Multimodal text analysis Analysis of visual text based on systemic-functional concept of register (field, tone, mode): Relationships between characters: This multimodal text presents a diegetic relationship between the participants as they inhabit and interact in the textual world. Participants and background In this multimodal text, participants are the people, objects, places, shapes, colours, lines, and signs. Background: the scene takes place at school, in the classroom, on the street, at the playground, etc. A Field: - Billy is being bullied at school and he is having a very difficult time. He is feeling alone, scared and unsure of what to do. - The events are dynamic and also emotional. - The participants are concrete or iconic. - The participants humans and objects. - It is situation involving specialized knowledge and the participants’ activities and the background require specialized (technical or cultural) knowledge in order to be fully understood. - The verbal text involves special environments, such as school, playground, etc. - The participants use specialized instruments or equipment, specifically they use phone. - Visual text - - Participants wear everyday clothes or school uniforms. - Are the activities that participants are engaged in culture-specific? – They are some elements of culture-specific (racism in US contexts). - Yes, there are several layers of meaning, such as iconic and classifying. Also, there is some symbolic meaning. - Intermodality – concurrence – exposition. B Tone: - The situation is formal, and the characteristics of the diegetic social relationships based on their social roles in terms of power is unequal as the bullies are making Billy’s life tough and miserable and Billy is finding it difficult to be heard and get help! The contact between the participants is irregular and with negative emotions. - Verbal tone – - Speech acts are statements. - It is a third person narration. - It is a more formal tone. - Appraisal – negative feelings and judgements. - Visual tone - - The interactants are engaged with each other in direct gaze. - Based on their posture, mimic, gaze, and gestures, the participants show negative emotions or judgments. - They exhibit unequal status. - They show unfamiliarity and distance. - The participants are dressed in casual/informal clothes. - The whole situation is emotionally charged, informal, and tense. - Billy is engaged in subordinate activity with respect to his social role whereas the bullies are engaged in dominate activity. - Most of the colours are dark or grey which show negative appreciation in relation to Billy’s situation. - There’s focus on the aesthetic or structural features in terms of negative appreciation. C Mode: - The role of the visual text is to support and improve the overall information of the understanding a of the multimodal text. The size of image in relation to text way more dominant than the verbal text. - Verbal mode – It is a typical written language – Abstract participants – Full sentences and no fragmentation of sentences. - Visual mode - - The composition from the side and lower. The angle is mixed eye level and bird’s eye. - The level of detail of the visual text wide frame and mixed angle and there’s also a close-up. - The visual text focus on the whole scene with participants, activities, background. - The nature of the contact between participants in the visual text diegetic meaning that they can hear and see each other and in terms of the channel it is a two-way contact, aural and visual. The images are both dialogic and monologic. - The nature of the contact between the audience and the participants is non-diegetic and no contact, and it is visual. - It is a soft boundary between the visual and the verbal text. - Intermodality The connection is exposition in terms of field and tone. In tone, however there are some differences between the visual and the verbal text, in particular in terms of the level of formality (formal tone in the verbal text vs informal tone in the images).
