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MULTIMODAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS
This is another approach to discourse analysis we are going to focus on.. If you remember, in our overdue of all the approaches to discourse analysis we also had multimodal discourse analysis. Please, keep in mind the title of the presentation: “The social semiotic dimension of discourse” Multimodal Discourse Analysis (MDA) ● Many texts are constructed not just by the use of words with other modalities (e.g. pictures, film, video, images, sound) Many texts that on a daily basis we produce, we read, we listen to, are not just made of words but they are combinations of words with other modalities. Also, you’re not only the consumers of these images, sometimes we are also the producers of them, thanks to Tik Tok, Instagram…In the literature, actually, we talk about prosumers, people who are both users online of media, but they are also producers of those media, a combination of those two. So people who both produce images but also consume images. And this is the language that we use, think also at emoji , nowadays there is a grammar of emoji. So, when we construct texts we not only use words but also combine them with other modalities. ● Multimodal Discourse Analysis (MDA) draws from Halliday’s (1978, 1989) social- semiotic approach to language, a view that considers language as one among a number of semiotic resources that people use to communicate, or make meaning, with each other. So, language is only one of the many semiotic resources, next to them there are other modalities that work with language, implementing in some points the language. And Multimodal Discourse Analysis does this, analyzes the social-semiotic dimensional language when it comes through images ● MDA aims to describe the socially situated semiotic resources that we draw on for communication.
Multimodal discourse analysis: ● considers how texts draw on modes of communication such as pictures, film, video, images and sound in combination with words to make meaning. ● examines multimodal communication such as the one on web pages, film and television programs ● considers how multimodal texts are designed and how semiotic tools such as color, framing, focus and positioning of elements of images contribute to making of meaning these texts. In a bit, we are going to talk about visual grammar. They say that we can analyze images just like we did with sentences when we saw the transitivity model, we can do the same with images. Multimodal Discourse Analysis (MDA) In multimodal texts, the ideational (i.e. what the text is about), interpersonal ( i.e. relations between participants) and textual meanings ( i.e. how the message is organized) are realized visually in (Kress & Van Leeuwen 2021): ● how the image conveys aspects of the real world ( → this is the ideational , or, more specifically, when it comes to images, we talk about the representational meaning of the image). So, how the image conveys aspects of the real world, the representational meaning of the image - which is the ideational meaning meta- function. ● how the images engage with the viewers ( → the interpersonal, or modal, meaning of the image) When we analyze images we talk about modal meaning of the image, they say interpersonal meta-function ● How the elements in an image are arranged to achieve its intention or effect ( → the textual, or compositional, meaning of the image) They say the textual but, when it comes to imagines we talk about the compositional meaning of the image. They say the textual meta-function Multimodal Discourse Analysis is an application of systemic functional linguistics to the analysis of Multimodal text. It’s a translation of that model to the analysis of the images. So, instead of talking about ideational meta-function, in images we talk about the representational meaning of the image. Instead of talking about interpersonal meta-function, we talk about modal meaning of the image, and instead of talking of the textual meta- function, we talk about the compositional meaning of the image. But the purpose of analysis is the same. So, what the text is about, the relationship established between the participants and how the message is organized.
● Signifier: Direct gaze, which signifies transitive process of demand which establishes direct contact with the viewer ● Signifier: Jewellery , which signifies extravagance, excess, glamour, decadence but more specifically repetitive elements that let us focus our attention on the product that has been sold. Another element we are also going to see is the angle , we see that she’s looking down at us. She is in a position higher than ours. When we have this type of vertical angle we establish a position of power, the represented participant has power over us. You see how demanding this image is. Another example is the ad by Dolce & Gabbana. We have the same elements we saw in the previous ad, more specifically, once more, the direct demand, the transitive process. The gaze is directed at us. It’s a “demand image”. He is in a position between two element: the boat and the bottle that has the same corner of the boat and than we have the top of the bottle that, in a sort of way, is positioned as to‘be like the sea that is behind it’, a sort of ‘bottling’ the essence of this natural experience. The focus of the previous image was not the background rather the gold sensation. And the fact that ‘you have to look at her to focus then on the bottle because they have the same shape’. In this case, is the experience that has been sold to us. This is typical of Dolce & Gabbana, in their ads they want to sell the italian experience. They sometimes reproduce Italian stereotypes. So, we have some elements: ● Signifier: Direct gaze which signifies Transitive process of demand, direct contact with viewer
● Signifier: Sea which signifies wild, natural, earthly. And is this element that combines, links everything together with the bottle. You see how, a sort of, translates this experience. ● Signifier: If you compare the previous image with this, we also have the Man’s naked Torso which signifies: natural. angelic, pure, toned, masculine, ideal, Adonis. Assumptions in MDA (Jewitt 2017) ● Jewitt (2017) introduces 4 theoretical assumptions when it comes to MDA: In Multimodal discourse analysis we have 4 main theoretical assumptions that Jewitt (one of the main scholars in MDA) introduces.
1. language is part of an ensemble of modes: each of them has equal potential to contribute to meaning → images, gaze, posture don’t just support meanings: they each contribute to them. Sometimes they enrich those meanings with other elements. 2. each mode of communication realizes different meanings and that looking at languages as the principal (or sole) medium of communication only reveals a partial view of what is being communicated. So, an actual analysis of language should focus both on verbal and non verbal elements of communication, on the visual and non visual elements of communication, otherwise we only have a partial understanding of the communicative event. 3. People select from and configure these various modes sto make meanings and the interaction between these modes and the distribution of meanings between them are part of the production of meanings itself. So, it is important to understand how these various modes interact with one another. Their interaction and their combination allow us to understand how meanings are produced. 4. meanings that are made by the use of multimodal resources are, like language, social. These meanings are shaped by the norms, rules and social conventions for the text they are found in at the particular time, in the particular context of the production of the text. (Durante un intervento in classe, il Prof spiega che noi in questo momento ci stiamo focalizzando sulle immagini ma ci sono anche tantissimi studi sui suoni - ecco perché multimodal. Also there are softwares that allows us to analyze multimodal text (ELAN is a downloadable software which allows us to analyze videos, images…from a multimodal perspective. For instance: you identify that in a specific part of the text the represented participant is looking at you. The software will identify all the other moments where participants look directly at you. You can identify all the demand images in the video you're analyzing. And the same goes with sounds and songs.
If we take, for instance, as an example, a traffic sign, this is a very complex multimodal system where we have a combination of mode and medium. The signs represented are the mode. So, the P and the red circled and crossed. The board on which this is represented is the medium. Our knowledge of the modes let us understand that ‘we can’t park there’. So, a traffic sign is the medium of communication (the board, the physical traffic sign) while the red border and the image inside is the mode. Are the meanings that are going to be communicated. We need to understand the communicative potential of modes, and we are going to do that by quoting Kress and Van Leuween. They argue that: Colour is also used to convey ‘interpersonal’ meaning. Just as language allows us to realize speech acts, so colour allows us to realize ‘colour acts’ (as language permits ‘speech acts’). It can be and is used to do things to or for each other: to impress or intimidate through ‘power dressing’, to warn against obstruction and other hazards by painting them range, or even to subdue people [...] (Kress and Van Leeuwen) For instance, people tell you that for job interviews don’t wear bright colors because they would make the other person nervous. So, avoid wearing red, because it can make the other person uncomfortable. Questo perche’ dietro i colori c’e’ un potenziale comunicativo, ci sono dei significati trasmessi, legati al modo in cui noi siamo stati esposti a quella tipologia di colori (il nero nella nostra tradizione viene associato al lutto, nei paesi orientali questo e’associato al bianco) Remember that, as for language, images also respond to three meta-functions, introduced by Hallyday, and we have already talked about this previously. Three meta-functions (Halliday) ● Ideational functions: semiotic function of constructing representation of what is going on in the world ● Interpersonal function: semiotic function of constituting communicative interaction
● Textual functions: semiotic function of creating texts, complexes of signs which cohere both internally with each other and externally with the context in and for which they are produced Many modes, sometimes, of course, express different meanings. According to Iedema, another important scholar in MDA: Many modes through one media: Meaning making in Talk: “ In talk, we mobilize language as sounded speech, and we further ‘mean’ through gestures, posture, facial expression, and other embodied resources such as physical distance, stance, movement, or stasis. By netting in all these aspects of meaning making, the term multimodality aims to offer a way of talking about, for example, how gesture and talk co-occur…, how language and image work together…, or how image, language and sound are coordinated… (Iedema 2003) In the following slides, this presentation in general is based on the key book ‘ Reading Images: the Grammar of Visual Design by Kress and Van Leeuwen. This book was published originally in 1995, we are now at the 3rd edition (2020). If you want this book is available. More specifically, during classes we are doing chapters 4-5 of this book. ( nel libro di Paltridge non sono analizzate le immagini, quindi ci rifaremo a quest’ altro testo per approfondire maggiormente l’argomento ).
