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Introduction to Multimodal Analysis
David Machin

Paperback
RRP: £19.99
ISBN: 9780340929384
ISBN-10: 0340929383

Published: 30/03/2007
Extent: 224 pages
Illustrations: 24

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Summary:
Introduction to Multimodal Analysis is a unique and accessible textbook that clearly and critically explains this groundbreaking approach to visual analysis. Each chapter outlines the tools for analysis and takes the reader through examples of analysis, providing a model that can then be followed. All visual media compositions, such as photographs, advertisements, newspapers and websites, are carefully designed. A photograph of a soldier, an advertisement for a car, a magazine cover or the opening titles to a news programme are thought out to create the appropriate effect. Designers use semiotic tools such as colour, framing, focus, positioning of elements and font style to communicate with the viewer. These choices make up a visual language that we can analyse. Multimodal analysis looks at the separate components of this language to build up a toolkit for analysing the grammar of visual design. The book includes an assessment of the claim that there is a visual grammar and important differences between images and language and the way they create meaning are identified. Including images throughout and a colour plate section, Introduction to Multimodal Analysis 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 at the Centre of Language and Communication at Cardiff University and on the Communications MA at City University. His recent publications include News Production: Theory and Practice (2006) with Sarah Niblock.

  • Only multimodality textbook on the market.
  • Written in an accessible style by a respected author in the field.
  • Images included throughout.
  • Four colour plate section.
  • Chapters split into two sections: the first outlines the tools for analysis and the second takes readers through examples of analysis.

Table of Contents:
Introduction
Chapter 1 - Visual grammar and the meaning of metaphorical associations
From lexis to grammar
Metaphorical association
Discourse
Multimodality as a broader change in the way we communicate in society
Chapter 2 - Iconography: the ‘hidden meanings’ of images
A semiotic approach: denotation and connotation
Carriers of connotation
Iconographic symbolism
Chapter 3 - Modality: concealing and exaggeration in images
The origins of modality as a linguistic concept
Modality markers
Kinds of visual modality
Chapter 4 - The meaning of colour in visual design
Patterns in colour as a semiotic resource
The essential requirements of a semiotic mode
Communicative functions of colour
The value of colours
Semiotics of colour
The dimensions of colour
Colour harmony
Chapter 5 - The meaning of typography
Typeface and design
Typography as a semiotic system
Inventory of typographic meaning potential
Line spacing and alignment
Chapter 6 - Representation of social actors in the image
Positioning the viewer in relation to people inside the image
The gaze
Angle of interaction
Kinds of participants
Agency and action
Carriers of meaning
Chapter 7 - Composition and page layout
Salience
Some basic principles of salience
Four kinds of composition
Given and new/left and right
The given and new in visual compositions
Top and bottom/ideal, real
Triptych and centre/margin compositions
Embedded structures
Framing
Compositional structures combined
Chapter 8 - Is there a visual grammar? Some differences between language and pictures
What would we need to find in images to say there is a visual grammar?
Components of visual grammar in Reading Images
Vectors
Are vectors visual grammar?
Modality
Do people use modality scales to judge the truth of images and are they grammar?
Is there a visual grammar?
Visual literacy
Bibliography
Index

About the Author(s):
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.

Readership:
Undergraduate students on courses involving visual analysis - media, cultural studies, journalism, critical discourse analysis and linguistics

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