Hiippala,
T. (2013). The interface between rhetoric and layout in multimodal artefacts. Literary
and Linguistic Computing, 28(3),
461-471.
In “The Interface between
Rhetoric and Layout in Multimodal Artefacts,” Tuomo Hiippala argues that given
genres have prototypical layouts. In
other words, genres are enacted not through templates where certain element occur
in the same positions as a convention, but instead carry rhetorical
commonalities which can be abstracted through analysis and consequently predicted. Using a sample of tourist brochures published
at different points in time, Hiippala notes how layouts have shifted over time and
now most typically use a back and forth interplay between visual elements and
text known as page- flow. Page flow can be contrasted with text-flow, a
generally uninterrupted linear text, and image-flow, where the text is
organized as a sequence of images. However,
perhaps a more important goal for Hiippala in this article is to improve
multimodal genre analysis by demonstrating ways of modeling the prototypical
structure of a given genre. In other
words, for users, “artefacts have certain prototypical characteristics, which
enable their recognition and invoke particular models of inference and
interpretation established during previous encounters with similar artefacts”
(p. 464). In a simple investigation of
the presence of prototype clues, Hiippala gave a group of students three
different multimodal artefacts, blurred to prevent recognition of words,
symbols or visual specifics, but showing the layout and enabling them to
distinguish visual and verbal elements. The students easily picked out the genres for
the artefacts from these clues, suggesting that each genre was associated with
a prototypical layout. In the specific
analysis of the brochures modeled here, Hiippala used J.A. Bateman’s Genre and Multimodality
model to demonstrate the underlying rhetorical relationships between visual and
verbal elements in each artefact.
Hiippala’s article, in fact, is a
preliminary analysis associated with a longer corpus analysis currently
underway. One of the goals of the
ongoing project is to map the relationships between different semiotic modes
and look for the ways different modes operate in parallel and through
interaction with each other. He urges
further research on genres using a multimodal approach, an area of research of
great interest to me. I have read a
number of excellent genre studies, from Devitt’s widely-cited 1991 study of
genres of tax accounting to Giltrow and Stein’s (2009) Genres in the Internet, but all of these studies focused entirely
on the linguistic elements of genres, even though all of these researchers employed
definitions of genre in which multimodal elements were implicit. Clearly, more research needs to employ a
multimodal framework to accurately capture how genre operates. Besides the general importance of doing this
type of analysis, one other aspect of Hiippala’s article also resonated with
me, and that is the concept of prototype.
In cognitive linguistics—for example, Lakoff and Johson’s work with
conceptual metaphor theory (1980)—the idea of prototypes has been widely
applied to semantics and sometimes to morphology or syntax. It has seemed logical to me that, in a
cognitive sense, genres also behave like prototypes. But I have not seen many scholars mention
prototypes in relation to genre, so the fact that Hiippala does so caught my
attention. That being said, Hiippala’s
sample was too small for us to verify that his principles apply broadly even to
the genre he was investigating, the tourist brochure. It was also not fine-grained enough, in my
opinion, to differentiate between tourist brochures and similar genres that
might also use page-flow principles. Nevertheless,
I intend to take a closer look at Bateman’s work to see what his multimodal Genre
and Multimodality modal might offer for my own research.
Devitt, A.J. (1991). Intertextuality in tax
accounting: Generic, referential, and functional. In C. Bazerman & J.
Paradis (Eds.), Textual dynamics of the profession (pp. 336-357).
Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.
Giltrow, J., & Stein, D. (2009). Genres
in the Internet: Issues in the theory of genre. Amsterdam: John Benjamins
Pub. Co.
Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors we live by. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
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