● The interactive participants are real people, who produce and make sense of images in the context of social institutions which regulate what may be ‘said’ with images, how it should be said, and how it should be interpreted. ● So, images are not as innocent as they may seem. Behind every image, a prospective and an already-built position is created for the viewer. An example is the following one: The Mulino Bianco ad is quite useful because, if you think about italian commercials, they typically focus on the depiction of the model of the perfect family portrait or generally focus on traditional family values. So, from this representation, other types of families are excluded. We go automatically to the LGBQ + families but also single mothers/father, or even multiethnic families. Only a few brands (e.g. Zara) are featuring multiethnic individuals in their ads, because they want to target a specific population that don't have this type of conception of the world. What these ads implicitly say is that this is what is ‘normal’ and other things which do not conform to ‘normality’ have no right to be depicted. That’s why images are never innocent. Just like language, always conveys specific values, specific world views, the same goes with images. Let's start our analysis of the images. The first element we analyze in the grammar of images is the gaze (lo sguardo).
2. The image and the gaze Remember that the gaze is automatically associated with animate represented participants, so human represented participants. Focus on car ads. Typically we have a male individual driving a car, the speed of the car, and typically the car, even if it is daylight, it always has the light on.
The light on function has eyes, so they create a gaze; and typically you always have that frame where the car is turning and the lights directly point at you. So that they establish direct contact. If you have a female individual represented in the ad, things are different. We are going to focus on this later on when we’ll talk about ideologies in in discourse and multimodal discourse. The gaze allow us to distinguish in two types of images:
1. demand images: when represented participants look at the viewer, whereby vectors, formed by participants’ eye-lines, connect the represented participants with the viewer. In addition, there may be a further vector, formed by a gesture in the same direction. When represented participants look directly at the viewers , we talk about demand images. In this images, vectors, lines that are formed by participants' eye-lines connect the represented participants with the interactive participants (the viewer). Sometimes, together with the direct look at the viewer, you also have an additional vector like a gesture that is directed at you. 1st Picture: Uncle Sam recruiting people for World War 1, then it was reused for World War. It is an iconic image because on the base of this image other images had been produced with the same combination of colors, and so on. The gaze is directly at us and there is a further element directly at us, the gesture, the finger pointed at us. We see how the demand for what he wants is specified in the text. So, visual and verbal (text) elements work together. I WANT YOU you see how the address is then represented in the verbal element highlighted in Red. 2nd Picture This was created for World War 1. In the poster we have Lord Kitchener, the British Secretary of State during the War during WW1. He had a very short life, the war started and he died the next year. In this poster we have a similar representation of Lord Kitchener as Uncle Sam. And these two posters were quite iconic because the demand images were, in a sort of way, based on this type of representations. And remember, these types of representation were also part of graphic representation western cultures.
An example is this ad by Dolce & Gabbana Madonna is featured in this ad. We see that the gaze is not directly at us. She’s looking elsewhere. Which are the elements that are directly at us? Her body, her dress is directly at us. What the producers of the image are doing is physically communicating to the viewers ‘here’s a celebrity doing a common and everyday activity in an uncommon dress”. This is the type of message encoded in the picture. ● In ‘offer’ images, no contact is made: the viewer’s role is that of an invisible onlooker. ● This kind of images ‘offers’ the represented participants to the viewer as items of information, objects of contemplation, impersonally, as though they were specimens in a display case. Next time we’ll start from “Size of frame and social distance”, the shots that we use to portray people. Vediamo che molto spesso gli elementi che vedremo sono molto spesso elementi che inconsciamente anche noi utilizziamo quando scattiamo immagini; ad es. i selfie, ci sono immagini in cui guardiamo nella telecamera e altre in cui guardiamo altrove ed ognuno ha un significato che vogliamo comunicare quando rappresentiamo noi stessi. E vediamo che anche noi abbiamo ‘assorbito’ questa ‘grammatica delle immagini’.
