Introduction to Multimodal Analysis

This groundbreaking approach to visual media analysis explains the tools to assess media and provides examples for an analytical model which can be followed. All visual media compositions, such as photographs, advertisements, newspapers, TV programs and websites, are carefully designed to create the appropriate effect on the audience. Designers use semiotic tools such as color, framing, focus, positioning of elements and font style to communicate with the viewer. These choices make up a visual language that we can analyze. Multimodal Analysislooks at the separate components of this language to build up a toolkit for analyzing the "grammar" of visual design and describes important differences between images and language and the way they create meaning. Includes images throughout and a color plate section, this is an essential resource for students studying multimodality within visual communication in media and cultural studies, critical discourse analysis, journalism studies or linguistics. David Machin is Lecturer in the Department of Media and Communication at the University of Leicester, and has previously taught multimodality for four years at the Centre of Language and Communication at Cardiff University This groundbreaking approach to visual media analysis explains the tools to assess media and provides examples for an analytical model which can be followed. All visual media compositions, such as photographs, advertisements, newspapers, TV programs and websites, are carefully designed to create the appropriate effect on the audience. Designers use semiotic tools such as color, framing, focus, positioning of elements and font style to communicate with the viewer. These choices make up a visual language that we can analyze. Multimodal Analysislooks at the separate components of this language to build up a toolkit for analyzing the "grammar" of visual design and describes important differences between images and language and the way they create meaning. Includes images throughout and a color plate section, this is an essential resource for students studying multimodality within visual communication in media and cultural studies, critical discourse analysis, journalism studies or linguistics. This groundbreaking approach to visual media analysis explains the tools to assess media and provides examples for an analytical model which can be followed.

David Machin is Lecturer in the Department of Media and Communication at the University of Leicester, and has previously taught multimodality for four years at the Centre of Language and Communication at Cardiff University

Acknowledgements	p. v
Introduction	p. vii
Visual grammar and the meaning of metaphorical associations	p. 1
From lexis to grammar	p. 2
Metaphorical association	p. 6
Discourse	p. 11
Multimodality as a broader change in the way we communicate in society	p. 16
Iconography: the 'hidden meanings' of images	p. 21
A semiotic approach: denotation and connotation	p. 23
Carriers of connotation	p. 27
Iconographic symbolism	p. 39
Modality: concealing and exaggeration in images	p. 45
The origins of modality as a linguistic concept	p. 46
Modality markers	p. 48
Kinds of visual modality	p. 57
The meaning of colour in visual design	p. 63
Patterns in colour as a semiotic resource	p. 64
The essential requirements of a semiotic mode	p. 65
Communicative functions of colour	p. 65
The value of colours	p. 67
Semiotics of colour	p. 69
The dimensions of colour	p. 69
Colour harmony	p. 81
The meaning of typography	p. 83
Typeface and design	p. 86
Typography as a semiotic system	p. 89
Inventory of typographic meaning potential	p. 93
Line spacing and alignment	p. 105
Representation of social actors in the image	p. 109
Positioning the viewer in relation to people inside the image	p. 110
The gaze	p. 110
Angle of interaction	p. 113
Kinds of participants	p. 118
Agency and action	p. 123
Carriers of meaning	p. 127
Composition and page layout	p. 129
Salience	p. 130
Some basic principles of salience	p. 132
Four kinds of composition	p. 138
Given and new/left and right	p. 139
The given and new in visual compositions	p. 141
Top and bottom/ideal, real	p. 145
Triptych and centre/margin compositions	p. 147
Embedded structures	p. 149
Framing	p. 150
Compositional structures combined	p. 157
Is there a visual grammar? Some differences between language and pictures	p. 159
What would we need to find in images to say there is a visual grammar?	p. 161
Components of visual grammar in Reading Images	p. 163
Vectors	p. 163
Are vectors visual grammar?	p. 166
Modality	p. 177
Do people use modality scales to judge the truth of images and are they grammar?	p. 179
Is there a visual grammar?	p. 185
Visual literacy	p. 187
Bibliography	p. 189
Index	p. 197
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