: independent Radio News. The second is the text of IRN that had reworked the previous text. IRN has simplified the story in order to reduce ambiguity. In the original text we find many
dress and speak.
Critically analyzing texts that reflect our own ideology
Can be difficult in CDA, the analysis of texts that are in accord with our ideological viewpoint. Example: the text from the British newspaper, the guardian, that talk about government funding cuts (tagli finanziari del governo) in the university sector. The lexical choice tends to be neutral such as “University will have to reduce teaching posts”. In this text the words connote ruthlessness to describe the instigation “axe” and “ditch”.
The lexical choices used to describe financial changes of university being “stripped” and budget “ Slashed”, this word connote violence and lack of responsible measures. We find in the end of text the word “warned” that indicate the opinions of the interviewees; it is clear that such lexical choices indicate the ideological work done in the text and the stance of the author.
Visual semiotic choices
The text shows often that we communicate through word choices, non-linguistic features (caratteristiche) and elements. In this text we communicate through choice of front type. In this chapter we looked the images from Cosmopolitan magazine of the woman leading against a desk and we have analyses about the way it communicated.
Iconography
Analyze the picture from Cosmopolitan magazine
Theory of Roland Barthes: how images can denote and connote. There are two levels of analysis: On one level, images can be said to document, in other words, they show particular events, particular people, place and things, or in semiotic terminology they denote. So a picture of a house denotes a house; in the case of cosmopolitan's photograph, the photo denote a woman, a desk and a computer.
Other images can depict particular thing, person, place, but the "denotation" isn't the primary purpose. They depict concrete people, place, things and events to get general or abstract ideas. They use them to connote ideas and concepts. The cosmopolitan image connoted certain kinds of identities and practices. It denotes no ordinary women, not everyday women. The image communicates a particular set of values about glamour, excitement and women’s identities. In this case the denotation aren't neutral, but connote something for us. For example an image of a large house can connote wealth and excess.
There are a three points for explain relation between denotation and connotation:
- In an abstract image, is more overt (evidente) foregrounded that gives a communicative purpose. In the image of woman we can see that with the light the scene appears soft. It has a symbolic value.
- The communicative purpose of an image can be denotative or connotative, this depends on the context in which the image is used. Example : an image of a mother and child could be used to denote the particular experiences of this people, but the same image could be used for a moral message to symbolize suffering during the war, where motherhood and childhood represent the innocence.
- In some contexts, an image can be a matter of free association, but when an image want explains a specific idea, it have a stable connotations. In cosmopolitan, a fundamental role is played by advertising that represent women with a perfect life, not bound (vincolata) to domestic life. The meaning of images or sentences can change depending on the context in which they are used. Example : if we put the word "you must" at the start of the sentence in place of "can you", it change the meaning from imperative to interrogative, so a command rather than a question. In this case we
use the term “meaning potential”, because this term has the advantages, it suggests something not fixed, but a possibility, which serve to modify its meaning.
Attributes
When we analysis the objects, we should consider the meaning of every object.
- In Cosmopolitan image there are a number of objects such as computer, desk and the bag under the table. The woman is wearing with a high-heeled shoes (scarpe alte con il tacco), the scarf (sciarpa) and other clothing. The Cosmopolitan’s brand represent women in non- domestic settings, in fact the setting is glamour and seductive through attributes female. Women’s sexuality is the source (fonte) of their power over men and this power appears to be linked to their success in the workplace. The PC is important because suggest mobility and independence.
- In the Marie Claire image we find a woman with a notebook or agenda and a pen, the clothing is less informal and glamorous. The clothes suggest no a formal regimentation, but someone who can choose their own clothing and who has the power to do so. The text uses trendy language and confident directives, but also technical business terms, the image appears much softer, creative and pleasant (piacevole).
Setting
Also the settings is used to communicate ideas, to connote discourses and their values, identities and actions.
- In the Cosmopolitan image (pag.7) the setting is an office work, where the attributes for work are express in an abstracted way; in fact the woman not really using the computer. What cosmopolitan sells to its readers are not magazines, but connotations of independence, power and fun. Cosmopolitan represent women who aren’t realistic. Women’s lives are presented as playful fantasies (fantasie giocose). Return the idea of the woman as independent from the domestic situation.
- In Marie Claire image (pag.45) there is a luxury space with a large windows and a high ceiling (soffitto alto); in this image the setting serves to symbolize work, is signified is glamour, modernism, optimism, creativity. This image represent a real women in real work settings.
- Image of Heart of England Health Trust (pag. 54) the setting is connotes in terms of abstract space like Cosmopolitan image. He is a doctor, but his clothes represent a business man. We understood that he is a doctor because he wears a stethoscope. The woman at the right of the image is presumable his secretary because she wears headset (auricolari). This wants to signify a sense of communication, such as the sentence “working together”. There is a sense of relax. The doctor look us into the eyes, as if he wants to establish a relationship with us. The language serves to conceal (nascondere) the changes through a vibrant lexis, so we find semiotic choices not to document practices but to symbolize” communication” and “Caring” (prendersi cura).
Salience
Some features capture (characteristics) our attention and the text put them to foreground, this features have the central symbolic value in the composition. The salience, for example, can be achieved through images. The salience can be represented by different factors:
