Multimodality in Higher Education

Studies in Writing

The Studies in Writing Series was founded by Gert Rijlaarsdam and Eric Espéret in
1994. It was pursued by Gert Rijlaarsdam until 2014, becoming a reference in the field
of writing research.

Series Editors

Raquel Fidalgo (University of León, Spain)

Thierry Olive (National Centre for Scientific Research (cnrs) &
University of Poitiers, France)

Editorial Board

Rui A. Alves (University of Porto, Portugal) – Montserrat Castelló (Ramon

Llull University, Spain) – David Galbraith (University of Southampton, uk)
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(University of Delaware, usa) – Rosa Manchón (University of Murcia, Spain)
Gert Rijlaarsdam (University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands & University
of Antwerp, Belgium) – Mark Torrance (Nottingham Trent University, uk)
Luuk van Waes (University of Antwerp, Belgium) – Åsa Wengelin (University
of Gothenburg, Sweden)

volume 33

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Multimodality in
Higher Education
Edited by

Arlene Archer
Esther Odilia Breuer

leiden | boston
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Archer, Arlene, editor. | Breuer, Esther Odilia, 1971- editor.

Title: Multimodality in higher education / edited by Arlene Archer, Esther
Odilia Breuer.
Description: Leiden ; Boston : Brill, [2016] | Series: Studies in writing ;
33 | Includes bibliographical references and index.
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9789004312050 (hardback : alk. paper) | ISBN 9789004312067 (e-book) | ISBN
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Contents

List of Figures and Tables vii

List of Contributors x

Introduction: A Multimodal Response to Changing Communication

Landscapes in Higher Education 1
Arlene Archer and Esther Breuer

part 1
Multimodality in Academia

1 Ploughing the Field of Higher Education: An Interview with Gunther

Kress 21
Anders Björkvall

2 The Past in the Present: Modes, Gaze and Changing Communicative

Practices in Lectures 31
Lucia Thesen

3 Aspects of Multimodality in Higher Education Monographs 53

Tuomo Hiippala

4 Multimodality, Argument and the Persistence of Written Text 79

Lesley Gourlay

part 2
Multimodality in Text Composition

5 Multimodal Academic Argument: Ways of Organising Knowledge

across Writing and Image 93
Arlene Archer

6 Genre Inside/Genre Outside: How University Students Approach

Composing Multimodal Texts 114
Bronwyn T. Williams
vi contents

7 Writing against Formal Constraints in Art and Design: Making Words

Count 136
Simon Bell

8 Reclaiming the Authorial Self in Academic Writing through Image

Theatre 167
Aditi Hunma

part 3
Multimodality across Domains

9 Intersemiosis in Science Textbooks 195

Leo Roehrich

10 Multimodal Literacy and Numeracy Practices in Postgraduate

Management Accounting 216
Hesham Suleiman Alyousef and Peter Mickan

11 Drawn Writing: The Role of Written Text in Civil Engineering

Drawing 241
Zach Simpson

Index 257
List of Figures and Tables

Figures

2.1 A lecture hall in 14th century Bologna (c. 1380) 40

2.2 A seventeenth-century image of a lecture hall used for both lecture and
disputation at Leipzig 42
2.3 Lecture on the evils of alcoholism in the auditorium at Fresne prison, in the
late 19th century 46
2.4 A wireless classroom in the early 21st century 48
3.1 Medium, semiotic modes and genre 58
3.2 A sketch of Figure 2.5 on page 52 in Bateman and Schmidt (2012), which
retains the original layout and conceptual structure 63
3.3 The layout structure of page 52 64
3.4 Layout structures in a tourist brochure and an in-flight magazine 66
3.5 A partial rhetorical structure on page 52 in Bateman and Schmidt
(2012) 69
5.1 Example of visual-verbal linkages in a first year student essay 98
5.2 Caption as delimiting argument 99
5.3 Single image depicting change over time 102
5.4 Argument established through juxtaposition of images 103
5.5 An example of classification in order to generalise from the particular
‘type’ 104
5.6 Comparison based on classification 105
5.7 Modality in a schematic diagram 109
5.8 Changing modality in digital arenas 110
7.1 Blahnik project student handwritten text inside image, foregrounding fit and
sequence 146
7.2 Blahnik project student handwritten text inside image, foregrounding tone
of voice and alternative readings 148
7.3 Two details of student texts from the Comic Sans fashion magazine project,
showing radically different ways of handling the generally unwelcome font
requirement 151
7.4 Dior project student text with 50 adjectives bracketed between blocks of
more conventional text 153
7.5 Example of one of a set of student Wallace Collection texts on the theme of
seductive archetypes—this one is ‘The Delicate’ 155
7.6 An example of a Mannequins Are Vile student text, showing the unevenness
resulting from column restrictions anchored and calmed by imagery 157
viii list of figures and tables

7.7 Four contrasting examples of 128-word texts, with quite different approaches
ranging from apparent fact to fiction 160
8.1 Clover model of writer identity 177
8.2 Different greeting styles 180
8.3 The fist as a common gesture 182
8.4 Transitional image 1 183
8.5 Transitional image 2 183
9.1 Adapted from Berger (2009) 196
9.2 Adapted from Berger (2009) 196
9.3 A map of delicacy and metafunctions 198
9.4 A visual description of Intersemiosis 200
9.5 The Logico-semantic framework 201
9.6 Percentage used among elaboration types 207
9.7 Visual medium divergence 208
9.8 Danger in Photography 209
9.9 Simplicity in Sketching 209
9.10 Overwhelming use of Elaboration 210
9.11 A grouping of plants 212
11.1 Resolution of forces: text produced in first year civil engineering diploma
course on drawing 246
11.2 Truss diagram—enlarged view 249
11.3 Magnitude and nature of forces within Truss members—enlarged
view 250

Tables

3.1 Page 52 in Bateman and Schmidt (2012) 60

3.2 Cohesive chains on page 52 of Bateman and Schmidt (2012) 72
9.1 Expansion Types 201
9.2 Subcategories of Expansion 203
9.3 Examples of Elaboration 204
9.4 Examples of Extension 205
9.5 Examples of Enhancement 206
10.1 The graduate attributes and learning outcomes related to the
assignment 221
10.2 Projected manufacturing costs for each product in 2011 222
10.3 The manufacturing overhead budget for 2011 223
10.4 Frame-it Ltd projected balance sheet 224
10.5 Group 1’s Budgeted Balance Sheet 226
list of figures and tables ix

10.6 Types of conjunctive ties in the two groups’ texts 227

10.7 The frequency of process types in the two written assignments 229
10.8 Group 2’s Sales Budget for s and l Line 230
10.9 Examples of relational processes used to assign a new function to the
participant 232
10.10 Frequency count and top key words in the two texts 233
10.11 Group 2’s Production Budget for s and l Line 234
11.1 Integrative Multi-Semiotic Model 244
List of Contributors

Arlene Archer
University of Cape Town
South Africa

Esther Odilia Breuer

Cologne University
Germany

Anders Björkvall
Stockholm University
Sweden

Lucia Thesen
University of Cape Town
South Africa

Tuomo Hiippala
University of Jyväskylä
Finland

Lesley Gourlay
University College London Institute of Education
United Kingdom

Bronwyn T. Williams
University of Louisville
usa

Simon Bell
Coventry University
United Kingdom

Aditi Hunma
University of Cape Town
South Africa
list of contributors xi

Leo Roehrich
Marshall University
usa

Hesham Suleiman Alyousef

King Saud University
Saudi Arabia

Peter Mickan
University of Adelaide
Australia

Zach Simpson
University of Johannesburg
South Africa
 introduction

A Multimodal Response to Changing

Communication Landscapes in Higher Education

Arlene Archer and Esther Breuer

Introduction

Multimodal communication is playing an increasingly important role in every-

day life, the workplace, public sphere, as well as in academic settings. Changes
in the communication landscape in Higher Education have engendered an
increasing recognition of the different semiotic dimensions of representation.
Multimodality refers to “a field of application rather than a theory” (Bezemer
& Jewitt, 2010, p. 180). It offers a theoretical perspective that brings together
socially organised resources that lecturers and students use to make meaning.
These resources include modes (such as image, writing, gesture, gaze, speech,
posture) and media (such as screens, books, notes). In Higher Education, mul-
timodality manifests in multimodal pedagogies (including the use of digital
technologies), in multimodal student texts, and in the increasing inderdisci-
plinarity of both content and methods (for instance, the analysis of film in the
discipline of history).
Most research on academic discourse has been based on the analysis of writ-
ten text (for example, Galtung, 1981; Swales, 1990) and as a result, most classes
on the teaching of academic writing have concentrated on language. However,
student assignments require increasingly complex multimodal competencies
and Higher Education needs to be equipped to help students with the construc-
tion of these texts. As with predominantly written assignments, multimodal
texts raise issues about power and access in Higher Education. The norms and
conventions around constructing multimodal texts are no more ‘transparent’
than the norms around writing. As a consequence and as will be shown in the
different chapters in this book, multimodality in Higher Education is important

Archer, A. & Breuer, E. (2016). Introduction. A Multimodal Response to Changing Commu-

nication Landscapes in Higher Education. In R. Fidalgo & T. Olive (Series Eds.) & A. Archer,
& E.O. Breuer (Vol. Eds.), Studies in Writing: Vol. 33, Multimodality in Higher Education, (pp.
1–17). Leiden: Brill.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2016 | doi: 10.1163/9789004312067_002

2 archer and breuer

and in need of further research, both in the analysis of academic texts and in
the ways in which a multimodal approach can foster the writing and learning
processes of students. Multimodality in Higher Education shows how a multi-
modal approach is used and could be used in different texts and contexts in
Higher Education.

Writing in Higher Education

Key to Multimodality in Higher Education is the exploration of how to define

the scope, nature, and function of writing in Higher Education, especially
when ‘writing’ now includes oral, visual, multimedia, and technology-enriched
aspects. Writing has always been a multimodal practice. Old Egyptian script
was based on images, and so still are Chinese and other logographic languages
(Coulmas, 2003). The visual and spatial dimensions of writing are evident in
spelling, typography, emphasis and layout. For instance, differently spelt words
have different visual connotations. Spelling is used to differentiate between
voices, indicate spoken voice in writing and degrees of informality, and can
also index a ‘cool visual dialect’ such as in the language of mobile telephones.
Typography includes fonts, lettering systems, calligraphy, and gives writing
materiality through the medium used, such as pens, brushes, pencils, word
processors. Emphasis can be achieved through font size, use of bold, boxes
around text, point form. Layout and the use of white space can complement the
writing, as in instructions, or can intrude on the writing as in calligraphy and
concrete poetry where clarity gives way to visual appeal. Writing thus creates a
“web” not only of semantic meaning, but also of “visual connotation” (Sharples,
1999, p. 137).
What is seen as ‘academic’ writing is contestable and always emergent.
Bhatia (2002) understands academic communication as the “situated linguistic
behaviour in institutionalised academic or professional settings” (p. 22) and
Swales (1990) talks about the “classes of communicative events which typically
possess features of stability” (p. 9). In order to understand how texts work, one
must, therefore, include the analysis of multimodal elements in texts, how they
interact with each other, as well as with the genre in which they are performed.
In all approaches to genre analysis, no matter how different they can be
(e.g. Berkenkotter & Huckin, 1995; Bhatia, 1993; Martin, 1993; Martin, Christie
& Rothery, 1987; Miller, 1994; Swales, 1990), it is essential to keep in mind
that different genres (creative writing, journalistic writing, business writing,
academic writing) have social origins and that genres have varying degrees
of status in particular domains. Genres have been developed over time for
a multimodal response to changing communication landscapes 3

particular communicative purposes and thus reflect the disciplinary cultures

of specific social groups. It is the discourse communities that own them, the
“socio-rhetorical networks that form in order to work towards sets of common
goals”. Members of these discourse communities possess a “familiarity with
the particular genres that are used in the communicative furtherance of those
sets of goals” (Swales, 1990, p. 9). There are textual and discursive features in
disciplinary genres, as well as contextual and disciplinary factors that define
them. This means that the writer does not have complete freedom to change
these genre characteristics—especially if the writer is not a long-standing
member of the academic community (Bhatia, 2004; 2010; Hyland, 2004).
When comparing academic texts emanating from different academic con-
texts, one can see that students from English speaking backgrounds tend to
focus on creating linearity in texts that contain content that is topic relevant
(Clyne, 1994; Siepmann, 2006). Other academic approaches, for example in
France, Germany, Russia, Arabia, do not cohere to this rule of linearity but
prefer to present a wider picture of the topic or of taking different perspec-
tives on them (Galtung, 1983). Reading these texts is more demanding, and
could result in academic communities being seen as elitist, trying to ‘keep out’
readers that do not belong to the academic community. These traditions tend
not to ‘sell’ ideas as does the English academic community, but rather to ‘tell’
them (Swales & Feak, 1994, p. 214), and the text is understood as working as a
“stimulus for thought or even intellectual pleasure” (Yakhontova, 2002, p. 230).
English (which today means internationally accepted) academic writing tends
to ‘empathise’ with the reader, developing the argument in a linear way, making
sure the reader can grasp the argument and share the opinions introduced by
the author. This shows that original German and English academic styles are
somewhat different. However, in recent years German academic writing has
changed because it has become crucial for academic success to be published
in international (in terms of English language) journals. If writers do not meet
the textual ideologies applied by the evaluators, texts are refused not because
of content or purely linguistic inappropriateness, but because the reviewers do
not accept the different discursive and pragmatic patterns (Clyne, 1994; Lillis &
Curry, 2010, p. 156).
One of the main challenges for teaching writing is to provide access to aca-
demic and disciplinary discourses through making explicit how texts work in
a critical manner, whilst at the same time, inducting students into these dis-
courses (see Archer 2010; Breuer 2013). Discursive practices are ideological in
the ways in which they serve to maintain existing social relations of power.
Street (1996) shows how joining a particular ‘literacy club’ can be problem-
atic for those trying to learn its rules of entry from non-dominant, or disad-
4 archer and breuer

vantaged positions in the power structures of the university and the society
in which the university is located. Social, political and economic power is
closely associated with access to and knowledge of certain discourse forms.
There are social, educational and political advantages of acculturation into uni-
versity practices for individual students. If students are denied access, their
marginalisation is perpetuated in a society that values these practices. How-
ever, socialization into dominant practices could contribute to maintaining
their dominance and uncritically perpetuating the status quo. Dominant prac-
tices include languages, varieties, discourses, modes of representation, genres
and types of knowledge. Teachers of writing are, therefore, in a double-bind.
On the one hand, it would be in their learners’ interests if they could help them
to conform to the expectations of the institution. On the other hand, by doing
so, they are reproducing the ideologies and inequities of the institution and
society at large
Writers need to acquire the textual genre features as well as the knowledge
about social and cultural practices in the foreign language setting. They have
to identify the social forces that underlie the form and purposes of genre and
its changing function (Dufrenne, 1963; Galtung, 1981). Concentrating only on
formal features in academic texts without showcasing why it is that we write in
a specific way, does not lead to a critical engagement with these texts (Hyland,
2004). This is even more so for international students because, as noted above,
“given acts and objects appear vastly different in different cultures, depending
on the values attached to them” (Oliver, xi). In addition, there is always a
tension between convention and a dynamic for constant change. This is the
effect of the “constantly transformative action of people acting in ever changing
circumstances” (Kress, 2003, p. 108). Thus, there can be no sense of a ‘pure
genre’; rather there is constant change, mixing and hybridisation of genres (see
Breuer, 2011). A more generative notion of genre for Higher Education is not
one where you exclusively learn the forms of existing kinds of texts in order to
replicate them, but “where you learn the generative rules of the constitution
of generic form within the power structures of a society” (Kress, 2003, p. 121).
Teaching writing should thus aim to bring generic conventions into focus, to
show what kinds of social situations produce them, and what the meanings of
these social situations are. Students need to explore the nature of the discourse
community they are working in to identify the discourse conventions and the
dominant genres so that they can gain critical access to those genres.
The challenges of teaching writing and multimodal composition are com-
pounded and enlivened through changing communication landscapes in
Higher Education in terms of both spaces and texts. It is to these changing
spaces and texts that we now turn.
a multimodal response to changing communication landscapes 5

Changing Spaces in Higher Education

Changes in Higher Education, such as shifts towards managerialism, commer-

cialism, and accountability have increasingly resulted in a reduction in dialogic
spaces. However, it is imperative to recognise the value of unregulated spaces
where contesting knowledge and subject positions can be foregrounded since
there is a strong link between a particular learning space and the creation of an
academic identity. These can be physical spaces which can be more or less per-
formative or dialogic. In thinking about changing spaces in Higher Education,
Thesen’s chapter on lecture theatres is particularly apt. She offers new ways of
thinking about lectures that highlight embodiment and performance, as well
as multivocal and distributed meaning. Thesen argues that the rise of the new
media may strengthen the potential of lectures: “As the online environment
gets drawn into pedagogy and assessment, and with the increased ‘textualiza-
tion’ of academic work … this performative face-to-face aspect may be kept
alive” (Thesen, 2007, p. 49). Hunma’s chapter also explores alternate spaces in
Higher Education, particularly in relation to performativity which can facili-
tate the development of the ‘authorial self’ in academic writing. Unregulated
spaces are enabled through image theatre, where students are invited to negoti-
ate the “positional and spatial boundaries of pedagogical spaces” and the “rules
and reach for creative and critical textual performance” (Hunma, this volume,
p. xx).

Changing Texts in Higher Education

Along with the changing spaces in Higher Education, there are also changing
texts. Archer (2011) mentions three types of multimodal assignments encoun-
tered in Higher Education, namely predominantly visual texts, written texts
that use images, written texts that analyse and discuss visuals. Researchers have
also explored the changing nature of the doctoral thesis, including the visual
and performing arts doctoral thesis (Ravelli et al., 2013; Fransman, 2012; Kress,
2012). Digital media have enabled students to create and distribute multimodal
work which has had implications for the ways in which we engage with text
in Higher Education. As Kress notes, a mode is a “socially shaped and cultur-
ally given resource for making meaning” (2009, p. 55). That is, the way different
modes work does not lie in their materiality per se, but in the way that social
groups define and use them. For example, in academic writing double inverted
commas usually indicate a quote, whereas single inverted commas often signal
metaphoric expression or irony.
6 archer and breuer

In academia, images and other multimodal elements play important roles

in constructing complex meaning in a multifaceted way. Images can function
as examples for phenomena described in writing or as elaboration on con-
tent provided by words. In some academic texts, the multimodal elements
(graphs or tables) take over the dominant role of information provider, as is
shown in Simpson or Bell (this volume). In different academic fields, graphs
can be the main mode for constructing meaning, and the role of writing is
to add information for clarification. Still, multimodal elements need to con-
form to the demands set by the text form in which they occur, and producers
and receivers of texts need to know the functions they can encompass, and
how to read them. How writers use modes is relevant for the success of com-
munication in a specific community (Archer & Breuer, 2015). Joining the aca-
demic community involves in part the ability to analyse the different functions
of the modes. Because of the importance of multimodality in higher educa-
tion, it is necessary to find ways of analysing these textual elements and their
relation to each other in order to use them effectively ourselves and to teach
students to understand and create multimodal texts. For understanding these
processes, it is necessary to find a method to analyse the functions of the dif-
ferent modes in academic texts. The approach taken by the majority of the
authors in this book, is the adaptation of Halliday’s Systemic Functional Lin-
guistics (Halliday, 1975; 2003) to the needs of multimodal analysis which is
done in the approach of Social Semiotics (Kress & Van Leeuwen, 2001). This
approach is based on the assumption that language and other meaning-making
modes form a social semiotic system. All modes can realise the three metafunc-
tions described in Systemic Functional Linguistics (Halliday, 1994), namely the
ideational, interpersonal and textual. Representations of the world outside the
representational system are realised through the ideational metafunction. The
information in various modes is conveyed by the writers and perceived by the
readers in terms of social relationships, thus realising the interpersonal meta-
function. Lastly, how the multimodal elements are integrated into the text and
their effect on text flow and organisation is defined by the textual metafunc-
tion.
Of central interest to the concerns of this book is the question: What are
the characteristics of multimodal academic argument? The book looks at some
considerations for multimodal argument, including the establishing of differ-
ence, use of evidence, affordances of modes, and choice of images. Many of
these issues are raised in acute form in the ‘bonsai’ arguments or short texts
described in Bell’s chapter. Bayne and Ross (2013) propose that due to the grow-
ing importance of the visual in today’s texts, the dominance of the written word
is becoming weaker and it can become completely superfluous in some kinds of
a multimodal response to changing communication landscapes 7

academic argument. Gourlay’s chapter is a response to this kind of position and

argues that written language may in fact remain the most appropriate mode for
certain kinds of academic argument. Key to the exploration of academic argu-
ment in Archer’s chapter is the idea of affordance and the fact that “each mode
in a multimodal ensemble is understood as realising different communica-
tive work” (Jewitt, 2009, p. 15). This need to “rethink the relationship between
modes, for example, the interaction between image and writing in a text, is at
the heart of much multimodal research” (Jewitt, 2014, p. 13). As Hiippala points
out, it is the relations between writing and image that have gained the most
attention in the studies of multimodality in academic discourse (this volume,
p. xx). Many chapters in the book (Alyousef & Mickan; Archer; Roehrich; Simp-
son) explore the influence and incorporation of the visual into student texts
in Higher Education, looking at the semiotic weighting of modes, conventions
and functions of images, and visual and verbal linkages. These aspects of multi-
modal texts have implications for the ways we teach writing practices in Higher
Education.

Harnessing Multimodal Resources to Access Writing

Multimodality in Higher Education works against a ‘deficit’ view of student writ-

ing which emphasises ‘lack’ in relation to the norms of the academy. Rather,
the chapters accentuate the resources that students bring with them to the
academy, including linguistic, cultural and gender resources. This ‘recognition’
(Kress, 2010; Archer & Newfield, 2014) of students’ resources is key to a transfor-
mative agenda in Higher Education. ‘Recognition’ involves noticing students’
resources, making these visible and integrating them in a range of contexts
(Archer, 2014, p. 190). Recognition is also about recognising student ‘interest’
(Kress, 2010) and agency as people choose how to represent meaning from a
range of possibilities which are shaped in a particular context. This may mean
drawing on resources that are not necessarily valued in Higher Education, such
as multilingual, experiential, or embodied resources, or, as Williams (this vol-
ume) points out, a range of genres from popular culture. Williams aims to
surface students’ resources and to harness these in innovative ways in the writ-
ing curriculum. His chapter explores how students’ antecedent genres influ-
ence their writing assignments. Also in this volume, Hunma’s notion of image
theatre as a pre-text for writing is an innovative way of surfacing students’
brought along resources in order to surface the tensions students experience
between texts, self and contexts. Some of these resources include different
greeting styles, ways of approaching an essay, and views on academic writing.
8 archer and breuer

Employing students’ resources in this way could enable them to understand

the notion of semiotic choice—how to select according to criteria, context and
design.
However, it is worth noting that a move to multimodal texts and pedagogies
may entail risk of various kinds in specific contexts, and that transduction to
writing often involves both gains and losses. Thesen (2014) explores the relation
between writing, risk and voice, particularly at postgraduate level in Higher
Education. Risk is partly defined as the sense of loss that writers and researchers
can experience when producing a written account of their research: “In the
process of writing, various experiences and modes of expression are revised
or erased along the way” (Thesen, 2014, p. 1). Risk is thus inextricably linked to
the notion of ‘voice’ as writer agency. Voice is about representation of the self in
text and is subject to contextual conditions within larger patterns of inequality
and power relations (Archer, 2013). There can be ‘risk’ in producing multimodal
texts, as well as in multimodal pedagogies. However, risk can be generative as
Bell demonstrates in chapter 7, this volume. He describes tasks which require
writing under strict constraints, which ironically enable a kind of ‘freedom’ and
risk-taking not appropriate in more conventional genres in academia.

Overview of Chapters

Multimodality in Higher Education theorises writing practices and writing ped-

agogy in Higher Educational contexts from a multimodal perspective, explor-
ing institutional relationships of discourse and power, and the contested nature
of writing practices. Some of the chapters analyse the processes of production
and creativity in the new media. The book is divided into three sections, the
first focusing on broad cross-cutting issues in academia, the second focusing
on issues around text composition, and the last section focusing on applying
multimodal principles to a range of disciplinary domains, including science,
accounting and engineering.

Multimodality in Academia
The first section—Multimodality in academia—offers some broad strokes in
looking at the multimodal practices in Higher Education, including the form
and function of face-to-face lectures, the future of disciplinary domains, the
research monograph, and debates around multimodal academic argument.
Thesen’s chapter focuses on the function of lectures in Higher Education
and argues that lectures are “ideally suited to the complex and often contradic-
tory functions of Higher Education” (this volume, p. xx). According to Thesen,
a multimodal response to changing communication landscapes 9

lectures are “one of the few spaces that are not directly caught up in assess-
ment practices, where exploratory embodied co-presence is possible” (p. xx).
She highlights that lectures have always been dynamic and subject to social
and technological changes. This serves as a critical statement against a possible
hype around technology, which is often portrayed as ‘transformative’. Thesen
gives an historical overview on the fact that lectures have always been a form
of multimodal teaching but shows how the functions of modes have changed
over the years. Important modes have not only been the oral texts and the writ-
ten ones but also the gaze of the lecturers and students. The chapter explores
the contradictory aspects of meaning-making in lectures, focusing on the ways
in which verbal and visual modes interact with gaze in the analysis of chang-
ing communicative practices in lectures. The concept of gaze is employed to
account for the power relations between participants. Thesen exemplifies her
argument with images of lecture halls in the middle ages, in the seventeenth
century, as well as in contemporary universities. This series of images con-
structs and reflects the discourses and practices around communicative prac-
tices in lectures across particular time periods.
Björkvall’s chapter presents an interview with Gunther Kress, one of the
leading researchers in the fields of discourse analysis, genre studies, social
semiotics and multimodality. Björkvall and Kress’ discussion on multimodality
in Higher Education covers a range of topics, including the future of current
disciplinary domains, the changing nature of agency, the design of physical and
digital spaces for learning, and multimodal pedagogies and access. The chapter
engages with the question ‘How do the spaces and places for learning in Higher
Education need to be designed in order to make them relevant for students
and teachers of tomorrow?’ It also explores the status of the mode of writing
in Higher Education, with Björkvall provocatively asking about the gains and
losses of “dancing one’s PhD”. Of particular interest, given the concerns raised
in this introductory chapter and the book in general, is the discussion about
the relation between the motivated sign and convention.
Continuing in the vein of alternate modes in academia, Gourlay’s chapter
engages with debates around the affordances of modes and genres for academic
argument. Gourlay introduces various theorists on academic communication
who claim that academic argument can be realised exclusively through visual
images. These authors claim that image can make a proposition and take a posi-
tion. However, Gourlay gives convincing arguments for why written language
may remain the most appropriate mode for realising academic argument, espe-
cially in terms of extended and complex development of propositional con-
tent, intertextuality, levels of precision and critique required in academic argu-
ment.
10 archer and breuer

Hiippala’s chapter usefully looks at a common genre across disciplines in

Higher Education from a multimodal perspective, namely the research mono-
graph. The research monograph continues to be dominated by written lan-
guage, although it does include diagrams, tables and other elements. The chap-
ter demonstrates how applying a multimodal perspective to a particular genre
can open up new questions and ways of seeing, which are invaluable for access-
ing content as well as for recontextualising knowledge. Hiippala shows how
the multimodal ensembles in the monograph support the rhetorical structure.
There are, for example, elements which help readers to navigate the text, thus
supporting the understanding of cohesion. The analytical approach provided
by Hiippala can be used in the teaching of academic reading and writing to raise
students’ awareness of the underlying structures in the presentation of content.
This awareness could make it easier to transduct the meaning in monographs
from one mode and medium to another, in for example, presentations or teach-
ing.

Multimodality in Text Composition

Producing multimodal texts is not just about selecting multimodal semiotic
resources, but it is also about the weight given to each mode in a particu-
lar text. The choice of how to represent data or create an argument presents
complex choices about conjunctions of meaning and form in text compo-
sition. The second section—Multimodality in text composition—explores the
relations between modes in academic argument in architecture as well as art
and design. It also explores ways of harnessing student resources and student
identity in textual composition. The chapters demonstrate how, when creating
texts, people bring together and connect the available form that is most apt
to express their meaning at a given time. They look at the coming together of
modes in texts and the affordances of different modes for different functions.
In the opening chapter to this section, Archer showcases the ways in which
multimodality can be used in academic argument. She introduces the con-
cepts and elements of academic argument and applies these to multimodal
student texts in a first year History and Theory of Architecture course. She
shows how argument can be realised through the complexities of the writing-
image interaction and explores the underlying ways of organising knowledge in
academic argument, thus showing how argument can be constructed through
narrative, contrast, induction, and classification for comparison. Since citation
is an essential aspect of academic argument, Archer explores the ways in which
intertextuality and precedence operate in images. Her way of looking at argu-
ment has implications for teaching reading and writing in Higher Education—
if students know how to recognise and apply this knowledge appropriately,
a multimodal response to changing communication landscapes 11

the potential for understanding and constructing academic argument can be

realised. The chapter thus forms a possible basis for creating these learning pro-
grammes.
The chapter by Williams focuses on the ways in which students draw on
texts from popular culture as antecedent genres. Different from classic teaching
methodologies, the approach does not start with a deficit view, but recognises
students as people who already have a great amount of knowledge in a range
of genres. By activating a conscious examination of the multimodal genres of
popular culture, students become aware of the goals and the characteristics
of these genres, thus enabling an understanding of academic genres. Williams
argues that knowledge of antecedent genres provides a rich pool from which
writing teachers can harness competencies in order to enable students to
successfully participate in multimodal academic communication. It is not only
the analysis of different genres which helps students enhance their academic
writing, but it is also the application of this knowledge in a project. The students
were asked to create a video, as well as to generate a multimodal academic text
about the same topic. The chapter thus raises and explores many of the issues of
interest in Multimodality in Higher Education, including the notion of genre as a
social practice; issues around sampling, remixing, citation and intertextuality;
questions of audience for multimodal texts in Higher Education. It also puts
into sharp focus the notion of ‘recognition’ of students’ resources and the
importance of harnessing these in curriculum design.
As a lecturer in a School of Art and Design, Bell takes a look at multimodality
in writing from an interesting perspective. He looks at the creative affordances
for students of creating texts with artificial constraints, such as word limits.
Bell’s projects emphasise the visual aspect of words, and it is the images or
the layout that ‘dictate’ the writing, not the other way round. In this, it is
not the semantics of the words but the graphics of the letters and the words
which make the meaning—a process that is demanding for writers as well as
readers, but which opens up new ways of expressing oneself. The chapter is
full of examples of how certain design constraints can shape writing, and the
affordances of particular types of genres for student meaning-making.
Hunma’s chapter is an innovative take on getting students to reflect on the
complexities of identity and diversity in Higher Education. Hunma describes
the challenges that international students (and students in general) often face
when confronted with the task of working in a new academic context. For them,
writing is a challenge that is related to the foreign community, to the new,
uncommon genre and often to the foreign language. The result could be texts
that do not always fulfil the academic demands, nor do they necessarily reflect
thinking processes that are taking place in the writers’ heads. This could result
12 archer and breuer

in “formulaic parroting” (Swales, 1990, p. 16) rather than active participation in

academic communication. A reason for this can be the loss of the authorial self
in academic writing. Hunma presents a study in which international students
regain this authorial self by participating in a class using image theatre as
a pedagogical concept. The students participate in constructing images by
creating human sculptures. They pose for an image in which they present
challenges in their university context. They then create a sculpture of the ‘ideal’
situation and visualise possibilities of getting from the ‘now’ to the ‘ideal’. By
doing this, students are encouraged to integrate their authorial selves, their
thoughts and their experiences into the task. This can be explored as a valuable
form of pre-writing, but can also be used to reflect on the authorial self in
academic writing, making the students write and engage in the academic
context more actively and with greater awareness.

Multimodality across Domains

When analysing multimodality in Higher Education, it is important to keep
in mind that the role different modes play in a specific text depends not only
on the overall culture the text is embedded in, but also, and sometimes even
more so, on the disciplinary culture (Egbert, 2015; Kashiha & Chan, 2014).
The third section of the book—Multimodality across domains—looks at mul-
timodal texts and pedagogies in science, management accounting and civil
engineering. It concentrates on the role of writing within and across modes in
these domains, including technical drawing, mathematical notation, scientific
images and information graphics. As is shown by the different approaches to
and the results of the studies presented in this book, it is important to value
the possibilities and opportunities of using different modes to look beyond
our own disciplinary borders and to get an understanding of how and why
specific modes work in different types of disciplinary genres. For example, in
Mathematics, it is often a formula as short as a2+b2=c2 (Pythagorean Theo-
rem) that suffices in order to express that “[i]n a right triangle, the square
of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the legs” (Yeng, Lin
& Lin, 1990)—a sentence that to an uniformed reader is as incomprehen-
sible as the formula itself. Because of these disciplinary differences, multi-
modality, multimodal texts and especially the teaching of how to use multi-
modality in academic writing cannot be analysed and conducted in a uniform
way.
Roehrich’s chapter explores intersemiosis in academic writing, focusing on
image and writing relations in undergraduate introductory science textbooks.
He demonstrates that, from a Systemic Functional Linguistic perspective,
images in these textbooks are mostly used for ‘Elaboration’ of meaning ex-
a multimodal response to changing communication landscapes 13

pressed in the written text. The images provide the readers with means to bet-
ter understand the writing—they clarify, exemplify or expose the written text.
The images are accompanied by a certain type of language, which is used to
guide the readers and—in the case of textbooks—enable understanding of the
content. When teaching students how to analyse textbooks, they could learn-
by-reception and apply this knowledge to the multimodal texts they have to
produce themselves. In this way, guided reading can be a tool for learning to
write multimodally.
The final two chapters look at multimodality in professional disciplines,
namely accounting and engineering. Alyousef and Mickan’s chapter inves-
tigates the interrelated dimensions of disciplinary context and multimodal
literacy and numeracy practices, and looks at how financial tables work as
meaning-making artefacts. They present a case study of five international post-
graduate students enrolled in a management accounting course at an Aus-
tralian university. The focus is on how these students create a budgeted balance
sheet, and how the orthographic texts interact with the tables in which the
calculation is presented. Applying Halliday’s (1975) Systemic Functional Lin-
guistics, the authors analyse the experiential and the logical features of the
texts and tables and argue that accounting discourse comprises not only quan-
titative technical calculations but also qualitative material. In this way, the text
created by the students shows the degree to which they are able to manage
accounting language and the multimodal practices required, not only in Higher
Education, but also in the professional contexts they will enter after study.
Simpson’s chapter opens a new perspective on the relation between writ-
ten text and images and the functional specialisation of these modes. He looks
at a student-generated drawing in a first year Civil Engineering course. In
analysing this text form, Simpson draws on Lim’s Integrative Multi-Semiotic
Model (2004). He shows how writing and image cooperate on different planes,
and how medium and materiality have an impact on all of the planes. The
analysis shows that the information is provided in the drawing by using an
“invisible language”, and that the writing takes over a summative function. This
function of written text stands more or less in contrast to the average under-
standing of the role of images and writing in texts, and proves that language
is not necessarily superior to other modes in meaning-making. If teachers are
able to explain to their students how these complementary functions work,
this may enable students to understand the importance of drawing classes
which are often different to the professional practice in which no hand drawing
but software is used. It is important to stress that drawing in Engineering is a
meaning making process that can help students enter their scientific commu-
nity.
14 archer and breuer

Final Comments

Multimodality as an academic area of study is undertaken by researchers from

a wide range of disciplines. Multimodality in Higher Education looks at the
theoretical and methodological uptake of multimodal approaches in a range
of domains in Higher Education, including art and design, architecture, com-
position studies, science, management accounting and engineering. We have
argued that in Higher Education contexts, a multimodal approach has the
potential to provide a healthy antidote to monolingual and logocentric ap-
proaches to meaning-making, enabling a metacognitive view of semiosis as
occurring across languages and modes, as well as a successful way of enabling
access to dominant and powerful forms. In addition, we have shown that tex-
tual production is dictated by discourse conventions, and that texts are struc-
tured in reasonably predictable ways according to patterns of social interaction
in particular groupings.

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 part 1
Multimodality in Academia

∵
 chapter 1

Ploughing the Field of Higher Education:

An Interview with Gunther Kress

Anders Björkvall

Introduction

Professor Gunther Kress is one of the international leading researchers in the

fields of multimodality, social semiotics, discourse analysis, genre studies and
education. He has published widely in these fields, and has a new book out
in 2016: Multimodality, learning and communication: A social semiotic frame
(written together with Jeff Bezemer). Kress has supervised more than 60 PhD
researchers over the years, an experience that he draws upon in the chapter
‘Researching in conditions of provisionality: Reflecting on the PhD in the digital
and multimodal era’ (2012). Anders Björkvall met up with him in London in
order to discuss a number of topics, ranging from the broader challenges of
higher education today to the relation between theory and methodology in the
PhD.

Interview

Anders Björkvall (ab): You have experience of academic life in a number of

countries over a long period of time, both as a leading researcher in your field
and in terms of PhD supervision. In your view, what are the main challenges
facing higher education at present?

Gunther Kress (gk): In German there is a word called ‘Umbruch’. When you are
ploughing the field, the plough turns the earth over. I think we are in the period
of ‘Umbruch’. Things are changing in a significant way, and things that have
been underneath and not really looked at are now surfacing. For instance, how

Björkvall, A. (2016). Chapter 1. Ploughing the Field of Higher Education: An Interview with
Gunther Kress. In R. Fidalgo & T. Olive (Series Eds.) & A. Archer, & E.O. Breuer (Vol. Eds.),
Studies in Writing: Vol. 33, Multimodality in Higher Education, (pp. 21–30). Leiden: Brill.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2016 | doi: 10.1163/9789004312067_003

22 björkvall

should knowledge be defined? What is knowledge? Things which have been

regarded as tacit and implicit, simply things which have not been attended to,
should now be the focus of attention in the academic enterprise. That will be
one challenge.

The second one is that the ‘social’ is changing dramatically as part of this
‘Umbruch’. The academic disciplines which we have now were responses to
problems of the 19th century. The problems of the 19th century sort of per-
sisted into the 20th century, but are now being overtaken rapidly by new
kinds of problems. In other words, the question of securely placing doctoral
work, for instance, in one discipline has for the last 40 years, at least, become
increasingly problematic. It is marked by phenomena such as, in the 70s, cen-
tres within departments, multi-disciplinary centres, then cross-disciplinary or
trans-disciplinary centres. Those are, for me, symptoms of something that is
no longer working. And now, of course, the big research organisations force
academic institutions into not just trans-disciplinary work, but also into the
wider world, the professional business world. So, these changes are all having
effects on what a PhD is, what it should be, what it can be, and what it needs to
be.

As a consequence of this, a third challenge is that the notion of agency is chang-

ing, and agency not only of those who have always assumed to have agency,
but of the lonely PhD researcher. How is she, increasingly, or he, assuming to
have agency, and how is that expressed in the PhD? All of this leads to generic
changes. The genre of the PhD is no longer secure; the purposes of the PhD are
no longer secure. Here, in London, the PhD is still ‘a contribution to knowledge’,
although that is beginning to be so weakly present now; the PhD is beginning
to be a certification of competence in certain forms of conducting research.

Add to that a fourth challenge: out of the 60 odd PhD researchers whom I have
seen successfully to completion over the last 20 years, I would say 60 % came
from outside the uk, so there is a huge cultural difference. And I would say
that at least 40% came from outside an Anglophone background. Therefore,
there is a whole question of epistemologies and maybe even ontologies of
somebody who speaks a non Indo-European language and, therefore, sees the
world differently—no matter how good their English.

ab: Would you say that it is still possible to hold on to a type of core content in
any given academic discipline, say English or Scandinavian Languages, or are
we past that type of disciplinary demarcation?
ploughing the field of higher education 23

gk: First of all, the question of what English is as a university subject, and
as a school subject, and how it changes is important: What is the function
of English in schools and what is the function of Scandinavian Languages—
what are we preparing young people for? And here, for me, this question of
‘Umbruch’ is again crucial. Maybe 40 years ago, or maybe even less, we prepared
young people in the Scandinavian countries, or in England, for a seemingly
secure place in the economy and the social organisation of their country. What
is England now? The United Kingdom is increasingly disunited. So, these kinds
of social movements are inevitably going to be reflected in what the questions
are for somebody in Scandinavian Studies, or Languages or Linguistics, as to
what their subject is.

ab: Multimodality in education is sometimes described as something desirable

(not the least in New Literacy Studies), but is there reason for saying that
some realms in higher education should remain dominated by writing? Say, for
instance, that it was possible to dance one’s PhD thesis instead of presenting it
in writing—what would be the gains and losses?

gk: What are the things we need to protect or might like to protect, and how
would we do it? We have been taught, or told, or have accepted, that language,
and maybe writing, is the finest achievement of humanity, so therefore it is only
when something is represented in the linguistic form and in written form it can
count as knowledge to be taken seriously. Well, I think that is nonsense. Because
when you watch surgeons operating, a lot of what they are doing is not written
anywhere, it is not even spoken about, it is actually acquired in action, in the
action with others. So, this notion about the tacit and the implicit is a kind of a
whole new area, which needs to be explored, and that is a question about what
we count as knowledge. That is the question for me, what are the best means
for doing what it is we want to do?

In the 1980s, when I was dean in a faculty that was about media studies and
cultural studies and media production and cultural production, and the peo-
ple who were teaching radio studies or film studies, or film makers could not
get promotion because, you know, they did not write PhDs, they did not even
write academic articles, but they might have made extremely interesting doc-
umentaries or films. Then I thought to myself, if you make a very interesting
documentary, are you extending the horizons of understanding in that partic-
ular field? Or with a film? Or a novel? Does a novel extend our understand-
ing?
24 björkvall

ab: So the answer would be ‘yes’ then, you think that we should be able to
dance our PhD if we can make the argument that this is the most apt way of
representing the kind of knowledge that we are interested in representing?

gk: You could ask, should somebody who is an absolutely outstanding ballet
dancer be excluded from the possibility of being recognised as being outstand-
ing in her or his understanding of what ballet is and how it functions, unless
they could write about it. In fact, most mixed PhDs are still clean of that; you
can have a little video or a cd rom with that stuff, but you must have your
40,000 words of something. And that seems to me the field before the plough.

ab: When PowerPoint entered academic life, many embraced it, while others
were a bit reluctant. How would you say that PowerPoint has affected meaning
making, teaching and learning in seminar rooms and lecture halls? I am think-
ing, for instance, about the epistemological consequences of going from the
linear principles of semiotic organisation of speech and writing to the spatial
organisation of PowerPoint.

gk: You will have seen any number of different kinds of PowerPoint presen-
tations; those where a person more or less reads from his or her script what
is already on the slide; okay, that is one thing. But that is still different to the
person simply reading extremely boringly the script, because, in the first case,
there is another means of accessing what is going on. I, for instance, could not
give a talk without PowerPoint, because I want the people in the audience to see
what this image looks like, and what colour means there, and how the drawn
part compliments, or is complemented by, or whatever, is paralleled by … I
could not speak it; it is impossible. What that shows, of course, is that Power-
Point is opening the door to an understanding that language, whether spoken
or written, is always partial.

Now, some people use PowerPoint in the most kind of facile and terrible fash-
ion, and some people use it very, very interestingly, and kind of change, as
you say, the logic of the presentation from the strictly sequential. Talk is epis-
temologically, I think, and maybe ontologically different to seeing. I mean,
hearing is different to seeing, and talking is different to showing, ontologi-
cally and epistemologically. So, you are actually expanding the range of means
of accessing, or transcribing—I talk about modes as different means of tran-
scribing the world—and PowerPoint expands the range of transcription of the
world.
ploughing the field of higher education 25

ab: Do you think that multimodal pedagogies could in any way open up our
universities to groups that previously had less access to them? Are there certain
disciplines in higher education that are more open to multimodal means of
communication and multimodal ways of learning than others?

gk: I met Arlene Archer, one of the co-editors of this book, when she came here
shortly after the transition in South Africa. She had to teach engineers with the
means which they brought, which were not necessarily written at all. Of course,
they would have had spoken means, but they also had means of having three-
dimensional or drawn kinds of things, and that was the basis for her PhD study.
It was an attempt to say: in this South Africa we have many cultures, and people
come with very different kinds of resources into higher education. We should
attempt to understand what these resources are capable of doing.

Power is of enormous significance, of course, and what mode has most power
assigned to it. Somebody who comes here from, say, East Asia or from Africa
with very different ontological orientations, comes here in part to get access
to still powerful ontologies. And that kind of thing, that happens globally, of
course, happens locally too. Bangladeshi parents in the East End of London
want their children to get access to the resources, which confirm or lend or
lead to power.

ab: That is written English then, right?

gk: Exactly. So all of that, I think, has to be the frame for that kind of recognition
of different resources. And then, I think, comes the question: is Physics, or
is Chemistry, best represented in the way we have always done? Of course,
Chemistry has its formulae and Physics has its forms of expression, which
are not spoken or written necessarily. The questions are: What is it we are
actually teaching? And how is it best represented? At that point I would make a
distinction between curriculum and pedagogy. For me, the curriculum should
be modally apt, or multimodally apt. So, your question about dancing the PhD:
there might be forms where the written will continue to be significant because
I think certain forms of literary representations I would like to see continue.

ab: Human life is by definition multimodal, but in higher education this multi-
modal nature is often restricted by the physical and virtual spaces in which
academic activities take place. For instance, many virtual learning environ-
ments still have a skeuomorphic design, resembling traditional environments
such as the classroom, drawing on representations of a library, the printed book,
26 björkvall

the teacher’s desk and so on. What do you envisage for the future in terms of
physical and digital sites for learning in higher education? How do the spaces
and places for learning in higher education need to be designed in order to
make them relevant for students and teachers of tomorrow?

gk: My brief answer would be, I do not know. But my other answer would be
that I would attempt to ask, again, this question of the West versus the world,
because my 1930s desk in my office, representing the teacher, may not work in
another culture. In other words, these are very specific, to use a term that I do
not usually use, symbols. We have to bear in mind that with a move to the virtual
environments, we are moving to a projected ‘social’, which is not anchored in
national semiotic histories.

The other thing we are moving to, which I think is very important and which
you will have seen in Sweden and in Stockholm I am sure, is that we get a
lot of students from China. When they come here they may be uncomfort-
able with what I attempt to do as a means of making them feel at home. They
bring with them notions of social relations which are completely unalike to
the kind of social relation which I think ought to obtain between higher educa-
tion students—whether PhD or undergraduate level—and academics. In other
words, we are now dealing with a ‘social’ which is no longer certain: What
should I do? What are the kinds of social models behind that, which should
inform us about pedagogies? My sense is that the first step is to really under-
stand that question. Pedagogy is actually, for me, the naming of social rela-
tions in environments of learning. How can I make that such that it is globally
acceptable? What would an equitable global education pedagogy be about?
My answer to that is that it is a complete re-thinking of the position of the
learner.

My sense of communication is that communication happens when there is

interpretation. The learning–teaching situation is one of communication. It
fails or does not fail whether there is interpretation or not. In other words, it
rests on the action of the learner. And I think that is the case whether I am in a
Confucian system, where the power relations are different, or whether I am in
a kind of a Western system, where the power relations are different. So I would
start from that.

ab: Well, I guess there are ways to design more open environments for learning.
For instance, in a virtual learning environment it would be possible to hand
over the power to design the learning environment to teachers and students in
ploughing the field of higher education 27

a more ad hoc way, so to speak. I guess the same would be possible in lecture
halls and seminar rooms.

gk: I would want, again, to really examine: What is it that I want to achieve? I
think communication is not the sender and receiver model—the shared code
which we absolutely cannot assume anymore. Or the power of the sender as
against the lesser power or agency of the receiver. So, I would say, let us start
with assuming that, for communication to have happened, the interpretation
by the learner is central. Does that do away with the role of teacher? No, it
changes the role of teacher completely to a person who is absolutely more
equipped to understand deeply varied, differentiated social relations.

In Uppsala, in Sweden, there is this famous, old anatomy theatre. Of course,

the anatomy theatre exists even today, a little bit more spread out and not
circular, but it represents a hugely stable relation of teacher to student, and I
think we are in a period where that hugely stable relation is changing. Not that
the person who carried out the anatomy is not expert; she is expert, he is expert,
but rather that the relation with the audience has changed in a profound way.

ab: And in the long run, that will also change the design of the environments
in higher education?

gk: Yes, design is actually sign, and sign has to be motivated by the ‘social’ in
which it exists.

ab: We know that social semiotic frameworks can be helpful when trying to
understand younger children’s meaning making and learning. Is that in any
way different when we turn our focus to meaning making and learning in
higher education? I am thinking of the motivated sign, for instance; is there a
difference between understanding the motivated meaning making of a 4 year-
old and that of a PhD student that needs to draw on the history of ideas and
traditions in various academic disciplines in order to make meanings that are
socially accepted in the academic context?

gk: I think either the sign is motivated or it is not motivated. I think you cannot
be a little bit pregnant; it is one thing or the other. I would not wish to have
different theories of learning, or of sign making, or of meaning making for the
4 year-old, or the 40 year-old, or the in between. What I do think changes, of
course, is that the life history of the 4 year-old is very different from the life
history of a 14 or 24 or 40 year-old and with that comes an experience of very
28 björkvall

different kinds of environments and what those environments offer, and what
those environments offered for the person by way of resources to make herself
or himself as a social subject. These resources become part of what we call
identity, and so the 4 year-old has lesser resources than the 40 year-old, but
when I, at my ripe old age, go to France and speak there, I have less resources
and I make use of the lesser resources to attempt to express the meanings. We
have a deep misunderstanding, for instance, about lexis. We think words are
signs, but words are signifiers; words are means for making new signs. So, in
France, I am constantly aware that I use French signifiers to express things
which my interloculars—you can see the supressed smiles of amusement—
interpret, because they want communication to happen; they are willing to do
the work of interpretation.

I think, let us say, the 18 or 19 year-old or the 22 year-old who comes to do

university work has already access to many resources. When she or he makes
signs they enter into a world where new kinds of meanings are at issue, and
these new kinds of meanings will eventually come with new kinds of resources,
but they have to work their way into it. And as they work their way into it, they
will use the resources which they have. I think the principle is not different.
The environments, the conditions of power, the resources are very different;
the principle is the same.

ab: So what happens with convention in all of this? I guess that in order
to become a legitimate actor in the academic context, you have to use the
academic conventions as a sort of resource.

gk: It is a resource, but with this notion of ‘Umbruch’. The reason why a lot
of people have begun to use the notion of rhetoric again, including myself, is
because in unstable social environments conventions disappear. You know, it
is like these kind of car rallies from North Africa; suddenly you get to the Sahara
and the road has disappeared. And I think convention is actually an expression,
which comes from a period of relative semiotic stability where the exercise of
power, not normally even noticed because it is very subtle, leads to a kind of
agreement to do things in a certain way. But in a deeply multicultural world—
a hugely diverse world—there are no such agreements. And, as you know, in
Anglophone PhDs in many places you can now use the first person, ‘I’, which
you could not do 25 years ago. So, what is that about? It is another symptom, or
rather an effect, of those kinds of social changes.
ploughing the field of higher education 29

ab: Partially as a result of technological developments, but also, I assume, due

to other changes in society, you have both observed and predicted a move
from theory to methodologies in PhDs and, presumably, also in research in
general. Which are the risks in applying methodologies that are less informed
by theoretical consideration than what was previously the case? Is there a need
for resistance from the academic community?

gk: I do think that it is a problem, and I am aware, also, that it is a problem for
me, but not for very many young academics. So, that makes me think that I am
carrying the luggage of the past into the present. Therefore, I have a question
to myself, exactly as you formulated it, related to gains and losses: What will
we want to preserve? And is it the case that if I ask a question, or if somebody
asks me to address a question in a research project, does that question arise
out of nowhere? Does it just kind of rain down with lots of heavy showers, lots
of research questions coming down, we pick some up, we do them. Actually,
questions come out of specific environments, and I think that a theory is usually
at the back of it, a kind of explicitly understood theory or an implicitly held
theory is at the back of some kind of question. I think it is a move away from
understanding histories and origins, and even short term: ‘What is the origin of
this question?’

ab: Do you think that the shift from theory to methodology is more significant,
or at least more visible, in the humanities than in disciplines such as Chemistry
or Medicine, where methodology, presumably, has been more in focus?

gk: I am not sure that method has been more in focus in those disciplines. If you
are thinking about understanding how cancers work, it is not methodological.
I think the denial of theory has, of course, ideological causes, and I do not think
that you could do research into cancers of a particular kind without having a
theory of what cell structures are like and how cells interact; you have to have
a theory of that kind.

ab: Then again, I assume that you can still find papers in the humanities
that deal with theory, include one empirical example, and leave out other
methodological issues.

gk: I see myself as a peasant. I like to have my feet in the furrow, behind the
plough, but look ahead where the horse is going, and perhaps look up a little bit
and see, is it going to rain this afternoon, will I be able to plough this afternoon
or not? I really want to keep my feet on the ground of what is the ‘social’. What
30 björkvall

are the social changes? How do they demand of me? So, a theory arises out of
the questions that are posed in the ‘social’, but I think that method cannot do
that.

ab: Let us end with that ploughman metaphor; that is sort of where we started.
Thank you so much for your time.

References

Bezemer, J., & Kress, G. (2016). Multimodality, Learning and Communication: A Social
Semiotic Frame. London: Routledge.
Kress, G. (2012). ‘Researching in Conditions of Provisionality: Reflecting on the PhD in
the Digital and Multimodal Era’. In Andrews, R., Borg, E., Boyd Davis, S., Domingo, M.
& England, J. (Eds.), The sage Handbook of Digital Dissertations and Theses (pp. 245–
259). London: Sage.
 chapter 2

The Past in the Present: Modes, Gaze and Changing

Communicative Practices in Lectures

Lucia Thesen

This chapter works with multimodality in historical perspective to analyse

evolving practices in the lecture over the long term. This approach makes it
possible to challenge the dominant view of lectures which are often critiqued
for being out of step with current ideas about teaching and learning. While
they are economical for delivery of mass higher education in that one expert
has face-to-face contact with large numbers of students, they are at odds with
contemporary ideas about student learning, which espouse participation and
‘critical thinking’ and downplay teacher authority. Bligh’s classic study, ‘What’s
the use of lectures?’ concluded that “lectures can be used to teach information,
including the framework of a subject, but an expository approach is unsuit-
able to stimulate thought or to change attitudes” (1971, 223). For Barnett, the
lecture is an anachronism, “a refuge for the fainthearted, for both lecturers
and students. It keeps channels of communication closed, freezes hierarchy
between lecturer and student and removes any responsibility on the students
to respond” (2000, 159).
The resistance to looking systematically at the lecture is also fed by argu-
ments in favor of the role of the new media (icts—information and communi-
cation technologies—and virtual learning environments) in higher education.
Once again, the lecture becomes a symbol of ossified learning. On the Instruc-
tional Technology Forum, an information technology mailing list, a contribu-
tor dismisses the lecture: “Now that the lecture has fallen into disgrace as an
instructional art form1 …”. A contributor on another chat forum2 asks, “How do
we rid ourselves of this catastrophe?” The lecture is seen as a rigid space which
fosters demonstrations of single authority, in contrast to potentially more egal-

Thesen, L. (2016). Chapter 2. The Past in the Present: Modes, Gaze and Changing Commu-
nicative Practices in Lectures. In R. Fidalgo & T. Olive (Series Eds.) & A. Archer, & E.O. Breuer
(Vol. Eds.), Studies in Writing: Vol. 33, Multimodality in Higher Education, (pp. 31–52). Leiden:
Brill.
1 http://it.coe.uga.edu/itforum, accessed 13th April 2006.
2 The ifets International Forum of Technology and Society.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2016 | doi: 10.1163/9789004312067_004

32 thesen

itarian learner-centered spaces afforded by online learning. Yellowlees Douglas

(2002), for example, asks what is lost by offering a course online, rather than in
lecture form: “Absolutely nothing” (128). She argues that lectures have survived
from their medieval antecedent because they are “cheap to produce, provide an
easy means to control students, supply fodder for tests … accommodate scores
of students to only one faculty member” (128). Whether for their architectural
solidity or suitability for mass education, they persist, with raked benches that
appear to tie students to fixed positions, subject to the canonical text of the
podium speaker. For many, they appear to be in crisis, out of fashion, needed
but not wanted, an inherited necessity that is very difficult to fill with contem-
porary educational meanings.
In this chapter I argue instead that lectures offer a vivid canvas for under-
standing some of the more interesting, contradictory aspects of meaning-
making and authority in higher education, especially when looked at histor-
ically, with an interest in the interplay between modes (spoken and written
language, gaze and image) and how these modes index changes in communica-
tive practices. The chapter is framed by questions such as: how come the lec-
ture has survived? What has changed, and what has remained the same? How
can we read changing communicative practices in the lecture multimodally,
attending to written and spoken language, image and gaze? And finally, what
additional theoretical and methodological lenses assist with the analysis of
the lecture over time? The last question is important, as multimodal analysis
tends to be concerned with semiotic change in the relatively recent (post 1945)
past.
This chapter is part of a larger doctoral research project on changing com-
municative practices in lectures in a South African university (Thesen 2009a).
The overall methodology for the doctoral study was textually oriented dis-
course analysis, within the broader project of critical discourse analysis (cda).
I used Fairclough’s (2003) approach, which argues that discourse analysis is
“best framed within ethnography” (15), and “should be seen as an open pro-
cess which can be enhanced through dialogue across disciplines and theories,
rather than a coding in the terms of an autonomous analytical framework
or grammar” (16). The approach in this chapter on the history of lectures is
‘text expanding’, looking at broad historical practices rather than ‘text reduc-
ing’ (Titscher et al 2000, 167), an approach used in parts of the larger study
(Thesen 2007, 2009b). For this chapter, I analyse images of lectures (paintings,
engravings and photographs) which seem to me to be emblematic of a his-
torical moment: they are representations that tell us about arrangements in
lectures, but also show the way they were seen at the time. These images are
indicators of prevailing discourses that both reflect what lectures were like,
lectures: the past in the present 33

and construct the discourses around the multimodal genre of the lecture in a
particular time and place. In some cases I have chosen the images from schol-
arly works such as Clark (2006) which analyses changing academic practices,
including the lecture, over time. I am trusting the link Clark has established
between the image and the historical point he is making about the materi-
ality of academic practices at the time. The images enable us to explore the
represented arrangements between human and non-human elements (spatial
arrangements and media such as books, notes, screens) and from these to infer
the use of modes. Other images come from internet-based image searches and
are thus the products of a quest for correspondence between my emerging
reading of the typical arrangements of the time, and images that match this
mental picture.
In the earlier doctoral project, I was mainly interested in the affordances of
lectures for doing identity work in humanities disciplines in a rapidly changing
university in post-apartheid South Africa. The research (Thesen 2007, 2009a,
2009b) showed that lectures are far from dead: they offer students from differ-
ent lifeworlds a rich site in which to take up positions on academic identity and
authority. I saw lectures as important sites of co-presence where young people
previously kept apart by the crude and brutal logic of the apartheid regime,
could participate in a ‘contact zone’ (Pratt 1992) and make sense of how their
histories brought them to this shared presence in the post-apartheid university.
Multimodal discourse analysis became an important tool to unlock what lec-
tures, beyond the written language, do and mean in the lives of young people
entering higher education.
However, multimodal discourse analysis proved to be limited for the anal-
ysis of the longer history of the lecture, to help explain why, in spite of all
the negativity, the lecture is still here 800 years later. It is thus also limited in
helping us understand why the lecture also has an interesting future. It is cer-
tainly not frozen or redundant, as shown by innovations such as podcasts and
moocs (Massive online open courses) in higher education, and the popularity
of forms such as ted Talks outside of the academy, where engaging speakers
can be viewed online. Lectures are far from dead: they are a highly malleable
and flexible genre. Their persistence can be explained by this flexibility and
unique affordance of bringing together both textual and embodied authority
in the living present. New tools are needed to understand their persistence—
tools that neither dismiss history nor elevate the present, without lectures,
as inevitably better or more progressive and participation-friendly than the
past.
34 thesen

Text-Expanding Discourse Analysis: Modes and the Shifting Gaze

I am critical of the absence of history in textually-oriented approaches to uni-

versity communicative practices, which frequently collapse history into the
category of ‘context’ (Blommaert 2005). A narrow tracing of ‘the new’ in well
resourced ‘first world’ contexts, with the historical dimension carried in con-
structs like ‘intertextuality’ (Fairclough 1992, 1999) does not account for the
long histories in which structures of authority have come to take particular
forms. Blommaert warns that “we need to take history seriously, for part of
the critical punch of what we do may ultimately lie in our capacity to show
that what looks new is not new at all, but the outcome of a particular process
which is systemic, not accidental” (37). I trace what Blommaert (127–128, citing
Braudel 1981) calls ‘layered simultaneity’ in what appears to be the present (syn-
chronisation) there are traces of different orders of the past: the longue duree
(the long term, slow time of invisible transformation—structural time which is
not available to individuals in moments of sense-making); intermediate time of
‘long cyclical patterns’ (127), of for example, the middle ages, colonialism, capi-
talism or the enlightenment, which cut across local experiences and often link
people globally; and lastly event time. The interaction between these different
orders of the past is experienced in complex and often contradictory ways in
contemporary institutions in both centre and periphery locations. These layers
enable us in southern Africa to be part of the universal while at the same time
being firmly rooted in ‘southern’ conditions and politics. The emphasis in this
chapter is on being part of the global story about lectures, rather than on the
particular situatedness of the lecture in southern Africa.
Using secondary sources and images, I explore changes and continuities in
communicative practices in lectures, with an emphasis on modes—spoken
and written language, and the gaze. Communicative practices are patterns of
communication that involve both interaction and representation. The term
communicative practices is chosen instead of literacy practices, as the latter is
generally associated with writing and its role in the university (Lillis and Scott,
2007). Modes are central to multimodal social semiotic theory, but deciding
what constitutes a mode is by no means straight-forward. As Kress 2010 puts
it, “modes are the product jointly of the potentials inherent in the material
and of the culture’s selection from the bundle of aspects of these potentials
and the shaping over time by (members of) a society of the features selected”
(2010, 80–81). Thus analytical questions about modes—what they are and what
they do in particular settings—make up an important part of the intellectual
project of multimodal social semiotics. More significant than individual modes
is the way they work together through multimodal ensembles (Kress 2010, 162–
lectures: the past in the present 35

169) that constitute (in this case) the genre of the lecture. A microanalysis
of a lecture event reveals how different modes such as gesture, image, spo-
ken and written language are foregrounded and backgrounded in sequentially
unfolding patterns that create a recognisable whole. As Bateman puts it, mul-
timodal genres are “constituted of collections of rhetorical strategies deploying
the semiotic modes provided by the medium within which the communica-
tion is being enacted” (2008, cited in the mode Glossary of multimodal terms).
Although very difficult to define,3 the concept of medium is also relevant in
this study, as carriers or organisers of modes under analysis. It is important
in two senses: as the texts (painting, engraving or photograph) that I anal-
yse, and also as represented frames, or carriers of messages. Thus writing as
a mode would be different in the medium of a printed book, or as a Power-
point presentation on screen, or handwritten in a student’s notebook. Spoken
language would be produced and received differently via the media of live lec-
turing, as opposed to audio or video recording. The interplay between writing
and speaking (modes) with their carriers of media such as the book, notebook,
screen and embodied performance, is particularly interesting when analysing
lectures in historical perspective. As I will show later, the lecture has always
been a space for creative interplay between modes of spoken and written lan-
guage.
Gaze is also a key mode in public space. The gaze provides a way of trac-
ing power effects in visual texts. Gaze can be understood in quite a narrow
technical way, as “the direction of orientation that people display through the
position of their head, notably their eyes, in relation to their environment”.
(https://multimodalityglossary.wordpress.com/gaze/). This orientation is used
as a means to read power and authority by analysing the way the gaze works in
representations of lectures (who looks at whom, or what, in what way). Kress
and van Leeuwen (1996) use the gaze to analyse power in interaction between
viewer and what is represented, as well as between elements that are repre-
sented. So a gaze that looks down suggests asymmetry between participants.
While Kress and van Leeuwen (1996, 2001) have focused on the profound shifts
in recent history—the ‘turn to the visual’ since the mid-20th century—I wish
here to draw from a much longer evolution of the lecture to illustrate the discur-
sive patterns and practices in which the lecture is situated, a history where long

3 In some of the earlier work on social semiotic multimodality (e.g. Kress et al 2001) medium is
seen as the raw material out of which modes are shaped. Other researchers such as Friesen
who are working in multimedia education, tend to use the term to mean something closer
to artefact (e.g. book, computer, screen, overhead projector), and don’t distinguish medium
from mode.
36 thesen

cyclical patterns were interrupted, emblematised by the slow but profound

shift that Clark (2006) calls the ‘triumph of the eye over the ear’, as technologies
of record overshadowed communicative practices in which the spoken word
was central. Here I am using gaze as a bigger concept to lift it out into a more
abstract notion of discourse in for example Kress’s (1985) classic definition of
discourse, which borrows from Foucault: discourses are “systematically orga-
nized sets of statements that give expression to the meanings and values of an
institution. Beyond that they define, describe and delimit what it is possible
to say and not possible to say (and by extension—what it is possible and not
possible to do) with respect to the area of concern of that institution” (6). Here
the interest is in the subtle often invisible, internalised embodiments of disci-
plinary power and how subjectivity is constituted through an internalisation of
authority relations forgotten as history. I will show that an analysis of gaze in
the lecture gives a rich illustration of how modes are shaped over time and how
they are caught up in what it is possible to say or do in practices at particular
historical times.
In taking the concepts of mode and particularly gaze back, further away from
the contemporary communicative situation, deep into the origins of the uni-
versity in antiquity, I draw on Foucault’s notion of ‘spectacle’ or ‘many to few’,
the typical gaze of antiquity, the social arrangements reflected in the design
of architectural spaces for sacred and secular expression of public life (1977,
216). I will also show how, if we move from the medieval university with its ele-
vated, church-like lecture podium, to the enlightenment, the lecture reflects
a shift from the ‘many to few’ gaze of antiquity to the ‘one to many’ gaze of
modern institutions, in which an expert or authority can see everyone; the gaze
has been reversed from spectacle to surveillance in which all participants in an
event can be seen. With this shift from spectacle to surveillance, individuals
begin to hold themselves to account in the absence of higher religious author-
ity, to internalise the ‘cop in the head’; we monitor our thoughts and actions
in relation to the growing role of the state. As pointed out earlier, while broad
historical shifts can be discerned, there are never clean breaks, but rather over-
lapping functions that give the university, and at its core the lecture, its adapt-
ability. The oral does not disappear: its relationship to the written is adjusted. It
is more about foregrounding and backgrounding than replacing either speak-
ing or writing.
At the level of modes, Clark’s long history of material practices in the chang-
ing university shows how, with an epistemic shift which he calls ‘the triumph
of the eye over the ear’ (2006, 13), material practices that favoured the visible
and legible (reading, writing and recording) gradually displaced the predomi-
nantly oral, memorial culture of the medieval university. This modal shift is also
lectures: the past in the present 37

described in Kruse (2006), in relation to the origins and growing importance

of writing in the university. Kruse shows how the seminar enters the univer-
sity, driving a wedge between the medieval and the modern institution. This
advent of the seminar, the signature communicative event of the Humboldtian
research university, brings with it a new function to the university: research.
Whereas in the medieval university, collaborative knowledge was furthered
through oral exchange, after the modernisation of universities that emerged
in Germany in the 19th century, a break was made with the pedagogic func-
tion of handing down knowledge mainly in the oral form. Writing becomes
the mode and site for producing knowledge generated by the research semi-
nar, rather than handing it down from higher ecclesiastical authority via the
lecture. Kruse’s work is also a reminder not to isolate the lecture from other
evolving spaces such as the seminar.
Within this changing picture, the lecture plays an important role that helps
to explain its endurance to this day. Friesen (2011) stresses the mediating pos-
sibilities in lectures, as a ‘transmedial pedagogical form’: the lecture is “most
effectively understood as bridging oral communication with writing rather
than being a purely spoken form that is superseded by textual, digital or other
mediatic forms” (96, original emphasis). He shows that pedagogical and tech-
nological change in education is not successive, but cumulative: “Instead of
being replaced or rendered obsolete, the lecture, with its oral roots, is com-
plemented, augmented, and reconfigured through changes in textual technolo-
gies” (101). Friesen does not speak of modes, but of media and their relationship
to epistemology: he shows how the lecture has accommodated shifting peda-
gogies from the memorial, predominantly oral transmission and preservation
of authoritative scarce text, to the performative authority of the lecturer, with
text as background. Contemporary lecture audiences value what Goffman calls
‘a fresh talk illusion’ (1981, 171): lecturers work off written text, which are in
part memorised, but generally read aloud, “And in reading aloud, what the
lecturer strives to create is the illusion of spontaneity and extemporaneity”
(Friesen 2011, 99). Thus modes and media are not seen in isolation, but always
in relation to one another. This is true in a double sense: media help realise
modes, and different modes must always be looked at in relationship to one
another. The written language in books, and spoken language in live conver-
sation work together to allow new forms to evolve. Lectures are not ossified
throwbacks to the past, but become fertile ground for integration and exper-
imentation with a wide variety of modes, media and their associated social
practices.
In the rest of this chapter, a chronology of the lecture is presented in broad
brushstrokes. It begins by establishing a link to the university as a flexible
38 thesen

institution that has been responsive to changing contexts and contradictory

functions. Emblematic images illustrate how the lecture space has enabled
changing communicative practices from the oral and memorial culture of the
medieval university, through to the enlightenment emphasis on legibility, self-
regulation and the written word. In the contemporary well-resourced univer-
sity the projector and laptop screen play an important role, but the strands that
favour oral performance that went underground in the birth of the research
university in early modern Germany are still present. This helps us to account
for the ambiguity in the lecture, the tension between rigidity and strongly
coded authority on the one hand, and meanings related to the theatre and
performance on the other. The latter meanings are available, but are often sup-
pressed.

Dynamic Systems and Contradictory Functions

One of the striking things about lectures is that they have remained a key
teaching space in higher education over a very long period. Lecture theatres,
along with universities as institutions, appear to be remarkably enduring. It
is only in the elite universities with the college system and pedagogy based on
individual tutors, that they have not been the dominant pedagogical space. The
history of the lecture is inevitably tied to that of the university; while much
of the detail has changed, universities have always been what Castells calls
‘dynamic systems of contradictory functions’ (2001)

including the generation and transmission of ideology, selection and for-

mation of dominant elites, production and application of knowledge, and
training of a skilled labour force.
210

In the western European historiography of what came to be called the univer-

sity, higher education has its origins in schools in urban communities (Bologna
and Paris) where students and teachers were granted certain privileges and
liberties in the 12th century (Ruegg 1992). Ruegg acknowledges the many influ-
ences that flowed into the medieval university, including Islamic schools of
learning, which shaped its organizational arrangements. From these early
stadia generale, influenced by traditions in antiquity and the early Christian
church of St Augustin, as well as Islam, emerged the lecture-based pedagogy
that has been central to universities for the past 900 or so years. Perkin’s his-
tory of universities summarises this process as follows:
lectures: the past in the present 39

Only in Europe from the 12th century onwards did an autonomous, per-
manent, corporate institution of higher learning emerge and survive, in
varying degrees, to the present day […] In the interstices of power the
university could find a modestly secure niche, and play off one authority
[e.g. king v archbishop] against another. Unintentionally, it evolved into
an immensely flexible institution, able to adapt to almost any political sit-
uation and form of society. In this way it was able to migrate, eventually,
to every country and continent in the world.
1997, 3

Perkin outlines the striking way in which universities outlived the medieval
world that had brought them into being. They helped argue against that world
during the Reformation, adjusting later to the priorities of the Industrial Rev-
olution, while at the same time making contributions to successive waves of
colonization in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, as well as to the struggles for
freedom from colonial rule of many of these colonized countries. Since the Sec-
ond World War, it has become the ‘key institution’ in the transition from elite
to mass higher education (4).

Lectio and disputatio in the Medieval University

In the medieval university, scholastic practices revolved around Latin as the

medium of instruction, with a rigid pattern of delivery, in which there were
two basic types of exercise, the lecture (lectio) and the disputation (disputa-
tio). In the lecture, the master read out of an assigned canonical text which
was explained in sections. The aim was to acquaint the audience with key
texts and make sure they passed down through the generations. In the dispu-
tation, material from the key texts introduced in the lecture was applied and
refined through oral debate conducted according to Aristotelian logic. With
constant references to the ‘authorities’, particular cases or theses were estab-
lished, defended or refuted in the interests of developing a consistent body of
knowledge, a ‘higher truth’. (See Schwinges, 1992, for a general description). In
the pedagogy there is thus a dual energy, one (lectio) concerned with mem-
ory and the other (disputatio) with movement, through subjecting knowledge
to the examination of pros and cons. Clark (2006) observes that “Ecclesiasti-
cal elements inform the lecture, while juridical or judicial etiquettes imbue the
disputation” (75–76).
This image below (figure 2.1), a painting by Laurentinus de Voltolina in the
late 14th century, is emblematic of the lectio situation. The similarities between
40 thesen

figure 2.1 A lecture hall in 14th century Bologna (c. 1380). It is emblematic of the early medieval
lecture situation, with raised chair in a sacred space. The artist is Laurentinus de
Voltolina, and the lecturer is understood to be Heinrich of Germany.

this and the contemporary lecture are striking. There is the authoritative chair
in the centre front. There are serried rows, differing levels of attention (with
some students on the margins talking or falling asleep). Student boredom,
or uneven attention, appears to have a very long history. Those in the front
have their texts out, following the lecture, while those behind (presumably
poorer) do not have books. To my eyes, there are two marked differences
between this representation and the current situation. The first is that the
podium is elevated, suggesting an ecclesiastical and legal space. The lecturer
is raised above the audience, and the artist has depcted him with his gaze
directed on the level, and slightly upward, as if focused on the higher authority
of the church, and the lecturer’s role as mediator of sacred knowledge. This
perspective gives the opportunity for the artist to emphasise the height of the
chair. From this elevated seat the lecturer could look out of the window on to a
view of trees, gardens and meadows, as ‘viewing nature strengthens memory’
(Clark’s paraphrase of an early 13th century description of the ideal lecture hall,
2006, 69).
lectures: the past in the present 41

The relationships between lecturer and students in this image represent

a profound underlying pattern that characterized pre-modern public space.
This gaze of ‘many to few’, what Foucault calls spectacle, the typical pattern
of antiquity, the social arrangement to which ‘the architecture of temples,
theatres and circuses responded’ (1977, 216–217). [This is discussed later in
this chapter, where this concept of spectacle is compared with philosopher
Guy Debord’s notion of spectacle, and used to refer to contemporary media-
driven ‘second hand’ views of reality]. The second difference is that, on close
inspection, the literacy arrangements, while appearing to be similar, also dif-
fer from contemporary practices. While some students have books, no-one
(apart perhaps from the person in the front, to the lecturer’s left) appears
to be taking notes. The next section pauses briefly on each of these differ-
ences.
Reflecting on the marked differences between this representation and the
current situation, it is noted that the elevated chair reflects the juridico-eccle-
siastical underpinnings of the university in medieval Europe. The seat con-
veyed the legitimate power of the authorized speaker. Like the bishop who
was entitled to occupy this chair in order to pronounce with authority, a lec-
turer like Heinrich of Germany (shown in this image) was qualified to occupy
the chair, and to read and interpret (in this case theological) canonical texts.
The literacy practices also differ from more recent arrangements. While this
pedagogy was strongly centered on the medium of the book, it was embed-
ded in a predominantly oral culture, in which keeping texts alive depended
on oral dissemination beyond the university, through the law and the church.
The focus on books was as much to do with their scarcity as their status in the
method. In this image, the manuscripts are not printed, but handwritten on
paper. Some writers (for example Fischer 2003) see the invention of the print-
ing press in the mid 1400s as a turning point in literacy and consciousness,
while others such as Carruthers (1990) point out that while the increase in the
availability of books in the late middle ages was important, this shift in tech-
nology was less significant than the memorial culture in which technologies of
both parchment and eventually paper were embedded for a very long period of
time. By stressing the continuities she questions the distinction between orality
and literacy that writers such as literacy anthropologist Street (1984) and South
African social historian Hofmeyr (1993) have argued strongly against, urging us
to look closely at the interface between writing and speaking in particular con-
texts.
42 thesen

figure 2.2 A seventeenth-century image of a lecture hall used for both lecture and disputation
at Leipzig. This image is used by Clark (2006) to represent the birth of the early
modern research university in Germany. The student body language, suggestive of
deep engagement with lecture note taking, illustrates the birth of a work ethic.

‘The Triumph of the Eye over the Ear’: The Demise of the
Disputation

The next image of a lecture hall in Leipzig, Germany (figure 2.2), is used by
Clark to make his compelling argument that in the early modern era (about
1500 to 1800, from the Renaissance to the enlightenment) there was a gradual
but profound shift which saw the triumph of the eye over the ear (2006, 13) as
material practices that favoured the visible and legible (writing and recording)
took over the predominantly oral, memorial ethos of the university. Clark
(following Foucault 1977 and others who focus on the relationships between
epistemology and material practices) calls these material practices an ‘arsenal
of little tools’ such as lists, timetables and graphs, which displaced the role
of oral narrative (19). Interestingly, this lecture space would have been used
for both lectures and disputations, though the image is of a lecture. As with
figure 1, the chair is still elevated, and the authorized lecturer still reads from a
book. The main difference is that the body language of the students indicates
intense focus on a new form of written language: lecture note-taking. Unlike the
lectures: the past in the present 43

books in figure 2.1, these would be blank. Attention has shifted from following
the speakers’ words, to capturing those words for the record. The gaze of
the note-takers shifts downward to the handwritten notes used to record the
authoritative texts.

Note-Taking: A ‘Striking Modern Development’

Clark sees this full, industrious lecture theatre as evidence of the forging of
a Protestant work ethic and the pervasiveness of note-taking as a “striking
modern development” (87). In the well-endowed disciplines such as medi-
cine and law, wealthy students paid poor students to take notes for them.
Notes were sometimes copied painstakingly at home from borrowed manu-
scripts as lecture note-taking practices changed in response to epistemological
shifts.
Previously, the handwriting of the individual student had not been at the
centre of pedagogy. Scholarship was underpinned by memorisation and hand-
writing had a different significance, as Carruthers (1990) describes. The design
of manuscripts with rich visual elements was an aid to memory. These manu-
scripts were handwritten by scribes whose function was to copy the authorities
as accurately as possible, perpetuating the religious authority through the text,
downplaying individual differences. Handwriting became a sign of individu-
ally held literacy in the shift illustrated by figure 2. This point is also made
by Foucault (1977). For Foucault, the changes that took place in institutions
in the 18th century, emblematized by the shifts in penal punishment from the
public spectacle of the gallows to the incarceration and minute management
of the individual through surveillance, are symbolized by the centrality of the
timetable. As universities prepared bureaucrats for the colonies, handwritten
documentation backed up by signatures were the main means of legal and
institutional control. In medieval universities, examinations were conducted
in the oral mode; in the course of the 18th century, individuals were tested in
written examinations, a shift that allowed a large number of students to sit an
examination at the same time. He explores handwriting as an expression of
how ‘anatomo-chronological schema of behavior’ defined gestures and action
in institutions such that “time penetrates the body and with it all the meticu-
lous controls of power”:

In the correct use of the body, which makes possible a correct use of
time, nothing must remain idle or useless everything must be called
upon for the support of the act required. A well-disciplined body forms
the operational context of the slightest gesture. Good handwriting, for
example, presupposes a gymnastics—a whole routine whose rigorous
44 thesen

code invests the body in its entirety, from the points of the feet to the tip
of the index finger.
1977, 152

This well-disciplined body is strongly present in this representation of a lecture

room and the examination hall; handwriting becomes the sign of the individ-
ual’s presence, and therefore compliance with that system.
What this engraving does not show is that lectures and disputations had
been in decline with falling attendances. Differences appeared between Eng-
lish and German universities. In England the lecture method was in trouble.
Money for endowed chairs meant that incumbents had tenure for life, often
treating their chairs as sinecures requiring little effort, putting lecturers beyond
discipline. In Germany however, attendance at lecturers was increasingly mon-
itored. By means of payment for lectures given, the introduction of a timetable,
and stronger control over the curriculum, the lecturer was drawn in to the
developing bureaucracy of the state, while the disputation failed to survive
as a pedagogic form. (See Clark 2006, 81–89 for a description of these pro-
cesses).
So the lecture survived, but the disputation did not. It had become a farce,
with its theatrical ethos out of character with the emerging Protestant moral
order. Clark notes that the main reason for the weakening of the disputation is
that it had lost all spontaneity (89). Declining spoken Latin skills also meant
that rehearsal was necessary. From the medieval trial of courage modeled
on the joust, it had descended into a prefabricated, often comical show. The
disputation was abolished at Cambridge in 1839 (90). Clark argues that new
practices emerged from the decline of the disputation, with an emphasis on
the written and the legible. These practices included the written exam, seminar
paper, doctoral dissertation and the ethos of publish or perish.

The rationalization of German academia wrought by ministries and mar-

kets aimed to substitute writing in place of speaking and hearing. Aca-
demic charisma would be manufactured by publications and written
expert or peer review, instead of the old-fashioned disputational oral-arts,
unsubstantiated rumours, and provincial gossip.
clark 2006, 29

This shift to the dominance of the legible included the ascendancy of “the
author and reader over the orator and audience, as well as to the triumph of the
academic ‘I’ as charismatic individual over the corporate, collegial, collective
bodies of academics” (2006, 402).
lectures: the past in the present 45

Foucault on Surveillance
The way the eye took over from the ear that Clark refers to resonates with the
great shift that Foucault writes of in ‘Discipline and Punish’ (1977). Between
the modern situation and the middle ages, lies the growth of discipline in
the sense of the myriad technologies of power that turned absolute power
into a more dispersed, subtle exercise in control during the enlightenment.
Foucault’s argument is made with reference to philosopher Jeremy Bentham’s
panopticon, a design for a prison in which prisoners could be seen by a single
observer, without the prisoners knowing whether they were being watched or
not. This produces an environment in which people feel under surveillance,
and therefore, it was claimed, they would take responsibility for their own
actions, through self-regulation. This shift is represented in this image (fig-
ure 2.3) below.
This image from Foucault’s ‘Discipline and Punish’ can be contrasted with
the image of the note-taking students in figure 2.2. The caption tells us that it
is a lecture on ‘the evils of alcoholism’ in a French prison. Unlike the pulpit-like
arrangement in the medieval lecture hall, the lecturer is below, and is able to
see everyone at a glance, arrangements that resemble the panopticon. The ‘stu-
dents’ (prisoners) have an appearance of power, in that they can look down at
the lecturer, but they cannot see each other. They are controlled by the panop-
tic gaze—the possibility that they might be seen. In education, the disciplinary
system has shifted the locus of power from external sources of authority such
as corporal punishment, to the individual who through self-regulation takes
responsibility for behaving well. Through the micro politics of technologies
such as physical arrangements in the classroom, timetabling, ranking of indi-
viduals, and the examination, the gaze of the Other is internalized.
Foucault (citing a 19th century historian, Julius) describes this shift from the
ancient and medieval worlds, typified by social arrangements of spectacle, to
the early modern patterns that favour surveillance:

Antiquity had been a civilization of spectacle. ‘To render accessible to a

multitude of men the inspection of a small number of objects’: this was
the problem to which the architecture of temples, theatres and circuses
responded. With spectacle there was a predominance of public life, the
intensity of festivals, sensual proximity. In these rituals in which blood
flowed, society found new vigour and formed for a moment a single great
society. The modern age poses the opposite problem: ‘To procure for a
small number, or even for a single individual, the instantaneous view of a
great multitude’.
216
46 thesen

figure 2.3 Lecture on the evils of alcoholism in the auditorium at Fresne prison, in the late 19th
century. In Foucault (1977), reproduced between pages 169 and 170. This shows how
the lecturer’s chair has come down, enabling the lecturer to see everyone in the room
simultaneously.
lectures: the past in the present 47

Foucault ascribed this change to the growing influence of the state, “to its
ever more profound intervention in all details of and all the relations of social
life” (217). This distinction between ancient and modern is compelling, but as I
have already suggested, it is not the break that is significant, but the capacity of
the lecture to accommodate multiple and potentially contradictory elements
and gazes at the same time.

The Contemporary Lecture: ‘Everybody is Watching Everybody All

the Time’

In moving to the contemporary era, the lecture seems to have survived remark-
ably well. This is not just because it is suited to the economics of mass educa-
tion, or that it is good for out of fashion transmission pedagogies, but because
it is adaptable as a form that lends itself simultaneously to both spectacle and
surveillance. While Foucault seems to present these kinds of relationships as
exemplars of a historical break (particularly in his earlier ‘archaeology’ work),
others such as Vinson and Ross (2001) see them as co-existing in many con-
temporary forms such as reality shows on tv, with important implications for
education. We need to remind ourselves of the point made earlier, that there are
multiple and competing ideological and functional currents that run through
universities in particular times and places and the lecture seems to accommo-
date these currents very well.
This image of a lecture theatre shows medical students in a crowded wire-
less classroom. Everyone has a laptop. The image resonates with figure 2.2, the
industrious body language of the digital ‘note-takers’ (though not all are attend-
ing to the official lesson) reminding us of the forging of a work ethic that Clark
refers to in the early modern research universities.
The large screen at the front is also remarkably like an authoritative religious
text, or textbook, at the centre of pedagogies in figures 1 and 2 in this chapter. A
closer look shows multiple smaller versions of this central screen to make sure
that everyone is on task. Most eyes are directed downwards, towards the screen
of the individual laptop computers. This suggests the patterns of the gaze in
the image of the Fresnes prison in figure 2.4, as the audience appears to be
divided from one another by the control of the individual laptops. The screen
is a symbol of commodified culture, suggesting a different use of the term
spectacle. Guy Debord uses spectacle4 to express the nature of contemporary
capitalist culture and its resulting commercialization:

4 Foucault put forward his concept of spectacle without any reference to Debord’s version,
48 thesen

figure 2.4 A wireless classroom in the early 21st century. This photograph was taken by a
medical student and shared on a photographic site with the caption ‘My med school
this morning. Future doctors of America learning adhd one imgur image at a time’.
http://imgur.com/n2pyk8s?tags

The whole of life of those societies in which modern conditions of pro-

duction prevail presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles.
All that once was directly lived has become mere representation.
debord 1995, 12

Vinson and Ross suggest that new technologies make possible the ‘absurd’ situ-
ation in which ‘everybody is watching everybody all the time’. This is achieved
through the combination of the gazes of surveillance and Debordian spectacle.
However, resistance to the effects of disciplinary power in education is
played out all the time, through scratchings on desks, non-attendance, doo-
dling on note-paper, or speaking a language that is not the official language
of schooling. This image was uploaded on a web image share site.5 At first
glance it looks like an innocuous photograph of industrious, engaged students.

which had been published in France a decade previously. See for example http://www
.notbored.org/foucault-and-debord.html for a discussion of this gap.
5 The site is ‘the best place to share and enjoy the most awesome images on the internet’ (imgur
.com/about).
lectures: the past in the present 49

But the caption tells us more: it reads ‘My med school this morning. Future
doctors of america learning adhd one imgur image at a time’. Key words like
‘med school’ and ‘america’ are in lower case, while adhd is in caps. The image
was taken from the back of the lecture theatre by a bored student with a
satirical, critical message to convey. The subversive angle shows most students
straying from the official screen, engaging with social media sites. The gaze here
is ambiguous, able to show both compliance and resistance that an angle from
the front of the room (the lecturer’s view) or from the side as in figure 2.1 would
not afford.

Conclusion: Lectures as Sites to Transform Practices

This chapter has approached the lecture by drawing from history, exploring
how it has survived and nurtured different communicative practices. However,
we have looked at both continuities and changes. The physical form in which
the method was carried, a pulpit-like podium from which a single authority
held forth, has proved particularly durable in the context of the massification
of higher education, and the need to fit as many students as possible into a
space where they can benefit from a single authority. Yet there are also many
changes that are apparent, particularly in the lowering of the chair to ‘bring
knowledge down’ to people, but at the same time the ‘little tools’ of coercion
regulate time and space, and produce conditions for surveillance in which
the audience is intended to self-regulate, and adopt the docile bodies of the
student identity. Another change can be seen in the literacy practices. We
saw the medium of the authoritative book in an oral memorial culture give
way to a form of reproduction based on hand-written notes. We also saw the
disputation, a twin practice that complemented the lecture, disappear, and
migrate into the forms of written research scholarship that we are familiar
with today. The oral practices of scholarship on which academic charisma was
founded have been supplanted by written ones, but the phantom of the oral is
still present. In the contemporary lecture theatre, with its screens, we can also
see traces of contemporary media and the ‘second-hand’ simulated experiences
that they evoke. The screen on which the lecture is projected could as easily
be used to show a movie. I suggest that one of the reasons why we may be
uneasy about lectures is that the sense of theatre that survives in them is an
uncomfortable reminder of a pre-modern integrated self, in which body and
cosmos are whole.
If we accept that lectures need not be seen as instantiations of frozen, locked
in power dynamics, but can instead be understood as open to multiple mean-
50 thesen

ings and transformations, we may see lectures as transformative sites at multi-

ple levels. They are evolving genres that draw on different sometimes contra-
dictory assemblages of rhetorical strategies that reflect competing discourses of
the market, the academy, the state, the church etc. These strategies find form
in the interplay between semiotic modes (for this chapter, spoken and written
language and the gaze) offered by a range of media that can be brought in to
the lecture. They can be sites for ongoing relational activity between modes. A
full understanding of the potentials of lectures must be a multimodal analysis,
but an analysis that does not fixate on what appears new, while being blind
to the complexity of what is going on in the interaction between lecturers and
their students in the contact zone. This is particularly important as lectures
are one of the few spaces not directly caught up in assessment practices, where
exploratory embodied co-presence is possible.

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 chapter 3

Aspects of Multimodality in Higher Education

Monographs

Tuomo Hiippala

Introduction

This chapter aims to contribute to the growing body of research on multimodal-

ity and higher education by viewing the research monograph—a common
vehicle for disseminating knowledge within many fields of study—through
the lens of multimodal analysis. Influential ideas require space, and the way
major works are published testifies to the power of a monograph. Yet research
monographs have not received much attention in multimodal research, possi-
bly because their text-driven structure is not perceived as being multimodally
interesting.
At a time of pervasive multimodality, the research monographs continue to
be dominated by written language, which is occasionally interrupted by fig-
ures, diagrams, tables and other graphic elements. Granted that language does
most of the semiotic work in academic discourse, to support both learners and
teachers (see Gourlay, chapter 4 this volume), we should also be able to describe
what characterises the research monograph and other forms of academic dis-
course in terms of multimodality. Language, in short, offers powerful means for
construing and disseminating academic knowledge, but covers only a part of
today’s communicative spectrum. In this aspect, making the multimodal struc-
ture of research monographs explicit should ideally help readers to access their
content. An improved understanding of their structure may support learn-
ers’ metacognitive activities (Kirsh, 2005), such as extracting knowledge from
research monographs, while teachers may benefit with new ways of recontex-
tualising the same knowledge in classroom settings and in other multimodal
artefacts intended for learning, such as presentations (Jewitt, 2014b; Thesen,
chapter 2 this volume).

Hiippala, T. (2016). Chapter 3. Aspects of Multimodality in Higher Education Monographs. In

R. Fidalgo & T. Olive (Series Eds.) & A. Archer, & E.O. Breuer (Vol. Eds.), Studies in Writing:
Vol. 33, Multimodality in Higher Education, (pp. 53–78). Leiden: Brill.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2016 | doi: 10.1163/9789004312067_005

54 hiippala

To support this kind of work and to better appreciate the research mono-
graph as a form of multimodal academic discourse, I first outline several re-
quirements for investigating the research monographs, before presenting sev-
eral analytical tools geared towards their description. I then continue by exem-
plifying how these analytical tools may be used to capture different types of
multimodal phenomena by applying them to a page from a research mono-
graph. Now, to set us on our course, I begin with a brief overview of previous
work on multimodality in educational contexts.

Multimodality in Academic Discourse

There has been a long-standing interest in the relationship between multi-

modality and education (see e.g. Kress, 1998, 2003; Kress et al., 2001; Unsworth,
2008). Despite growing interest in recent years (Archer & Newfield, 2014),
Archer (2010) observes that academic discourse has not received much atten-
tion in multimodal research, although images frequently accompany written
language “to provide context, illustrate a point, make an argument, furnish evi-
dence, organise data” (Archer, 2010, p. 202; Archer, chapter 5 this volume). It is
precisely the relations between language and images that have gained the most
attention in the study of multimodality in academic discourse. Taboada and
Habel (2013), for instance, examine the rhetorical relations holding between
text, figures and tables in an academic journal. Their analysis, which covered a
total of 645 pages with 137 figures and 139 tables, concluded that figures often
elaborate the accompanying text, whereas tables are used to present evidence.
From the perspective of the current study, Taboada and Habel’s (2013) obser-
vation that figures, tables, diagrams and other graphic elements can stand in
a variety of relations to the accompanying text—elaborating or presenting
evidence—is particularly interesting. Additionally, Taboada and Habel (2013,
pp. 81–82) note the possibility that multiple relationships can be simultane-
ously drawn between a single graphic element and the accompanying text.
What this implies is that there are likely to be different types of multimodal
structure at play. More specifically, these multimodal structures may be config-
ured as necessary, ranging from defining specific text-image relations to ensur-
ing that the content presented in text and graphics forms a coherent whole that
works towards a common communicative goal. For multimodal researchers,
the main questions are: Where does this potential arise from? What are the
resources available for meaning-making on the page?
Parodi (2012) proposes that the source of this potential may be traced back to
at least four semiotic systems active in academic discourse. These are the ver-
aspects of multimodality in higher education monographs 55

bal, graphic, mathematical and typographic systems, which may be deployed

on the page and configured to interact with each other (see Alyousef & Mickan,
chapter 10 this volume). Emphasising the synergy between these systems, Par-
odi (2012) argues that if we continue to talk about “the text and the figures” or
“the text and the images” and treat them as separate entities, we may fail to
truly appreciate the fundamental role of multimodality in academic discourse
(p. 264). In Parodi’s view, the text-image relations constitute only a part of what
is going on the page in terms of multimodality. In contrast, the entire multi-
modal page takes on the functions set out for images by Archer (2010, p. 202)
above. It is the page that illustrates, argues and elaborates by combining text,
graphics, diagrams and tables.
In this aspect, Parodi’s (2012) proposal bears close resemblance to Bateman’s
(2008) view of the page as a “site of integration” for several distinct resources
for representation, which he characterises using the terms text-typographic,
graphic and diagrammatic (p. 106). Moreover, the page has the potential to
organise these resources in the two-dimensional layout space and combine
their output in new ways. These combinations result in what Lemke (1998)
calls the multiplication of meaning in scientific discourse. For this reason,
understanding the page should be our first priority. The page provides a suitable
point of departure for the current study, because it is something shared by all
research monographs. Many other forms of academic discourse also work with
a “page metaphor” (Bateman, 2008, p. 9), that is, organise their content along
the vertical and horizontal dimensions. In order to take the page apart, we need
a set of applicable analytical tools, beginning with an effective notion of ‘mode’.

Semiotic Modes in the Research Monographs

The concept of mode is central to multimodal research: the debates surround-
ing its definition also affirm its importance. Within the last two decades, var-
ious proposals for defining a mode have been put forward to help us under-
stand the interaction between language, image, layout and other commu-
nicative resources. Some of the major proposals have been outlined in Jewitt
(2014a), whereas other views can be found in, for example, Elleström (2010)
and Forceville (2014). What is important to understand in this connection is
that the definition of a mode is motivated by its use.
Whereas a social semiotic approach to mode, which places emphasis on
the sign-maker, can be particularly revealing for studying multimodality from
the learner’s perspective (see e.g. Simpson, 2014), this chapter describes a mul-
timodal artefact, which is designed to serve a set of communicative func-
tions (Bateman, 2008; Hiippala, 2015). For research monographs, these may
be broadly described as participating in building knowledge within a field
56 hiippala

by engaging with previous research through argument (cf. e.g. Maton, 2014).
To fulfil these functions, the research monograph can draw on a variety of
resources. Parodi (2012) conceptualises these resources as semiotic systems,
whereas Bateman (2008, p. 106) characterises them as text-typographic, graphic
and diagrammatic resources: what connects these two approaches is the focus
on the page. Now, if we take the page as the starting point, as proposed above,
we need to identify a definition of mode that can help us explain how text-
typographic, graphic and diagrammatic resources interact in the research mo-
nograph (see also Simpson, chapter 11 this volume). Only then we may attempt
to identify the semiotic modes active on the page.
Considering the dominant role of written language in the research mono-
graph, it is possible to draw on a very specific proposal presented in Bate-
man (2009) for identifying the semiotic mode: text-flow. According to Bateman
(2009), the semiotic mode of

text-flow … is found within page-based artefacts whenever there is verbal

text. Here the visual line of the developing text provides a basic one-
dimensional organisational scheme. Although this may incorporate con-
tributions involving other presentational modes, such as diagrams, tables,
and related texts (e.g. footnotes, side notes, etc.), the most important dis-
tinguishing feature of this mode is that the spatial nature of the page is
not made to carry significant meanings in its own right.
p. 61

To summarise, text-flow is built around the one-dimensional, linear structure

of written language, and does not take advantage of the layout space to make
additional meanings. This does not, however, prevent the use of text-flow in
multimodal artefacts that use the entire two-dimensional layout space. In fact,
this is entirely common: one such example is contemporary secondary school
English textbooks, whose layout and placement of textual and graphical con-
tent is described as “fluid” by Bezemer and Kress (2009, p. 261). They see “a
clear shift from predominantly written text set in constrained typography and
confined to a rigid, single- or two-column grid to a composition of (typo)graph-
ically irregular writing and image-based elements placed fluidly on a two-page
spread” (ibid.).
Yet in some other artefacts, such as the research monograph, text-flow ap-
pears to be the dominant semiotic mode, taking over the entire page to realise
a one- or two-column layout: one such example may be found right before your
eyes. Although the principle of one-dimensional linearity governs the general
organisation of text-flow, this does not rule out the possibility of exploiting the
aspects of multimodality in higher education monographs 57

two-dimensional layout space within the diagrammatic mode, which can inter-
rupt text-flow in the form of diagrams, figures, and other graphical elements—
an issue to which I will return shortly below. With this brief description of
text-flow, we are already a step closer to the research monograph, which reflects
many of the characteristics ascribed to this semiotic mode above.
But how does the semiotic mode of text-flow help us to understand the
research monograph, as opposed to working with the assumption that lan-
guage and images constitute their own semiotic modes? With text-flow, we can
advance beyond the traditional language/image dichotomy, and focus on how
written language and the accompanying graphic elements interact on the page,
while the general organising principle remains linear and one-dimensional
(Bateman, 2009, p. 61). At the same time, we naturally continue to observe
how language and image are used to realise this particular semiotic mode. It
is important to understand, however, that text-flow—like any other semiotic
mode—is an abstraction. In reality, what the semiotic mode is used for deter-
mines its structure: when used for feature journalism, text-flow may take a very
different form than in academic discourse. Additionally, within academic dis-
course, the configuration of text-flow is likely to vary multimodally (Parodi,
2012) and linguistically (Hyland & Bondi, 2006) according to disciplinary con-
ventions.
Because text-flow is driven by written language, we can also leverage pre-
vious research conducted within linguistics, particularly in the area of text
organisation and structure (see e.g. Mann & Thompson, 1988; Martin, 1992).
This places us in a relatively strong position with respect to written language
on the page, but much more work remains to be done to achieve a similar posi-
tion in terms of what occurs among the blocks of text-flow. The graphic and
diagrammatic modes and their many realisations—figures, diagrams, tables,
charts, in addition to their combinations in information graphics—have so far
evaded comprehensive description. This may require, however, reconsidering
our imports from the field of linguistics, as the diagrammatic mode, in partic-
ular, may involve increasingly complex multimodal structures. Guo (2004), for
instance, has shown that diagrams can organise their content into sequences,
while simultaneously grouping parts of the sequence together into a concep-
tual structure. In the case studied by Guo, making sense of the diagram requires
the simultaneous application of two distinct interpretations to identify the
sequential and conceptual structures. Without identifying and interpreting
this kind of dual structure, the reader is unlikely to understand the meanings
conveyed by the diagram.
As said, much work remains to be done in mapping the diagrammatic mode,
before our knowledge of its structure and functions matches the level of detail
58 hiippala

figure 3.1 Medium, semiotic modes and genre. The left-hand side shows a medium—such as a
book—that provides a range of semiotic modes, whose specific configuration
depends on what kind of multimodal artefact is realised using the semiotic modes.
These are reflected in genre-specific patterns in the artefact structure, illustrated on
the right-hand side, which include at least the content hierarchy, rhetorical
organisation, typographic and graphic features and the use of layout space.

achieved for written language within the field of linguistics. For this reason,
I seek to strengthen the analytical framework developed in this chapter by
introducing two additional concepts, medium and genre, which help to tie
together the textual and graphical contributions to the research monograph
and its pages.

Complementing the Framework with Medium and Genre

The concept of text-flow serves as a foundation for analysing the research
monographs, but the framework may be considerably reinforced by introduc-
ing two additional concepts: medium and genre. These concepts improve our
capability to distinguish between the research monographs and other multi-
modal artefacts used in higher education. This capability is crucial, particu-
larly if we wish to better understand what happens when the content of the
research monograph is recontextualised—or “resemiotised”, to use Iedema’s
(2003) term—in a classroom presentation or other form of learning material. To
provide a general view of the framework, the relations between genre, medium,
and semiotic modes are set out in Figure 3.1.
The first concept, medium, is concerned with the material underlying of the
semiotic modes. No semiotic mode, including text-flow, can emerge without
a material that can be manipulated for communicative purposes by a group
aspects of multimodality in higher education monographs 59

of users. Over time, these materials can take a more permanent form as their
production and consumption stabilises. Prime examples of contemporary print
media include newspapers and books, which provide a range of semiotic modes
that can be used to realise various genres (Kress, 2005, p. 11). The newspaper,
for instance, is a medium that can realise both tabloids and broadsheets. The
book medium, in turn, commonly carries genres ranging from the research
monograph to novels and non-fiction books.
The second concept, genre, is frequently used in multimodal research to
describe various artefacts and situations, and to circumscribe the phenomena
under analysis (Hiippala, 2014, p. 111). In addition, this concept has been used
to build analytical frameworks that aim to capture the differences between
multimodal artefacts: this is also how the concept will be put to use in this
chapter. The most well-known development in this area is the Genre and Mul-
timodality model (hereafter GeM; see Bateman, 2008), which seeks to identify
multimodal genre patterns. To capture these patterns, the model attends to
various aspects of the multimodal artefact, including the content, its hierar-
chical organisation, appearance, placement in layout, and rhetorical relations.
These patterns, together with the social practices associated with the use of the
artefact, constitute the notion of genre within the GeM model (Bateman, 2008,
p. 16). I will introduce the analytical tools provided by the GeM model in more
detail shortly below, as I deploy them to describe the multimodal characteris-
tics of the research monograph.
But why it is necessary to bring in medium and genre to complement the
concept of semiotic modes? I have argued elsewhere that their joint contri-
bution is significant to any multimodal artefact (Hiippala, 2015). The medium
provides the available semiotic modes, which are configured to reflect the prop-
erties of the genre that is being realised. The end result is a multimodal artefact,
which is more or less appropriate for some communicative purpose, depending
on how well it meets the requirements set for the particular genre in question.
As Forceville (2014) argues:

Genre is an element of context whose importance cannot be underestimated.

Genre-attribution moreover occurs mostly subconsciously and in mil-
liseconds, and is in my view the single most important element in the
addressee’s cognitive environment steering his strategy of interpretation
of any pictorial or multimodal message.
p. 63, original emphasis

This also applies to the research monograph, whether it is realised in printed

form or as electronic books, as the moment readers set their eyes on the
 60 hiippala

table 3.1 Page 52 in Bateman and Schmidt (2012)

Base unit Content Layout unit

1 52 Page number
2 Semiotics and documents Running head

3 2.3.1 Three general perspectives on documents Header

4 For documents in general one can essentially adopt three

perspectives: the content view, the logical view, and the layout
view.
5 These perspectives are suggested graphically in Figure 2.5. Paragraph #1
6 In this section, we will characterise them in general and then in
Chapters 5 and 7 work with them for capturing the specifics of
films.

7 [A diagram showing the three perspectives, see Figure 3.2] Figure

8 Figure 2.5 Three basic perspectives on a document Caption

9 The content view perspective covers the ‘typical observer’ interest

in a document: that is, assuming for now a range of presumedly
intended ‘readers’, what these readers will generally orient towards
will be the ‘represented content’ of the document.
10 Although much can be said about such content, in this book we
will only consider this view to the extent that it is relevant for
building our analytic framework for the moving image. Paragraph #2
11 From the document perspective, the notion of content used
corresponds to the body of material that has, by some means, been
selected for presentation within some document; with respect to
the document, therefore, it can be seen as ‘pre-existing’ and the
main question concerns the organisation that is imposed upon it in
order to construct a document.

12 We will impose constraints on the kind of content that is

admissible as we proceed.
13 For example, and to begin, since we will be focusing exclusively on
filmic documents in this book, the content will be taken to be ‘raw’
recordings or creations of some pro-filmic material. Paragraph #3
 aspects of multimodality in higher education monographs 61

Base unit Content Layout unit

14 This can be taken as corresponding loosely to the various ‘takes’

produced during filming before being edited into their appearance
in the final film.
15 For film, therefore, the ‘shot’ serves as a typical example of a
content portion.

16 Such content portions may be constituted by material of different

kinds.
Paragraph #4
17 All that is required for current purposes, however, is that we can
assume … [page break]

artefact, they begin to make assumptions about its content and structure: What
is this text about? What is the best strategy for engaging with the text? Genre
generates expectations, and how it is able to do so can only be understood
by considering genre in connection with both medium and semiotic modes.
However, the contributions of medium, genre and semiotic modes are subtle
and often conflated, thus explicating them requires a systematic approach,
such as the one advocated by the GeM model.

Describing the Research Monograph

In the following section, I will show how the analytical tools introduced above
can be used to bring out certain characteristics of the research monograph
as a multimodal artefact. Methodologically, I will mainly draw on the GeM
model (Bateman, 2008), applying its tools to analyse a page from Bateman
and Schmidt (2012). The research monograph in question proposes a new
approach to multimodal film analysis, treating film as a kind of document
(see also Bateman, 2013). Within the monograph, this specific page is a part
of the theoretical discussion. It introduces several different perspectives to
documents, and like many other research monographs, it does so by using the
semiotic mode of text-flow. Moreover, as the page also integrates contributions
from the diagrammatic mode, it presents a suitable target of analysis for this
chapter.
My analysis proceeds in the order described shortly below, because the GeM
model builds its analysis layer by layer. Due to this approach, the model is best
62 hiippala

introduced as the analysis unfolds. Those wishing to introduce themselves to

the GeM model before engaging with the analysis below may refer to the prin-
ciples behind the model, which are set out in a concise form in Hiippala (2014)
and more extensively in Hiippala (2015, chapters 3 and 5). In the following anal-
ysis, I will first use the GeM model to dissect the page into distinct analytical
units, before moving on to consider aspects of page layout and its organisa-
tion. Having established a sufficient understanding of the layout structure, I
proceed to consider how text-image relations emerge on the page. Finally, I
present my conclusions based on these analyses, considering how an improved
understanding of the research monographs’ multimodal structure may help
both learners and teachers.

Dissecting the Page

Table 3.1 shows the content on page 52 in Bateman and Schmidt (2012) and
distributes this content into two analytical categories: base and layout units,
which serve as the point of departure for the discussion. The centre column
presents the actual content on the page, which is also marked for its typo-
graphic features, indicating the use of bold and italic typefaces. The left-hand
column segments this content into base units, while the right-hand column
distributes the identified base units into layout units (Bateman, 2008, pp. 111–
117). Throughout this chapter, I will frequently use the numbers for base units
to refer to the content found on the page. To put this convention into practice
right away, Table 3.1 also includes a diagram (7), which is represented in Fig-
ure 3.2. Next, I will explain how these analytical units help us to take the first
step in investigating the multimodal structure of the page.
The GeM model defines a range of base units to ensure comparable and
reproducible analyses. In a strict sense, these definitions limit what can be
talked about in the analysis, in order to avoid getting lost in the “infinite detail”
(Forceville, 2007, p. 1236). This kind of detail accumulates rapidly if artefact
parts are randomly picked up for analysis. The base units defined in the GeM
model are given in Bateman (2008), but certain units can be showcased here
using the examples presented in the left-hand column of Table 3.1. The base
units identified in the GeM model include, for instance,

– page numbers (1),

– running heads (2),
– headers (3),
– sentences (4),
– and diagrams (7).
aspects of multimodality in higher education monographs 63

figure 3.2 A sketch of Figure 2.5 on page 52 in Bateman and Schmidt (2012), which retains the
original layout and conceptual structure

These base units constitute the minimal units of analysis, underlining the
rather broad approach to multimodal analysis taken within the GeM model.
None of the aforementioned analytical units, including sentences and dia-
grams, are decomposed further, because maintaining a tight grip on analytical
granularity allows the framework to “concentrate on the combination of infor-
mation across modes” (Bateman, 2008, p. 111). This is precisely what we need,
considering our goal, that is, an improved understanding of how this particular
page operates multimodally as a part of the research monograph.
However, the GeM model does more than segments the content into ana-
lytical units: after identification, the base units are handed over to a variety
of analytical layers for further description. One such layer is the layout layer,
which describes the content on the page from various perspectives: what kinds
of hierarchical relations hold between the content, what are its typographic
and graphic features, and where the content is located in the layout. In order
to scale up the description, the base units are joined together to form layout
units. As the right-hand column in Table 3.1 indicates, sentences, for instance,
are combined into paragraphs in the layout layer: the base units 4, 5 and 6 make
64 hiippala

figure 3.3 The layout structure of page 52

up paragraph #1. The resulting layout units may be then observed from various
perspectives introduced above: hierarchy, appearance and placement.
The first perspective to be examined is the layout structure, which deter-
mines how the layout units relate to each other in terms of hierarchical rela-
tionships. These relations are typically represented using a tree structure, as
shown in Figure 3.3, which visualises the layout structure of page 52 in Bate-
man and Schmidt (2012).
On the top of the tree diagram is the page, which does not constitute an
actual layout unit itself, as indicated by its absence in Table 3.1. The layout
structure, however, requires this unit to provide a root for the hierarchical
organisation. Beginning from the top, the page 52 breaks into two branches:
Section 2.3.1 and Page header.
At this point, we can already begin to build bridges between the page anal-
ysed here and the concepts of medium and genre introduced above. Under
Page header we can find a page number (‘52’) and a running head (‘Semiotics
and documents’). These features—page numbers and running heads—can be
found in a variety of books, regardless of the genre realised using the book
medium. They are, in short, a feature of this particular medium (and many oth-
ers), and for this reason, they should not be conflated with the contributions
arising from genre within our framework. They do not participate in organising
or presenting the content, but act as navigational devices that support the use
of the entire artefact (Bateman, 2008, p. 114).
The actual content, which can be more appropriately described in terms
of genre, resides under the branch Section 2.3.1. This content consists of the
aspects of multimodality in higher education monographs 65

header and the paragraphs that follow, which realise the semiotic mode of text-
flow on page 52. Keeping the initial characterisation of text-flow in mind, the
paragraphs proceed in a linear order, but are interrupted by a diagrammatic
element, Figure 2.5, which cuts the flow of written language. The presence
of this figure within text-flow is marked by the introduction of an additional
level to the hierarchy represented by the layout structure: the composite unit
Figure 2.5, which joins together the diagram and its caption.
This composite unit is particularly interesting from the perspective of arte-
fact structure, because the introduction of an additional level to the layout
hierarchy may also be perceived as a structural cue to the reader. Effectively, this
structure puts the text-flow on hold, prompting the reader to reconsider and
select the appropriate mode of interpretation to make sense of the diagram. As
I will show shortly below, this also encourages the reader to seek out the rela-
tions holding between the diagram and the surrounding text-flow. Although
text-flow proceeds in a linear order, a similar organisational principle does not
necessarily hold for the diagrammatic mode used to realise Figure 2.5, as we
saw in the case described above by Guo (2004).
Holsanova and Nord (2010) have proposed that these structural cues play an
important part in making sense of multimodal artefacts. They write:

… the user recognises functional patterns and principles behind the struc-
ture, knows where to look for specific things, how to find entry points
and possible reading paths, how to recognise information hierarchies,
etc.
holsanova & nord 2010, p. 83

The research monograph has functional patterns to support its interpretation,

as exemplified by the layout structure used to introduce the diagram. It also
has a very clear organising principle behind its structure, linearity, which is
reflected in the positioning of the paragraphs on the same level of the layout
hierarchy. Built around the one-dimensional linear structure of text-flow, the
research monograph is far less demanding terms of visual perception and
interpretation, particularly when compared to other genres taking advantage
of the layout space. This can be made explicit by comparing the layout structure
in Figure 3.3 to those found in other genres, such as a tourist brochure and an
in-flight magazine, which are presented in Figure 3.4.
As Figure 3.4 shows, genres that take advantage of the layout space to organ-
ise their content can have far more complex layout structures. Constructing
composite units of text and graphics and demarcating them from each other in
the layout space, while simultaneously establishing connections between the
66 hiippala

figure 3.4 Layout structures in a tourist brochure and an in-flight magazine

different parts of the content requires a complex layout structure. This is evi-
dent, for instance, in the tourist brochures, in which a double-page can host a
wealth of different multimodal ensembles: descriptive texts, photographs with
captions, information boxes, lists of destinations, schedules in tables, and so
forth, which all work towards the same communicative goal. Compared to the
tourist brochure and in-flight magazine, the research monograph is far less
complex in terms of the layout structure. Why?
Examined using the GeM model, which focuses on multimodal structure,
the page of a research monograph appears deceptively simple. However, the
complexity of text-flow in the research monograph is revealed upon zooming in
to the written language deployed within this semiotic mode. What can be found
here is language, used for academic purposes, which encodes and compresses
meanings to a high degree (Ventola, 1996; Halliday, 1998). Because unpacking
academic discourse is a demanding task, the research monograph—as a multi-
modal artefact—has to support easy access to the content. If the reader would
have to simultaneously resolve a complex layout structure, such as those found
in the tourist brochure or in-flight magazine shown in Figure 3.4, this would add
considerably to the demands presented by the artefact to the reader. It may be
proposed that by adopting a ‘shallow’ layout structure, the research monograph
supports a specific type of activity: strategic reading. During strategic reading,
the readers actively monitor their response to the content: this is different from
skimming or searching, which are used when seeking an answer to a question
(Waller, 2012, pp. 239–241). For this kind of reading, the complex but immedi-
ate layout structure of the tourist brochure may be more appropriate, given the
right structural cues.
aspects of multimodality in higher education monographs 67

What has not been discussed so far are the more explicit forms of cue struc-
tures, particularly those arising from the text-typographic resources available
within the semiotic mode of text-flow. As Table 3.1 shows, several base units
or their parts on page 52 are highlighted typographically. Within the actual
content of the page, a header (3), parts of a sentence (4) and a caption (8) are
emphasised either using a bold or italic typeface. Both the header and the cap-
tion may be considered “access structures”, which are distinguished typograph-
ically from the main body of content (Waller, 2012, p. 241). The three nominal
groups—‘content view’, ‘logical view’ and ‘layout view’—marked using a bold
typeface are particularly interesting, because these nominal groups are also
present in the accompanying diagram (7) (see Figure 3.2). This kind of struc-
tural cuing is a common way of directing the reader’s attention from text to
images, which has also been noted in the study of “multimedia learning” (see,
for example, the references in Holsanova et al., 2009, p. 1216). However, on the
current page, these typographically highlighted nominal groups do not con-
stitute the sole reference to the diagram: it is also referred to explicitly in the
following sentence (5). To shed light on the text-image relations, in the follow-
ing section, I examine the relations between text-flow and diagrammatic mode,
showing that the two examples introduced above—the nominal groups and
the sentence—participate in different types of structure commonly found in
the research monograph and other multimodal genres.

Examining the Relations between Text and Images

Several frameworks have been developed for describing text-image relations
in multimodal artefacts (see e.g. Martinec & Salway, 2005; Kong, 2006). These
frameworks draw mainly on previous proposals in linguistics and semiotics to
provide detailed analyses of text-image relations. Bateman (2008, p. 145), how-
ever, argues that many of these accounts suffer from a significant limitation.
They often draw “single relations between elements”, such as the diagram and
its caption on page 52, while simultaneously assuming that similar text-image
relations may also hold between collections of textual and graphic elements.
Due to the lack of a supporting notion of structure, text-image relations are
often drawn between any elements that appear connected.
This analytical problem presents a challenge for the current study, which
needs to be resolved if we wish to understand how page 52 is structured mul-
timodally. As I pointed out above, both sentences 4 and 5 on page 52 seem
to relate to the diagram (7) and its caption (8), which will be now bundled
together into “an image-text-complex”, following the term proposed by Kvåle
(2010). I do so based on the observation made in the layout structure: incor-
porating the diagram and its caption into the text-flow requires an additional
68 hiippala

level in the layout structure. Given this structural cue, it is likely that a text-
image relation holds between the elements participating in the image-text
complex—this is where we could also apply the frameworks proposed in Mar-
tinec and Salway (2005) and Kong (2006). Yet this would raise another question:
if a text-image relation holds between the diagram and its caption, what kinds
of relations hold between the image-text-complex and sentences 4 and 5, which
also refer to the diagram and its caption?
To achieve a more comprehensive and precise description of how text and
images work together on the page, the GeM model carries the notion of struc-
ture over from the base layer to the description of text-image relations. These
relations are described using Rhetorical Structure Theory (hereafter rst; see
e.g. Mann & Thompson, 1988; Taboada & Mann, 2006)—an established theory
of text structure and coherence, which provides a set of relations to describe
how parts of discourse relate to each other. The GeM model extends these rela-
tions to cover the entire page, examining relations within text-flow, that is,
how sentences relate to each other, while also acknowledging the possibility
that relations may hold between particular segments in the text-flow and the
accompanying graphic or diagrammatic element. As a part of the GeM model,
rst has been applied successfully to various multimodal artefacts. It has been
used, for instance, to draw out genre differences across cultures (Kong, 2013;
Thomas, 2014) and to criticise graphic and document design (Delin & Bateman,
2002).
It is important to understand, however, that rst does not pursue a descrip-
tion of rhetoric in its traditional sense as a form of persuasion, nor as it is often
understood in North America (especially in relation to genre; see Bawarshi
& Reiff, 2010, chapter 6). Instead, the aim of the rhetorical analysis in the
GeM model is to uncover how multimodal artefacts achieve coherence, or
well-formedness, which is an essential property, if the artefact is to achieve
its designated communicative goals. Taboada and Habel (2013) summarise
coherence effectively by defining it “as a property of texts whereby all parts
of a text have a reason to be in the text and, furthermore, there is no sense
that there are parts that are somehow missing” (p. 66). In plain words, coher-
ence is achieved when the text meets the readers’ expectations. These expec-
tations arise from genre and apply also to multimodal artefacts (Bateman,
2014a).
Rhetorical relations are often presented using tree-like diagrams, such as
the one shown in Figure 3.5 (see also Taboada & Mann, 2006, pp. 425–426).
The diagram in Figure 3.5 presents a part of the rhetorical structure found on
page 52 of Bateman and Schmidt (2012). In the following description, I will focus
especially on how the diagram is integrated into the rhetorical structure, which
aspects of multimodality in higher education monographs 69

figure 3.5 A partial rhetorical structure on page 52 in Bateman and Schmidt (2012). The
numbers indicating the identified rhetorical units correspond to those presented in
Table 3.1.

handles discourse relations within text-flow. The various relations present in

text-flow have not been expanded in Figure 3.5, as indicated by the right-
hand side of the diagram. For text-image relations, Figure 3.5 proposes that a
specific relation, restatement, holds between the diagram (7) and its caption
(8). Essentially, this means that the diagram and its caption are treated as
equals: they restate each other (see Bateman, 2008, pp. 158–159). What is worth
noting here is that this image-text-complex falls under a different branch of the
rhetorical structure as the units that make up the text-flow (4, 5, 6, 9, and so on).
For this reason, in terms of the rhetorical structure, no direct rhetorical relation
exists between the text-flow and the image-text-complex (7–8) incorporated
within it.
Although sentence 5 refers explicitly to the image-text-complex, as a part of
the rhetorical structure its purpose is to add information to sentence 4. As Fig-
ure 3.5 shows, a relation of elaboration holds between the two sentences.
It is also worth noting that Table 3.1 shows sentence 6 standing between sen-
tence 5 and the diagram: the reference is embedded within text-flow and does
not immediately precede the diagram. Thus, given the linear principle that gov-
erns text-flow, it may be more appropriate to describe the connection to the
diagram established in sentence 5 as a navigation structure. This structure is
70 hiippala

realised using a direct reference in sentence 5 to caption 8: “These perspectives

are suggested graphically in Figure 2.5.” We can use the navigation layer of the
GeM model to explicate how the navigation structure is established. In sen-
tence 5, ‘Figure 2.5’ acts as a pointer towards caption 8. It is caption 8, in turn,
which identifies the accompanying figure as 2.5, that acts as an entry point in
the navigation structure (Henschel, 2003, pp. 20–21).
According to Taboada and Habel (2013), “rhetorical relations between fig-
ures and text can be understood as coherence links, contributing to the per-
ceived coherence of a document” (p. 66). With the help of the GeM model and
its multiple analytical layers, we can make increasingly precise observations
about the nature of coherence in multimodal artefacts, situate them within the
framework and consequently, complement Taboada and Habel’s (2013) already
extensive description. The example in Figure 3.5 suggests that coherence can
also be achieved using other means than drawing rhetorical relations between
the content on the page. As I showed above for sentence 5 and the image-text-
complex, a navigation structure may also contribute towards coherence in a
multimodal artefact: it may be suggested that the readers engaging with the
research monograph genre expect the contributions from the graphic and dia-
grammatic modes to be signposted clearly within text-flow, either using the
rhetorical structure or some other structure. Alternatively, this kind of signpost-
ing may involve the cooperation of multiple structures, such as rhetorical and
navigation structures with typographic emphasis.
As stated, the different kinds of structures found in multimodal artefacts are
often intertwined. As Bernhardt (1985) writes:

When a writer elects to make a text visually informative, the decision has
consequences which extend down through the text to all levels of struc-
turing, from the large rhetorical divisions of the text, to the intersentential
strategies of cohesion, to the syntax of individual clauses.
p. 19

So far, we have not considered the introductory sentence (4) on the page, except
for its use of the bold typeface to emphasise certain nominal groups: “For doc-
uments in general one can essentially adopt three perspectives: the content
view, the logical view, and the layout view.” As Figure 3.2 showed, these nomi-
nal groups are also rendered linguistically as labels in the diagrammatic mode.
However, I also emphasised that the GeM model does not extend rhetorical
analysis to nominal groups or clauses within sentences, nor does it deconstruct
graphic or diagrammatic elements. Therefore, to account for the apparent text-
image relations that lie beyond the reach of rhetorical analysis, we need to trace
aspects of multimodality in higher education monographs 71

the steps outlined by Bernhardt (1985) and move from the rhetorical structure
towards cohesion.
In multimodal research, cohesion is often understood in terms set out for
language by Halliday and Hasan (1976). Essentially, Halliday and Hasan (1976)
treat cohesion in language as a non-structural resource for making meaning,
that is, cohesion is not bound to any particular type of linguistic structure. In
plain words, text achieves cohesion by talking about the same or related things,
which together form a cohesive field of meaning. Within multimodal research,
the concept of cohesion has been applied to the study of text-image relations
by Royce (1998, 2007) and developed further in Liu and O’Halloran (2009). Bate-
man (2014b, p. 161) points out that it is not surprising that cohesion has gained
currency in multimodal research, because the concept is not bound to any spe-
cific type of structure. Lacking the constraining notion of structure, cohesive
ties may be readily drawn across multiple modes, as I have already shown in
the case of the apparent links between the typographically-emphasised nom-
inal groups in sentence (4) and their rendition in the diagrammatic mode in
diagram (7). In this chapter, turning towards cohesion represents a departure
from the approach pursued so far, which has emphasised the benefit of having
the constrained notion of structure at hand.
To examine cohesion in action, Table 3.2 tracks the cohesive ties found
on page 52. As the table shows, cohesive ties may be found across the entire
page, cross-cutting both text-flow and the diagram. Although Table 3.2 does
not describe the actual mechanisms that create cohesion, for which proposals
may be found in the work of Royce, Liu and O’Halloran, the table illustrates how
the cohesive chains instantly weave a web across the entire page. As Taboada
(2004, p. 168) points out, cohesive chains are rarely found in isolation: instead,
they occur parallel to other chains. In this case, we may identify three cohesive
chains, which correspond to the typographically-highlighted nominal groups:
content view, logical view and layout view. The three chains are first introduced
(4–6) and then visualised using the image-text-complex (7–8), followed by an
examination of the first chain, that is, the content view. The logical and layout
views are discussed later: for this reason, their cohesive chains disappear after
sentence 8, because Table 3.2 does not extend beyond page 52. These chains
are naturally picked up on the following pages. The reader is likely to know this
as well, as such cohesive discontinuities are a common feature of the research
monograph genre.
Now, what does this brief analysis of cohesion reveal about multimodality
on the page of a research monograph? The cohesive ties obviously cross-cut
both text-flow and the diagram, but whether the analysis reveals any additional
insights into the multimodal structure of the page is questionable.
72 hiippala

table 3.2 Cohesive chains on page 52 of Bateman and Schmidt (2012). A bracketed letter l
indicates a linguistic instance in the cohesive chain, whereas a bracketed letter v
marks a visual instance. The cohesive chains are organised according to their
respective topics: the content, logical, and layout views on document structure. The
lines that span all three columns indicate where the chains merge.

Base unit Content view Logical view Layout view

3 [Header] [ L: three general perspectives ]

4 [L: the content view] [L: the logical view] [L: the layout view]
5 [Pointer to 8] [ L: these perspectives ]
6 [ L: them ]
7 [Diagram] [L: the content view] [L: the logical view] [L: the layout view]
8 [Caption] [ L: three basic perspectives ]
9 [L: the content view perspective]
10 [L: this view]
11 [L: the notion of content]
12 [L: the kind of content]
13 [L: the content]
14 [L: this]
15 [L: a content portion]
16 [L: such content portions]

In fact, it may be argued that the description of cohesive ties actually raises
more questions, particularly in relation to how the typographically-emphasised
nominal groups are used on the page. So far, we have worked with the assump-
tion that these nominal groups were somehow related to the diagram. Given
their position in Table 3.2, however, we may also consider whether the typo-
graphic resources are actually used to highlight the beginning of the three cohe-
sive chains. This would mean that they are used as a structural cue to support
metacognition, emphasising the most important topics to be discussed in the
text, which extend beyond the page currently under analysis. At the same time,
they can reinforce text-image relations on the page, but their presence would
not be necessary: the diagram remains integrated into the artefact structure
through the cross-reference in the navigational structure. Because the typo-
graphically highlighted text has the potential to serve two different purposes—
highlight the beginning of cohesive chains and text-image relations—it may be
suggested that this reflects precisely what Lemke (1998) called the multiplica-
tion of meaning on the page in scientific discourse.
aspects of multimodality in higher education monographs 73

Generally, what this brief analysis implies is that we must evaluate the
page in terms of multimodality, which encompasses far more than text-image
relations. This proposition ties in particularly with Parodi’s (2012) observation
that we must reconsider our often language-centric position and consider
the page as an ensemble that works toward a common communicative goal.
Depending on the artefact in question, the page will use the available text-
typographic, graphic and diagrammatic resources as necessary to meet this
goal. Moreover, the page is likely to have multiple strategies for doing so: for
instance, as I showed above, text-image relations can be handled through both
rhetoric and navigational structures. It is also possible to leave these relations
to be handled by cohesion. However, in certain artefacts, such as the research
monograph, abandoning the explicit references in the rhetorical or layout
structure may result in reduced coherence, as the readers expect these relations
to be set out using these structures. This concludes the analysis of page 52:
in the following section, I will provide a brief summary of the analysis before
considering its implications.

Conclusion

In this chapter, I have described certain features of the research monograph as a

multimodal artefact. First of all, I proposed that the research monograph can be
described effectively by working with a specific definition of a semiotic mode,
that is, examining its language-driven structure as text-flow. I then suggested
that appropriate analytical tools can be used to reveal certain patterns that
are characteristic of the research monograph as a genre realised using the
book medium. These patterns, which comprised the layout, rhetorical and
navigational structures, were described using the Genre and Multimodality
model (Bateman, 2008; Hiippala, 2015).
The layout structure, responsible for organising the content into hierarchies,
revealed a relatively simple and shallow organisation: I proposed that the sim-
ple layout structure is motivated by the needs of using language for academic
purposes. Unpacking the highly compressed meanings of academic discourse
already requires significant effort from the reader. For this reason, the shallow
hierarchy in the layout structure facilitates the reader’s access to the content,
while simultaneously supporting the use of the artefact by signalling breaks in
the text-flow, which may come in the form of tables, diagrams, and figures and
other graphic and diagrammatic elements.
To examine text-image relations in the research monograph, I analysed how
text-flow handles relations between written language and the diagram on the
74 hiippala

page. I showed that text-image relations, which constitute one aspect of coher-
ence in multimodal artefacts (Taboada & Habel, 2013; Bateman, 2014a), can
also be realised using a navigation structure. Instead of embedding the diagram
into the rhetorical structure, a direct reference is sufficient for integrating the
diagram into the multimodal structure of the page, because the page consti-
tutes a multimodal ensemble that works towards a shared communicative goal
(cf. Hiippala, 2015, chapter 2). Finally, I considered aspects of cohesion, that is,
how the page ensures continuity in presenting the subject matter, while also
examining how typography can simultaneously support both cohesion and
text-image relations.
What I have attempted to show with this brief analysis of a single page in
a research monograph is that by applying state-of-the-art theories and meth-
ods in multimodal analysis, we can also make useful observations about gen-
res that may not be instantly perceived as multimodally interesting. In higher
education, however, an improved understanding of such genres—the research
monograph, for instance—may help to identify the most effective strategies for
recontextualising its content in other genres, such as presentations, handouts,
and in other media, such as blackboards or interactive whiteboards. The con-
tent may be recontextualised in various ways: the use of comics to introduce
French critical theory (see O’Halloran, 1999) may be considered an extreme
case, as this involves rendering the content using another semiotic mode (Bate-
man & Wildfeuer, 2014). A more ordinary situation facing the teacher may
involve creating a slideshow using presentation software.
From the perspective of this chapter, the recontextualisation of content
involves a transition from one genre to another, which can also entail a change
of the medium, for instance, from book to presentation. The contribution of the
medium should not be underestimated, because it is the medium that makes
the semiotic modes available. Apart from attending to the possibilities pro-
vided by dynamic digital media, this raises several questions for those working
within areas of multimodal research and education: What are the most efficient
strategies for recontextualising the content from research monographs in pre-
sentations? Can we summarise academic arguments realised using text-flow
effectively in bullet points? Can we carry over the content in the diagrammatic
mode to the presentation without any changes at all? Answering these kinds of
questions will likely require input from researchers in education and other rel-
evant fields specialising in the reception of learning materials, not to mention
the students themselves. In any case, the more we know about multimodality
in both ‘source’ and ‘target’ genres and media, the better.
This leads us to the final point made in this chapter, that is, whether multi-
modal analysis can help the learners to better cope with research monographs.
aspects of multimodality in higher education monographs 75

This does not, of course, involve them performing actual analyses of learning
materials. Instead, an awareness of multimodality should provide various tools
to support metacognition. Tracing the cohesive chains, for instance, may help
to follow an argument in academic discourse. Based on my personal experience
of teaching academic writing, students often tend to stop reading the moment
they encounter an unfamiliar word or concept. Following through the cohe-
sive chain on the page may help to contextualise the concept under discussion,
and therefore, support strategic reading. Additionally, encouraging learners to
attend to text-image relations may help them to make sense of the diagram-
matic mode, and how this mode operates alongside text-flow. Moreover, expli-
cating these structures to learners may help them to draw on their previous
knowledge of complex multimodal genres acquired outside the classroom and
consequently, help them to apply these literacies in academic contexts.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Kate Maxwell and Ivan Berazhny for their comments on
earlier versions of this chapter, and the Ella and Georg Ehrnrooth Foundation
for supporting the research financially.

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 chapter 4

Multimodality, Argument and the Persistence of

Written Text

Lesley Gourlay

Introduction

In what is widely regarded as a foundational text, Kress and Van Leeuwen (2001)
argue that in Western culture there has been a tendency towards monomodal-
ity across a range of areas of social and cultural life, citing the preponder-
ance of un-illustrated text in highly-valued genres of writing as an example.
They argue that this has begun to be broken down in contemporary practices,
with a greater presence of multimodal texts drawing on a range of semiotic
resources, including the visual. Their contention is that “within a given social-
cultural domain, the ‘same’ meanings can often be expressed in different semi-
otic modes” (Kress & Van Leeuwen, 2001, p. 1), to substantiate this point is the
stated primary aim of the volume. They argue for this partly on the basis of
the increased use of digitisation, which brings together modes which may have
hitherto not been available for consumption or production via the same device.
As they point out, the notion of a ‘grammar’ of various modes has been posited
by a range of authors, such as Martinec (1998) looking at the semiotics of action,
O’Toole’s (1994) work on the semiotics of images and their own work on images
(Kress & Van Leeuwen, 2006). (It is thought-provoking to note the use of the
notion of ‘grammar’ to denote semiotic systems at work in these modes, as this
is a term conventionally associated with language. This seems to imply that
language is regarded here as the prototypical semiotic system, against which
others should be compared, although it is worth noting that Kress has moved
away from this notion in more recent work; see also Hiippala, chapter 3 this
volume, on the dominance of written language in research monographs).
They go on to compare the status of language as a system working through
double articulation—message as form and meaning. This is contrasted with

Gourlay, L. (2016). Chapter 4. Multimodality, Argument and the Persistence of Written Text.
In R. Fidalgo & T. Olive (Series Eds.) & A. Archer, & E.O. Breuer (Vol. Eds.), Studies in Writing:
Vol. 33, Multimodality in Higher Education, (pp. 79–90). Leiden: Brill.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2016 | doi: 10.1163/9789004312067_006

80 gourlay

multimodal texts, which they claim as making meaning in multiple articu-

lations. They use the term ‘strata’ to theorise multimodal communication—
those of discourse, design, production and distribution. They also emphasise
the importance of interpretation and an ‘interpretive community’—without
which communication cannot be said to have taken place. As they point out,
interpreters rely on semiotic knowledge of all of the four levels identified above.
I will return to these constructs later in this chapter. As they put it:

The field of discursive practice is social and therefore historical, and can-
not be understood without a sense of the historical / social contingencies
of the arrangement and configuration of practices and modes. Nor can
we hope to understand fully the shaping and availability of modes and
discourse without a clear sense of the embeddedness of semiosis in the
social, and its historical shaping.
kress & van leeuwen, 2001, p. 43

Academic communication relies on argument, a complex concept which may

be defined in various ways. For the purposes of this paper I will be using the
construct in the sense of “a connected series of statements or reasons intended
to establish a position” (Andrews, 1995, p. 3). In argumentation theory, several
commentators have argued for a greater recognition of the role of the visual.
Birdsell and Groarke (1996) present a special issue of the journal Argumentation
and Advocacy which explores the nature and importance of the nonverbal in
argument, with a particular emphasis on the visual. Groarke notably continued
to develop theories of the visual in argumentation (e.g. Groarke 2002; 2009).
Drawing on this and other related work in argumentation theory (e.g. Gilbert
1994; Blair 1996), in a recent paper Barcelo Aspeitia (2012) argues that:

… not all images used in argumentation play a merely illustrative or

ornamental role. Instead, in some cases, images can substantially and
directly contribute to the one of the key components of argumentation,
i.e., the communication of propositional premises and conclusions.
p. 356

He argues for what he terms heterogeneous arguments (following Barwise, 1993)

which draw on both verbal and visual resources. His key claim is that images
can convey propositional content without the need for verbalisation. He bases
his argument on Stainton’s (2006) analysis of subsentential speech, where he
proposes that this should not be understood as a form of syntactic ellipsis,
but as a subsentential linguistic unit—“a bare phrase” (Barcelo Aspeitia, 2012,
multimodality, argument and the persistence of written text 81

p. 357). The argument here is that when uttered in context, phrases which
are not grammatically propositional can be grasped as full propositions. The
example used by Stainton and referred to by Barcelo Aspeitia is reproduced
below:

Suppose Alice and Bruce are arguing. Bruce takes the position that there
are not really any coloured objects. Alice disagrees. A day or so later,
Alice meets Bruce. Having just read G.E. Moore, she offers the following
argument. She picks up a red pen, and says ‘Red. Right?’ Bruce, guileless
fellow that he is, happily agrees. Alice continues, ‘Red things are coloured
things. Right?’ Bruce nods. At which point Alice springs her trap: ‘So
Bruce, there is at least one coloured thing. This thing.’
stainton, 2006, p. 181; cited in barcelo aspeitia, 2012, p. 358

He argues that Alice conveyed the proposition not through linguistic ellipsis,
but by the subsentential phrase plus the act of holding up the pen. Barcelo
Aspeitia (2012) goes on to argue that the same holds for visual images, that they
can contribute “novel and necessary information for the communication of
arguments, without the need for fully sentential reconstruction” (2012, p. 359).
He states his main aim as “to topple verbal language from its central place in
argumentation, i.e. to show that non-linguistic entities like images can play a
role in argumentation as substantial as that of phrases and sentences” (Barcelo
Aspeitia, 2012, p. 359). He makes the point that verbal reconstruction of a
full verbal proposition is not required in these heterogeneous arguments, a
position which contradicts the claims made by other commentators in the field
(e.g. Johnson, 2003; Tarnay, 2003; Alcolea-Banegas, 2009). In order for these
arguments for be genuinely heterogeneous, Barcelo Aspeitia argues that the
visual images must be seen not as mere clues used to recover ‘missing’ verbal
elements, but must themselves be recognised as putting forward premises and
conclusions. He uses the following example to illustrate this point:

George and Hanna work at a petting zoo. The petting zoo sells small jars
filled with food for the children to feed some of the animals. George and
Hannah are in charge of labelling the jars. Instead of using words, they use
pictures in their labels. Food for feeding sheep is labelled with a picture
of a sheep, food for feeding llamas is labelled with a picture of a llama
and so on. They have several jars filled with assorted vegetables, fruits,
crackers, etc. Some they recognise easily, but for others it is a little harder.
At a certain moment George picks up one of the unidentified jars and asks
Hanna about its content. Hanna inspects its content and says ‘Let me see.
82 gourlay

It is mostly hay, but there are some vegetables in there too. I can see some
chicory greens, kale, green pepper, red cabbage, and other stuff; but there
are no rhubarb leaves or potatoes.’ So she takes one of the labels picturing
a rabbit, sticks it on the jar and hands it to George.
barcelo aspeitia, 2012, p. 364

It is worth pointing out that both Stainton and Barcelo Aspeitia build their
arguments on invented (although plausible) examples of face-to-face spoken
interaction, in which the visual element takes the form of gesturing towards or
placing artifacts. It is also worth noting that the propositions carried by these
visual artifacts are singular, not complex, and are embedded in surrounding
verbal propositions. The case they make is a persuasive one for that type of
context, but the question remains as to whether the same position can be
maintained in the context of complex and sustained academic argument which
is conventionally expressed in verbal written means over an extended text,
involving a wide of range of specialist lexical items and complex grammatical
features such as subordination, with reference to multiple other texts (see also
Thesen, chapter 2 this volume, on the importance of gaze in the academic
lecture).
Working in contemporary rhetoric, Andrews (2014) also expresses the view
that visual images can go beyond illustration and can constitute argument:

… as far as visual argumentation is concerned, it is clear that images

can be used as evidence for claims and propositions. In this role, they
go beyond illustration to providing evidence in a court of law, as incon-
trovertible ‘fact’ in support of a thesis, or as a diagram of a process to
be followed and that is based on a procedure that has been expressed
verbally. But images can fulfil the function of claims and propositions
themselves because of their multiple signification, and especially if they
are juxtaposed with other images and/or they are set in a sequence that
allows logical or quasi-logical connection. Their articulation constitutes
an argument rather than merely persuading.
andrews, 2014, p. 85

Andrews cites as an academic example Strickland’s Engladesh, which is no

longer available online. This was a multimodal slide sequence submitted as
an ma dissertation in Photojournalism at City University, London. The use
of visual images and other forms of nonverbal artifact is an established part
of academic representation in the creative arts, where students may submit
visual or three-dimensional work as a major part of their thesis (See Richards
multimodality, argument and the persistence of written text 83

et al., 2012 for a comprehensive exploration of digital and multimodal theses).

However, there is still a requirement to provide a written academic commen-
tary to accompany the piece. In Andrews’ view, what distinguishes Strickland’s
piece was the very minimal use of verbal text, leading to an artifact which is
almost entirely visual. Richards contends that the sequencing and juxtaposi-
tioning of images in the photo essay lead to a visual academic argument in
this case. However, it is worth pointing out that Strickland’s piece was sub-
mitted for a degree in photojournalism, where the photo essay is an estab-
lished genre, and is it likely that the work was being judged to a large extent
on the basis of its merits in terms of that inherently visual discipline and
field of creative and professional practice (see also Bell, chapter 7, this vol-
ume).
Bayne and Ross (2013) report on a nonverbal ‘digital essay’ which they used
to assess a module as part of an online ma in Digital Education. They focus
on a digital artifact created by a student in the virtual world of Second Life™,
focusing on Donna Haraway’s (1991) well-known theoretical work on the notion
of the cyborg. The student created a virtual 3d ‘Imaginarium’ in this virtual
environment, and deployed a series of images relating to the theme. As they
describe it:

Images of pages from books and articles consulted in creating the piece
are scattered on the floor, as if in reference to the inadequacy of conven-
tional academic citation norms to take account of the volatility of digital
texts. To the left (off screen) is a teleporter which leads to an imax-type
theatre, on which is displayed a looped video of cyborg imagery in films.
Downstairs is a Second Life ‘chatbot’ called Unheimliche (‘unhomely’)
who welcomes visitors and engages them in automated chat, delegating
the speaking ‘voice’ of the essay to a non-human agent in a way which
explicitly engages with the notion of the posthuman and its literacies.
bayne & ross, 2013, p. 103

Minimal written text is used, and images of broken cyborgs are deployed
throughout. Through this assignment Bayne and Ross explicitly encourage stu-
dents to ‘take a stance against representationalism’, from a posthuman perspec-
tive, which questions assumptions about the stable and autonomous human
author. As they put it:

Here textuality becomes more complex, more diverse, and more visual, as
the image and the logic of the screen topples the dominance of the written
word and the logic of the printed page. When students engage with
84 gourlay

new forms of textuality in their academic meaning-making practices,

academic discourse becomes newly strange, and the familiar is rendered
unfamiliar.
bayne & ross, 2013, p. 103

Bayne and Ross (2013) deliberately create a challenge for the reader / assessor,
as essayist literacy has been deliberately rejected, leading to a shift in act of
interpretation required for assessment, which becomes more explicitly depen-
dent on “the intersubjectivity of the assessor and the assessed” (103).
However, it is worth noting that—like Strickland 2008—this visual artifact
and argument was constituted in a medium which was closely associated with
a substantive focus of the course, in this case posthumanism and digital tex-
tuality. Here the visual has been chosen as a medium of argumentation in
order to critique conventional essayist literacy, and also to draw out the sub-
stantive points of the module surrounding the radically distributed nature of
authorship across the human and nonhuman in digital environments. This is a
striking and innovative approach which powerfully disrupts notions of author-
ship and agency around digital texts. However, given that interpretation of the
text depends on the ‘intersubjectivity’ of the assessor and the assessed, it seems
likely that this Imaginarium would not function as a text beyond the context
of this course. This may have been an accepted element of this radical peda-
gogical approach taken by Bayne and Ross, but it does limit the applicability of
this type of approach beyond the expression of this very specialist and reflex-
ive point. Additionally, it might be argued that the Imaginarium in a sense
presents only one substantive proposition—that authorship, agency and tex-
tuality are radically dispersed across human and nonhuman actors. This is a
striking and important point within the context of this course, but I would
argue that this does not constitute a persuasive case for a wholesale rejection
of conventional academic writing as a result, given the apparent limitations
of this nonverbal approach in terms of sharing meaning beyond that context.
Their second example is of a video focusing on the notion of the flaneur, depict-
ing a flyover of Lower Manhattan. This is also a radically different approach
to the conventional written essay, however it is accompanied by a voiceover
using ‘conventional academic prose’, and so does not constitute a nonverbal
academic argument per se.
Ingraham (2005) presents a case for the possibility of sustaining academic
argument without using written verbal text, proposing a bbc programme (bbc
2001) plus accompanying website about prehistoric wildlife as an example. I
have already developed an extended critique of Ingraham’s chapter (Gourlay,
2012). In summary, my objections centre on the fact that the programme con-
multimodality, argument and the persistence of written text 85

tains verbal commentary throughout, and that the website also deploys written
text alongside the images. As above, the argument is carried here primarily by
verbal texts, and where the visual images do carry argument it relies on view-
ers’ prior familiarity with the tropes and relatively simple messages conveyed
by conventional wildlife documentaries.
The literature reviewed above seems to have established that visual images
can be used to express propositions in relatively simple spoken interactions in
conjunction with speech (e.g. Barcelo Aspeitia, 2012). In academic contexts, it
has been argued that visual images alone can also express argument (e.g. Bayne
& Ross, 2013; Andrews, 2014), although the visual or reflexive nature of these
disciplinary contexts and assignments should also be borne in mind. Ingraham
(2005) establishes that visual images and video can carry academic argument
up to a point, but the persuasiveness of his position was undermined by the
presence of heavy verbal scaffolding in the example given. Arguably, the claim
that visual images can carry complex academic argument without the support
of spoken or written text has yet to be made convincingly in the literature. In
the rest of the paper I will argue that although visual images can be deployed
to great effect as part of multimodal (or heterogeneous) argument alongside
verbal or written text, visual images alone do not confer the features required
for the construction of complex and extended academic argument.

Ambiguity, Metaphor and Denotation

This first difficulty with carrying complex academic argument in predomi-

nantly or solely visual formats lies with the precision and clarity that it might
offer in terms of communication. Although language is not a static system and
is constantly in flux and open to interpretation, it is relatively stable in terms
of shared meanings or lexical items and grammatical structures. These shared
meanings—although fuzzy and open to contestation—are reinforced to some
extent by everyday nonacademic language use, formal education, artifacts such
as dictionaries, and established generic conventions of academic writing. Con-
cepts may be referred to in a way which assumes a relatively close and precise
shared meaning between writer and readers. The importance of precision in
this regard can be seen in the prevalence of definitions of terms in academic
writing, emphasising the importance of clear and (at least temporarily) stable
shared meaning. This seems indispensible when seeking to construct an aca-
demic argument, particularly in contexts where a range of inter-related terms
are used, or the same terms are used and deployed slightly differently by differ-
ent authors. Precision and differentiation between closely-related meanings is
86 gourlay

often at the heart of academic argument, and language—with its enormous

range of lexical items—provides this. Language should also be seen as in a
co-constitutive relationship with the social context of use as opposed to being
prior to it—academic enquiry has led to the coinage of range of terms, in order
to make the fine and nuanced distinctions required for high-level academic
argument. Similarly, grammatical structures are used to communicate exact
relationships between these referents. There may be a range of legitimate rea-
sons to critique and question academic genre and conventions, and to seek
to explore alternatives. However, language confers access to meanings such as
tense and mood, which can be used to communicate a range of complex mean-
ings such as sequence, causality and critique in a generally agreed shared code,
and as such seems more suited to complex academic argumentation either
used alone or in conjunction with multimodal forms of expression.
In contrast, it might be argued that visual images (I am excluding diagrams
and tables here) have conventionally been used to construct meaning in a
rather different way—symbolically and metaphorically, as opposed to in the
more restricted precise denotative relationship offered by a lexical item. An
image may be widely recognized, but precisely what it should be understood
to denote may be more ambiguous and open to individual interpretation. This
becomes more complicated when seeking to construct a complex extended
argument by linking a series of propositions together in relationships of com-
parison, contrast and critique through the justaposition of images, as opposed
deploying the relative precision of lexis and grammatical structure. How this
might be achieved unambiguously and in a shared and agreed format is hard
to imagine, and has not yet been exemplified in the literature. In this situa-
tion a greater burden of interpretation falls on the reader and their individual
standpoint—in Kress and Van Leeuwen’s (2001) terms, there is a lack of a stable
interpretive community and broad agreement about the meaning of images in
terms of the strata of discourse, design, production and distribution.

Reliance on Verbal / Written Proposition

Additionally, it might also be argued that where visual images do succeed in

carrying propositions, they do so through reliance on surrounding or preceding
verbal texts as scaffolding. As can be seen above, verbal propositions structure
the visual in the analysis offered by Barcelo Aspeitia (2012). It could also be
argued that meanings conveyed by the student in the nonverbal digital Imag-
inarium presented in Second Life not only depend on prior knowledge on the
part of the author of a highly complex and extended set of written texts, but
multimodality, argument and the persistence of written text 87

also prior knowledge of those texts on the part of the ‘reader’. In that sense, the
example of the images of cyborgs and so on function rather like a citation to
prior written texts which must also have been read, as opposed to a denotation
of a concept. This is admittedly a fine distinction, as it could be argued that
concepts also need prior knowledge and exposure in order to be recognised
and shared. However, my point here is that the burden of detailed argumenta-
tion still falls on the preceding foundational written texts. The expression of a
complex sequence of propositions is not in fact required of the visual Imaginar-
ium, if the assumption is made that the ‘knowing’ readership (in the form of the
course tutors and fellow students) is already familiar with foregoing texts and
conceptual framework. The image then comes to stand for a bundle of asso-
ciated meanings, as opposed to conveying a structured and sequenced set of
propositions in the form of an argument. Admittedly this is one case, and it
should be acknowledged that all academic argument relies on familiarity with
prior texts, but it is difficult to see how—given the problems with precision
highlighted above—it would be possible to convey a ‘new’ academic argument
which interweaves prior reading via visual images, without heavy scaffolding
in the form of written texts, either co-present with the images or acting as sup-
porting texts without which the image could not be interpreted precisely.

Intertextuality and Amenability to Critique

In a related point, a final objection might be made to the notion that academic
argument can be conveyed purely or predominantly by the use of visual images.
Literature review and the critique of previous research and theory form an
important and necessary part of academic argument. This presents an addi-
tional challenge when seeking to present an argument via visual images, in
terms of how these might be deployed to refer to and convey in a nuanced and
critical way the work of others, theoretical propositions and so on, and how to
synthesise, compare and discuss these clearly and unambiguously. It is undeni-
able that visual images can be a powerful means of conveying critique through
pastiche and irony, such as via political cartoons (although again arguably they
are reliant on familiarity with news via written and verbal means). However, the
dense, precise and closely-argued nature of much academic argumentation in
reference to other academics texts seems to demand a system which delivers
nuance and can be readily and relatively unambiguously shared with a read-
ership beyond the immediate context of text production—the complexity of
language still appears better-suited to the task than images alone. Although it
is constantly evolving, language has powerful constructs governing this relative
88 gourlay

stability as a shared code, such as standard grammar, spelling, and dictionary

definitions of lexical items. In addition, it is organised into recognizable writ-
ten genres which convey ‘chunks’ of meaning which guide the reader towards a
recognition of propositional meaning. Rightly or wrongly, it arguably remains
the dominant semiotic mode in education, which also contributes to this stabil-
ity as a shared and relatively unambiguous semiotic resource, unlike the visual.

Conclusion

In this chapter I have sought to examine the contention that complex academic
argument can be expressed solely or predominantly through visual images.
Reviewing related literature from learning technologies, argumentation the-
ory and new rhetoric, I have argued that—despite offering some thought-
provoking or even radical challenges to established conventions of written aca-
demic argument and essayist literacies—the examples given did not amount to
a persuasive case that visual semiotic resources alone are capable of conferring
the level of detail, complexity and precision required for academic argumen-
tation. In the second part of the chapter I argued that this is not possible, due
to a series of limitations of the visual when compared to linguistic text. These
centred on ambiguity of visual images, which I argued leads to a lack of stabil-
ity in terms of interpretive community. While acknowledging the instability
of language itself, and the legitimate criticisms which can be made of aca-
demic textual conventions, I contended that written text is still more suited
than visual images in those terms due to its more strongly codified and there-
fore shared nature. I also made the point that visual propositions depend on
accompanying or preceding verbal texts (spoken or written) in order to convey
meanings in an unambiguous way. My final point was that language remains
preferable to visual images for the expression of critique, and also amenability
to critique by the readership.
Challenges to conventional essayist literacies are often based on accusations
that these genres are exclusionary or needlessly formal—these are all valid crit-
icisms, and the field of multimodality studies offers fresh and radical new ways
of expressing academic ideas in an increasingly digital society and academy.
However, some of the features of written text can in fact be seen as shared,
inclusive and highly generative, whether used alone in ‘conventional’ texts or
in combination with multimodal semiotic resources. What is seen as ‘academic
writing’ is contestable and always emergent and conventions are not fixed and
notions of authorship are also amenable to challenge, for example through the
radically distributed authorship exhibited in wikis. In this regard, I would sug-
multimodality, argument and the persistence of written text 89

gest that the field guard against an overly oppositional stance which results
in ‘conventional’ texts being demonised as inherently retrograde and therefore
problematic. Instead these might be seen as a powerfully generative set of gen-
res which can evolve in response to digital mediation, and in doing so embrace
the richness and disruptive potential of multimodal semiosis without sacrific-
ing the precision, shared code and amenability to critique which they confer.

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 part 2
Multimodality in Text Composition

∵
 chapter 5

Multimodal Academic Argument: Ways of

Organising Knowledge across Writing and Image

Arlene Archer

Introduction

This chapter focuses on the ways in which academic argument is constituted

in multimodal texts. In teaching argument, the mode of writing has generally
been emphasised in the academic domain (see also Gourlay, chapter 4 this
volume). However, academic texts of many kinds rely on the co-presence of
graphic material and writing, and images are becoming increasingly important
as carriers of meaning. It is thus important to think about the ways in which
academic argument is constructed in speech, writing and images, as well as
in the relations between these modes. Three semiotic systems are employed in
most academic assignments. These include written language, images, and what
Matthiessen (2007) calls “visual paralanguage” which includes font and layout
(p. 24). In the composition of printed academic assignments, the semiotic
labour is divided among these different semiotic systems, and the nature of this
division depends on the disciplinary context or on the focus of the assignment
topic. Increased ease and speed of access to different semiotic resources due
to technological innovations leads to “quicker mixes, assembly, reassembly and
distribution of these modes” (Coffin, 2009, p. 515). Also, there are changes in the
division of labour between image and writing in a range of registers contributed
to by the Internet, multimedia technologies, as well as other factors. These
changes in the division of labour have resulted in changes in learning materials
(see Bezemer & Kress, 2008), as well as in the texts students need to produce
for assessment purposes in Higher Education.

Archer, A. (2016). Chapter 5. Multimodal Academic Argument: Ways of Organising Knowledge

across Writing and Image. In R. Fidalgo & T. Olive (Series Eds.) & A. Archer, & E.O. Breuer (Vol.
Eds.), Studies in Writing: Vol. 33, Multimodality in Higher Education, (pp. 93–113). Leiden: Brill.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2016 | doi: 10.1163/9789004312067_007

94 archer

What is Multimodal Academic Argument?

Academic argument engages with ideas in the world, and with the existing
positions and conventions of the discipline. It is a semiotic practice which
has evolved to do specialised kinds of theoretical and practical work. Factors
such as the purpose, the task, and the discipline influence the way in which
argument works and the forms it takes (Coffin, 2009, p. 513). Broadly speaking,
knowledge is often produced through negation and opposition, which involves
positing a thesis, an antithesis and some new kind of synthesis. More specif-
ically defined, argument is a quasi-logical set of ideas that is supported by
evidence (Andrews, 2010). Evidence can be the existing accepted material that
an ‘arguer’ embraces, or resists, but nonetheless draws on to establish a posi-
tion. It is often seen as impersonal or objective. However, producing academic
argument is a social process, where the production of texts reflects methodolo-
gies, arguments and rhetorical strategies of situated authors who adopt inter-
actional and evaluative positions in order to engage their peers (Hyland, 1999;
see also Thesen, chapter 2 this volume).
According to Kress (1989), argument is a cultural textual form that produces
‘difference’ rather than closure. In other words, argument can foreground dif-
ference, produce ambiguity, and so open the space for reconsideration, for a
shift in values and attitudes, and for an extension of thought and investigation.
By providing the means for foregrounding and accepting difference, argument
has the function of producing “new cultural values and knowledge” (Kress, 1989,
p. 12). The notion of ‘difference’ offers insight into how tension is established in
argument. Configurations of modes can construct difference variously through
juxtaposition, comparison and ambiguity, in order to unsettle and question cer-
tain assumptions and perceived dominant ideas. Academic argument can thus
open up a range of possible readings, through encouragement of mis-reading
and ambivalence, but can also close down possible meanings.
In multimodal argument, it is necessary to look at the relationship between
different modes in terms of reinforcement of or opposition against a proposi-
tion (Andrews, 2010). ‘Mode’ refers to a socially and culturally shaped resource
for making meaning, such as written language, spoken language, visual rep-
resentation (Kress, 2010; Kress & Van Leeuwen, 2001). There are many exam-
ples of multimodal academic argument realised through a range of modes and
media. For instance, McCloud (1994) uses the medium of the comic to make an
argument about representation. Huang (2015) examines academic argument
in comics, digital video and PowerPoint. She looks at how these multimodal
texts enable reconsideration of what constitutes academic argument and what
counts as evidence in different genres. For instance, the construction and pre-
multimodal academic argument 95

sentation of evidence in comic form may be quite different from video, as may
other practices crucial to academic argument such as citation. Huang goes a
long way in terms of establishing a metaview of academic argument. She looks
at organisational structures and how they reflect the logic of argument, rhetor-
ical strategies employed, and the ways in which ‘difference’ is established in
different media.
In thinking about how visual and verbal modes realise academic argument,
it is useful to bear in mind the different affordances of these modes, namely
their potentials and constraints for meaning making. In terms of design logics
(Kress, 2003), written language has a linear sequential logic (where font type,
font size and consistent headings follow a linear path) and images tend to have
a non-linear logic of space (where different pathways are established through
the text). The sentence or written line is a perfect example of syntagmatic
logic where the words as signs only have meaning in relation to each other.
On the other hand, in paradigmatic logic, more of the meaning is placed in the
individual elements of the composition, for example, a visual that represents
the characteristics of a particular group. Thus, generally speaking, language
tends to realise sequential relations better than images which realise spatial
relations. Although, one could complicate these categories by arguing that
the underlying logic of writing is spatial, as illustrated by, for instance, the
functioning of Braille (Harris, 1995, p. 45). The boundaries between writing and
images seem blurred at times, but there is a clear semiotic distinction between
them—both in terms of what they represent, and in terms of their potential for
being ‘read’.
Also, modes impose particular ‘epistemological commitments’ (Kress, 2003).
For instance, the image of a building would have to be more specific than the
written word ‘building’ in terms of style, types of doors and windows, roof
line—pointing to a ‘type’ of building, even if it is a generic representation. The
idea of epistemological commitment points to the fact that some modes are
better than others for certain kinds of representational work. For instance, in
the image, the windows of the building may be blue and made out of wood.
This detail may not necessarily be described in the written mode, and points
to the modal affordance of greater specificity in the visual mode.
The type of image chosen to realise a particular function is key to academic
argument in a multimodal composition, such as photographs for ‘observation’
images, as opposed to a diagram for more conceptual images. Here, the ques-
tions could be ‘What is the role of the image or the writing in communicating
the argument?’ or ‘How is the specific image chosen apt in communicating the
argument?’ The function of images in a history course in architecture is dif-
ferent to, say, a Design course. In a history course in architecture, images can
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be used to emphasise a building in its context or to demonstrate particular

structural aspects. In Design courses, however, the image or the model is the
argument, it does not represent the argument.
Thus far, this chapter has outlined a definition of academic argument and
looked at some considerations for multimodal argument, including the estab-
lishing of difference, use of evidence, affordances of modes, and choice of
images. It now looks at the methodological approach employed to look at mul-
timodal academic argument in the first year History and Theory of Architecture
assignments.

Methodological Approach

The theoretical approach taken here is multimodal social semiotics where

meaning is seen to be context-dependent (Jewitt, 2014; Kress & Van Leeuwen,
2006; Stein, 2008; Van Leeuwen, 2005). The approach focuses on “the relation-
ship among texts, social contexts, and the social practices language and other
modes realise” (Stein, 2000, p. 334). A multimodal social semiotic approach
highlights the decentring of language as the privileged mode and the need
to take into account a range of modes in order to explore how argument is
constructed. A social semiotic approach is based on a metafunctional view
of communication (Halliday, 1978). According to this, academic argument is
comprised of resources that reflect upon issues in the world (the ideational);
resources that position the audience in relation to the argument (the inter-
personal); and resources that organise texts and create coherence in argument
(textual metafunction). Broadly speaking, the ideational resources this chap-
ter outlines include the underlying ways of organising knowledge in academic
argument, namely narrative, juxtaposition, induction, classification and com-
parison. The interpersonal resources it explores in relation to academic argu-
ment include citation and modality. Lastly, the textual resources relate to com-
position and layout, and include arrangement (left, right, top, bottom, centre,
periphery) and foregrounding (in or out of focus, size, colour, spatial position-
ing, directionality of vectors, framing).
A methodological concern about a social semiotic approach could be that
it separates out and reifies the different modes and discourses in a text, whilst
ignoring the situated uses of the text. However, rather than seeing the meaning
of the text as divisible into a number of separate semiotic modes, a social semi-
otic approach looks at how the interactions of modes make meaning within
particular texts and contexts (Alyousef & Mickan, chapter 10 this volume;
Roehrich, chapter 11 this volume). In exploring multimodal academic argu-
multimodal academic argument 97

ment, this chapter looks at the ways in which certain functions are distributed
across both visual and verbal modes. It explores this in student-generated
texts in first and second year courses in architecture because here one often
sees direct clashes between discourses which highlight the arbitrary nature of
norms and conventions. It is also useful to see what students are grappling with
in order to focus our pedagogical interventions and facilitate access to the dis-
cursive practices of the discipline (Williams, chapter 6 this volume).
For this study, student essays were gathered from a first year course in
History and Theory of Architecture (on 2 different essay topics). Both topics
required the students to do a comparison of two buildings. In the first, they
had to compare two similar buildings, such as town halls or churches. They
were asked to “illustrate by way of analytical drawings done on site, the basic
similarities and differences” in the buildings in terms of form, space, structure,
movement and light. In the second topic, they had to critically assess whether
or not a popular shopping centre in Cape Town, namely Century City, abides
by the principles of Renaissance architecture. 80 essays per topic were analysed
in order to identify trends in argument structure, and to provide examples to
exemplify these trends.
In outlining the contours of multimodal academic argument in student texts
in Higher Education, the chapter now considers the work of each semiotic
mode and their inter-relations, and the underlying ways of organising knowl-
edge across modes in argument.

Argument Realised through Image-Writing Relations

Contrary to Gourlay’s chapter (this volume), this chapter is not focusing on the
question of whether a single image can construct academic argument. Rather,
it looks at the relations between images, and between image and writing in
multimodal texts. Here, what is of interest is the functional load of different
modes in realising argument, and which aspects of argument are represented
in what mode. Look at figure 5.1 as an example of how argument is realised
through image-writing relations. This example is taken from the second assign-
ment which required students to focus on the contemporary shopping and
living centre, Century City, in Cape Town.
Figure 5.1 appears at the beginning of the essay and its function is to locate
Century City in its urban context. The aerial photograph taken from google
maps is appropriate for this function. The caption is an example of elabora-
tion—it is ‘specification’ as the words pick out one of the possible meanings
of the image, or ‘anchorage’ in Barthes’ (1977) terms. The words focus the
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figure 5.1 Example of visual-verbal linkages in a first year student essay

reading of the image onto some of the social and contextual circumstances of
Century City, and thus constrain the number of possible readings one could
generate. The caption assumes that the offered interpretation for the image is
self-evident: “It is evident that this ‘city’ does not seem to fit in with the context
of its surroundings”. However, a substantial amount of contextual knowledge
is needed to generate this reading. It would be necessary, for instance, to know
that Century City is constructed in a living area previously designated not for
whites, under the previous apartheid regime. The student puts quotation marks
around the word ‘city’ in order to question the notion of Century City being a
city which would include public facilities not solely aimed at financial gain,
like schools and libraries. For these reasons, the opulence and consumerism of
Century City fit somewhat uncomfortably in the surrounding poorer area. The
caption claims that “Century City is quite clearly a demarcated area of its own”.
Again, this assumes prior knowledge and Century City as a separate area is not
multimodal academic argument 99

figure 5.2 Caption as delimiting argument

indicated in any way through the use of a different colour or through the use of
a border. Yet, the ‘city’ is a walled and gated one, separating itself very clearly
from the impoverished surroundings. Although this caption serves to elaborate
on the image and to specify one particular way of looking at it, it does assume
a large amount of prior knowledge on the part of the reader. The image and the
caption both form part of the larger argument that the student is making about
the artificial and commercial nature of Century City.
Let us look at another example of argument conveyed through the interac-
tion between writing and image. Figure 5.2 is also taken from the assignment
that required students to look at the influence of Renaissance features on Cen-
tury City.
The use of captions here is interesting. The student has used informal lan-
guage and sentence fragments to convey disregard for what has been done
with Renaissance architecture in the construction of the Century City complex,
implying that the images on the walls are merely paint not art, are not carefully
considered nor culturally embedded. The implication is that Century City’s
architects copied Renaissance features (poorly) for their picturesque qualities
in order to signify wealth and prosperity in the particular social and political
context in Cape Town. It would be impossible to get this reading from the image
alone, and the caption thus delimits the way we look at the image, especially in
conjunction with the image of the Invalides alongside. The image dealing with
Renaissance architecture from the past, the Invalides, has a more formal cap-
100 archer

tion, even though the descriptive language used is still judgmental: “these walls
are sincere”. The sense of time and effort is used as evidence to validate the stu-
dent’s judgement: “weeks were spent creating an intricate façade”. The student
puts quotation marks around the word ‘decoration’ to indicate that the inside
façade of the Invalides in Paris is about creating a space and is not a mindless
‘add on’, which the trivialising word ‘decoration’ may imply.
The argument here is not only established through the visual-verbal rela-
tions (of the images and the captions), but also through the juxtaposition of
images. This is discussed in the next section of the chapter which looks at
underlying ways of organising knowledge in academic argument.

Ways of Organising Knowledge in Multimodal Argument

As stated above, argument is a principle of textual organisation. In thinking

about argument in multimodal academic discourse then, it is useful to consider
the relations between entities, namely represented people, places, things and
ideas, and the ways in which patterns encode ideational meanings. A crucial
aspect of argument can be the representation of direct observation, descrip-
tion of an object, or some kind of freezing of experience. This is common in
architecture. The underlying organisation of knowledge in textual represen-
tation can be either narrative or conceptual (Kress & Van Leeuwen, 2006).
Narrative structure can be used to represent sequencing in time (including rep-
resentation of a procedure), but can also be used to represent change from
one state to another. Conceptual patterns represent participants in terms of
their classification, their analytical and symbolic processes, their generalised
states of being. There are different types of conceptual patterns underlying aca-
demic argument. Argument based on comparisons is conceptual and based
on underlying classifications that represent similarity and differences. Thus,
classification taxonomies and analytical hierarchies are an important aspect
of academic argument. Another conceptual pattern in argument is ‘induction’
which shows how or why something happens, for example, a process-oriented
image like the water cycle. Lastly, argument can be realised through abstract
modeling of some domain or a dialectic between the abstract and the con-
crete, such as in architectural perspective. Although there are many underlying
patterns to argument, the chapter looks at four ways of organising knowledge
in multimodal academic argument, namely narrative, contrast, induction and
comparison.
multimodal academic argument 101

Arguing through Narrative: Change over Time

In Reading Images, Kress and Van Leeuwen (2006) defined narrative patterns
broadly as having participants and vectors of action; and serving “to present
unfolding actions and events, processes of change” (Kress & Van Leeuwen,
2006, p. 56). Narrative structure can be used to represent sequencing in time,
but can also be used to represent change from one state to another. For in-
stance, in a photoshop assignment in the architecture course, students had to
indicate changes to a particular street over time. Using layering, the depiction
of ‘before’ and ‘after’ had to be overlaid on one image, to indicate pre and post
renovation (see Archer, 2013).
In figure 5.3, change over time is depicted in a single schematic diagram.
Colour coding is used to show stages in the development of the building.
According to the key, the original walls (indicated in purple) were built in 1701
and included the sitting room, staff room and lower hall. Most of the rest of
the building was added between 1760 and 1771 (indicated in blue), with the
final addition of the music room sometime between 1774 and 1790 (indicated
in red). Here, narrative is characterised by processes of change over time and
information is structured as a series of unfolding events.

Argument through Contrast

Argument can be established through contrast, where a juxtaposition sets up a
tension between images. Andrews (2010) posits that for argument to be present
in a single image, there needs to be some kind of tension within the image, or
there must be at least two images juxtaposed in order to explore tensions. Such
juxtaposition creates the opportunity for inference through comparison. “It is
as though we are presented with evidence but without the propositions; we are
asked to provide these for ourselves” (Andrews, 2010, p. 51). See figure 5.4 for an
argument established through contrast and juxtaposition.
The underlying structure of the argument in figure 5.4 is a binary, where
two images are juxtaposed in order to valorise the one over the other. Binaries
can indicate either trajectory from one state to another or opposition. Bina-
ries are never neutral—one pole of the opposition is always valorised. This
kind of analytical binary is more common in the architecture assignments,
than binaries which indicate change through narrative structures. This exam-
ple also illustrates that positioning is important in visual argument. In this case,
it is left/right positioning, but a binary can equally operate on a top/bottom
positioning. In figure 5.4, the order of the images is important as they move
from photographs of the contemporary shopping centre (the ‘given’) to a dia-
gram of the ideal (the ‘new’) which is removed in time and space from the
student.
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figure 5.3 Single image depicting change over time

The argument is realised both through the juxtaposition of images, creating

‘difference’, and through the captions, which communicate a sense of aesthetic
and moral outrage. Here, Kress’s (1989) notion that argument foregrounds dif-
ference is pertinent, as this juxtaposition opens the space for reconsideration,
for a shift in values and attitudes. There is ideational contrast within the same
multimodal academic argument 103

figure 5.4 Argument established through juxtaposition of images

mode (the contrasting of two images) and contrast between different modes,
namely the image and the writing. There are two images showing ‘rustication’
(a type of decorative masonry) at Century City—one of the exterior, and one of
a pillar in the interior. The caption for the Century City images implies a lack
of sophistication:

A simplified version of rustication; “where simplicity cannot work, sim-

pleness results”
venturi, 1966, p. 24

The architectural elements used in Century City are taken from an environ-
ment completely foreign to the South African context and are copied for purely
picturesque reasons rather than for structural purposes. The image of the
Palazzo Bevilacqua is presented as ‘speaking for itself’ in terms of sophistica-
tion, integrity and antiquity. This is not explicitly mentioned in the caption.
Rather, the argument is made in the relation established between the two
images and the caption underneath the first image.

Arguing through Induction: Relating the Particular to the General

Theorising the relation of the particular to the general is crucial in academic
argument. This can be both descriptive (backward-looking) and predictive
(forward-looking). In other words, one can generalise from the specific in-
stance, as well as make predictions about specific cases based on the general.
Key to ‘generalising’ is the underlying classification of concepts according to
categories. See figure 5.5 as an example of classification.
104 archer

figure 5.5 An example of classification in order to generalise from the particular ‘type’

The image points to an example of one ‘type’ of architecture, namely ‘Cape

Dutch’ architecture. However, the argument about ‘type’ here is not carried
through in both the written and visual modes. There is a slight disjuncture
between the surrounding writing (which talks about Groot Constantia) and the
image (which is of the Tulbach Guest House). The image serves the function of
filling the content gap in the written explanation between the description of
Groot Constantia, and the statement that a definitive South African architec-
tural language was born. It is as though using the image provides the ready-
made explanation of the features of “typical Cape Dutch” architecture, namely
the rounded gable, thatched roof, sash windows and whitewashed walls, with-
out having to explain these features in words. This points to the functional
specialisation of the visual mode mentioned earlier, where the image is more
specific than the written text—the shape of the building has to be shown
in the image, whereas it need not be described in the writing. The position-
ing of “(fig. 2)” is important in the written text. If placed after “Van der Stel
built Groot Constantia, a superb example of the typical Cape Dutch home-
stead” then it would probably exemplify that statement, making the disjunc-
ture between ‘Groot Constantia’ and ‘Tulbach Guest House’ even larger. In
its current position (after “A definitive South African architectural language
was born”), it points to a ‘type’ of architecture, rather than a specific build-
ing.
multimodal academic argument 105

figure 5.6 Comparison based on classification

Arguing through Comparison Based on Classification

Multimodal academic argument can also be realised through comparisons
(both similarities and differences) which are based on underlying classifica-
tions. Arguing through comparison is the dominant structure underlying the
two architecture assignments as the task requirement was to compare eras
and buildings. This comparison requires underlying classification of certain
features of the two buildings under discussion. See figure 5.6 for an example
of the way in which comparison can be built into a ‘single’ image, almost in
the form of a collage. The images are grouped according to the category of
‘domes’.
Figure 5.6 combines photographs of domes from the Renaissance with a
photograph of Century City (top right). These images are not labelled or identi-
fied, simply presented as a visual argument that Century City draws on Renais-
sance architecture in the form of domes in its design. A comparison could be
weakened if only images of Renaissance architecture were included with no
comparison explicitly made between Century City and Renaissance architec-
ture. Confusion in ways of organising knowledge in students’ texts is realised
through choosing different types of image for comparison or juxtaposing ‘un-
like’ images which enables more of an observation than a conceptual and ana-
lytical comparison. These problematic underlying ways of organising knowl-
edge can weaken argument.
This section has explored different ways of realising argument including
argument through narrative, contrast, induction and comparison. Now the
chapter looks at another aspect of importance in multimodal argument, name-
ly the use of sources and citation.
106 archer

Argument and Citation: Intertextuality and Precedence

The use of sources is crucial in constructing academic argument. Academic

citation in both writing and images involves appropriating a source into your
argument and using the voices of others to negotiate your position in a partic-
ular discourse community. Academic argument instantiates negotiation with
authoritative disciplinary voices and competing positions and ideologies. Thus,
citation is not only about accurate attribution, but is also a means of construct-
ing academic argument.
The use of sources in argument involves a number of choices, including
the selection of material from the source, the form of the citation, some kind
of framing and critical evaluation. How the source is foregrounded or back-
grounded is also of importance for academic argument. For instance, citation
can be integral to the written text, where the names of the cited authors occur
in the citing sentence, but it can also be non-integral where reference is made
to the author in parentheses or through footnoting (Swales, 1990). The posi-
tioning of citation can give greater emphasis to either the reported author or
the reported message. In addition, the degree of adaptation in terms of ‘para-
phrasing’ or re-working of the text, has implications for academic argument.
Copy-and-paste is “an affordance of the digital medium that has profound con-
sequences in the ways texts are composed” (Adami, 2012, p. 131) and makes
direct quoting easier than paraphrasing, in all modes. It is when students battle
with the conventions around citation that we realise how invisible, normative
and complex they are. Becoming aware of the ways in which citation operates
across modes, media, genres and disciplines is crucial to enable student access
to academic argument.
Quotations need not necessarily always show respect, they can also be
ironic, what Bakhtin (1981) calls a ‘smirk’ (p. 68). Examples of this would be
file-sharing and remix genres which appropriate music, art, film in order to
make a point; or culture jamming which uses and re-works logos and brand
names to pass critical commentary. Parody and irony are about ‘being critical’,
but are not the same as ‘critical analysis’ in the sense of systematically breaking
something down in order to determine the effectiveness of argument. Neither
are they the same as ‘argument’, although argument can contain elements of
parody or irony as moments of disjuncture or difference in the text. Williams
(this volume) argues that if students play with generic conventions in the form
of parody, this can lead to a ‘simple’ single point or ‘joke’, rather than a more
sustained critical analysis or argument.
Citation can occur in all modes, but the conventions differ and some modes
are more legislated than others. For instance, the use of sources in writing is per-
multimodal academic argument 107

haps more tightly policed and the conventions more firmly and widely known
than in other modes and genres. In music, citation could be ‘mixing’; in the
fine arts, ‘collage’ (Archer, 2013). In Brenner and Archer (2014), we argue that
artistic argument often involves negotiation with the authoritative conventions
of the various genres. This is similar in architecture. In architecture, design or
original work can use precedents which do not necessarily have to be refer-
enced. The copying of an image through free hand drawing or using tracing
paper is a practice known as ‘tracing’. Architecture tends to value practices
based on ‘assemblage’ and the use of visual quotations constitutes a key fea-
ture of post-modernist architecture: “the architect selects as much as he [sic]
creates” (Venturi, 1966, p. 43). Johnson-Eilola and Selber (2007) propose that
the notion of ‘assemblage’ can move one away from the hierarchy that is created
between ‘original’ and ‘borrowed’ texts. Given our globalised and technologised
contexts, practices such as downloading from image banks, using free music
and open sources have become the norm, and these practices raise questions
around copyright and ‘originality’. Some of this assemblage can be seen in the
students’ texts above, as in figure 5.6 where images are gathered and clustered
for the sake of comparison. ‘Assemblage’ as a principle of composition fore-
grounds the student as the designer who brings together appropriate available
resources to create new meaning.
In Archer (2013), I argued that Kress’s terms, transformation and transcod-
ing, are perhaps more apt to describe processes of citation, than ‘quotation’
or ‘paraphrasing’ as these are terms linked to writing and cannot adequately
deal with the potentials of a range of modes for meaning-making. Transfor-
mation refers to the processes of meaning change through the re-ordering of
the elements in a text: “same mode, same entities, in different order = new
semiotic entity (= different meaning)” (Kress, 2010, p. 129). The design choices
in integrating sources into text, such as changes in colour, type and size of
font, create new semiotic entities with new attendant meanings (see Hiippala,
chapter 3 this volume). Transcoding names the “process of moving meaning-
material from one mode to another—from speech to image; from writing to
film”. That process entails a “re-articulation of meaning from the entities of
one mode into the entities of the new mode” (Kress, 2010, p. 125). These terms
have a concept of change built into them and are perhaps a generative way
of looking at citation and the use of sources in multimodal academic argu-
ment.
The last aspect of multimodal argument that this chapter explores is the
notion of ‘modality’, namely how credibility can be established in academic
texts.
108 archer

Modality and Argument

The term ‘modality’ refers to grammatical mood that regulates the relative
certainty and trustworthiness of statements. Although, traditionally a term
applied to writing, Kress and Van Leeuwen (2006) extended its use to refer
to degrees of ‘truth value’ in multimodal texts, in relation to particular coding
orientations or domains. According to Trimbur and Press (2015):

Modality involves explaining how truth-values ascribed to statements

are produced multimodally, through a range of semiotic devices and
rhetorical strategies in the struggle for recognition, to set the terms for
representing reality, to be seen and heard as authoritative.
p. 19

Modality markers or ‘qualifiers’ modify or limit the claim in an argument by

making it less sweeping, global and categorical. In academic writing, tentative
modality is often the norm and is used in statements such as “it could be argued
that”. Here modality is realised through the modal auxiliary ‘could’. Words such
as probably, perhaps, may or might can be used to qualify an argument in writ-
ing. Similarly to writing, modality in images establishes credibility within a
particular domain. In a scientific domain, for instance, abstract and decontex-
tualised representations rather than naturalistic ones often have more credi-
bility. Choice of image, type of image, use of colour and layering can contribute
to the credibility of an image, as can the amount of pictorial detail given, the
focus of the image (whether it is blurred or precise, for instance), the relations
between image and writing. A way of recognising and talking about modal-
ity in multimodal academic argument is crucial as the link between modality
and argument is a complex one to negotiate, and it is particularly so for those
students who have not yet internalised the unspoken conventions of the dis-
cipline. See figure 5.7 as an example of a diagram that attempts to heighten
modality through the type of image used, juxtaposition of images, labelling and
use of black and white.
This image makes an argument about a building’s response to climate. The
hand-drawn schematic diagrams are used to indicate a design point and in-
clude hand-written labels. The argument is achieved through the use of cross-
section diagrams, arrows and labelling which show how external forces are
accounted for in the design of the building. The arrows suggest movement in
space and time as air moves from the outside to different parts of the build-
ing. Arrows indicate ‘air in’ and ‘air out’, and the ways in which “louvres con-
trol air flow”. In figure 5.7, arrows are not only used to show air flow, but are
multimodal academic argument 109

figure 5.7 Modality in a schematic diagram

also used for labelling. In many cases, own sketches have a higher modal-
ity in architecture than reproduced images. And, in these types of schematic
architectural diagrams people and objects are removed in order to make an
argument, about structure and movement of air through space. This is a con-
trast image, used to realise argument and heighten modality. The house on the
left shows poor design in relation to climate. It shows how the poor orienta-
tion of the building “means lots of hot west sun” and how the “warm air can’t
escape from the building”. The diagrams on the right show how the air flows
and can ‘escape’. This contrast between poor and optimal orientation strength-
ens the credibility of the argument for the superior design of the building on
the right.

See figure 5.8 as another example of the use of modality in architectural repre-
sentations. The use of black and white in figure 5.8 is typical of most architec-
tural plans and has the effect of conveying the professional dimensions of the
discipline. However, this image could be considered to have lower modality in
an architectural domain as it appears more as a sketch for an animation, than
as an architectural design. In general, digital editing software (levels in photo-
shop, filters and layers) provides the learner with semiotic resources to adjust
modality. Trimbur and Press (2015) argue that we need to historicise the shift-
ing patterns of managing the variable truth-values ascribed to different modes
at different points in time. They emphasise that truth-values ascribed to vari-
ous modes are shaped by a struggle for rhetorical authority within the means of
110 archer

figure 5.8 Changing modality in digital arenas

representation. So, images like figure 5.8 may be gaining in credibility in certain
domains, where the computer-generated nature of the design is emphasised.

Pedagogical Potentials

This chapter has opened up a series of questions on ways of looking at academic

argument, including questions around modal weighting, ways of organising
knowledge, citation and modality. It has argued that argument as a princi-
ple of textual organisation is realised through particular ways of organising
knowledge, through both narrative processes and conceptual frameworks. In
this context, it is clear that there is a need to develop a pedagogy which takes
into account the specific semantic, symbolic and generic mixes of different dis-
ciplines in teaching multimodal academic argument. In my own context, as
coordinator of a Writing Centre in a university in South Africa, I am aware
of the need to train tutors to engage with argument in different genres and
modes. Writing Centre practitioners such as Lee and Carpenter (2013) have
highlighted the challenges for tutors as “learning new modes of communica-
tion and understanding the dynamic of multimodal argumentation” (p. xix)
and they have pointed to the need to create Multiliteracies Centres that can
support and develop the multimodal practices of writing and text production
in Higher Education.
In order to do this, we need to explore the affordances of modes as a vital
part of developing argument in texts. In the context of students learning to read
multimodal academic argument 111

and produce argument in multimodal texts, we need a pedagogy to develop

awareness of semiotic choices and design in order to foster a critical perspective
on meaning-making in context. To this end, we need to ‘recognise’ semiotic
resources (Archer & Newfield, 2014) and develop metalanguages to facilitate
awareness and analysis of multimodal textual constructions. This is important
for enabling student access into academic argument and may help with the
assessment of new and emerging multimodal genres in Higher Education.
There are educational, demographic and economic incentives for being able
to argue effectively and to do so in a range of modes (Huang, 2015). This
chapter has not specifically addressed the ways in which new technologies have
enabled shifts in the distribution of meaning across different modes. However,
a multimodal approach to academic argument could extend existing curricula
to account for contemporary communication practices in traditional genres,
as well as new electronic spaces where argument is enacted, such as e-mails,
electronic discussion boards, blogs, wikis.

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 chapter 6

Genre Inside/Genre Outside: How University

Students Approach Composing Multimodal Texts

Bronwyn T. Williams

Introduction

The rapid development of digital media over the past two decades has led both
to an emergence of new genres as well as reconsideration of existing genres.
Whether it is web pages, social media sites, online videos or books, video and
film, multimodality has been central to all of these developments. As digital
media have made it possible for individuals to more easily create and dis-
tribute multimodal work that draws on print, sound, video and images, such
texts have emphasised the fluid, flexible nature of genres. Such texts challenge
us to approach questions of genre and the teaching of writing in higher edu-
cation in new ways that emphasise the social nature of genre formation and
reproduction. At the same time, a number of scholars have examined the role
of genre in university students’ writing (Devitt 2004; Bawarshi 2003) as well as
the influence on student writing of the genres they encounter outside the uni-
versity writing classroom (Alvermann 2008; Knobel 1998; Dunbar-Odom 2007).
Most of this research, however, focuses on print-on-paper texts, rather than the
implications of genre in teaching the composing of multimodal texts. In order
to teach students in higher education how to approach questions of genre effec-
tively in their writing with digital media, it is important to consider how their
experiences with, and conceptions of, genre outside of the classroom influence
their approaches to multimodal genres in school (see also Hunma, chapter 8
this volume).
In this chapter I discuss the challenges and opportunities the teaching of
multimodal texts creates in issues of genre and teaching writing. I illustrate,
through student interviews and examples from their texts, how their responses

Williams, B.T. (2016). Chapter 6. Genre Inside/Genre Outside: How University Students Ap-
proach Composing Multimodal Texts. In R. Fidalgo & T. Olive (Series Eds.) & A. Archer, &
E.O. Breuer (Vol. Eds.), Studies in Writing: Vol. 33, Multimodality in Higher Education, (pp. 114–
135). Leiden: Brill.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2016 | doi: 10.1163/9789004312067_008

genre inside/genre outside 115

to digital multimodal assignments in writing courses draw from their knowl-

edge of antecedent genres. In particular, I focus on the work of students cre-
ating videos or digital storytelling in higher education. Students’ knowledge
of popular culture texts such as film and online video can influence students’
composing practices, both explicitly and implicitly, in ways that students find
unremarkable, but of which their instructors are often unaware. Some instruc-
tors may comment on surface features of writing they feel are influenced by
social media, but miss the more subtle and complex ways in which students’
antecedent genre knowledge can shape the choices students make. When stu-
dents try to make sense of the rhetorical, narrative and stylistic demands of a
new multimodal assignment, they turn to the genre conventions with which
they are already familiar, even if those do not always fit the requirements of
an assignment. It is not surprising, then, to see students move, with little hes-
itation, to popular culture for content and genre conventions. When asked to
write for screens, they turn to the screens they know best for reference and
inspiration. Yet, the conflicts and connections that exist between students’
antecedent multimodal genre knowledge—most of which comes from popu-
lar culture—and what they create in the classroom, place in sharp focus the
fluid and active social nature of digital media genres. Such connections offer
us new perspectives on questions of genre and composing. I end by propos-
ing pedagogical strategies for making productive use of the connections—and
tensions—created when students’ employ their knowledge of antecedent gen-
res in completing multimodal projects. When we engage students in a more
sophisticated and critical awareness of the intersections between their knowl-
edge outside the classroom and multimodal writing assignments, students can
become more critically conscious creators of texts for our classes, and more
thoughtful in engaging with digital media outside the writing classroom.

Genre, Social Relations and Writing Instruction

For a number of years scholars have argued that genre must be conceived
as more than simply the conventions that can be recognised in a text, but
instead more productively understood as the product of social relationships
and actions that are mediated through texts in particular ways (Devitt, 2004;
Frow, 2005; Kress, 2003). As Bazerman (1997) argues, “Genres are forms of life,
ways of being. They are frames for social action. They are environments for
learning” (p. 19). Kress (2003) echoes this line of thinking when he discusses
genres as one element of organising texts that “realizes and allows us to under-
stand the social relations of the participants in the making, the reception, and
116 williams

the reading/interpretation of the text” (p. 94). The emphasis on social relations
in constructing genre is also, then, a reminder of the rhetorical nature of our
uses of genre. The benefit of genre is to help frame and even smooth com-
munication between the speaker or writer and the audience. A writer knows
that by employing certain conventions of language or form an audience will
recognise those conventions and have a framework for interpreting the text.
The audience, on encountering these conventions, anticipates and responds
to the writer’s next moves—satisfied if anticipating correctly, sometimes even
more delighted at being surprised. When social relationships and “actions are
relatively stable and persistent, then the textual forms will become relatively
stable and persistent. At that point generic shape becomes apparent” (Kress,
2003, p. 85).
The social and rhetorical nature of genre perception and use necessarily
make genre highly contextual, which means that as the rhetorical needs of
the cultural context shift, so will the elements we perceive as constituting
genres. Bazerman (1997) compares genre to landscapes of communication we
inhabit and travel through. While the local landscape is familiar and con-
structed in our relations with people we know, “When we travel to new com-
municative domains, we construct our perception of them beginning with
the forms we know. Even our motives and desire to participate in what the
new landscape appears to offer start from motives and desires framed in ear-
lier landscapes” (Bazerman, 1997, p. 19). Such a metaphor points to the need
to adapt our performances of genre to new environments, new social situ-
ations even as our adaptations are grounded in our knowledge and experi-
ence.
In writing and higher education, the importance of genre has been the
focus of substantial theorising and scholarship in recent years. In the u.s., this
conversation in rhetoric and composition has happened largely in terms of
the first-year writing course and in questions of teaching writing in specific
disciplines. The importance of genre can be seen in the documents such as
the Council of Writing Program Administrators’ Outcomes Statement for First-
Year Composition (2008) and Framework for Success in Postsecondary Writing
(2011) both of which urge that students learn not only to write in several gen-
res, but also how genre shapes writing and reading. Scholarship in teaching
writing demonstrates a significant conversation about how best to engage stu-
dents in thinking about and practicing what seem to be generalisable genre
conventions in academic writing, while trying to help them avoid formulaic
approaches to the dynamic, flexible nature of genres (Bazerman, 1997; Devitt,
2004; Bawarshi & Reiff, 2010). In the u.s. university, while the first-year writing
course is often the most obvious place where the attention to genre and writ-
genre inside/genre outside 117

ing takes place, in fact student engagement—and sometimes struggle—with

genre continues throughout their university education (Clark & Hernandez,
2011).
The role of prior knowledge in genre and teaching writing has been illus-
trated in research that demonstrates how students, when asked to write in an
unfamiliar genre, draw on ‘antecedent genres’ in their writing (Jamieson, 1975).
When students, like all writers, attempt to employ the conventions of a familiar
genre in a new context, however, they often do not produce writing that fulfils
the expectations of the new genre. More recent research confirmed students’
use of antecedent genres when writing in new rhetorical situations with unfa-
miliar genre expectations (Bawarshi & Reiff, 2010). A reliance on antecedent
genres in approaching new work may, however, lead to writing that does not
satisfy a reader’s genre expectations. Often, instead, students produce writing
that mixes antecedent genre conventions with new genre expectations, and
may result in hybrid work that frustrates both the student and the instructor
(Wardle, 2009). Such student uses of antecedent genres are not always explic-
itly articulated choices, but instead a consequence of relying on what they
perceive as general knowledge or experience. Yet, when students have their
attention drawn to their reliance on antecedent genres, they increase their
overall awareness of the importance of genre as well as its contextual nature
(Bawarshi & Reiff, 2010). Such research implies that students adapt to new
rhetorical and generic situations more effectively when they think about genre
not as a set of static forms, but as a flexible and intertextual concept. Rather
than being taught genre as a set of forms to be mastered, students should be
taught that genres work as networks that interact with each other and are
employed most effectively in response to particular rhetorical contexts. Such
an approach moves us beyond arguments about whether students should be
explicitly taught specific conventions of unfamiliar genres, and instead helps
us focus on how to help students work with the complex, intertextual knowl-
edge they have of their antecedent genres when encountering new rhetori-
cal expectations. Considerations of students’ knowledge of antecedent genres
must necessarily include attention to the literacy practices students engage in
out of school and the genre conventions students engage in throughout their
daily lives (Alvermann, Moon, & Hagood, 1999; Dunbar-Odom, 2007; Knobel,
1998). When students can, through critical reflection, understand more clearly
their existing knowledge of antecedent genres, they can recognise and adapt
to new genre expectations that connect or conflict with what they already
know.
118 williams

Genre and Participatory Popular Culture

Most of the research in writing studies and rhetoric and composition on uni-
versity students’ uses of antecedent genres have focused on the print texts
that students have written or read in school. How, for example, does a stu-
dent accustomed to writing personal narratives fare when trying to adapt that
experience to writing an analytical paper? In terms of genre, academic print-
on-paper writing has remained relatively stable over the past few decades, with
well-understood differences in various disciplines. Yet, as with most cultural
practices that become normalised parts of culture, shifts in social, technologi-
cal or economic conditions often force changes—and explicit discussion—of
what had been regarded as stable practices (see Thesen, chapter 2 this volume
on the changes in lectures over the past centuries). In terms of genre, the advent
of digital media has disrupted social relationships of audience and author, both
in terms of how those roles are determined and in terms of who can create and
re-create texts. Moreover, the capability of digital media for easily creating mul-
timodal and malleable texts, has also shaken conversations and practices about
genre. To understand how such disruptions may affect the teaching of writing
in universities, it is useful first to consider how digital media have influenced
genre in the larger culture.
Digital technologies have offered particularly vivid examples of genre devel-
opment and negotiation. The flexibility of digital media, to be able to shape dig-
ital data into multiple modes, and then store and distribute it easily (Manovich,
2001), changes the speed with which new rhetorical spaces are available. As dig-
ital media provide new opportunities for composing and communicating, we
see online spaces that result in new genre definitions happening much more
quickly than could have happened with print-on-paper technologies (Carpen-
ter, 2009). Not long after the sites go online, we hear people talk of a “YouTube
video” or “Twitter post” in terms of their generic characteristics. Though we can
argue that YouTube or Twitter are media platforms, not genres, that does not
stop people, including students, from talking about the texts they encounter
there as fulfilling genre conventions. At the same time, it is worth remembering
that developing, online genres are not without antecedents. With any change
in technology there is often an initial attempt to adapt existing genres into the
new technologies (Stephens, 1998). Early movies often looked like stage plays
and early webpages tended to look like newspapers or other familiar genres.
Today, on YouTube many of the videos continue to use the same conventions
of narrative and editing developed for film and television over the past century.
For many students, as well as the culture at large, the effect of digital media
on genre is particularly apparent in regard to their uses of popular culture. In
genre inside/genre outside 119

traditional mass popular culture such as film or television, genre is a power-

ful force in shaping the production of texts and audience expectations. The
genre considerations in mass popular culture primarily serve material and eco-
nomic realities of production and consumption. Simply put, mass popular cul-
ture producers employ familiar genre conventions to keep audience members
watching, listening and, most of all, buying. Audiences respond positively to
movies or video games or television programs that promise to fulfil certain
genre expectations, reinforcing the understanding in popular culture produc-
ers that failing to meet such expectations can result in disappointed audiences
and lost business. In order to have popular culture content consumed as widely
as possible, producers try to find ways to create work that fits largely within
recognizable genre conventions. Such genre conventions are not necessarily
dependent on narrative, however. As Altman (1999) points out about film, the
narrative is only what defines the ‘syntactic’ element of a genre. Just as impor-
tant may be the ‘semantic’ elements, such as particular images, music, iconog-
raphy, and so on (Altman, 1999). So the kiss at the end of the romantic comedy
may be as important in identifying the genre, and in satisfying the audience,
as the events that led up to the kiss. In order for such semantic elements to be
recognised as genre conventions they need to be adapted and repeated across
multiple texts. Consequently, intertextual references can be central to popu-
lar culture texts. These intertextual references, whether they be a generic black
cowboy hat or the specific image of Darth Vader to indicate a villain, circulate
in the culture at large as they are picked up and reused by all of us in our daily
lives.
Substantial research (Alvermann, 2008; Black, 2008; de Block & Bucking-
ham, 2007; Keller, 2013; Thomas, 2007; Williams, 2002; 2009) demonstrates that
student engagement with popular culture genres, from film to television to
music to video games, allow them to negotiate those genres with confidence
and critical acumen. Not only can students define genres such as action-hero
film, reality television show or first-person-shooter video game, they can dis-
cuss, in detail, genre characteristics such as plot, production style, setting and
character. Although these comments are not always in the academic terms
we use, students are able to talk knowledgably about how genre expectations
shape texts. So, for example, a student can discuss how conflict is created in a
romantic comedy as a necessary precursor to the resolution at the end of the
narrative.
The advent of digital media has resulted in the development of a more par-
ticipatory popular culture that blurs the lines between producer and audience
and makes more explicit the intertextual nature of genre. While large corpo-
rations still produce mass popular culture, individual audience members now
120 williams

have the ability to respond to, appropriate or re-create these mass popular cul-
ture texts. Indeed, for many young people, participating in popular culture is
not only a possibility, but an expectation (Jenkins, 2006; Knobel & Lankshear,
2008; Williams, 2009). In terms of genre, the growth of practices of sampling
and remixing are particularly noteworthy. Any individual with a computer can
now sample and remix a video, or post a song or photo on a social media page
to create a collage or narrative of identity. Consequently, any text a person
encounters online becomes a resource for what de Certeau (1984) discusses as
‘textual poaching.’ Students, when reading texts, are also always open to the
possibility of appropriating and reusing all or part of those texts for their own
purposes. In a culture of sampling and remix, conceptions of originality, or of
any text as final and definitive, become much more fluid and unstable. Stu-
dents talk of anticipating popular new films, as they have for years, but also
of the memes and YouTube parodies that will inevitably follow. The ability to
participate in these practices requires understandings of genre conventions,
both in mass popular culture and in online settings. A remixed parody of a
film only makes sense if you understand the genre conventions of the origi-
nal movie. A student pondering how others will respond to the music she likes
on her Facebook page is thinking about the connotations of genre choices in
the larger culture (Williams, 2009). Enjoying a meme—an image altered or
provided with a humorous label—about a popular television series, and then
passing the meme along, not only requires genre knowledge of the original
program, but also knowledge of the genre conventions of memes. In all these
examples and more, sampling and remix have become central elements in the
circulation of the syntactic and semantic elements of popular culture. The acts
of sampling and remixing shape genres in two ways. First, the use of sampled
material becomes a genre characteristic, seen for example in online genres
such as memes or “YouTube poop” videos in which a film or television pro-
gram is recut to create new effects with the dialogue. In fact some people refer
to online “remixes” as a video genre. It is this intertextual participatory popular
culture of sampling and remix that students are seeing all day on their comput-
ers and mobile devices, as soon as they leave school, and that shapes how they
approach composing multimodal texts (de Block & Buckingham, 2007; Knobel
& Lankshear, 2008; Schreyer, 2012).
Whether in school or out, popular culture is attractive to students for sam-
pling and reuse for a number of reasons. First, the use of popular culture is
perceived as a low-stakes activity. Students feel they have control over making
meaning of popular culture, rather than having their interpretations evaluated
by authority figures of parents and instructors. Many students also regard popu-
lar culture as ‘unauthored’ in both the sense that they often do not recognise the
genre inside/genre outside 121

individual author of a video game or television program, and that the content
is owned by corporations from whom sampling poses little economic threat
(Williams, 2009). Also, the ubiquity of popular culture and the repository of
quickly understood and accessed cultural references it provides, makes it the
content—and by extension the genre—that students turn to first when they
think about electronic representations of images, video or music.

Students’ Digital Antecedent Genres

While participatory popular culture has made multimodal texts part of our
daily culture, multimodal texts are not excluded from academic work and
school is no longer a context limited to communication by print-on-paper. As
books such as this demonstrate, the composing of multimodal texts is progres-
sively a more integral part of literacy practices in higher education. In the u.s.,
it is increasingly common for first-year writing courses to include some sort of
multimodal assignment, such as creating a webpage or podcast or video. Some
of these assignments focus on “remediating” a print paper into a multimodal
text, while other assignments ask students to create “born digital” texts. Outside
of first-year writing, some courses have assignments that are explicitly about
composing with multiple modes, while other projects just assume that stu-
dents will create texts that include images or visual information, and still others
expect students to create presentations using software such as PowerPoint or
Prezi. Academic work at every level—from engineering to the humanities—
increasingly uses digital media and multiple modes of communication to con-
struct and communicate work.
Scholarship about using digital media to compose multimodal texts often
addresses questions of genre conventions, such as videos, podcasts or the use
of images (Archer, 2011; Selfe, 2009; Wysocki, 2004). Yet the issue of antecedent
genres, when it is addressed, usually focuses on the experiences students may
have had in already creating their videos or podcasts or webpages on their own.
Little attention has been paid to the influence of multimodal popular culture
genres that students encounter outside of school on students’ conceptions of
and approaches to composing multimodal texts. In much of the scholarship
on multimodal composing, popular culture is only occasionally referenced,
and then usually not connected to questions of antecedent genres and student
writing (Dubisar & Palmeri, 2010; Hodgson, 2010; Hull & Nelson, 2005). Any
attention paid to issues of genre does not address students’ engagement or
potential knowledge of popular culture genres or how their experiences with
these antecedent genres might influence their conception and composing of
122 williams

multimodal assignments. The importance in attending to the popular culture

experiences of students is clear if we realise that, in regard to multimodal texts,
for many students there is no referent in terms of genre beyond popular culture
texts. By contrast, over an academic career a given student encounters many
print texts in school, such as textbooks, that look nothing like popular culture.
Advocating an engagement with students’ knowledge of popular culture
often provokes a predictable resistance, however. Many instructors believe that
popular culture is at best irrelevant to education and, at worst, an obstacle to
academic writing. When some instructors attend to popular culture at all, it is
only as a problem to be solved or an influence to be resisted. While the focus
of this chapter is not to refute such a position, there have been many scholars
(Hagood, Alvermann, & Heron-Hruby, 2010; Darowski & Smith, 2010; Pahl &
Rowsell, 2010; Williams, 2002; 2009) who have made the argument for engaging
the discursive and rhetorical knowledge students have learned from popular
culture texts.
It is essential for instructors, then, to think not only about the genres they
want to teach students, but to engage with students in terms of the genres they
are already bringing to their writing of both print and multimodal texts. On
the one hand, students’ use of antecedent genres as rhetorical and semiotic
resources for their course work can result in texts that are creative and engag-
ing. Yet, as often happens when students try to adapt one genre to fit another,
tensions can develop when students try to fit the conventions of what they
know into the requirements for multimodal writing class assignments. When
students’ use of antecedent culture genres is not addressed explicitly in the
classroom, such tensions can be bewildering and frustrating for students and
instructors alike. We should engage more directly with popular culture genres
when teaching students multimodal composing.

Antecedent Genres and Multimodal Writing

The research for this chapter involves two different sections of the same under-
graduate writing courses I taught at a Midwestern u.s. university. While I had
noticed, over the previous decade, that students’ usually included popular cul-
ture in digital assignments for my courses, I did not have more than anecdotal
evidence of these rhetorical and composing moves. The anecdotal evidence
led me to conduct this focused, small-scale study to see the effect of explicit
discussion of popular culture genres on students’ approaches to multimodal
digital assignments, as well as students’ conception of genre. The course I am
discussing in this chapter was an upper-level undergraduate writing course
genre inside/genre outside 123

offered in the university’s English department, which is where writing courses

are typically located in u.s. universities. The purpose of the course was to
engage students in more advanced research writing projects. There were 20 stu-
dents in each course, with enrolment divided roughly evenly between English
majors and majors from other departments. Students in this course were typ-
ically in their third or fourth year at the university. Most had completed the
two-semester sequence of writing courses in their first year at the university
(or had transferred in the credits from another institution). The students had a
wide range of experience with multimodal composing. Most students’ experi-
ences with multimodal texts were of reading, sampling and reposting on social
media sites—which is a form of composing as well. The examples in this chap-
ter are from student digital texts created for those courses and end-of-term
interviews with six students in each course. During the interviews we talked
at length about their composing practices, their conceptions of genre, and the
relationship they perceived between their print research writing and their mul-
timodal composition. The students also had their texts with them and pointed
to specific examples in the texts to illustrate their ideas. The focus of this chap-
ter is on the students with whom I conducted interviews. It is important to note,
however, that I saw similar genre moves from other students in each section.
While the limited focus of the research, on two sections of one course, requires
that I not overstate the conclusions that can be drawn from the project, the
results were sufficiently dramatic to offer implications for how we might con-
sider discussion of genre and multimodal texts. In addition, in classes I have
taught since conducting this research as well as in additional research not cov-
ered in this chapter, I have continued to see the same results as in this study.
The focus of the course was on evolving conceptions of literacy—including,
but not limited to digital media. As the final project for the course, I assigned
the students a researched essay, to be completed in print, about literacy prac-
tices in an area of interest to them. The assignment was a traditional, university-
level research essay of about 15 pages that was to draw on peer-reviewed sources
to create and support a focused argument about the area of literacy practices
they wanted to study. At the same time I assigned the students a digital text
based on the same research. The digital, multimodal assignment was cover the
same subject matter as the research essay, but to take into account the different
affordances offered by digital media in communicating their message. Students
were allowed to choose from any digital media and genres for this assignment
and student choices ranged from original videos, podcasts, remixed videos and
machinima. At the end of the term, I also required the students to present their
work to the class and to talk specifically about the differences they found in
composing for print and for digital media.
124 williams

In the first of the two iterations of the course, during the first year of the
study, we discussed genre conventions of multimodal texts in terms of the
assignment and other academic or student examples of videos, but I did not
include any explicit examination or discussion of the genre conventions of
multimodal texts in popular culture with which the students were familiar.
We discussed concepts such as design, composition, camera angles, editing
and so on, but all within the context of the class or examples from academic
or course-based examples. We discussed concepts of genre, but within the
context of the academic writing the students had done or encountered in
classes.
The next year, in the two later iterations of the course semester, I engaged
students in more explicit conversations about popular culture genres and the
antecedent genres students knew from outside the classroom. We began with
discussions of what they understood about genre from their experiences with
popular culture. I asked students to bring to class examples of popular culture
texts with which they were familiar and we discussed the genre conventions of
the various texts. We then moved on to talk about specific genre conventions
in examples from popular culture. For example, we watched television adver-
tisements from around the world and talked about what genre conventions we
could see in common, which were different, and the considerations of audi-
ence, style, and culture that shaped such conventions. Finally, we discussed
how the genres that dominate popular culture, and the conventions they typi-
cally employ, did or did not fit with the expectations of the assignment and the
rhetorical context of the course.
When students in these writing courses were assigned a multimodal com-
position, most of them turned first to popular culture texts as the antecedent
genres on which to base their work. While this was true of most of the mul-
timodal digital projects the students produced, it was particularly evident in
video, digital storytelling and podcast projects. The students in both courses
stated that it seemed obvious for them to draw from popular culture screens in
order to make sense of how to do their own writing for screens. The students’
widespread use of popular culture antecedent genres involved certain moves
and assumptions about the nature of multimodal texts, as well as how audi-
ences would interpret the texts. Some of these assumptions worked within an
academic context, while others were more in tension with what was expected
in the assignment.
In the first course, in which the students did not engage in more explicit con-
siderations of their popular culture antecedent genre knowledge, their use of
popular culture content and conventions tended to be less complex and reflec-
tive. Even for the stronger writers in the class, the critical analysis that marked
genre inside/genre outside 125

their print-on-paper research projects was not as frequently reflected in their

digital work. In interviews, most students said they understood that the mul-
timodal text was to provide the same kind of critical engagement as the print
research essay. Yet, their use of popular culture genre conventions sometimes
complicated their abilities to take a more critical stance. One example of how
these genre conventions functioned for students involved their use of parody
and irony in their projects.
Ask university students about what videos they watch online, and you will
often get an answer that involves parody or irony. Many of these same students,
then, turn to parody and irony when creating digital multimodal texts. Mark,
who created a movie trailer parody where he remixed movie clips of teachers,
said that doing a parody was the first thing he thought of because he had seen so
many online. “This was my first idea. I tried to think of something different, but
I didn’t have anything better than this. I watch a lot of these so I had ideas of how
it would look,” he said. Mark sampled and remixed the clips and added ominous
music and his own voice-over narration to create a mock trailer for a disaster
movie in which the teachers are unprepared—and then overwhelmed—by the
digital media revolution coming their way. He not only used the kind of editing
patterns, from slow cuts at the beginning to more rapid cutting as the action
began, but also used the narrative genre conventions—and clichés—of movie
trailers complete with starting the video with the words, “In a world …” Mark
said that part of what made the trailer parody appealing was that he knew the
conventions of the genre so well.

No, I didn’t have to do any research. I watch trailers all the time and I know
them inside and out. It didn’t take any time at all to know the outline of
what I wanted to do. What took time was finding the right clips and music,
and the editing.

Mark’s description of his confidence in understanding the genre conventions,

and the ease with which he moved from thinking about what kind of text he
would create, to actually doing the research and composing reflects the kind of
genre knowledge and confidence we expect from experienced writers.
In a similar example, Annabelle produced an animated slide-show that
looked like and parodied a children’s book. She narrated the text of the book,
about the file-sharing practices of a teen, adopting the rhyme and meter and
voice of a children’s book. The animated slide-show with narration recalled the
genre conventions reading children’s books on such popular u.s. children’s tele-
vision programs as Reading Rainbow. Yet, in her narration, Annabelle included
references to gangster rap and Hannah Montana that, while done in the style
126 williams

of a children’s book, were clearly meant as parody. In talking about how she
composed the text, Annabelle said she thought that she had wanted to create
a text that reflected the condemnation about file sharing teens felt they heard
from adults. She said,

When I was thinking about the morality that grown-ups are always talking
about to us, I got to thinking about all those children’s books that end with
morals. Teaching you to do the right thing and all that.

She added that as soon as the idea of the children’s book came up she knew she
wanted to parody the children’s television genre conventions, “because that’s
what I remember of those things as a kid, with the little piano music going on
and the sweet narrator and all that.” In addition to parodying the style of the
program, the images Annabelle used were sampled from popular culture to be
read ironically. When she mentioned the father and mother in her story, for
example, she used images of the parents from the animated television program
Family Guy. Not only are the images she used of the Family Guy mother and
father out of keeping with a children’s book—the father is being chased by
an airplane in an image reminiscent of North by Northwest and the mother
is dressed in a bikini—but the intertextual references to the program, where
the characters are hardly portrayed as responsible and loving parents, are also
ironic.
In talking about her choices in composing the text, Annabelle said that the
use of images was only intended to amuse her audience—“I wasn’t making any
point with those. I just thought it would be funny, you know. They’re not what
you’d see in a children’s book, so that’s funny.” When asked why she decided
to use images from a television program rather than, say, stock images of par-
ents, she said that the Family Guy images were what first came to mind and
that “I knew people would get the joke.” Annabelle’s use of popular culture in
this instance reflects a familiar assumption among many of the students that
the conventions and content of popular culture could be counted on to pro-
vide common references and interpretations among the students’ audiences.
Annabelle assumed that her audience shared her intertextual knowledge, both
of children’s programs such as Reading Rainbow, but also of the connections
to sitcoms such as Family Guy. Many other students who used popular cul-
ture content or genre conventions also assumed such common, intertextual
readings and that they would be able to use popular culture texts and con-
ventions without comment or explanation. Some students also assumed that
individuals would have the same responses to popular culture images, even
if others did not care of the original text. Annabelle seemed surprised that
genre inside/genre outside 127

some of her fellow students did not like Family Guy and found the images off-
putting, even as she acknowledged she might feel the same way about other
texts.
Not only did the students feel the permission to sample and reuse popular
culture content for the reasons I noted above, but they also used such mate-
rial without a sense that it needed to be explained or cited. Like the material
they see online, the students appropriated and reused popular culture con-
tent, counting on the juxtapositions of the material itself to serve as adequate
explanation for the use of the material. They assumed they were addressing
an audience with a general knowledge of the original text, and with an inter-
pretive ability to fill in any gaps in meaning given the context of the genre. As
Annabelle said,

Everyone knows Family Guy. That’s not a problem, though I suppose if

you didn’t you’d still understand that I was trying to be funny by using a
cartoon drawing image. People would figure it out. I would figure it out.

Such an approach to appropriating and reusing other texts is quite different

from the kind of explanation and citation that is expected in academic writ-
ing. While both endeavours are intertextual and rely on audience familiarity
with genre and common texts, there are significant differences in the work of
explanation and citation.
The assumption of a common audience can be a problem, however. Another
student, Maria, used irony and parody in which she inserted herself into the
film How High. She placed herself at the end of a scene in which the main char-
acters had been disdainful of higher education to make it seem as if they were
more enthusiastic about her discussion of digital media literacy practices. For
students in the class who knew the film, which had a cult following but was
not widely popular, Maria’s work had more resonance. Other students under-
stood the general idea, but did not make the intertextual connection to the
other film. Yet, Maria had assumed that the film would be more widely known.
Again, because this text was presented with little explanation or citation, it was
less successful, both as parody and as a text for the course. In talking about
their work, both Maria and Annabelle also talked of the students in the course
as the primary audience for their multimodal texts, while I, as the instructor,
was the primary audience for their print essays. As Maria put it, “I know it
was for class, and you’d grade it. But I really was thinking about doing it for
the other people my age. And I wanted them to like it.” The perception was
clear among many of these students that multimodal texts, even when created
for an academic course, were more connected into the world of their peers,
128 williams

and into popular culture outside the university. By contrast, print-on-paper

texts were the domain of serious, academic work to be assessed by a profes-
sor.
Given the pervasive use of irony in popular culture, and the particular pop-
ularity of irony and parody online from sites students talk of visiting regularly
such as College Humor and The Onion, it is hardly surprising that students found
irony familiar and appealing. All three of these students, along with many oth-
ers, talked about their familiarity and affection for parodies that they watched
online, in television, and on film. As with Mike’s discussion of movie trail-
ers, students would talk with enthusiasm and ease about their understanding
of how such texts worked. Mike also made a comment that was echoed in
the comments of many students when he said, “Since I already knew movie
trailers so well, I also knew that doing one myself would take less time and I
wouldn’t have to learn something from the ground up to get this done.” Mike
also mentioned that, by working in a genre he understood, he thought he had
a better chance at earning a good grade. Like most of us, Mike chose a genre
he felt he understood and could work with effectively, rather than take the
risk of attempting a genre in which he had less experience and felt less con-
fidence.
Students’ comfort employing irony and using images, editing and words that
work against established genre conventions, is not necessarily simplistic, how-
ever. Irony and parody require textual and genre awareness. Before students
can create parodies or treat texts ironically, they must be able to step back from
the texts, understand their forms and conventions, and then work to create
a text that is read against those conventions. When critics of popular culture
maintain that young people only use popular culture for simple, emotional
pleasures, they miss the kind of nuanced genre and intertextual understand-
ings students must have of these texts in order to create parodies and use irony
(Williams 2002; 2009). Such critics also miss the confidence that students such
as Mark and Annabelle have in their ability to understand and manipulate and
even challenge the genres they know well. Yet, when faced with the research
essay, Mark and Annabelle, as well as other students, were significantly less
confident about the genre conventions and their abilities to work with those
conventions to convey their ideas.
Of course, irony is not the same as critical analysis. One of the potential prob-
lems with irony and parody is that they create an oppositional reading of text,
primarily for the sake of a joke. Certainly, some of the texts that students pro-
duced, such as Mark’s movie trailer parody and Maria’s film parody, worked
primarily toward a single, humorous point. In this way, parody can be a closed
genre system in terms of how it may work with the other texts students com-
genre inside/genre outside 129

pose. This is not say that all parody and irony are limited to single jokes. From
Jonathan Swift to Stephen Colbert, there have been many who have engaged
in the complex, critical work of satire through their use of irony and parody. It
is possible to engage students in the work of parody that results in more com-
plex critical engagement with texts and issues (Seitz, 2011), including their work
with popular culture genres.

Working with Students’ Antecedent Genres

Although students’ turn to parody and irony can, if it only leads to a single
joke, be a problem when students turn to popular culture to shape their texts,
understanding how and why students draw on antecedent genres from pop-
ular culture has implications for how we teach the composing of multimodal
texts in higher education. First, it is important to keep in mind that students,
like all of us, will draw on their knowledge of antecedent genres when trying
to compose in new genres. One of our first moves as teachers, then, should
be to find out what students’ regard as the antecedent genres for the work
they are being asked to complete. While this should be something we talk
with students about as a matter of routine, it often is ignored because there
is the assumption that the antecedent genres students are turning to are the
academic, discipline-specific ones with which we want them to be familiar.
This assumption is often paired with the belief that acknowledging and engag-
ing with any non-academic genres that students know from outside of school
is unproductive and not relevant for work in the classroom. Yet, if we ignore
the range of antecedent genres students work from, all we do is allow them
to work with those in uncritical and unreflective ways. Students will draw
on popular culture genres, whether explicitly or implicitly (Williams, 2002),
the question is how do we address this in a way that helps them better com-
plete an assignment, and come to a more complex and nuanced conception of
genre.
In the second section of the course, I made the discussion and analysis
of students’ antecedent genres an explicit part of the class. After introducing
the multimodal assignment, I talked to students about the kinds of texts that
such an assignment would bring to mind, had them bring examples of those
texts to class, and studied the genre conventions of these texts. In discussing a
remixed video parody, for example, we talked about the conventions, audience
assumptions, style, authorial position, and other genre elements present in
the text. We then turned to the assignment for the course and had a similar
discussion of how genre worked in the context of this academic assignment.
130 williams

Not only did such conversations prompt the students to think about genre
in more complex ways and how multimodal texts might engage academic
demands of critical distance and analysis, but they also assisted in making
explicit the ways in which genres help us negotiate social relationships. As
students began to compose their multimodal texts, we continued to talk about
genre, where conventions might work and where they might productively be
ignored or modified.
The result of these more explicit conversations about popular culture and
academic genres was both more thoughtful uses of popular culture genre con-
ventions and content, as well as more complex and critical multimodal texts.
Discussions of sampling and citation, for example, led students to use sampled
popular culture work more deliberately and with a clearer rhetorical purpose,
as well as to imagine ways to cite such work in multimodal texts. Although I
included a requirement in the digital project some form of citation, students’
questions and conversations about the nature and purpose of citation for their
digital projects went far beyond what they usually discussed for citation prac-
tices in their print papers. They displayed an interest in questions of authorship
and attribution, as well as the rhetorical purposes citations might serve, in talk-
ing about their digital texts.
In addition, students’ texts, even when using parody and irony, moved be-
yond a single joke to work that tried to do more critical intellectual work. For
example, Nadia created a remixed video that was a parody of Apple computer
advertisements. But more than making a single joke about the fanatical devo-
tion of some Apple consumers, she juxtaposed images of hip, young Apple
users and a narration about the importance of being on the cutting edge of
technology, with images of workers in factories in China manufacturing Apple
products. The use of irony and parody was still present in her project, but she
used the project to do more than a simple mocking of consumers to raise the
issues of worker conditions and global economic forces. She said,

At first the idea I had was to mock Apple ads and the people who fall for
them. But when we talked in class about what this project needed to do
fit academic genres too I started thinking about what else there was to say
about Apple and remembered I’d heard about a controversy about their
factories.

At that point Nadia said she wanted to do more research into the stories about
Apple factories in China. The research about the factories not only changed her
multimodal project, but shifted the focus of her research essay, which had just
been focused on the costs of digital technologies, to address issues of global
genre inside/genre outside 131

capital and labour. Nadia was not alone among students in the latter classes
who both thought more carefully about genre in composing multimodal texts
and also made more explicit connections between their multimodal project
and their print research essays.
The other advantage in more explicit conversations with students about
genre and genre influences is that it allows another way in to conversations
about affordances and multimodal writing. I agree with scholars (Keller, 2013;
Selfe, 2009; Wysocki 2004) who have advocated the importance of discussing
multimodal composing in terms of ‘affordances’—the ways in which digital
media now allow them to make choices, depending on the rhetorical context,
about how to compose and present a message. The discussion of such choices
should be done in a way that gives thoughtful consideration to the affordances
offered by of different modes and media (see also Bell, chapter 7 this volume).
To discuss genre is necessarily to discuss social relationships, power, audience
and a myriad of other factors that shape writing. Alan, for example, made a
machinima—a video in which he used the video from a computer game to
create his own video—about the effect of anonymity on online communica-
tion. Alan was eager to create this kind of video, but struggled at first when I
asked him to explain the affordances such an approach would offer. Eventually
he decided his video could provide a metaphor for the kinds of anxiety and
fear some people feel in online forums, and used the video from a war-based
computer game to create such a metaphor with images of people running away
from the perceived threats of anonymity online. He also decided that, rather
than use the video to repeat information from his research essay, he would use
it as a complement to the print text. Whereas the print text would cover the
research, the video would address the emotional impact, “because that’s what
video does best,” he said. Alan said he was inspired to take such an approach
after we discussed the idea of transmedia texts (Jenkins, 2006) in which one
issue or narrative is addressed in different texts in different media which can
stand alone, but also work in concert.
Finally, the students in the second class demonstrated a more flexible con-
ception of genre in general. The students in the first class, who did not discuss
antecedent genres explicitly, were more likely to be what Bawarshi and Reiff
(2010) call “boundary guarders” and regarded genres as stable templates to be
applied with less attention to context. The students in the second class, who
engaged genre more explicitly, were more willing to combine and bend genre
conventions and to see genre as contextual and malleable. In this way, they
were more like what Bawarshi and Reiff (2010) term genre “boundary crossers”
and used a wider variety of genre strategies and more flexible use of their
knowledge of antecedent genres. As Bawarshi and Reiff (2010) have pointed out,
132 williams

students who perceive genre as more flexible and dynamic are more likely to
transfer genre knowledge from one situation to the next. What is also interest-
ing is that a number of students, like Nadia and Alan, also talked about how
the attention to genre in class not only influenced their work on the course
projects, but was also changed how they thought about issues of genre and
audience when they engaged with texts outside of school. For example, Nadia,
like a number of students, talked about the how the discussion of appropriation
and citation of digital sources in an academic context made her look differently
at the remixed work she encountered online, and wonder about whether it was
important to consider issues of authorship with participatory popular culture
texts.

Conclusion

If we want students to think about genre in a more flexible, critical way that
responds to changing rhetorical contexts, we must understand our students’
environments for learning through genre as not bounded by the walls of our
classrooms (see Björkvall, chapter 1 this volume). Students will draw on popular
culture genres when turning to multimodal projects, whether we encourage
them to or not. The response to this reality should not simply be to expose
them to new genres, however. Instead we need to help them learn more about
the social, intertextual nature of genres and how we negotiate between the
antecedent genres we know, and the new genres we are confronting. In doing
so, we can help students come to a more critical understanding of what they
already know about genre and multimodal texts from their vast experience
with popular culture, as well as have a more nuanced sense of the genre
conventions of print and multimodal academic writing. If students work with
genre in deliberate and thoughtful ways, they will understand more how the
genre conventions that may work in one text, for one audience, may need
to be altered or adapted in a different context. It is well accepted in rhetoric
and composition that teaching students static forms or genre checklists results
in imitation, but rarely the ability to adapt such knowledge to new genre
challenges in the next piece of writing they will encounter. We cannot teach
students one kind of academic writing—whether for print or digital texts—
that could address the variety of writing situations they will encounter in
the university, not to mention their lives outside the classroom. The goal of
teaching writing in the university must be to develop students’ abilities to
negotiate unfamiliar writing situations. If, when students encounter unfamiliar
writing situations, they can think about them rhetorically in terms of audience,
genre inside/genre outside 133

purpose, genre, style, medium, ethos and so forth, they can begin to negotiate
how best to write effectively in that situation. Learning to think about writing
and reading as rhetorical acts requires a flexible and thoughtful approach to
genres, past and present.

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 chapter 7

Writing against Formal Constraints in Art and

Design: Making Words Count

Simon Bell

Introduction

All texts are multimodal to a degree, even modestly word-processed ones such
as traditional print essays. These offer multiple modes such as font, colour,
margins and paper. Jewitt argues that such ‘visual marks’ are interpreted and
organised by ‘print-based reading and writing’, and that such multiple modes
elevate them above mere ‘decoration’ (2005, p. 315). For example, changing
fonts in poetry might change line breaks on the page, disrupting the author’s
intended visual structure; some fonts might emphasise capital letters, thus
perhaps emphasising a left-hand edge at the expense of internal rhythm.
This chapter argues that in art and design, multimodal writing does not
liberate words to be more loose-limbed, but in fact does the opposite, creating
layers that might be heightened and / or disaggregated modes of meaning, or
modes of expression, or any combination of either. Synonyms, for example,
might now have to be found to fit precise spaces because of particular layout
constraints. In the same way, some websites with rolling text need words and
compositions of words which must be read and understood in particular time-
frames. Images whose meanings depend on complementary or explanatory
text need correspondingly carefully chosen words to echo or to contradict them
because the images could be read at face value. Such critical functions may well
decentre art and design students expecting a less word-focused writing task
when undertaking new multimodal writing.
My background and interest in art and design have convinced me that writ-
ing helps my students develop cognitively, epistemologically and intellectually,
and that such developments are transferable and transmutable. Art and design
students’ portfolios can seem clumsily self-referential and limited—given the

Bell, S. (2016). Chapter 7. Writing against Formal Constraints in Art and Design: Making Words
Count. In R. Fidalgo & T. Olive (Series Eds.) & A. Archer, & E.O. Breuer (Vol. Eds.), Studies in
Writing: Vol. 33, Multimodality in Higher Education, (pp. 136–166). Leiden: Brill.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2016 | doi: 10.1163/9789004312067_009

writing against formal constraints in art and design 137

increasing and demanding divergence of today’s markets—if they lack the crit-
ical reflection to give them agile relevance. However, my research indicates that
many of these students consider unusual writing projects not for them, but for
‘creative’ writers in the literary sense. These students sometimes also see tai-
lored writing briefs as condescending, feeling perhaps that they are not being
given the opportunity to tackle complex intellectual issues head-on like other
students. Sometimes, too, art and design students find comfort in a familiar
writing genre because learning a new one is challenging (see Williams, chap-
ter 6 this volume).
Although art and design students have not generally come to universi-
ty to write,1 multimedia and varied employment opportunities make it un-
wise to ignore such emerging writing opportunities. For my students, these
would include online writing, exhibitions, picture tagging, animations, title se-
quences, social media, posters, adverts, blogs, labels, captions and annotations.
The writings activities are multimodal, involving factors such as time, space,
image, rhythm, colour, shape, sound and mood.
uk art and design institutions in recent years have tinkered with the formats
and lengths of writing assignments, often avoiding the word ‘essay’.2 Around
the start of the new century, some final year art and design students at Coventry
University and similar institutions were given the choice between the standard
dissertation and the looser, reflective practice portfolio, which encouraged stu-
dents to produce logbooks of varied content and assembly. Although reflective
practice appealed to many students, more chose the dissertation option. This
was partly because they appreciated its clearer criteria and heritage, and partly
because they thought it more weighty. Some also obliquely disclosed that they
were more comfortable with the familiar format of what they saw as an essay.3
In a slightly later move to fewer modules at the University, the dissertation was
squeezed out in favour of portfolio development via increased studio practice,

1 We should also remember that not all art and design students want to follow exclusively
vocational routes, and that they do not all dislike writing. 62.5% (20 out of 32) respon-
dents of a cohort of 58 final year Graphic Design undergraduates at Coventry University’s
School of Art and Design agreed in a 2011 questionnaire that they should be ‘encouraged to
write’.
2 In my experience, the term ‘essay’ is contentious, variably understood and inconsistently
applied. In order to avoid any confusion and disapprobation, I will refer to the student written
project work in this chapter as ‘texts’.
3 In 2007–2008, 106 out of 110 Coventry University School of Art and Design final year Graphic
Design and Illustration undergraduates I taught chose the dissertation ahead of reflective
practice.
138 bell

but students subsequently successfully called for its reinstatement. From my

.

experience, there is emerging evidence that some art and design PhD students
are now struggling with their theses because they chose reflective practice as
undergraduates.
In this chapter I discuss six art and design student projects set at Coventry
University. The projects all combined text and imagery in some way, and were
all characterised by either very short or form-constricted texts. In all cases, free-
dom was tempered with restriction and restriction was mastered by freedom:
the one could not be achieved without the other. The students were free to write
their text, to choose their imagery, to choose their space, to use their space, to
leave their space empty, to redistribute their words within tight limits, to be
inconsistent; but they were also restricted by font characteristics, by awkward
and intractable spaces, by controlling spaces, by certain imagery, by uncertain
imagery, by mixed-provenance imagery, by precise word counts. There were no
concessions for lack of content: content was the driver for any innovation, and
this was made clear and discussed in the seminars.

Writing against Constraints: Form and Content in the Short Story

and Flash Fiction

Unlike the usual humanities essay (see Gourlay, chapter 4 this volume), the
writing projects had almost exaggeratedly opposed freedoms and restrictions,
and called for the reconciliation of increased tension between demands of
form and content. Koestler’s notion of creativity as interlocking ‘two previ-
ously unrelated skills or matrices of thought’ (Mithen, 1996, p. 58) is central
here. Mednick and Mednick claim that the ‘more mutually remote the ele-
ments of the new combinations, the more creative is the process or solu-
tion’ (cited in Dacey and Madaus, 1969, p. 56), and Koestler summarises his
bisociative stance as the ‘juxtaposition of formerly unrelated ideas’ (cited in
Boden, 1992, p. 5). However, we should heed Boden’s warning not to read
Koestler’s stance as mechanistic, a ‘mere automatic mixing of ideas’ (1992,
p. 23). This supports Koestler’s own urge to use ‘intellectual illumination—
seeing something familiar in a new, significant light’ (1976, 383, emphasis in
original).
The projects I discuss draw heavily on the short story, novella and flash fic-
tion, whose forms are hard to delimit. Some delimit by length (Hawthorn, 2001,
pp. 13, 14; Renshawe, 1998, para. 2); others muse on materials (Hershman, 2009,
p. 168). Poe seizes on time to read, tacitly pointing to at-a-glance structure as
well (cited in Hawthorn, 2001, p. 51), and Gray on modes of characterisation and
writing against formal constraints in art and design 139

action (1992, pp. 262–263). Flash fiction can have playfully precise restrictions,
for example that of Esquire in 2012, which ran a contest limiting entries to 79
words—because the magazine was 79 years old that year (Sustana, n.d., para.
5).
The term ‘flash fiction’ is relatively new. There are several eccentric and
engaging terms for such short fiction. These include dribbles and drabbles (50-
and 100-word stories respectively), fast fiction, furious fiction, micro fiction,
nano fiction, napkin fiction, postcard fiction, skinny stories and smoke-long
stories. The term ‘flash’ is a popular catch-all in the United States (Masih, 2009,
p. xxxvi). Masih claims that it was first used in 1992 (2009, xxxvi), although
she also claims that the form’s origins reach back to Boccaccio and beyond,
with a plethora of publications and anthologies in the 1940s culminating in a
renaissance in the 1980s (all 2009, pp. xxxvi, xiii, xxvii, xxxiv). Masih focuses
on the momentary ‘flash’, an illumination ‘engulfing us for a brief moment’.
She argues that flash fiction condenses time, and that it aims for an ‘intense,
emotional impact’ (2009, pp. xi, xiv). More conventional short stories (for
example those by Katherine Mansfield) are also intense and emotional, but
flash’s extra challenge is to make its compression comparably meaningful.
Elsewhere, Sustana defines flash fiction as stories with ‘usually fewer than 1,000
words’ (n.d., para. 3).
Flash fiction can be in any genre because of its ‘inherent creativity’ (High-
smith, 2011, para. 1), yet Johnson feels that it is ‘best written [with a] subject and
storyline’ like any other short story (2013, para. 4). This discouragingly prescrip-
tive view is endorsed by Sustana (n.d., para. 8), who argues that flash fiction
should tell a ‘complete story’ (despite conceding ‘exceptions’ to this rule), but
the view is then firmly tempered by Masih’s (2009, pp. xi, xxv) observation that
innovative flash fiction writers ‘lean more toward slice-of-life sketches’. Masih
sees such lack of consensus as indicative of flash fiction’s experimental poten-
tial, and the lack of definitive answers and wildly differing relativities (is Tom
Jones a short story if Clarissa is a full-length novel?) certainly license differing
modes of engagement and formal considerations. These irregularities do not
downgrade the formal but create opportunities to play restrictions off against
freedom—and vice-versa—reminding us that Koestler’s bisociation is apposite
here: it is not easy to write short when there are slippery but forceful demands
of content and form.
Foregrounding the formal in the short story, O’Faolain identifies the short
story’s ‘abrupt’ openings as key formal factors (1951, p. 150), and Hawthorn sees
the use of repeats as bestowing the short story with a ‘heavier weight’ due to
its ‘limitations [of length]’ (2001, p. 53). A good example is from Hemingway’s
novella The Old Man and the Sea:
140 bell

He no longer dreamed of storms, nor of women, nor of great occurrences,

nor of great fish, nor fights, nor contests of strength, nor of his wife. He
only dreamed of places now and of the lions on the beach.
2004: 16

The repeats of ‘nor’ resonate with ‘no’ and ‘now’. What might be read as wasted
words could equally be read as defiantly heroic words, lyrically and hypnoti-
cally making their point against numerical odds; all of which underscore the
hero’s character.
Bayley argues that the ‘more complete the art, the more capable [the short
story] is of arousing speculation’ (1988, p. 9), thus confirming the significance of
both the formal and the suggestive by making them interdependent. The short
story’s suggestive qualities are an inevitable result of its formal compression
(O’Faolain, 1951, p. 51; Cracknell, 2009, p. 231; Mort, 2009, p. 8), and a much-
discussed upshot of such suggestion is subversion, as short story texts skirt
round definitive meaning (Bayley, 1988, p. 49; Hanson, 1989, p. 25; Hershman,
2009, p. 160; Mort, 2009, p. 9). Rourke obliquely argues that flash fiction can
resort to ‘ridicule and outrage’ (2011, p. 11); equally subversive might be Cutting’s
‘inherently and intentionally imprecise’ vague language (2007, p. 4). However,
Channell argues that ‘language users plainly have no particular difficulties with
vague language [and that] human cognition is well set up to process vague
concepts’ (1994, p. 195). This provides a delicious balance because it appears
at once to legitimise vague language in the face of its claimed subversion and
to call on reader-response theory, which Harkin reminds us is still relevant and
applicable to other, more contemporary forms than the purely literary (2005,
p. 412). The suggestive and the subversive are useful because they can herald,
and to varying degrees licence, new modes of writing, with Rourke claiming
that flash fiction is facilitated by the internet (2011, p. 9). Screen formats change
when texts shift from computer to tablet to smartphone, for example, as do
interactivity modes such as rollovers and swipes. Screen resolutions also vary,
and cannot be predicted nor considered in the same way as the manageably
varying effects of particular papers.
These opportunities should appeal to art and design students, and in my
experience generally do. However, if we want writing for art and design stu-
dents to have transferable value, we should remember that the benefits of mul-
timodal writing can become quarantined in the writing itself (Bell, 2014, p. 107).
This is because such writing can be appealingly novel and domain-relevant,
preventing any incidental learning from being applied outside the confines—
however conceived—of the project itself. A paradoxical solution would give
more weight to each word by using very few, and by using multimodal contexts
writing against formal constraints in art and design 141

and devices as controls. This might also deflect any student scorn that such
unfamiliarly short word counts might generate if we remember Flaubert’s con-
tention that ‘there is only one word to express […] whatever you want to say
[…] you must never be content with an approximation’ (cited in Maupassant,
1971, pp. 10–11). The meaning of my chapter title is neatly underscored: the more
restrictions imposed in multimodal texts (thus changing the way that words
work in written texts), the more important, difficult and rewarding word choice
becomes. This sharpens the focus on the words, making them work harder to
produce meaning.

Background to the Writing Projects

The six projects discussed in this chapter were individual writing projects for
students from a variety of art and design disciplines—for example, fashion,
fine art, graphic design—and from pre-undergraduate diagnostic Foundation
(spanning all art and design disciplines from fine art to industrial design)
through to final-year undergraduate. The first project, Blahnik, asked final-
year undergraduate graphic design students to produce a handwritten text, a
persuasive fiction aimed at selling a pair of spectacular shoes. The text had to
be written inside an image of the shoe, and had to make a powerful statement
within a powerful image. It was given to the same students who did the Comic
Sans project, which asked them to conceive a fashion magazine combining
street style and haute couture. Students could use any images in any way,
and had to write a representative text—for example, a paragraph of editorial
and a caption. This was because the main restriction in the project was that
only Comic Sans font could be used, a requirement expected to affect textual
content radically because of Comic Sans’s regular use in other, less compatible
contexts.
The third project, Dior project, was given to first-year undergraduate fash-
ion students, and required them to write entry and exit board texts for an
imaginary, one-room, 12-item Dior exhibition in London’s Victoria and Albert
Museum. The items could be anything (garments, accessories, photographs,
letters) and students only had to research and describe the images and their
sequence in word-processed text. Each entry and exit board had to be exactly
152 words—an apparently random figure, but actually the number of words
Vogue used in a 1947 piece on Dior, and thus not without arcane relevance.
It is also roughly the amount of words many museum and gallery websites
use when introducing exhibitions. The fourth project, the Wallace Collection
project, was also given to first-year undergraduate fashion students, asking
142 bell

them to imagine that the Collection was planning an exhibition of contem-

porary fashion to sit alongside artefacts from the gallery itself. The theme
of the exhibition was enduring luxury, and students had to research all the
images: four from the gallery and eight from the fashion world. As well as
exactly 150 words of content explanation and exactly 250 words of content
justification (imagined as boards at the exhibition’s entry and exit), students
had to establish the exhibition’s sequence and write 12-word captions for each
image.
The fifth project, ‘Mannequins Are Vile’, was a contextual studies project
for Foundation students. The theme was how easy it is to misread a piece of
work, especially problematic if the misreading makes sense. The project called
on intelligent use of space and management of points to construct an argu-
ment, because there were no initial word count, font size or image restric-
tions. Instead, the essay was restricted to four columns and four parts; Part 1
(misreading) was allowed two columns, Part 2 (lecture themes) was allowed
one column, Part 3 (justifying choice of comparable practitioner) was allowed
half a column, and Part 4 (conclusion) was also allowed half a column. The
sixth and final project—the 128-word texts—was also given to Foundation
students. Four briefs were offered in this project, each with a different topic,
each in exactly the same format, each asking students to argue one of two
opposing viewpoints provided, each viewpoint prompted by a square image
placed on either side of a square box of carefully-spaced text making 128
words (this number being the arbitrary product of the spacing). The three
squares were all the same size and the images were chosen to have match-
ing registers, compositional biases and colour schemes. These texts called for
research and elaboration of an apparently simple argument into a persuasive
whole.
The projects are not in chronological order here, but are in a cogent se-
quence. Blahnik used quickly-written, hand-rendered text to create a fiction
within a particular and articulate image. In Comic Sans the canvas was bigger,
with greater extremes of freedom and restrictions but with an intentionally
unhelpful font specified. Neither project had specific word count restrictions
(but it was anticipated that multimodal factors would harness any untethered
writing); Dior introduced specific word counts, but the writing had a looser
remit than either of the previous projects because it covered potential and
expectation without any actual visual cues. The Wallace Collection project
echoed Dior, but asked for text to be written to accompany actual images
whose sequence and interaction had to be considered. There was also a strict
word count, but it had other freedoms in that it could be distributed at will,
thus reconciling individual texts (images and captions) with the demands of
writing against formal constraints in art and design 143

the theme and possibly over-arching texts (the collective of all the images
and the captions possibly being read as one text or as randomly segmented
texts). The ‘Mannequins Are Vile’ project relaxed word count and image restric-
tions, but tightened the use of relative spaces, meaning that word count and
image choice had to be factored in; the 128-word texts relaxed word count,
image choice and relative space judgements, but tightened particular word
choices and consequent interconnectivity with an argument and articulate
imagery.
These projects were all formally assessed with grades except the Blahnik
project, which was a short loosener for a bigger project. At the start of each
project’s discussion, I outlined what I was looking for and what each project
was intended to achieve. These were not writing projects for the sake of writing,
nor were they intended to demonstrate historical or theoretical awareness in
the way that traditional essays generally do. They were projects intended to
increase students’ critical reflection, so that they could better understand and
articulate their own portfolios’ qualities.
The projects’ restrictions might be self-imposed (the students do not enjoy
writing or do not think they can do it) or might be imposed by the brief, or
both. There might be freedom because new formats might call on relaxation
of grammatical rules, or recourse to exaggerated typographic devices, or some
kind of visual / verbal shorthand. This was true in all the projects, but especially
true in the 128-word texts because the shape was tight, the emerging arguments
were relatively open-ended, and because in all the projects content was not
supposed to be compromised by word count or other restrictions. The 128-
word texts needed the content and back-up research of a 1,000-word essay
on the same topic. Ingenuity alone got no extra marks, but ingenuity used to
accommodate and enhance good content did. Content was the spine of the
assessment criteria.
There were seminars in all projects to start the work. At first, these unpacked
the core potential of the argument, and encouraged deeper examination of, for
example, connections and meta-links between content and expression such
as colour, materials, theme (as distinct from content), and sound. Students,
for instance, might consider how the sound of a dress can change with dif-
ferent manners of wearing. Subsequent seminars discussed practice and text-
based theoretical angles, such as typographic signification, provisional mean-
ing, risk and the short story. Later seminars and workshops explored possible
approaches to compress expression. Examples included bullet-point lists (with
the bullets not necessarily starting fresh lines), and using bold, italic or cap-
itals alongside or instead of roman to get a good fit or to make a mini-essay,
summary or conclusion. Other examples included alternate roman, italic or
144 bell

bold lines or chunks, creating multiple, interwoven arguments; varying word

lengths to produce meaningfully different rhythms. Alongside these kinds of
layout and visual possibilities we discussed vague language, whose informal
nature can connect, help the fit, emphasise and suggest; initialisms; slang; syn-
onyms, antonyms and words with double meanings; and the use of suggestion
or oblique content which might appear consistent with the unusual nature of
the formats, and thus aspire to formal perfection.
Writing loosener exercises included finding synonymic images, writing short
sagas to work with the compositional bias of the magazine images (which could
be form- or content-determined), imaginary dialogues between characters in
magazine adverts, and single-word summaries. In these, students were asked to
find a word which summed up each of three disparate images and a word which
summed up all three images (and not the three words). A similar exercise asked
them to find a word which was the opposite of each of three images and one
which was the opposite of all three. It was difficult to find a single word with
enough layered meaning or nuance which might cover all demands. This is a
more extreme instance of words working hard in the short story because of its
‘incredible compression and density’ (Cracknell, 2009, p. 231)—the four words
(three plus one) could all be considered multimodal, but to varying degrees.

Writing against Image Restrictions: Blahnik

In this project, students had to produce a handwritten story inside the image
of a Manolo Blahnik gladiator sandal. They had to persuade female students
that they deserved to wear a pair of these extravagant shoes at their Gradu-
ation Ceremony to celebrate the achievement of getting their degrees. There
was no guidance given for tone of voice, register or storyline. The focus was
on word choice and sequence because texts had to be quickly handwritten
and thus lacked the finesse and resonance of a font. The extravagant, lattice-
like framework of this particular shoe was at once reassuring (because it was
not provided by the students and thus their choice could not be questioned),
and opportune (because its pronounced visual statement offered design pos-
sibilities). The framing within the image was ‘clearly [a] multimodal principle’
(Kress and van Leeuwen, 2001, p. 3).
In Figure 7.1, most of the text is carefully written in the same size and style.
The writer is a proud observer, and describes how the shoes turned the ‘timid’
wearer into a triumphant figure of envy to the other women present.
The text size could have been adjusted to improve fit in places, for exam-
ple ‘others’ at the toe end, but such variations might have softened scrutiny
writing against formal constraints in art and design 145

on word choice which might have seemed unimpeachable if fitting perfectly.

This chimes with Bayley’s view that the short story’s ‘complete’ art arouses
speculation. The capitalised ‘gasp’, neatly aligning with the top of the heel,
distinguishes utterance from narrative in comic-book style. It starts a cascade
of two possible alternative routes to converge at ‘I had to take a photo’. The
uneven spacing around the words, and the distribution of words into spaces,
creates a staccato and irregular reading, perhaps echoing the way in which the
writer / observer’s impressions surface; for example, ‘I had to take a’ is cramped,
whereas its continuation ‘photo Her’ is not punctuated, but has allowed space
for a full point, and its second word is capitalised as if a full point were intended.
At the top, ‘women’ fits the space better than the more gentle ‘girls’ or ‘ladies’
would. This absolves the writer from what might be read as jealous pride (laced
with righteous contempt) because the writer could argue that the word was
only chosen to ensure a good fit.
In Figure 7.2, the opening phrase describes the foot entering the shoe—a
snug fit, correctly angled. The writer explains to the wearer that putting these
shoes on is just the start of a lifetime’s happiness and achievement. The lower
case text next could jump to the lower case text at the toe end of the foot, or
could be followed by the capitalised text which could itself in turn lead to the
lower case text at the toe end. In the first horizontal block of lower case text,
‘already’ is given space, trumpeting its significance. Similarly, in the second
piece of lower case text, ‘this’ and ‘never’ are given space after them, whereas
‘You’, ‘have’ and ‘graduated’ are tightly spaced, perhaps a visual allusion to the
pressures of getting a degree. ‘End’ is by contrast abrupt and final, whereas the
first lower case phrase can be read in two ways: ‘you already have graduated’
or ‘you have already graduated’ (although the spacing and length of ‘you’ and
‘have’ probably link them enough to direct reading). Perhaps the alternative
readings of this phrase underscore allusions to the maturing process necessary
for a degree, a process not dependent upon ceremony but crowned by it.
The combination of words mixes the staccato with the mellifluous, creating
different tones of voice which emphasise differences between any discernible
subtexts, such as those between the often bumpy ride to completing a degree
and the rosy glow of hindsight.
The student texts are not unlike fairy tales—compressed fables—which fos-
ter ‘maps’ for coping with life, yet do not generally ‘dictate a single, univocal
uncontested meaning’ (Tatar, 1999, pp. xi, xiv). Thus, the stories relate to their
function, but the restrictions amplify appeal (good layering for advertisers)
because, as in the short story, ‘every word doesn’t only count [but] must multi-
task’ (Cracknell, 2009, p. 231).
146 bell

figure 7.1 Blahnik project student handwritten text inside image, foregrounding fit and
sequence (uncorrected text transcribed from original in accompanying image)
writing against formal constraints in art and design 147
148 bell

figure 7.2 Blahnik project student handwritten text inside image, foregrounding tone of voice
and alternative readings (uncorrected text transcribed from original in
accompanying image)
writing against formal constraints in art and design 149
150 bell

Writing against Font Restrictions: Comic Sans

This project asked students to design a fashion magazine and write represen-
tative text for it. The magazine had to combine street style and haute couture,
echoing Koestler’s (1976) bisociative idea of creativity as reconciling disparate
opposites. This bisociation was increased by total image and design freedom,
tempered by a requirement to use only Comic Sans, which many art and design
students dislike and which is hardly ever used in fashion magazines. Students
often assume the ‘right’ font will do their work for them. However, in this task,
I wanted the relationship between content and form opened up by forcing the
students out of genre-sanctioned comfort zones, and to foster risk-taking—
but tacitly. Risk-taking is relentlessly written into uk Higher Education art
and design course documentation, frequently encouraged in teaching sessions,
evaluated in feedback and celebrated by practitioners. The simple paradox of
such measures is that risk becomes institutionalised and thus no longer a risk.4
Comic Sans had to be a prompt, not a licence.
Some students predictably used very few words and others made their words
very small; both ploys invited scrutiny and curiosity. An imaginative and daring
alternative was to emphasise the font instead of downplaying it. For example, in
Figure 7.3 (top) the words are huge and transparent. Joining the letters together
tends to reinforce the phrase’s meaning, and each letter traces different types
and colours of shoes for both sexes. In the simple ‘g’ of ‘gap’ we see a high-
heeled court shoe, a high-heeled mule and a trainer—which is haute couture,
which is street style? Bridging the gap perhaps blurs the boundaries—using
unpopular Comic Sans perhaps stops the message being devalued by its form
being too predictable. A clipped social message through fashion and type is not
fanciful. Blackwell sees the spread of computers creating a ‘revised sensibility
of typography’, which suggests that the message might get through, and its
shortness should not be problematic because ‘longer written and spoken forms
[are being replaced by] “soundbites” of (at best) condensed or deconstructed
thought’ (1998, pp. 7, 9).
Capitals weave textures in Figure 7.3 (bottom), making simple word shapes
and tight line spacing. Comic Sans’s near-monoline construction reduces the
spottiness caused by fonts and serifs with uneven stress, and thus alleviates
variations in tone of the content. Capitals also downplay the repetition of ‘to’
because they minimise letters’ differences. Together with its preceding bullet
point (or centred full stop: either reading works), ‘to’ might in lower case make a

4 I have explored this in my own research and teaching (Bell, 2014, p. 100).
writing against formal constraints in art and design 151

figure 7.3 Two details of student texts from the Comic Sans fashion
magazine project, showing radically different ways of
handling the generally unwelcome font requirement

distracting logo, which could also blemish the page with spottiness. If the bullet
points were to be full stops, and the writer capitalised the ‘T’ of ‘To’ and used
lower case for other letters, spottiness would increase. By using bullet points
and capitalising all the letters the writer can happily wave away these worries.
The aggregated texture allows the writer to mix up different phrases; and
although the spaces between phrases cause slight unevenness in the pattern,
we are also faced by an unsettling, clown-like figure apparently taunting us to
challenge such shortcomings.
152 bell

Writing against Word Count Restrictions: Dior

For this project, restrictions were placed on the number of words and images
but not on the font choice. Students had to research 12 images and to write entry
and exit board texts for an imaginary exhibition in London’s Victoria & Albert
Museum. Each board had to be exactly 152 words—students generally found
this intriguing in its eccentric and unfamiliar specificity. However, its link to
Vogue in a 1947 piece on Dior and its similarity to many museum and gallery
website text lengths helped establish the authority of the task.
The shortness of the text would probably make readers work hard to produce
and / or verify meaning (Macey, 2001, p. 324). Iser’s ‘blanks’ which stimulate
the reader (1980, p. 11), Fish’s notion of the readers’ ‘community’ with shared
‘assumptions’ (1980, p. 11) and Huckin’s textual silences which prompt readers
to collaborate with authors (2010, p. 420) are all pertinent theoretical underpin-
nings for short texts punching above their weight in the shared environment of
an exhibition, virtual or not. These student writers would doubtless be reas-
sured by Lodge’s assertion that ‘text is not something that the author creates
and hands over to the reader, but that the reader produces in the act of reading’
(1997, p. 194). The unusual word count requirement imposed a new condition
of fluidity, and possible ambiguity, on the writing and its constituent parts.
Some interesting phrases and assertions turned up in this project, for exam-
ple, ‘Dior […] stunned the world’, a debatable hyperbole which could be ex-
plored in the exhibition without needing to be verified or referenced in the
student text. Visitors were told in another exit board that they would be ‘gently
nudged [into] appreciation’ of Dior, adumbrating a hesitation which respected
visitors’ integrity and ability to make major decisions for themselves. Some stu-
dents used the sequence of boards and the intervening exhibition to answer
questions or to explain apparent omissions. One exit board (Figure 7.4) had
just 50 adjectives bracketed between two roughly equal blocks of text at start
and finish—a neat way of saying ‘some of these will work for you today, some
tomorrow—the problem’s yours now’, but one that called on reader-response
as the texts and adjectives were obscure in places. Another student used the
description ‘teeny tiny’, thereby saying in two words what could be said in
one—an example of the short story technique of using apparently wasteful
repeats to enforce a point confidently.
The project needed fruitful writing, an understanding of Dior and of se-
quence and curated imagery. The results needed to be fresh and challenging,
given Dior’s fame. The tension between the entry and exit boards was height-
ened by the imagined experience of the exhibition. I did not want the students
to describe an experience conditioned by exhibition lighting or scale, because
writing against formal constraints in art and design 153

figure 7.4 Dior project student text with 50 adjectives bracketed between blocks of more
conventional text

this would colour their writing too much. Instead, they had to prompt and man-
age critical reflection on an experience whose totality could be imagined, but
whose internal architecture could not.

Writing against Narrative Restrictions: The Wallace Collection

This project asked students to imagine that London’s Wallace Collection was
planning an exhibition entitled ‘Luxury Never Goes Out Of Date’, which mixed
contemporary fashion and the collection’s artefacts. Students had to research
the artefacts and select a total of 12 images, and then write text and captions.
The project called for historical and contextual understanding, precise writing
and use of imagery as a narrative accomplice to text. I was looking for intelligent
commentary about fashion and its possibilities. As well as exactly 150 words of
content explanation and exactly 250 words of content justification (imagined
as boards at the exhibition’s entry and exit), students had to establish the
exhibition’s sequence and write captions for each image.
The caption length was 12 words per image or 144 words overall to be dis-
tributed at will amongst the images. This allowed students to expand upon any
entry and exit texts’ constraints, and could alter the pace of reading by vary-
ing the word count for each image; it could reflect and / or suggest the relative
importance of each image; it could intrigue readers by varying the information
given for pictures which might appear to be too similar when seen without
154 bell

words, and thus lazily chosen; and it could include the images with the cap-
tion text as one complete narrative, thus blurring the boundaries between the
words’ and images’ relative functions. It made it easier to vary the text regis-
ter to accord with the images’ provenance and context; it could help complex
combinations of images to be explained slightly more expansively, even if that
meant leaving other images relatively unexplained because they now had cor-
respondingly fewer words. It also encouraged playful work in which captions
could be of different word lengths—but the same physical length—to fit uni-
form spaces.
This project highlighted nuances of narrative in the way that images could
be part of the text because of the way caption words could be distributed.
A story is simply a narrative of events in time order, whereas plot arranges
events according to causality (Forster, 1974, 87): visitors to the exhibition might
well question why they saw what they did. The ‘intersection of verbal and
visual’ (Welsh, 2007, para. 1) are tenets of ekphrasis, the ‘verbal representation
of visual representation’, (Heffernan, cited in Welsh, 2007, para. 6). Ekphrasis
is an ancient Greek praxis in which writers had to bring an object to life, a
skill heightened because the object often never existed except in the imagina-
tion of the writer—who then had to transfer the reification to the mind of the
reader (Munsterberg, 2008, para. 1). This includes sharing the ‘emotional expe-
rience and content’ of the material—probably very helpful when explaining
such potentially oppositional elements as this proposed exhibition’s content.5
Welsh goes on to hint at the bridging qualities of ekphrasis to transcend the
‘physical aspects’ of the work in question, insisting that ekphrasis must remain
a negotiating ‘rhetorical term’ which should not become a ‘complete and per-
fect intermediary’ or else the ‘entire paradigm would crumble’ (2007, paras 3,
11). Such short texts and such selective use of imagery within such an extensive
setting call on rhetoric, coupled with reader-response and reception theory, to
minimise reductive assumptions about the work.
The best students had clear and focused conceptual frameworks, which
elevated the captions above merely describing or identifying content, and
made sense of varying caption lengths. Examples included the fête champêtre,6

5 A year or so before this project was launched, the Wallace Collection controversially hosted
a show of Damien Hirst paintings to sit alongside its collection of largely seventeenth-
and eighteenth-century fine and applied arts. This writing project thus had currency and
contextual legitimacy which was not overlooked by the students, and helped to cement its
intellectual authority with them.
6 An eighteenth-century garden party or outdoor, bucolic entertainment in which guests were
usually elegantly dressed.
writing against formal constraints in art and design 155

figure 7.5 Example of one of a set of student Wallace Collection

texts on the theme of seductive archetypes—this one is
‘The Delicate’

where paintings by Fragonard and Watteau were contrasted with contem-

porary fashion photographs, fostering a debate about urban clothes in rural
settings. Another explored the perception of luxury in an ecologically fragile
world; this had deliberately cryptic captions with widely varying text lengths
aimed at encouraging readers to connect disparate images and to rethink mind-
sets.
In another, archetypes populated a collection revolving around seduction.
There were characters such as the queen who was captioned ‘cruel and cer-
tain’; the amazon with her vanity (she conquers because she can, but this
whimsy is impulsive); and the commander whose army is ‘more afraid of him
than of the enemy’. Figure 7.5, captioned ‘The Delicate’, is an example from
156 bell

the collection. There was no didactic sequence to these images: indeed, to

impose one might have confined the contradictions by eliciting archetypi-
cal responses—and so the student used an arbitrary sequence. This freed up
the words and allowed readers to consider intellectual angles rather than just
surface pairing of text and image; thus the images became part of the intel-
lectual text of the endeavour. The project made students write very carefully
and economically because of the tight word count. However, these few words
had to be expansive and imaginative as well, because they had to anticipate,
prompt and manage connections between the images—connections which
would be differently manifested and experienced by different viewers and
different readers.

Writing against Space Restrictions: Mannequins are Vile

The theme of this project, and the series of contextual studies lectures leading
up to it, was the misreading of students’ work. The misreading may well make
good sense and comfortably sit alongside the maker’s initial reading / intent
of the work. The project was for Foundation students, and required critical
reflection as well as understanding of their studio work in relation to other,
comparable practitioners.
As seen in Figure 7.6, the physical constraints of the writing were sim-
ple: one side of a3; word-processed; four parts; four columns; no apparent
word count or margin restrictions, font choice, size or mix; no restriction on
images. The columns could be left unfilled or could have large type filling
them with few words. Part 1 (two columns) asked students how their work
might be misread, how they might prevent misreading and how they might
react to it. Students also had to reference at least one other practitioner and
the lectures in this part. Part 2 (one column) asked students to identify any
common themes in the lectures, which turned them into a set rather than a
random collection; Part 3 (half a column) asked students to explain and jus-
tify their choice of practitioner; Part 4, also half a column, was the conclu-
sion, in which they had to explain what they learned that might improve their
work.
Some students changed the page orientation. Some left parts of columns
unfilled, a few broke the columns up by book-ending the four columns with
the two columns of Part 1. These were mature steps as these possibilities
were not suggested (nor explicitly ruled out) in the brief. Students also had
to consider where to break the two columns of Part 1, and the implications
of the break. Some mixed font style, font size and font family; some mixed
writing against formal constraints in art and design 157

figure 7.6 An example of a Mannequins Are Vile student text, showing the unevenness
resulting from column restrictions anchored and calmed by imagery
158 bell

justified with unjustified, and some used left- and / or right-alignment to

suggest inter-column connections.
There were some interesting, mature and astute insights and connections
emerging from the written texts: clarity is neither automatic nor easy; univer-
sity is about learning to learn; context matters; fear of misreading inhibits; art
is about debates; if the maker does not understand the work then the reader
probably will not either; too much elucidation exposes the artist and over-
conditions future output; detail controls pace and meaning; you cannot recre-
ate work because you cannot recreate the necessary emotional investment. The
means of articulating these insights were at the discretion of the students, and
because the layout was so important in organising the chunks of debate, so
were the particular words which facilitated it.
This writing exercise demanded few minimal technical or formal skills. It is
not difficult to move text around a page or to leave columns blank, but to do so
in the context of an academic essay takes intellectual confidence in both the
writer and the writer’s perception of the institutional: ‘is the university serious
about this, and will I be able to say what I need to say to get a reasonable grade if I
fool around with format and leave stuff empty?’ Acquiring formal and technical
skills alone should not be the ‘prime purpose of art and design education’, but
should ‘enable’ exploration and expression of ‘visual perceptions and inner
feelings’ (Buchanan, 1995, p. 35). Many art and design technologies change very
fast, as do students’ use of them, but this project’s simplicity and tacit reliance
on reader-response and reception theory were intended to prevent desuetude
crippling it. The focus on the words was simply that of allowing the student to
decide when enough was enough.

Writing against Shape Restrictions: 128-Word Texts

Four briefs were offered in this project, each with a different topic, each in
exactly the same format, each asking students to argue one of two opposing
viewpoints provided, each viewpoint prompted by a square image placed on
either side of a square box of carefully-spaced text making 128 words (this num-
ber being the arbitrary product of the spacing). The three squares were all the
same size, and the images were chosen to have matching registers, composi-
tional biases and colour schemes. The text was in Times Roman, ‘arguably the
most widely used typeface ever’ (Baines and Haslam 2005, p. 65), thus common
enough to help students to focus on their writing. The students simply had to
decide on a viewpoint and replace the dummy text with theirs. This project
called for research and elaboration of an apparently simple argument into a
writing against formal constraints in art and design 159

persuasive whole. They needed no layout expertise, but tight expression; con-
fident manipulation of language done with a sense of purpose; they needed to
inform but to take readers’ likely knowledge into account.
The texts intensified some of the previous project’s demands (word count,
precise justification and spacing), but relaxed others (clear delineation be-
tween sections, content relativities). They also applied many of the theoretical
angles covered above: some were like fables, some had ingenious typography,
the images’ own visual language called on ekphrasis’s rhetoric as there was
no space to describe the images at length. The lack of space in these written
texts thus also called on reader-response, reception theory and the short story’s
reliance on suggestion and subversion: the former because the writers had to
hope that readers would step in to help; the latter because they had very prob-
ably never written academic work like that before, and so the use of subversion
needed validating via existing practice. Thesen sees risk as ‘productive’ and cel-
ebrates readers who question; she also sees writing guides as inhibitive, and
definers of risk (perhaps in course documentation) as ‘entrenched’, which these
students might understand as authoritative (2014, pp. 1, 4, 11). This echoes the
point about the paradox of institutionally sanctioned risk in the Comic Sans
project, above. The risk of gross breach of grammatical and syntactical rules was
seldom taken; similarly, no students exploited vague language.7 This could be
because the writing assignment format itself was radical, or it could be because
the students understood that such departures from what they might perceive
as norms would put the wrong focus on the words, or could limit the meaning
by drawing attention to a specific meaning: maybe they were balancing risks to
ensure that they were productive.
The texts in Figure 7.7 are not all a perfect fit, and demonstrate how much
more difficult the project was than at first suspected. The top left text used
the student’s primary research, each ‘yes’ and ‘no’ representing a fixed num-
ber of responses, like Neurath’s Isotypes. The conclusion does not draw enough
out of the evidence, but the visual effect is striking and memorable, with a
pervasive sense of sound. The rhythm provides mini-introductions like a the-
atrical drum-roll, and the first response adds to this sense of contrived reality
by stretching neatly across the first line. The top right text also uses sound, but
differently—we have an exuberant speaker and the writing is peppered with
extra punctuation, repeats (‘business’ and ‘business’), ampersands to compress
and letter spacing to expand. With dismissive panache, the writing does now

7 A more practical problem with vague language, in this instance, is that it tends to take up
space, however usefully flexible it might be when trying to achieve a good fit with words.
160 bell

figure 7.7 Four contrasting examples of 128-word texts, with quite different approaches ranging
from apparent fact to fiction

what Warhol did then—challenge form and expectation. It is not short on con-
tent, nor on suggested meaning: for example, silkscreen is not a particularly
‘easy’ technique, but it might appear so, especially if one is already critical of
Warhol’s approach. This word thus hints at public scorn, whilst also reminding
us of Warhol’s abilities and his use of assistants—not uncommon in fine art
print practice—which could also be what ‘easy’ means. The word is working
hard.
The lower left text weaves in and out of fiction with the argument being
the voice-over. This effect is intensified by the play on sound in the first two
writing against formal constraints in art and design 161

sentences, which have discrete meanings but can read as one. The writing has a
beautiful rhythm and is cleverly bracketed by a childlike expression at the start
and an adult one at the end, drawing attention to the text’s formal delimitation.
The lower right text bounces back and forth between points which could read
like a list. Repeats and omissions are inconsistently handled, the style is spiky
and the topics jump around unnervingly, an effect heightened by the quote
marks and punctuation (which at least keep readers alert). There are two
rallying points, one at the start of line one and the other at the start of line three,
but the essay’s unevenness helps readers start anywhere, relieving the writer
from narrative concerns. The essay is intelligent, although it has a slightly tame
conclusion, perhaps because of spacing and word count problems. However,
the low-key conclusion could equally be read as a comment on how Warhol’s
work might be valued (in every sense) if it were misunderstood—in which case
the conclusion is an understated masterstroke.
These texts called on skilful writing and risk-taking. Part of the skill was
simply adroit crafting of words, the other part was making readers think by
making them rethink meaning or search for it: a different, sharper focus. Part
of the risk was simply in the format—there was little room to say what had to
be said, and so students had to weigh up the choice between risking too little
content or fitting the content in such a way that might be thought to diminish
its value.

Conclusion

Just as Kress and van Leeuwen argue that ‘introducing orchestral music into the
home […] fundamentally changes [its] meaning’ (2001, p. 7, see also Björkvall,
chapter 1 this volume), I argue that utilizing multiple modes in art and design
students’ written assignments, by increasing the complexity or number of
modes (each a kind of layering), could change the meaning of the words by
adding variables—and could thus increase the importance of the words, their
choice and interrelationships. But it does not mean that the students have to
write better than they did before. They have to write differently.
The Blahnik project had extra modes of image, space, sequence, hand-
rendering, and perceived product value. I could simply have counted the spaces
and told them to write a word-processed text of x words. This might have
ended up like the Dior or Wallace projects, but the other projects had interfer-
ing modes to make them more difficult. The Comic Sans project, for example,
stipulated font and fashion stance but nothing else: modes of intellectual and
domain opposition were pitted against the terrors of absolute freedom. The
162 bell

Dior project had an apparently arbitrary but intriguing word count, sequence
and interval. The Wallace project had a strict overall word count but needed
management of interior word count freedom, picture combination and loca-
tion. The Mannequins project had apparently loose but actually tight spatial
and didactic zones to manage; the 128-word texts had an apparently simple
frame but a complex argument calling on typographical, grammatical and syn-
tactical ingenuity in relation to clever picture reading. In none of these projects
were words bit-part players or easily replaceable by arbitrary or unforced syn-
onyms. It is clear that the writers had to understand and balance the freedoms
on offer. However, this stand-off can be over-simplified: the modes which can
liberate are as likely to be simple visual ones, such as alignment or colour, as
they are to be complex and less obvious, such as varied reader responses—and
of course, these can all restrict as well.
Some genres were crudely opposed—the fashion magazine, for example,
set haute couture against street style (fashion modal opposition), and pro-
vided layout and material freedom offset by the insistence on Comic Sans
(graphic modal opposition). This almost binary opposition floated up in the
freedom to use easy software pitted against strict word counts, or the obscu-
rity of the Dior word count being validated by its likely usage in websites. The
entire brief of a multimodal project can embody a loose binary opposition
and still produce varied, individual and unexpected results: the 128-word texts
demonstrated that innovative possibilities need to be restrained with a light
touch.
This light touch can become heavy-handed if not understood and managed
deftly, for example the possible damage to the bigger design scheme by fiddling
with the word ‘to’ in Comic Sans, the single word with three contexts in
the image / word summarising, and the use of ‘easy’ to describe Warhol’s
silkscreens. This is a kind of layering, in which a mode can create different levels
of engagement or signification.
A mode can become more complex and restrictive—because it requires
more closure—the more multimodal it gets. The singular ‘gap’ suggested this,
as did the simple ploy of letting 12×12 words of captions become 144 words
overall spread between 12 images. Pulling back from multimodal specifics in a
similar project produced different kinds of layered potential, as when the fash-
ion students had to write to an imagined exhibition, and thus had no anchor-
ing imagery. The mix of registers in ‘teeny tiny’ suggests colloquial language
being corrected by proper language, another layered (but maybe accidental)
ploy.
Layering can create alternative readings—indeed, should create them if the
technique is not to be hollow hubris, although the reader often has to be
writing against formal constraints in art and design 163

alert to these nuances, as in the Blahnik project. Alternative readings in the

Dior project were generated by asking questions which may or may not have
been answered by the images, which had to be imagined but not reified. The
images’ abstract nature was a conditioning extra mode on an existing mode,
and although this needed careful writing, it also made the writing harder to
criticise without careful discussion. Fixed word counts in captions often led to
deeper and more unexpected readings of images in an effort not to sound trite,
and the use of the images as part of the narrative in the Wallace Collection
project led to an unexpected bonus in that overseas students did well: the mul-
timodality put emphasis on the words, but evidently one which was happily
manageable, or in which awkward English could be seen as a creative ploy. By a
similar token, what might be taken as a tame Warhol conclusion could be read
as highly intelligent if the relationship between the words and the frame—its
image—is intelligently taken into account.
Self-conscious use of multimodal possibilities can also take refuge in abso-
lute perfection, which could simply be balancing textures (as in the Comic Sans
clown piece, for example). The relative size of the modal ‘canvas’ is also a player:
the clown piece is bigger and less focused than the 128-word texts. In these,
modal manipulation can be more obvious but its effects also more easily—or
at least more demonstrably—contained, whereas in a bigger piece like a mag-
azine there is a bigger schema to handle but more refuges in which to hide
inconsistencies.
The Comic Sans project gave students this possibility. I argue consistently
that a multimodal approach should offer some choices in order to nurture
its benefits (see also Hunma, chapter 8 this volume), but that choices need
grounding in order to show what the text can do. This was seen in the Wallace
Collection caption writing, where tight restrictions were offset by possibility,
and the students could decide the extent to which they wanted to take up
the possibilities. These are difficult decisions, because once one leaves security
behind, one is entering into another set of modes: those of uncertainty, and it
takes a confident writer—and a complicit reader—to align these productively
and unerringly.
On the whole, the students enjoyed these projects, although they enjoyed
them more if they were presented as unusual writing projects than some kind
of unusual mixed-mode design project. Most liked disrupting traditional forms
and protocols and involving the reader more, although some found the projects
unnerving and others found them unnecessary: they wanted to do traditional
essays instead. Many of the points raised in the projects were gratifyingly
philosophical and mature, even from some who did not particularly enjoy
the projects. Assessment was correspondingly demanding—I found myself
164 bell

reading and rereading these short texts, sometimes using different voices or
accents or rhythms or speeds, as I tried to be absolutely sure I had not missed
a delicate slice of meaning.
The key to these texts is balance. It is important to keep the formal engage-
ment interesting, but not too demanding or else the words will get lost in
the mix. It is also important to balance restriction with freedom and vice
versa so that they switch positions effortlessly. This gives students a chance
to delimit and explore their own notions of risk and achievement—crucial in
such unusual short forms, which can make further eccentricity seem forced and
unnecessary. By contrast, eccentricity in longer texts can get lost if downplayed,
or tiresome simply because of scale—it is a balance. I have argued that multi-
modal writing is only as liberating as one makes it in relation to restriction.
The layering emerged from understanding modes in different ways—perhaps
a sophist’s multimodality—and from seeing modes as shifting between both
freedom and restriction. Short-text writing needed multimodality to give the
words definitive meaning which, without modal accessories but with reader-
response, might have been endlessly debated. Easing themselves into a meta-
phor for art and design practice, the words neatly become part of the multi-
modal text.

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 chapter 8

Reclaiming the Authorial Self in Academic Writing

through Image Theatre

Aditi Hunma

Introduction

Academic writing remains one of the key modes of assessment in tertiary insti-
tutions. Students are assessed not only on the basis of their content knowledge
but more so, on their ability to critically engage with ideas and with other know-
ers in the field. Thus, a mastery of academic writing norms does not restrict
itself to students’ ‘proficiency’ to construct grammatical sentences or to follow
genre specifications. It also requires an ability to enter discursive spaces where
one’s voice can be asserted among other authors, and signs of critical think-
ing can be displayed in the written text (see also Williams, chapter 6, and Bell,
chapter 7, this volume on the ways novices approach academic text writing).
Often, the term ‘voice’ is mistakenly understood as an inborn sense of self or
consciousness. In this chapter, I lean towards a notion of voice as constructed
and multiple, and hence prefer Clark and Ivanič’s (1997) term ‘writer identi-
ties’, which in their view encompasses different identity strands. These take the
shape of the ‘autobiographical self’, which is the writer’s ‘life history’; the ‘dis-
coursal self’, which can be understood as the writer’s discipline-specific self;
and the ‘authorial self’, defined as ‘the writer’s sense of authority or authorial
presence in the text’ (p. 137).
My interest in writer identities stems from a broader research on innovative
methods and spaces to teach academic writing to international students with
English as an additional language (eal) (Hunma, 2012). I use eal deliberately
rather than the loaded ‘English as a second language’ which can construct false
hierarchies between first and second language speakers (Pennycook, 2001). It
would be more useful, as Norton (1997) suggests, to pose the following ques-
tions: ‘What is the learner’s linguistic repertoire? Is the learner’s relationship to

Hunma, A. (2016). Chapter 8. Reclaiming the Authorial Self in Academic Writing through
Image Theatre. In R. Fidalgo & T. Olive (Series Eds.) & A. Archer, & E.O. Breuer (Vol. Eds.),
Studies in Writing: Vol. 33, Multimodality in Higher Education, (pp. 167–191). Leiden: Brill.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2016 | doi: 10.1163/9789004312067_010

168 hunma

these languages based on expertise, inheritance, affiliation, or a combination?’

The research also focused on questions around writer identities in students’
academic essays, exploring possible identity clashes, enablers and constraints
from students’ previous school and home environments.
The research participants hailed from various nations within the Southern
African Development Community (sadc) and enrolled for courses across vari-
ous disciplines at a South African university. As such, the groupings were far
from homogeneous, and students from Zimbabwe, Democratic Republic of
Congo, Mauritius, Tanzania, Lesotho brought with them a variety of resources,
or socio-cultural and symbolic capital, that would perhaps never find their way
into an academic essay. From a lecturing perspective, one would agree that
a writing pedagogy overlooking the tensions between texts, self and contexts
could border on the ‘deficit model’ where students’ writing issues would be
viewed as an illness in urgent need of remedy (Street, 1993).
The participants signed up for a four session long Writers Workshop where
they met with other international students and engaged with texts of differ-
ent genres. The workshops were designed to introduce them not only to the
academic writing conventions at the University, but also to the ways of nego-
tiating voice within the ambit of their disciplinary discourses. While most of
the participants had studied under the Cambridge education system and were
fluent in written English, other layers of fluency were on the verge of gaining
criticality at the tertiary institution in question. Here I allude to the conven-
tions of academic writing in undergraduate studies, where critical thinking and
argumentation are just some of the many concerns students need to address.
In first year written essays in particular, I noticed a sense of loss, a strategic
performance of the ‘discoursal self’ counter-balanced by a downplaying of the
‘authorial self’ in academic writing (Hunma, 2009), which at times could be
equated with a lack of critical thinking.
This begs the question: How does one reclaim the ‘authorial self’ when the
academic writing genre seems to privilege a reproduction of scholarly views
rather than knowledge making in explicit ways? It would appear that a reliance
on traditional methods or prescriptive approaches to nurture students’ autho-
rial self in writing, falls short of achieving the set goals as students may become
overly preoccupied with the required template. In this regard, I suggest alterna-
tive moves in which theatre performance, especially ‘Image Theatre’, can bring
the self back to the centre of claims to knowledge and one’s experiences of the
social world.
‘Image Theatre’ was first introduced in Brazil in the 1950s by Augusto Boal
as part of his Theatre of the Oppressed to enable individuals, often living in
informal settlements, to rise above disheartening circumstances or social
reclaiming the authorial self 169

constraints such as poverty, squalor, disease and domestic violence. It was a

language in its own right, allowing participants to ‘voice’ their thoughts through
the language of theatre, especially when the dominant language, Spanish, also
their additional language, restricted their ability to be heard meaningfully.
The chapter takes the shape of a theoretical and empirical discussion around
the ways in which recourse to multimodal approaches such as ‘Image Theatre’
can be valuable in nurturing or reclaiming voice in writing or otherwise, where
voice features at the nexus of academic texts, the institutional discourse, the
socio-academic context and the self. In this, the chapter closely subscribes to
the principles of the New Literacy Studies School where academic literacies are
viewed as a set of social practices contingent upon context, where the meanings
of texts are co-constructed, and where voice or student agency and institutional
discourses are in constant negotiation (Lea & Street, 1998).
One may wonder whether ‘non-traditional’ students, those who are not yet
insiders to the local academic system, can negotiate such meanings at first
year level. I believe that this question is misguided for it unwittingly reinforces
deficit views. It could be rephrased as ‘what prevents some students from
making critical moves in their writing and what supports agentic ventures?’
Curry and Lillis (2004) argue that academic writing conventions are seldom
made explicit to ‘non-traditional’ students. This proposition would suggest for
instance, that while students may be critical thinkers, their lack of awareness
of what is permissible, might push them to ‘play safe’ in writing and regurgitate
the lecturer’s or particular author’s views. The proposition is also likely to result
in the privileging of genre approaches to the teaching of writing, and of the
‘academic socialisation’ model (Street, 1993), championed by constructivists,
whereby students are assimilated into the academic norms of the discipline.
While teaching the rules is invaluable, it is restricted in its scope to nurture
critical thinking, for at its extreme, it reifies form over content and reproduces
genre. In fact, the academic socialisation model cannot by itself rescue voice,
unless perhaps one views genre as a generative category, as Schryer (1993)
does, when he states that genres are ‘stabilised for now’ but likely to change.
Once the genre conventions are introduced, pedagogues need to imagine other
productive spaces where different writing voices and critical thinking can be
rehearsed.
In this light, what ‘Image Theatre’ affords is two-fold: firstly, it sheds light
on students’ hopes and anxieties vis-à-vis social and institutional pressures;
secondly, it acts as a pre-text for meaningful engagement with academic texts
and concepts. I posit that it is only once these expectations and anxieties are
shared in a performative manner, that writing itself can become more liberated
in its form and the licences that it takes.
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I further argue that critical thinking in writing is not lacking in first year
students, but often tends to be muzzled when contextual pressures to be
correct take the upper hand, especially in the case of foreign students who are
straddling different worlds and managing multiple transitions. New genres of
expression, such as theatre, can, to some degree, mediate between students’
emerging identities and the writings they are expected to compose. I first offer
examples of how form regulates the ‘authorial self’ in mainstream essays, before
delving into the role Image Theatre can play in mediating between self, context,
institutional discourses and academic writing.

Analysis of Writer Identities in Mainstream Essays

An analysis of participants’ mainstream essays indicates that the ‘discoursal

self’ was more prominent than the ‘autobiographical’ and ‘authorial’ selves.1 I
present an example before discussing the ways in which Image Theatre could
be used as a scaffolding strategy to bring out the authorial self in academic
writing.

Tahini’s Academic Report

Tahini shared a biology field trip report where she was required to assume the
subject position of novice researcher in the field, collecting data and reporting
findings to the academics in her discipline. Her group was therefore required
to display accuracy and rigour in the presentation of data, as well as adequate
mastery of the scientific report style, which was still new to them.
She scored 72% (a lower first division) in the biology field trip report written
as a group. The tutor’s comment on the discussion section that she wrote was
that it could have been more thorough and analytical. Tahini also reported
that the quality of the work would have been better had there been better
cooperation among group members.
Autobiographical self: In the discussion section entitled ‘Comparison of
intertidal algal and animal life in False Bay with other regions along the South
African coastline’, Tahini was expected to compare and discuss the differences
in the algal and animal life in the different regions. A glance at the essay struc-
ture, however, showed a brief listing of the differences in the animal life in those

1 ‘autobiographical self’ = writer’s biographic background; the ‘discoursal self’ = writer’s under-
standing of her/himself in the disciplinary context, ‘authorial self’ = writer’s perception of
her/his own authority in the (con)text (see p. 177–178 for a more elaborate definition and
Clark and Ivanič (1997): p. 137).
reclaiming the authorial self 171

regions, with brief explanations of the environmental conditions enabling or

inhibiting the growth of those creatures. Due to the listing structure, there was
no necessary link between the paragraphs.
In terms of the ‘autobiographical self’, one could not infer from the descrip-
tions that the group members had actually spent time in the field. The infor-
mation was presented in a factual manner.

While the Eastern coast is dominated by algal forests, the Western coast
consists of kelp beds, which may extend to as much as 3 km.

The autobiographical elements were less evident in the text. Tahini did men-
tion in her profile her fascination with ‘microscopic organisms’. Perhaps that
could account for the painstaking descriptions of the types of creatures in the
discussion section, and the lack of space for actual discussion. The lack of
engagement could also be a result of her high school academic experience.

High school was mostly a race towards good marks and bursaries, failed to
teach students the language, but instead forced them to follow a certain
writing pattern where no personal opinion and thought can be put into
words. The best students are those who diligently follow the method
imposed by teachers, themselves governed by an impenitent system, a
vicious circle impervious to any sort of criticism. (From Tahini’s profile)

Her comments convey that she was displeased by the way the school system
stifled students’ voice. Her tone became more incisive as she said, ‘I believe
that high school was only a means to access an acceptance letter from the
university’. She was determined to learn the ropes of academic writing now
to fill in any possible lacunas, since ‘I realized how much I didn’t learn about
language and writing skills at school’. The influence of her prior schooling
experience in the text could be viewed as part of her ‘autobiographical’ or
‘discoursal self’; hence a possible blurring of the categories of Ivanič’s clover
model. This said, from Tahini’s comments, one could expect her to display
the ‘discoursal’ elements required by her department, perhaps in excess, to
compensate for her perceived lack of ‘writing skills’.
Discoursal self: As expected, the ‘discoursal self’ was very evident in the text.
The field trip report as a whole was mostly constructed in the passive voice,
especially when the group members had to describe what they did, observed
and found. Here, they successfully assumed the subject position of the novice
scientist, where the discovery or finding takes precedence over the individual
responsible for it. This is unlike the social sciences, where the researcher or
172 hunma

writer is as important as the findings made, because these are inevitably tinted
and transformed by his/her gaze, subjectivities, beliefs and theoretical stance.
Here is an example where the group members effaced themselves from the
research process and made the results take precedence.

The results were noted down on a data sheet.

This project is divided into two parts. The first one compares …

On other occasions, as shown, the use of the passive voice gave inanimate
objects such as the project or the report an active voice, all in the effort to mask
the authors’ actual identities or more simply their inevitable but seemingly
intrusive presence. Thus, in such disciplines, the passive voice and nominalisa-
tions created a semblance of ‘objectivity’; and the project of furthering knowl-
edge was deemed larger than the sum of individuals or experiences creating it
(see Halliday & Martin, 1993 on how nominalisations turn events, actions, and
so on, into quantifiable objects; see also Parkinson & Adendorff, 2004). Perhaps
the other elements of the student’s writer identities were muted because of the
strictures of the scientific reporting form. One could not assume the silences,
or lack of discussion in the text to be ‘deficits’ on the student’s part. In fact,
in the light of Tahini’s prior essays in the workshop, that assumption becomes
implausible.
Authorial self: As discussed, the limited freedom to assert oneself in the first
person or show agency over the actions one did take, could lead to a hushed
‘authorial’ voice in the text. Yet, there were covert ways of taking ownership
of the content. One of them is to tabulate the differences and to explain their
implications as Tahini did on behalf of her group.

The Littorina zone is the highest region up the shore and the most ex-
posed one, whereas the Infratidal zone is the most sheltered one and
closest to the water.

table 4 The summary of figures from the Results section

Region Mean Standard Mean Standard Mean

number deviation biomass deviation size
of species for number for biomass
of species

Littorina 10 0.972 302.544 68.035 18

Infratidal 91.6 1.912 17356.752 1572.298 137.12
reclaiming the authorial self 173

The above table shows that there is a big difference between the number,
biomass and size of species in the Littorina and Infratidal zones. The dif-
ferences arise due to a variety of factors, including, temperature, exposure
to sun, wind, nutrient availability water currents and wave action.

She used the table as a starting point to make the claim that there was a ‘big
difference’ in the number and size of the species. The table hence became
a basis for validating some of her initial observations and gaining credibil-
ity. The table also allowed her to stretch the observations and assume the
causes for this ‘difference’. However, had she spent more time discussing the
salient figures in the table, she would have wielded greater authority over
the content. She was penalised for not engaging with the data in depth. This
would perhaps have required that she took up the subject position of statis-
tician, or applied mathematician, which she might not be ready to imperson-
ate.
It is ironic that the more the student immersed herself in the discipline
and the more tools she had to manipulate data, to deepen the analysis and
develop an authoritative text, the less authorial presence she had to negoti-
ate her position. In fact, had she analysed the data more deeply, she would
have used more detailed calculations or scientific terminology, which would
align her more with the ‘scientific’ project, but perhaps reduce her agency as
a knowledge maker. I separate out authorship and authority since it is often
once the writer has gained the subject position of ‘author’ (and have author-
ship) that he/she can wield ‘authority’ over the text. In this case, the scientific
writing genre required from Tahini the dexterity to juggle both technique and
the possibilities of self-as-author. However, we notice that soon enough, in her
case, both the ‘authorial’ and ‘autobiographical’ elements were overtaken by
the ‘discoursal’ aspects of the scientific text. It is possible that the claims for
objectivity, characteristic of many scientific texts, took precedence over possi-
bilities for ‘authorial’ presence.

Deconstructing the ‘Discoursal Self’ in Academic Writing

Why the pre-eminence of the ‘discoursal self’? Bangeni and Kapp (2006) sug-
gest “students have complex motivations and pressures within and beyond the
institution that are not clearly visible to us as academics” (p. 82).
As mentioned previously, writing can become performative and critical
when new alignments are forged between the writer and the text and/or con-
text. It becomes performative, when the student-writer begins to question the
cited author’s intent. In other words, writing critically involves taking own-
ership of one’s script and honing a cautious yet powerful ‘authorial’ pres-
174 hunma

ence. Writing remains predictable when students rigidly conform to what they
understand to be discourse conventions.
Using the stage metaphor, participants explained that lecturers and more
broadly the department were like the playwrights or rule setters, abstract enti-
ties that remotely controlled students’ text production process.

Joe: Lecturer. Because sometimes they tell you to go to the library, to get
these books. The department also sets the rules. It tells you, ‘write a two
thousand word essay’.

It would appear that as a result of strict departmental rules, the script was
seen by some participants as a way to be accepted within the discipline, but
more importantly to gain marks. The focus was more on delivering a legitimate
text or product, than on mastering the stages in the writing process. The
competitive nature of tertiary education made students absorb and internalise
the university’s rhetoric of throughput, pass and retention rate. Participants
explained the role of the academic script as follows:

Joe: To persuade people.

Tahini: To show your opinion. To get marks.
Simba: To correct our ideas.

As shown, participants shared different views, but still associated the functions
of the script to concerns about the academic transcript, ‘to get marks’, and
more subtly ‘to correct our ideas’. They believed that there was one correct
answer that would yield more marks, as opposed to seeing the essay as a lively
arena where different meanings are contested. This could be because they
belonged to the Science and Engineering faculties respectively where answers
were mathematically computed. Simba did take an ‘African Studies’ course as
an elective, but could not escape the quasi-scientific discourse of a right and a
wrong answer.
I suggest that we may need to resort to other multimodal pedagogies to
reclaim the ‘authorial self’ in academic writing. What theatre might enable, are
new subject positions through which students can think critically about their
socio-academic identities as well as what they begin to produce as texts in the
academy.
reclaiming the authorial self 175

Image Theatre as Multimodal Critical Pedagogy

Inspired by Freire (1970)’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed, the Brazilian theatre

director and activist Augusto Boal explores the power of performance in unrav-
elling new meaning potentials and shifting social structures to enable greater
human agency. In Boal’s (1979) Theatre of the Oppressed, praxis gains cen-
tre stage. It is an integral feature of the genre, for utterances can be nothing
but embodied, and action is active expression, seldom passive. As Mutnick
(2006) notes, “the people-to-people contact in the realm of theatre […] and
the relation of actor and audience—for Boal, all ‘spect-actors’—creates an exi-
gency that is not viscerally present in written communication” (p. 42). Boal’s
Image Theatre technique in particular requires participants to create stills with
their bodies of the issue (‘real image’), the ‘ideal image’ and the transitional
images that would take them from the current issue to the desired, ‘ideal’ out-
come.
One could imagine these real and ideal images in the same way as Giroux
describes photographs. For Giroux (1992), the practice of photography achieves
a similar aim of framing the “possible and desirable” in terms of social order
(p. 93). He states that, “photography makes the dead nervous by its cease-
less demand for intelligibility”. In other words, its meaning is forever volatile
and dynamic, waiting to be stabilised through particular usages and offer-
ing the possibility to challenge the known, the actual, and conjure the pos-
sible and desirable. One could imagine the images produced by students in
the same light, as dynamic photographs constantly morphing and challeng-
ing rigid structural constraints imposed by academia or their new social con-
text.
In fact, images could have more impact than their real counterparts because
they frame and focus the gazer’s attention on the object of scrutiny and erase
all extraneous objects from view. For Baudrillard (1994), the image begins to
precede the real—“It is no longer a question of imitation, nor duplication, nor
even parody. It is a question of replacing the signs of the real for the real” (p. 2).
The image becomes real in a performative sense and infiltrates into the present,
demanding active responses from the audience.
In a study on multimodality and multiliteracies in post-Apartheid South
Africa, Stein and Newfield (2006) demonstrate, through a series of examples,
how multimodal pedagogies making use of visual, written and performance
modes re-structure the learning space and students’ alignment with it in more
democratic ways. Archer (2006) focuses particularly on the potency of symbolic
objects in a ‘less regulated curriculum space’ to enable eal students to learn
experientially through a wider repertoire of resources for expression. Image
176 hunma

Theatre, I argue, would be one of the embodied resources at students’ disposal

to express their current marginal positions.
Since identities only become visible when enacted, such performance tools
could fare better than speech and writing in addressing students’ psycho-
social and academic challenges. Kress (1996) argues that the new generation is
increasingly exposed to other semiotic modes especially visual ones, and that
individuals do not relate to writing cognitively in the same way, adding that
they have more enhanced “visual analytic skills and muscular coordination”
that do not apply to the encoding and decoding of written texts (p. 193).
Pedagogic investment into other semiotic resources becomes necessary, on the
one hand, to address the socio-academic issues that may inhibit students’ ease
of expression in academic writing, and on the other, to allow them to create
meaningful pre-texts for writing.

Image Theatre Activities

The Image Theatre technique was introduced in the Writers Workshop series
designed for international students, in the first part of a session on critical
thinking. Participants were divided into groups of four and asked to brainstorm
a social or academic issue confronting them in their first year at the South
African university. Each group then presented a still on the issue, through a
collective immobile pose or human sculpture. The other groups were asked to
explain what they witnessed. This was followed by a verbal explanation of the
issue by the performing group. This image was called the ‘real image’. The group
was then asked to produce an ‘ideal image’ of the situation. This required them
to step out of the immediate stasis triggered by the situation and imagine a bet-
ter outcome. Once again, this new ‘image’ was followed by explanations and
feedback. Finally, the group was asked to imagine two transitional frames that
would allow them to move from the ‘real’ to the ‘ideal image’. This necessitated
much creative and critical thinking and turned participants into active prob-
lem solvers.
Like writing, performance is seen as a projection of students’ different iden-
tities and the contexts in which they find themselves. Writing itself cannot be
taught in isolation, for that would entail neglecting the identity issues that first
year students experience in a new country or learning context. Therefore, to
analyse students’ performance of their identity issues in a way that was com-
mensurate with the analysis of their writing, I employed an extended version
of Clark and Ivanic’s (1997) clover model of writer identities thus far only used
to analyse written texts.
reclaiming the authorial self 177

figure 8.1 Clover model of writer identity

clark & ivanič, 1997

I suggest that performance be treated as an extended text and be analysed

like the written texts in the study, using the ‘clover model of writer identities’
(Clark & Ivanič, 1997). The stretching of the clover model was possibly also
hinted by Clark and Ivanič (1997) when they questioned, “How far are the
aspects of writer identity which we have described also aspects of identity in
general?” (p. 160).
I describe how the autobiographical, discoursal and authorial self could be
applicable in the analysis of the performance.
Clark and Ivanič (1997) define the autobiographical self in writing as “the
writer’s life-history and sense of her/his roots” (p. 137). In the case of perfor-
mance, the autobiographical self would surface mainly in the participants’
choice of the scenario. The performance is an enactment of their story, of their
178 hunma

socio-cultural and academic experiences at the university. It depicts their past

and present journeys and their projection of an ideal situation and identity in
the future.
The discoursal self in writing is defined as “the writer’s representation of
her/himself in the text” (Clark & Ivanič, 1997, p. 137). In this case, the actor’s
discoursal self would be evident in his/her use of movements, gestures, props
and facial expressions. The more visible the gestures, the closer her alignment
to the role of stage actor. In this case, the conventions defining the discoursal
self, do not hamper creative expression to the same extent as it could with
academic writing. In fact, the expectation is to be outgoing, to think outside
the box, to take initiative and find creative solutions. If participants are shy,
then they are asked to enact their shyness or make someone else in their
group enact it. They are told that this learning site is a safe space where they
can express themselves without being judged. The value of the performance
is its ability to bring forth participants’ emotions and anxieties. The victories
and vulnerabilities are precisely the themes of their stage act, and there is
little room to be passive, as the discoursal self relies on performance. This
emphasis on action makes the discoursal self overlap in interesting ways with
the authorial self.
The authorial self in writing is defined as “the writer’s sense of authority,
and authorial presence in the text” (Clark & Ivanič, 1997, p. 137). How do actors
demonstrate their authority and authorial presence in drama? One of the ways
of doing so is by themselves crafting the defining moments of the narrative in
the scenario and guiding the co-actors to act in particular ways. Their agency
comes from their ability to decide what to add in the different frames, assign
roles, and in the event of conflicting ideas, their ability to negotiate with others
and reach consensus.
These multiple identities are enabled through “subject positions” or the
“socially available possibilities for self-hood” enabled by the context (Clark &
Ivanič, 1997, p. 136). In this case, the Writers’ Workshop as a performative space
provided participants with new subject positions outside of their student role,
and gave them an opportunity to be actors of their own script, literally and
figuratively.

Image Theatre for Identity Work

This section reports on some of the ways in which Image Theatre bolstered
students’ expression of identity issues. This is a crucial phase before one can
address the issues of ‘authorial self’ in academic writing. Still, analysing images
reclaiming the authorial self 179

came with its own conundrum. Visual analysis, in the traditional sense, involves
assessing the representational, compositional and interactional meanings of
an image (Kress & Van Leeuwen, 2006). What form would it take when the
artist/agent is implicated in the image/product?

A Glimpse into Some Performances

Adaptation to a new university environment and country was one of the main
themes surfacing in five of the groups of participants. Two groups expressed
how they struggled with accommodation upon their arrival. One group ex-
pressed the culture shock experienced when travelling in the crowded city.
Another group shared issues of homesickness worsened by linguistic differ-
ences. The protagonist, Fiona, a student from the Democratic Republic of
Congo, shared her academic and social challenges especially homesickness
at university. She sought the assistance of her classmates and tutor to resolve
her academic issues. In her ideal image, she was seen with flying colours. The
performance ended with the family reunion. Finally, one group focused on
their experiences of different greeting conventions across countries. Different
groups were filmed during their performance. The stills are presented below.
They are analysed to highlight emerging identity issues as they get performed
in the three stills: ‘real image’, ‘transitional images’, and ‘ideal image’.

Greeting Styles
The group I focus on in this study comprised of Tahini, Joe and Simba, three first
year international students from the Science, Engineering and Humanities fac-
ulties respectively. They enacted their Image Theatre performance in the quad
outside a formal boardroom, normally used for administrative or pedagogic
purposes. For our purposes, the quad allowed enough room for two groups to
perform and be seen by the others. Students dragged chairs and other props
from the boardroom to make their performance more believable. Their perfor-
mance was focused on greeting conventions.

Real Image
Greeting conventions across different countries differ. In this still, Tahini, Joe
and Simba from different sadc countries greeted one another in different
styles. Tahini motioned for a hand shake, Joe for a tap and Simba for a friendly
fist. Their facial expression showed an odd mix of joy and confusion. It was a
quid pro quo in the making, indexing moments they personally encountered
at uct when greeting people verbally. Hence, the picture projected strong
autobiographical elements, being a valid though humorous recount of their
experiences and emotions when first arriving at the university. In a discussion
180 hunma

figure 8.2 Different greeting styles

session after the stills, the participants explained what this act signified for
them.

Simba: Like sometimes, they’ll say ‘what’s up?’ or ‘how’s it?’ What do you
say?
Joe: Yeah, it’s like that you know.
Tahini (grinning): And you can’t tell them your whole story …

This was a sign of what Burn and Parker (2003) observed in their research,
where participants’ brought along knowledges and their present experiences
began to infiltrate in the design of the image.
It appeared that though the participants were facing one another and shared
a common desire to greet, their gestures were dissimilar and not necessarily
understood and reciprocated. Figuratively speaking, they still had one foot in
their native land and that they were still attached to the modes and objects
invested with socio-cultural capital there. The issue here is not actually one of
home and foreign territory, but of the symbols that confer power to those within
the territories. What are the effects of migration on the value of those symbols?
As Blommaert (2005) points out, when people travel, conventions travel less
well. In fact, they can lose purchase in the land of adoption. The cultural shock,
as expressed in the image, could signal the fact that in our globalising nation
states, the rich diversity of peoples is often taken for granted, leaving individ-
uals confused and suspicious of the ‘other’. The homesickness experienced by
Fiona, a Congolese student, was partly because she was struggling to make new
friends in Cape Town. Her reason was that she was not fluent in English, and
reclaiming the authorial self 181

that her code was not well received. In Clark and Ivanič’s (1997) terms, there
seemed to be a disconnect between some participants’ autobiographical self
as performed in the new context, and their prior discoursal self, whose con-
ventions at times failed to apply.

Fiona: They don’t understand my accent. It’s so hard. Sometimes you don’t
have the words.

Participants admitted that unless they shared their cultural resources with one
another, it could not become common knowledge.

Joe: You have to try, make an effort to understand their customs.

When greeting conventions differed, they also threatened the successful begin-
nings of communication, however fluent their English. This was because the
peculiar greeting gesture not only became an index of difference, but an asser-
tion of ‘negative face’ or worse of a ‘face threatening act’, in cases where it
unknowingly offended or demeaned the other (Goffman, 1975).

Ideal Image
The ideal image was a show of fists by all three participants. The fists were here a
sign of bonding rather than resistance. Certainly, its significance across cultures
would differ and could lead to misunderstandings if not mediated by dialogue.
For instance, in South Africa, the fist was a symbol of resistance during the
Apartheid regime, and of bonding among followers of the Black Consciousness
movement. The image showed that participants had come to an agreement
about the greeting convention to use. Though they still stood at different
angles, they all converged towards the midpoint. One could read this act as
performative of a growing acceptance of the other, without losing touch with
one’s own identity bearings. Also, the lowered fists were less confrontational
than raised fists, which were also iconic of the Black Consciousness movement
in South Africa.

Transition Images
The movement from the real to the ideal image required the sharing of different
greeting conventions and agreement on the use of a common one. First, they
each tried one another’s greeting styles. The negotiation process was not always
straightforward as no single convention was superior to the other. At some
point, one of the participants, in this case Simba, on the left, had to take
the initiative and suggest that they greet in a specific style. Through this,
182 hunma

figure 8.3 The fist as a common gesture

he assumed a significant authorial role. He was not only taking a decision

for himself, but on behalf of his co-actors, when he suggested the fist, often
considered a masculine and aggressive gesture.

Simba: How about handshake [pause] or the fist? Like that [tightening
Joe’s fingers into a fist].

It required courage on his part, openness on their part and certainly a desire not
to confront or withdraw, but to resolve the issue. In this case, the camaraderie
forged between the participants from previous sessions allowed for an easy
transition to the ideal image.

Student Reflections
In the follow-up discussion, most of the participants’ comments related to
strategies to cope with socio-academic issues outside the workshop space.
Participants stated that they would step out of the situation to consider possible
alternatives. They describe it in the discussion excerpt below. The session
also boosted their courage to ask questions in tutorials, seeing that as one
of the transitional images to help them succeed in their studies. Hence, the
performance sessions urged them to place current challenges in perspective
and see the bigger picture. It would take willingness and courage on their part
to explore and adjust to the different academic conventions. Here is an excerpt
of the discussion:
reclaiming the authorial self 183

figure 8.4 Transitional image 1

figure 8.5 Transitional image 2

Joe: Sometimes, in the big lectures, you don’t know what they’re saying.
Simba: Yeah, here you can ask questions.
Researcher: And tutorials?
Simba: Yes that helps. Still you have to make an effort.
Tahini: Yeah, it’s not that you’re shy but you have to stand up and talk in
front of all those people.
Joe: You have an ideal image, right? You know you need to succeed in
this. Then you’ll work hard.
Simba: Yes, ask your lecturer questions if you are not sure.
184 hunma

Through the discussion, one could witness participants’ growing willingness

to take initiative, to assume their new academic identity with more confidence
and take all necessary measures to achieve the ideal image. Academic success
was seen as a product of hard work, but also increasingly of one’s ability to
communicate with others in the academic community of practice and acquire
the tacit norms and discourses that would ease their integration within a highly
competitive and contested academic space (see also Thesen, chapter 2 this
volume).
Gee (1990) notes that ‘telling the rules’ is not a solution to making students
insiders to the norms of this community.

Rather, we have to let him become a fully accepted member of the group,
and to do that we have to really accept him, accept his home, his com-
munity; we have to understand him, appreciate him, and be aware of the
Discourse-bound nature of all practices in and out of school.
gee, 1990, p. xviii

Those who advocate the teaching of genre (Swales, 1990; Devitt, 2004; Carter
et al., 2004) differ around the degree of explicitness that could be achieved.
One possible reason for this is that as much as genres are discipline-specific,
they are also context-dependent, and if students came from different prior
academic backgrounds, mere instruction about genres or immersion into the
discipline would not suffice. The use of performative modes could be one way
to reach a common ground of understanding between international students
and staff members, so that the latter could learn about and accept international
students’ diverse backgrounds and brought along knowledges as resources,
instead of merely acculturating those students to the academic community’s
norms and practices (Singh & Doherty, 2004).
In the workshop evaluation forms, participants identified the links between
theatre and identity. They stated that “the session boosted my confidence”;
“helps you discover something about yourself”; “feel at home”; “images help
break communication barriers”; “develop communication skills”; “demonstra-
tions help in continuing with the activities”; and “they are helpful in analysing
data from different angles”. Confidence and communication skills were
stressed by the participants, though as one would admit, words were barely
used during the Image Theatre performance. The performance in fact extended
the commonplace understanding of communication as a string of utterances
available for uptake.
It cannot be denied that communication was necessary to transcend the real
image and achieve the ideal image. This said, in the absence of smooth ver-
reclaiming the authorial self 185

bal or written interaction, the use of theatre ‘as a language’ (Boal, 1979) could
prove worthwhile. Image Theatre, in many ways, bears the same spontaneity
as speech (Chafe, 1982) or of writing when it functions visually/semiotically
(Kress, 2006). Chafe (1982) also mentioned that speech is characterised by the
frequent use of the first person. Theatre parallels this feature by investing the
self in gestures, movements and at times, utterances. These are endorsements
of the ‘I’, for there would be no acting, no gesture, no movement without the
actor. The performer rises above the mere utterance of ‘I’ by actually performing
it. Thus, through theatre, participants acquired other tools to express them-
selves, should they fall short of words. Also, they were beginning to display a
more confident and reflective persona that could later enable them to articu-
late their thoughts in words.
While one should be wary about generalising from the above theatre experi-
ments, it would appear that the theatrical methods could assist participants in
trying out subject positions within new contexts, as well as forging confident
social and academic fronts. The effects of theatre hence ranged from relational
benefits such as improved communication skills to greater self-awareness. Also,
the theatre experience allowed the protagonist, and at times the co-actors as
well, to take ownership of the script, to direct the actions of subordinate actors
and influence the outcome of the play.
Much of the affordance of Image Theatre stems from the fact that the stage
is a performative space where meanings can be questioned and where there
is room for various interpretations of the script and at times, for spontaneous
improvisations. Hence, theatre operates in the shaky terrains of “undecidabil-
ity” and “urgency”, to quote Derrida (1992, p. 87), where each ensuing perfor-
mance is bound to be differant and unique. It is this capacity for novelty and
agentic assertions that allows theatre to be a fertile ground for creative and crit-
ical thought, and particularly so, in Boal’s provisional form of theatre, where
the solution is always forthcoming and co-generated by actors and audience,
or “spect-actors”.
The stage hence becomes a performative space, where theatre as a mode of
expression allows for the revisioning of links between texts, self and context
of production. The texts, here bodily movements, become indexical of indi-
viduals’ challenges and their adaptation to their new socio-academic contexts.
When a teaching space does not assume the shape and boundaries of theatre,
it may be performative through other modes such as writing and speech. This
is the case if the modes impact on individuals' behaviour and events in the real
world. The next section illustrates how Image Theatre as a performative mode
may be used to reclaim the ‘authorial self’ in academic writing.
186 hunma

Image Theatre as a Pre-Text to Resurface the ‘Authorial Self’

As mentioned, Boal (1979) is convinced that participants’ performance and

brought-along objects are themselves a language, and by extension, I would
argue that they can offer new subject positions to trigger critical thinking in
and outside of writing. Hence, when Boal (1979) asks a question in Spanish and
his learners “answer in photography”, this move by them is a legitimate one, as
the focus is more on expression than form (p. 122). The performance mode is
used in the eal classroom in Peru as a communicative tool until the learners
acquire the language of power, namely, Spanish.
In the same way, Image Theatre can be used as a pre-text and brainstorming
tool to liberate students’ thinking about the essay topics at hand. For instance,
when given an argumentative essay requiring students to take a stand on a par-
ticular issue and respond to an author’s position, they can be asked to imagine
the situation in terms of real image, ideal image and transitional images. The
cited author’s position would be the real image. The student’s position would
be the ideal image that propels the essay in motion. The premises that support
the student’s position would be the transitional images. The premises could be
responses to other authors’ views or could be assertions made by the student.
The following example is a hypothetical one, illustrating how Image Theatre
could be used on an existing introductory course in the Humanities. This
course introduces students to academic writing conventions while making
them engage with sociological themes such as language, identity, race, gender
and culture.
For their first essay, students are usually asked to read Ngugi wa Thiongo’s
(1986) Decolonising the mind: The politics of language in African Literature and
to respond to the author's claim that ‘The dominance of the English language
takes us further and further from our selves to other selves, from our worlds to
other worlds’. They are required to take a position and comment on whether
there is actually an intrinsic link between language and collective identity as
Ngugi would hold, and whether the imposition of English does make individu-
als lose their roots.
If students had to map different thoughts using the Image Theatre tech-
nique, then Ngugi’s view would constitute the real image. To enact the real
image, students could for instance drift to different corners of the room, to
show how they were cut off from their community and lost their bearings, or
they could stand open-mouthed, exhibiting facial expressions of agony, to show
that they struggled to speak and had actually become voiceless.
The ideal image would comprise of students’ position in response to Ngugi’s
claim. Students could choose to agree or disagree with Ngugi’s position, or par-
reclaiming the authorial self 187

tially do both. If a student chose to disagree with Ngugi’s position, then her
position could be that one exercises choice, uses different languages strategi-
cally in required contexts, and thus, that there was no loss of identity when
one opts to speak a language other than one’s home language. To enact the
ideal image, the student could move between two different language groups,
holding a board with English words when interacting with an English-speaking
group, and a board with Zulu words when interacting with a Zulu-speaking
group.
To substantiate her position about language choice, she could stress that
language identities or practices are actually acquired through processes of
socialisation, rather than being inborn, and that they are therefore in flux
and malleable. In this way, speaking a dominant language would not by itself
lead to a loss of the local language or community identity associated with it.
The transitional image to illustrate the process of socialisation could show an
educator teaching vocabulary items to students on the board. Props could be
used for this activity.
Only once students have expressed their position and their premises in a
persuasive manner, can they begin to write these in academic prose. It has been
observed that some reasons for students’ writing block may be that they do not
yet have the end in mind or have run out of premises. This activity challenges
them to place their views upfront as the ‘ideal image’ and work backwards to
give due credibility to their claim through a list of premises, as expressed in the
transitional images.
It is noteworthy that this technique as is would work best in Anglophone
writing contexts where students are expected to present the author’s views and
state their position in the introduction. An Image Theatre task in such contexts
would require students to come up with real and ideal images, before brain-
storming transitional images. In contrast, in some Francophone writing con-
texts, students seldom present their position in the introduction. Their essays
are faithful to the original meaning of the ‘essai’ which means an attempt. Here,
students’ arguments may in all likelihood emerge in the synthesis (conclusion)
after they have examined different positions in their ‘thesis’ and ‘antithesis’. As
such, an Image Theatre task here would require students to come up with a real
image, transitional images and then, if possible, an ideal image, in that order.
Having broadly sketched out how writing contexts may re-frame the Image
Theatre task, I need to acknowledge that during the drafting process, even the
so-called ‘ideal’ images (students’ positions) may be provisional ones, as stu-
dents may constantly revisit their views. As such, they may oscillate between
real and transitional images, until they are able to articulate their position in
the final version of the essay.
188 hunma

Such an activity could be performed in small groups or individually, or could

be executed through a storyboard or script. The added benefit of performing
one’s claim and premises in an Image Theatre format to the rest of the class,
is a heightened sense of audience awareness, people whom participants must
strive to persuade. As such, the performative aspects of Image Theatre could
make the essay topic more relevant and interactive. Generally, Boal’s (1995)
theatre techniques result in the collapse of aesthetic distance between actors
and spectators and broaden the sphere of “spect-actors” (p. 13). In the classroom
setting too, the audience could intervene during the performances and suggest
alternative ideas, thus mirroring the scholarly practices peer reviewing, prior
to the essay write-up.
On the whole, Image Theatre can be extended beyond its functions of iden-
tity work to facilitate the generation of ideas for academic essays where the
‘authorial self’ seeks to be heard.

Conclusion

The chapter offered a glimpse of the potential of Image Theatre as a mode to

unfreeze students’ creative and critical agency in the institution as they seek
to create ‘legitimate’ academic texts. Theatre allows for moments of ‘border
crossing’ in the way the institution, students’ subject positions and texts are
imagined and developed.
Theatre allows us to conceive of the learning site as an evolving and exper-
imental space where it becomes possible to explore fresh perspectives, chal-
lenge expected behaviours and create intrigue in form and content. One is
tempted to believe that as participants became more aware of the ‘staged’ act
of writing and more familiar with their audience, the rule setters and other rel-
evant parties, they would find a comfortable balance between their ‘authorial’
and ‘discoursal’ selves in writing. In fact, at the end of a focus group activity on
‘the best academic essay of the year’, participants realised that they could be
more active ‘stage directors’ in their ‘academic writing play’.
This chapter also brought to the fore a different methodology to analyse the
theatre mode, that would also apply to the analysis of the writing mode. This
is the clover model of writing identities proposed by Clark and Ivanič (1997).
When applied to theatre performance and performative writing tasks, this tool
allowed one to grasp how acting as a stage performer or a writer was inevitably
stage/context bound with particular conventions; and why writing in other
more formal contexts did not lead to similar uninhibited displays of identities,
unless these were encouraged by the gatekeepers.
reclaiming the authorial self 189

As such, one would believe that, if we require students to demonstrate

signs of critical thinking in academic writing, then, we may need to revisit our
traditional teaching modes, not only because students are increasingly visually
inclined, but because the teaching of writing through the written mode seems
to re-inscribe the pre-eminence of form over content. We may also need to
interrogate our role, the barriers to students’ agency in the knowledge making
project, and the subject positions made available to students to think the
unthinkable in academia.
Theatre can become an interactive, multimodal option allowing teachers of
writing to open up new performative sites for their students to express different
aspects of their writer selves, especially the authorial self. This openness can
allow students to co-define the positional and spatial boundaries of pedagogic
spaces, and to extend the rules and reach of such spaces for critical textual
performance in academic writing.

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 part 3
Multimodality across Domains

∵
 chapter 9

Intersemiosis in Science Textbooks

Leo Roehrich

Introduction

In education, the use of images is an absolute necessity. Explaining infinitely

miniscule concepts such as quantum foam, complex and rapid phenomena like
the cardiovascular system, or temporally distant creatures such as dinosaurs
requires the use of images to effectively develop understanding in students
who are being introduced to these ideas. In nearly every textbook, the visual
medium is used to assist in introducing scientific concepts to learners through
such media as diagrams and flowcharts, artistic renderings, and photographs
(Libo, 2004).
Visual description allows for communication that is impossible with words
alone. Without writing, ideas conveyed through images have a different impact.
They have a symbiotic relationship, providing affordances for meaning mak-
ing. The combined potential of seemingly disparate media, or intersemiosis,
enables an author to explore an increased variety of communicative means to
educate learners more effectively (Bednarek & Martin, 2010; Martin & Rose,
2008). To illustrate this concept of multimodal integration, the following pho-
tographs demonstrate how intersemiosis builds new meaning by incorporating
multiple media. Figure 9.1 depicts a typical representation of an atom.
Figure 9.1 has what many of us understand to be an atom. As readers, we
may reflect back on previous science classes, remembering that the rings are
electron paths, recognize the tightly packed nucleus comprised of protons and
neutrons, and even perhaps take note of the hazy background. But when given a
specific context, as in Figure 9.2, the meaning of the photo is redefined through
the text.
With the help of the text, the focus of the audience is redirected to a new
interpretation of the atom, one that forces us to re-evaluate the image, and
our scientific knowledge, and perhaps, makes us wonder what a probability

Roehrich, L. (2016). Chapter 9. Intersemiosis in Science Textbooks. In R. Fidalgo & T. Olive

(Series Eds.) & A. Archer, & E.O. Breuer (Vol. Eds.), Studies in Writing: Vol. 33, Multimodality in
Higher Education, (pp. 195–215). Leiden: Brill.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2016 | doi: 10.1163/9789004312067_011

196 roehrich

figure 9.1 adapted from berger (2009)

figure 9.2 adapted from berger (2009)

intersemiosis in science textbooks 197

distribution would look like. According to Berger’s Ways of Seeing (2009), a

reader’s understanding of an image in writing is dependent on its co-text; the
overall text creates a context within which an image is understood.
Textbooks do not use written or visual communication as individual modes
of expression; images displayed are conveyed in conjunction with written
explanations (Libo, 2004). In spite of the separate meaning making capac-
ity of images, visual communication never occurs independent of context.
Textbook explanations can be enhanced through cross-referencing various
media, allowing students to gain knowledge in ways that neither medium could
accomplish independently (Fei, 2004). Multimodal and intersemiotic research
has expanded to study a wide variety of fields, most notably education. As
many educational texts incorporate multimodal elements, the need to actively
develop explicit understanding for multimodal literacy becomes apparent.
Understandably, a large portion of educational research focuses on the educa-
tion of youth, kindergarten through 12th grade. However, this research focuses
on the first year of university, a transitional year for many students. For new uni-
versity students, the rigors of the new curricula and the need for an academic
level of discourse require learners to adapt to a new communicative style, with
different conventions and expectations. Although academic writing is not gen-
erally associated with the use of images, the use of visual aids in university
textbooks is common. The current study intends to unveil the purposeful use of
images in undergraduate, general education science texts, with the added goal
of providing data that assist in pedagogical practices for academic writing and
reading.
Considering the prevalence of image use in the sciences, and standard gen-
eral education science requirements for graduation from universities in the
United States, this study explores the co-creation of meaning through inter-
semiosis when incorporated into science texts intended for undergraduate stu-
dents in introductory courses. To discover how images are used and cohesively
introduced textually, this research set out to answer the question: What is the
functional use of an image in undergraduate science textbooks? To answer this
question, this study employs the Systemic Functional framework of Logico-
semantics to reveal patterns in functional use of images in relation to text
(Salway & Martinec, 2005).

Background of Systemic Functional Linguistics

The essential concept of Systemic Functional Linguistics is derived from Mali-

nowski’s anthropological work which initially stated that among the Trobriand
198 roehrich

figure 9.3 A map of delicacy and metafunctions

adapted from martin & rose (2008)

islanders of Papua New Guinea, language was used to perform physical actions
such as catching fish or cooking, “doing” tasks. With increased knowledge of the
culture and their societal interactions, he demonstrated that all communica-
tion performs “doing” tasks, ranging from physical processes such as fishing to
the construction of a friendship (Malinowski, 1922; Firth, 1957). Systemic Func-
tional Linguistics, from this essential tenet of communication, views commu-
nication as both systemic and functional: systemic because choices are made
from contextual options and functional due to the purposeful nature of inter-
personal communication (Halliday, 1994).
Systemic Functional Linguistics approaches each level of communication
from three directions, or metafunctions: Interpersonal, Textual, and Experien-
tial. Together they comprise the entirety of meaning-making. The Interpersonal
metafunction is concerned with how information is conveyed and interpreted
by an interlocutor, including various concepts such as status, relationship, and
other social factors. The Textual metafunction refers to the organization and
flow of a text, as well as how ideas are interrelated within a single text. Finally,
the Experiential Metafunction encompasses the content and subjects of the
text, and how they are represented in communication (Halliday, 1994). This
system is represented in Figure 9.3. The curved lines represent the three meta-
functions.
As each ring subsumes the next, the increase in size represents a higher
level of abstraction in communication. Figure 9.3 shows the three most deli-
cate levels: Phonology, Lexico-Grammar, and Discourse Semantics, leaving out
intersemiosis in science textbooks 199

the higher levels of abstraction, Register and Genre, as this research works
entirely within the area of Discourse Semantics. In this model, each circle, as
the level of abstraction increases, includes the entirety of the more delicate cir-
cles below; therefore, Lexico-Grammar, the total communication observable at
the clausal level, includes all aspects of phonology, while Discourse Semantics
subsumes both Lexico-Grammar and phonology under its paradigm (Halliday,
1994; Martin & Rose, 2008). The level of Discourse Semantics focuses on “above
the clause” communication through the building of ideas and connection of
concepts between clauses and throughout a text (Halliday, 1994). This research
works within the Experiential area of Discourse Semantics utilizing an inter-
semiotic modification of the Logico-semantic framework.

Integrating Text and Image

Communication exists in a myriad of semiotic forms. Multisemiotic research

has been carried out from a variety of Systemic Functional perspectives and
applied to many extra-linguistic communication formats such as musical beat
(Bednarek & Martin, 2010), image (Bednarek & Martin, 2010; Fei, 2004), archi-
tecture (O’Toole, 2004), and various others. Systemic Functional Multimodal
Discourse Analysis (sf-mda) explores features and patterns of production in
various communicative forms within the context of the instance of communi-
cation.
This research focuses on one area of sf-mda, the field of Intersemiosis. Inter-
semiotic analysis operates with the understanding that multiple formats of
communication frequently co-create meaning within a single text; presenta-
tions merge voice with slides, ballet pairs music with dance, and textbooks
combine text and image (Fei, 2004).
Figure 9.4 visually demonstrates the way in which textbooks seamlessly
integrate multiple types of communication to form a single cohesive text. On
a grammatical level, the production of each semiotic medium is unrelated,
though the instruments, the use of the human body for production, and stan-
dard aesthetic conventions differ between the forms. Nonetheless, as levels of
abstraction increase, when considering the overall authorial voice of a text,
neither text nor image appears incompatible on the same page. The two semi-
otic forms are both natural, and expected, communicative means. Image and
text are inter-referential, with text linguistically explaining photographs, and
artist’s depictions explaining written ideas. Effective intersemiotic communi-
cation results in a cohesive textbook page wherein the genre of the textbook is
built through multimodal expression (Fei, 2004).
200 roehrich

figure 9.4 A visual description of Intersemiosis

adapted from fei (2004)

Intersemiotic Logico-semantics: Finding Function

Logico-semantics, being part of the Discourse Semantics stratum, describes

how clauses are related, or interrelated, at an “above the clause” level. Logico-
semantics, intersemiotically, explores the logical relationship shared between
images and text. This research derives its system from the Systemic Functional
frameworks of Halliday (1994) and Martin and Rose (2008), with visual design
research produced by Berger (2009) and McCloud (1994). Both Berger and
McCloud posit that when combining text and image, one medium provides a
reference point for the other. Extrapolating this concept into a Systemic Func-
tional perspective, much like the dependent relationship between a dependent
clause and its independent counterpart in a sentence, image and text are inter-
dependent, with one medium depending on the other for context, or both
media being independent but connected by context. Figure 9.5 visually demon-
strates the intersemiotic expansion network. This network outlines the various
choices available regarding the logical connection between image and text, as
well as the semantic relationship which details the functional purpose of the
intersemiotic relationship.
The meaning of an intersemiotic relationship, as defined by the categories
in Figure 9.5, shows the variety of ways in which an image and writing are used
together within a single text. Semantically, The expansion between image and
text falls under three primary designations: Elaboration, Enhancement, and
Extension (Table 9.1) (Halliday, 1994).
intersemiosis in science textbooks 201

figure 9.5 The Logico-semantic framework

adapted from the works of halliday (1994), martin & rose (2008)
and mccloud (1994)

table 9.1 Expansion Types

Expansion type Probe

Elaboration (=) Does it add examples, clarify details, or restate

information?
Enhancement (×) Does it add circumstantial elements i.e. causal,
conditional, temporal, or spatial details?
Extension (+) Does it provide a re-evaluation based on new information?

The probing questions from Table 9.1 help to define which type of Expansion
relationship the image and text share. The Expansion type Elaboration pro-
vides an extended definition of the text by allowing an audience to more deeply
understand the essentials of the adjoining image. Additionally, Enhancement
in images provides details that a prepositional phrase and some conjunctions
202 roehrich

provide for text e.g. in, at, on, if, because. Alternatively, Extension, in inter-
semiosis, allows an image to offer a means of re-evaluation to the accompa-
nying text. Defining these relationships between image and text demonstrates
the specific use of an image within context. For example, in Elements of Ecology
(2006) Smith and Smith use images of marshlands and rainforests in an intro-
ductory chapter describing various typical regions. The relationship between
the images and the written text is defined as Elaboration due to the examples
of ecological locales provided by the images in reference to the text (Salway &
Martinec, 2005).
Further subcategorization of intersemiotic relationships gives greater clar-
ity to image function. Understanding the type of Expansion that an image/text
connection is categorized as allows us to search for patterns in the use of
images. For greater specificity, this analysis goes one level deeper to inspect
these categories of intersemiotic purpose further. To clarify, each Expansion
type has multiple subcategories which allow for greater specificity of designa-
tion. Table 6 lists the subcategories from each type as well as the indicator
which determines the category of intersemiotic relationship (adapted from
Halliday, 1994; Salway & Martinec, 2005).
Table 9.2 provides a means for understanding the categorization process by
which this study was conducted. These probes allow for the ability to examine
potential patterns in production of images. To further illustrate these relation-
ships, the following tables include examples of intersemiotic Expansion.
Table 9.3 shows that there is a close relationship in content between the text
and image within Elaboration-type Expansion. In reference to Exemplification,
the image provides a possible “mosaic” representation of deforestation. This
example mosaic shows a single representation of a forest and the areas which
have suffered deforestation. The text introduces the concept of deforestation
depicted as a series of squares, and the related image shows just one of many
forests to which it can be applied. Clarification differs from Exemplification
in that, rather than showing one version of what the text is describing, the
image is allowing the writing to draw attention to a particular feature of the
image which clarifies the meaning of the text. Exposition differs from both by
restating the text in a visual way; the reader is given two strategies for reading
the same information.
In table 9.4, examples are provided for the three subcategories of Extension:
Addition, Variation, and Alternation. In essence, each of these three types can
be summarized by a simple conjunction; and, or, and but, respectively.
In the Addition example, the basic elements of the text and image are shared,
connecting the two, but the primary focus of the text discusses cycles and
hertz while the image conveys the concept of wavelengths, which are related
intersemiosis in science textbooks 203

table 9.2 Subcategories of Expansion

Type Indicator

Elaboration
Exemplification Is the image an example?
Exposition Is the image a redundancy or restatement?
Clarification Is the image integral to the explanation?

Enhancement
Manner Does the image describe “how”?
Temporal Does the image describe “when” or show time period?
Spatial Does the image show location?
Causal Does the image show the cause or result?
Conditional Does the image show a potential outcome?

Extension
Addition Is the image independent yet additive?
Variation Does the image provide opposition?
Alternation Does the image provide an option or options?

to, but not a restatement of, a cycle. The previously mentioned “or” nature, or
Variation, is shown in the possibility presented by the image in collaboration
with the text. This particular text offers us a variety of ways to interpret the
image. Similarly, Alternation also presents a new means of interpreting an
image; however, this interpretation does not permit a variety of options, instead
it only offers one option, an option which negates what is depicted. On the
surface, the Bohr model atom appears to be a cohesive section of the book,
but when reevaluated through text, the “corporate logo” atom is shown to be
outdated and inappropriate for a modern textbook, providing the reader with
an alternative view of the image.
This research, while incorporating the entirety of the Logico-semantic net-
work, had only limited examples of Enhancement within the data. For this
reason, Table 9.5 only includes two subcategories of Enhancement: Manner
and Spatial. These two categories of Enhancement use the image to answer
circumstantial questions regarding the text. An Enhancement: Manner rela-
tionship shows the audience the ways in which the complementary text occurs.
The excess sun from the Manner example from Table 9.5 are shown to occur
during fun, outdoor activities. This image shows how the text occurs. Spatial
204 roehrich

table 9.3 Examples of Elaboration

Elaboration Text Image

type

Exemplification Representation of a
forested landscape as
a mosaic of patches
in various stages
of successional
development.
adapted from smith & smith, 2006

Clarification The corona at

maximum has a more
rounded shape

adapted from unsöld & baschel,

2002

Exposition Convection in the

atmosphere is the
consequence of
differences in air
density.

adapted from moran & morgan,

1997
intersemiosis in science textbooks 205

table 9.4 Examples of Extension

Extension type Text Image

Addition Passage of one

complete wave is
called a cycle, and a
frequency of 1 cycle per
second equals 1.0 hertz
(Hz)
adapted from serway, 1992

Variation The atoms could be

surface impurities
emitted by thermal
excitation, or they may
even be ions emitted
in the presence of a
strong applied electric
field. adapted from serway, 1992

Alternation This simple picture of

the atom makes a nice
corporate logo, but the
idea of an atom with
electrons orbiting a
nucleus as planets
orbit a sun was
discarded nearly a adapted from serway, 1992
century ago.

relationships provide a visual representation of location for where the textual

element takes place. In this case, humidity is occurring in a forest or jungle. The
image displays a backdrop for the textual information.
206 roehrich

table 9.5 Examples of Enhancement

Enhancement Text Image

type

Manner However, mounting

evidence indicates that
too much sun can cause
serious health problems
including skin cancer

adapted from moran & morgan,

1997

Spatial Because water vapor

concentrations are very
high, even the slightest
cooling during the early
morning hours results in
dew or fog, which gives
such a region a sultry,
steamy appearance.
adapted from smith & smith, 2006

Parameters of the Study

This theoretical underpinning, intersemiotic logico-semantics, is the basis for

analysing the means by which authors use images within their specific field.
The samples for this study were taken from undergraduate level general edu-
cation science curricula in the United States, ten in total (Brady & Senese,
2004; Comins & Kaufmann, 2005; Fastovsky & Weishampel, 2009; Harden, 1998;
Hoelzel, 2002; Martin, 2001; Moran & Morgan, 1997; Smith & Smith, 2006; Silk,
2001; Unsöld & Baschek, 2002). These books were chosen based on their use
in university courses. The scientific fields for these samples vary from book
to book: biology, physics, meteorology, geology, ecology, astronomy, and pale-
ontology, generalizing undergraduate science course books based on general
education requirements. In order to avoid subject bias, ten images were cho-
sen from each book at random with no more than two photos from one chapter.
intersemiosis in science textbooks 207

figure 9.6 Percentage used among elaboration types

Additionally, within the sample texts, each image was designated a figure num-
ber, which was the reference point for determining the accompanying text. The
text taken for analysis encompassed the entirety of the figure referencing para-
graph, as well as the caption, if available. Revealing these purposes required
applying the Intersemiotic Logico-semantic probing questions to the image
and text to determine the relationship between the integrated media.

Results and Discussion of Analysis

The logico-semantic network, which categorizes relationship types, with the

probing questions outlined in Table 9.2, overwhelmingly suggests that these
particular scientific textbooks use visual aids as a form of Elaboration. Ninety
percent of image/text relationships are predicated on the use of an image as
a form of explanation. The remainder of image use relationships have images
used as Enhancement at eight percent and Extension at two percent.
This tendency toward Elaboration, though important, is not enough to un-
derstand the function of the image in text. Elaboration is a category of image/
text relationship which is defined by its further explaining the α medium. Each
purpose, however, is more specifically defined through further probing.
Figure 9.6 demonstrates a high percentage, forty nine percent, of images
used in this study are used for the purposes of Clarification, with only twenty
eight percent used as Exemplification and twenty three percent used as Expo-
sition. The distinctive use of Clarification type expansion over other types of
Elaboration indicates that images and text are heavily reliant on integration as
208 roehrich

figure 9.7 Visual medium divergence

Clarification, which, by definition, is added explanation. Unlike Exemplifica-

tion, which provides examples, and Exposition, bald restatement, Clarification
refines details from the α medium. The statistical interdependence required for
Clarification demonstrates an author’s implicit knowledge that text is insuffi-
cient to communicate specific scientific ideas, and remedies this insufficiency
with an alternative means of communication, in this case, an image.
Although Clarification is the most used functional purpose, based on these
results, for images in science writing, there appeared to be another underlying
pattern in the results. The sample images included both photographs and
drawings with accompanying text. Of the one hundred sample images taken
at random, fifty seven are photographs and forty three are drawings. When
viewing these results, taking visual medium into account, further patterns in
use emerge.
In reference to the figure above, Clarification still holds an important place
among images, still comprising over forty percent of intersemiotic function,
regardless of visual medium type. Other macro-categories of Expansion, Exten-
sion and Enhancement, are still rarely used. However, accounting for the re-
maining percentages, there is a divergence in function. According to this data,
photographs have a higher likelihood for use as examples in these particu-
lar textbooks. Whether this is because photographs are more conducive to
exemplification or lend more credibility as an example source is not explained
intersemiosis in science textbooks 209

figure 9.8 Danger in Photography

adapted from moran & morgan, 1997

figure 9.9 Simplicity in Sketching

adapted from moran & morgan, 1997

by these results, but data indicate that authors are more inclined to use a pho-
tograph as an example than a drawing to demonstrate a specific example of a
concept. Conversely, photographs are less likely than a drawing to demonstrate
a visual restatement. This may be due to the fact that reality lends credibility
to an image, but is also very complex. A realistic depiction of a situation can
convey information in its truest form visually, and with great impact. In fact, as
in the Moran & Morgan (1997) example from Figure 9.8, the impact of an image
in relation to the dangers of sunlight is severe. The people photographed are all
in danger, and as readers, we recognize the danger and understand the effects
of sunlight on the skin.
Conversely, the use of a drawing gives an author the tools to simplify the
complexity of reality, while making the invisible visible. The drawing in Fig-
ure 9.9 takes a concept which is impossible to see in its entirety and allows a
reader to witness the process as well as simplify the process, making it both
understandable and visible.
210 roehrich

figure 9.10 Overwhelming use of Elaboration

These findings indicate that drawings have a greater versatility than a photo
due to their ability to capture a visualization which is not visible to the eye, such
as convection currents or black holes but may not have the impact or credibility
given to a photograph.

Conclusions and Implications

In examining intersemiotic relationships and interpretive language, American

undergraduate level science textbooks display strong patterns in reference to
specific uses of images as Elaboration and how they are described by the author.
The regular use of images as elaborative explanation is not necessarily sur-
prising, as introductory science textbooks are generally designed to explain
scientific concepts. The use of images as Elaboration allows for a visual rep-
resentation to provide examples, assisted explanation, or a visual restatement
of written text. The inclusion of additional and related information, in this case,
visually, makes sense as a staple within introductory science writing. The note-
worthy aspect of this is the overwhelming tendency toward Elaboration over
Extension and Enhancement (Figure 9.10).
Extension, adding information which is external, and Enhancement, adding
information which is circumstantial, are less appropriate in function for this
writing style than Elaboration. Elaboration expands initial meaning through
the use of internally relevant information, taking a statement and expanding it
more deeply.
intersemiosis in science textbooks 211

When producing an introduction to science writing, as the authors from

these examples have, they inherently chooses images which further explain
the concepts outlined in the chapter. Textbook writers use images to inform
and engage readers. This dual requirement further demands effort on the
part of images to meet both expectations. These requirements are seemingly
polarized, but the intersemiotic connection eases the difficulty, and simply
allows for more tools that a writer can use to produce text.
These results also show consistent purposeful inclusion of images with re-
gard to their use in explaining the unexplainable in undergraduate textbooks.
Often, complex concepts hinge entirely upon the integration of image and
text for effective explanation. Consciously or unconsciously, these authors of
science textbooks incorporate intersemiotic communication in a generally
standard means of production. The consistent use of images as a form of
Elaboration demonstrates that authors not only understand the difficulties
students have with introductory science, but also that images allow these ideas
to be more effectively conveyed.
Currently, education, especially esl, focuses on reading skills such as the
building of vocabulary, skimming and scanning techniques, and organizational
strategies for reading. Intersemiosis, as an emerging field of study, has yet to
be incorporated into standard instructional practice. Directing reading focus
to include multimodal considerations has exciting educational consequences
(Jewitt, 2005). Explicit knowledge of intersemiotic conventions in evaluation
and function permits students to understand why an image is used, how to read
it, and what language is being used to integrate an image (Bezemer & Kress,
2008). Explicit understanding of image function allows readers to make con-
scious connections between image and text. These connections make gaining
knowledge of science more attainable. Focusing on text alone leaves a reader
with only partial understanding of the purpose of that page. Reading multi-
modal texts includes the processing of multiple types of communication. By
incorporating multiple learning styles, an author is able to teach a wider audi-
ence. When a student of introductory science courses reads a chapter, the
student initially sees the page as a whole, perceiving locally decontextualized
images alongside unread text. A reader must read to accurately place these
images in context. Recognizing the language of intersemiosis, introductory
phrases, and indirect reference, students see the relationship, and are better
prepared to mentally integrate semiotic resources for effective reading strate-
gies. Explicit instruction on how to read these signals gives students the tools
to increase their reading effectiveness (Fei, 2004; Jewitt, 2005). When looking
critically at integrated media, and applying explicitly taught features of inter-
semiotic conventions, students are able to translate this reading knowledge
212 roehrich

figure 9.11 A grouping of plants

adapted from smith & smith

into writing knowledge, to integrate the media with purpose independently

and convey complex intersemiotic messages.
In a photograph like Figure 9.11, many possible opinions are possible without
being prescribed an interpretation. If asked to describe what that environment
would feel like, an individual would answer based on their personal experi-
ences and background. Some people may have positive impressions of forest
life, some have negative. Some have experienced cold, dry forests, and others
have experienced hot, humid jungle. An author, when intending to convey a
message, wants each reader to experience the image in the same way. Figure 9.11
comes with the description “Because water vapor concentrations are very high,
even the slightest cooling during the early morning hours results in dew or fog,
which gives such a region a sultry, steamy appearance.” By constricting how a
reader sees the image, the writer is better able to illustrate the ecology of the
jungle. This understanding of intersemiotic writing eases the fear of writing
with pictures. For many students, writing is already a minefield. Grasping the
conventions of academic writing is a common struggle for native speakers and
English language learners alike (Cook, 2008; Schleppegrell, 2004). Manipulat-
ing language in such a way as to present authority and credibility is a delicate
intersemiosis in science textbooks 213

balance; adding graphs, photographs, diagrams, and any other visual aid can be
a daunting experience. Instructing students on purposeful intersemiosis gives
them a more varied toolbox with which to communicate to an audience. This
explicit knowledge of intersemiotic writing alleviates the pressure of purely
textual explanation and creates confidence in the use of visual communica-
tion. Student writing which uses images can seem disjointed, with images being
seemingly unrelated; while most writers do not insert random images into their
text, a student’s lack of intersemiotic knowledge forces these images to appear
random, when in fact, student writers simply have yet to reach successful inter-
semiosis.
Intersemiotic Expansion, when comprehended by learners, gives students
explicit options for image use, and allows them to make decisions as to the
function of the image in the text. In understanding the various Expansion
types, students are capable of making a clear decision from a selection of
options; it empowers them to use the tools at their disposal. The various
available choices for intersemiotic expansion in science writing, according to
the results, focus on different types of Elaboration, with sparing use of other
types. When students are explicitly taught that Clarification, Exemplification,
or Exposition are the primary means of integration for photographs and draw-
ings, potential for successful intersemiosis increases and permits an increased
opportunity to integrate their professional identity with the practices of their
field.
Beyond writing, required multimodal production is increasing in the aca-
demic arena. Paper and poster presentations, video and live performance, and
other modes of multi-media communication are commonplace at the college
level and beyond (Bezemer & Kress, 2008; Jewitt, 2005). This increased need
for intersemiotic production causes an increased requirement for a student’s
explicit understanding of the conventions of production. With these types of
multimodal performance requiring use of visual, written, and spoken text, stu-
dents can become overwhelmed with the enormous variety of options and the
precision needed for effective use. For example, many students have difficul-
ties making presentation slides that effectively integrate speech with visual aid.
Sometimes the slides include an avalanche of text; other times the slides are a
jumble of images that seem to lack purpose. Cohesive integration is of utmost
importance in academic circumstances. Understanding image use, intersemi-
otic relationships, and accompanying textual integration, not only gives read-
ers, writers, and performers a knowledge of the conventions of their field, but
it also gives them the tools to succeed in academic settings where multimodal
texts are a ubiquitous aspect of the educational experience. The results of this
study show the potential for purposeful use of images in text; explicit instruc-
214 roehrich

tion on purposeful image use provides students with creative and informative
tools for the construction of dynamic writing and academic texts.

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 chapter 10

Literacy and Numeracy Practices in Postgraduate

Management Accounting

Hesham Suleiman Alyousef and Peter Mickan

Introduction

This chapter reports on a case study investigation into the academic practices
of international students in a postgraduate Management Accounting module
in the Master of Commerce Accounting program in Adelaide, Australia. The
intention of the investigation was to identify and analyse the nature of liter-
acy and numeracy practices in a selected subject in business studies. Busi-
ness studies programs in higher education in Australia have attracted many
international students who have contributed to dramatic growth in enrol-
ments (Alyousef & Picard, 2011). Students from language backgrounds other
than English, however, encounter new discourses, which challenge their com-
prehension of (written) information and their access to professional business
practices. The texts of business practices are multimodal, realised in speech
and writing together with tables and tasks. From a social semiotic perspective
(Halliday, 1978; Mickan, 2014), students need to manage not only the linguistic
but also other semiotic resources such as tables, graphs and computing pro-
grams which constitute business practices. That is, students’ understanding
and applications of information compressed in tables and texts is a require-
ment for membership of the business community. The analysis of practices in
Management Accounting in this chapter employs a multidimensional frame-
work (Alyousef, 2012) in order to articulate the interrelated representation of
knowledge in written texts and tables.

Alyousef, H.S. & Mickan, P. (2016). Chapter 10. Literacy and Numeracy Practices in Postgradu-
ate Management Accounting. In R. Fidalgo & T. Olive (Series Eds.) & A. Archer, & E.O. Breuer
(Vol. Eds.), Studies in Writing: Vol. 33, Multimodality in Higher Education, (pp. 216–240). Leiden:
Brill.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2016 | doi: 10.1163/9789004312067_012

literacy and numeracy practices in management accounting 217

Literature Review

Academic literacy studies have mainly focused on the language of verbal texts.
This has influenced pedagogies around literacy instruction, which focus on a
generalised concept of academic language use and on language for specific pur-
poses. Language is the significant resource in building disciplinary knowledge
(see also Gourlay, chapter 4 this volume) and in the development of discourse
resources for working in specific disciplines. Halliday’s (1978) description of
language as a social semiotic identifies the role of language in the construction
of meaning or more specifically in the development of resources for the expres-
sion of meaning potential. This perspective situates language in social and
cultural contexts of use. As a result, a multiliteracies model (Cope & Kalantzis,
2000, 2013; Kalantzis & Cope, 2012; New London Group, 1996) needs to take into
account the diversity of texts in human activity. A further feature of language
use in higher education and other domains of human activity is multimodality
(see Björkvall, chapter 1 this volume). A multimodal perspective of writing in
higher education analyses images, materials and space as semiotic resources
in spoken and written texts (Bowcher, 2012). Multimodal analysis then reveals
the range of meanings expressed in learners’ activities and genres (Lea & Street,
2006), and it “not only takes different modes into account but also has a strong
focus on the effects of their interplay” (Pauwels, 2012, p. 250) between images
and texts (see also Roehrich, chapter 9 this volume).
The analysis of academic texts draws attention to language as one of the
social semiotic resources in socio-cultural contexts of higher education.
Whereas up to now multimodal communication research has been conducted
across the fields of mathematics (de Oliveira & Cheng, 2011; Guo, 2004; O’Hal-
loran, 1996, 1999, 2000, 2004, 2005, 2008; 2009), science and computing (AlHu-
thali, 2007; Drury, O’Carroll, & Langrish, 2006; Jones, 2006; Wake, 2006), engi-
neering (Simpson this volume), and nursing (Okawa, 2008), tertiary business
discourse has not yet been fully examined.
So far, studies in the domain of business have explored the linguistic
(Bargiela-Chiappini, 2009; Crawford Camiciottoli, 2010; Perren & Grant, 2000;
Thomas, 1997) and the technical (Craig & Moores, 2005) characteristics of man-
agement accounting discourse produced by corporate writers or speakers, and
Bargiela-Chiappini (2009) has reviewed a range of business discourse studies in
workplace settings. Applications of Systemic Functional Linguistics (hereafter
sfl) in the study of tertiary business discourse are, to the best of our knowledge,
limited but include studies by Thomas (1997) and Alyousef (2012, 2014, 2015a,
2015b, 2016; Alyousef & Alnasser 2015a, 2015b). Thomas (1997) investigated the
systems of transitivity, thematic structure, cohesion and condensations in
218 alyousef and mickan

a series of management messages in the annual reports of a company whereas

Alyousef (2012, 2015b) investigated, respectively, the system of transitivity
in tertiary finance texts and the systems of Theme and Information Structure
in tertiary management accounting texts. He employed a multidimensional
approach to describe the epistemologies and the participants’ learning experi-
ences and to investigate and explore the organisation of the multimodal texts.
However, the system of transitivity and the use of conjunctives in a ter-
tiary Management Accounting course have not been documented. Most inter-
national English as an additional language (eal) students in Australia and
elsewhere are enrolled in business and commerce programmes (Alyousef &
Picard, 2011), and “contributions from linguists specifically dealing with multi-
modality in business discourse have been relatively few” (Garzone, 2009, p. 156).
The present study is pertinent since insights gained in analysis of literacy and
numeracy business practices and of the multimodal texts which constitute
business practices would provide information for the design of support pro-
grams for students’ induction into professional business practices. In the fol-
lowing, we give a short overview of Systemic Functional Linguistics and intro-
duce how it is applied in our study.

An Overview of the Context and Document Analysis

Halliday’s (1985) sfl sets out a range of linguistic resources for handling and
interpreting multimodal socio-cultural literacy events which are mediated by
written texts. The core of these resources is the lexico-grammatical stratum
of language which is used to explore the three language metafunctions that
construe meaning ideationally, interpersonally and textually. Ideational mean-
ing construction works by representing and ordering our experience, percep-
tions, consciousness, and the basic logical relations (oriented towards the field
of discourse), interpersonal meaning construction by enacting certain social
relationships (oriented towards the tenor of discourse), and textual meaning
construction by weaving ideational and interpersonal meanings into a textual
whole (oriented towards the mode of discourse). These metafunctions corre-
late respectively with three register semiotic variables: field (what is talked
about), tenor (how social roles and identities are constructed), and mode
(how the meanings are organised).
Our analysis deals with the experiential and the logical metafunctions in a
Management Accounting course, analysing the transitivity and the use of con-
junctives. The transitivity system in sfl represents our experience of the
world through participants, processes, and circumstances. The analysis reveals
literacy and numeracy practices in management accounting 219

the functioning of the lexicogrammar correlated with multimodal representa-

tion in the budgeting text. Clauses are analysed in terms of six process types:
material, mental, verbal, existential, relational, and behavioural. Material pro-
cesses refer to our experience of the external world and they describe pro-
cesses of doings or happenings (open, close). Mental processes construe states
of mind or psychological events (think, feel) whereas behavioural processes
refer to physiological and psychological behavior (breathe, cough, smile, look),
verbal processes refer to speaking actions (say, speak). The process of being,
that is relational, signals identifying and classifying features. The existential
process is realised by There-construction, and it signals the existence of some-
thing/someone. Each process has its own participants’ roles; for example, in
the material processes, there are two participant roles, namely: actor and goal.
Circumstances are realised by prepositional or adverbial phrases. At the logi-
cal level, paratactic (co-ordinating) and hypotactic (subordinating) nexuses are
used to expand propositions. A paratactic relationship is established “when two
or more independent clauses are connected by conjunctive linking devices …,
while a hypotactic relation is set up when a dependent clause is connected to
an independent (dominant) clause by a binding conjunctive device” (Alyousef,
2016, p. 13). Expansion is formed when the secondary clause expands the pri-
mary clause through the use of one of the three main sub-types of expansion:
elaboration, extension, and enhancement (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004).
In a series of studies across disciplines Mickan (2014) examined academic
literacy from the perspective of epistemology. The analysis of language was sit-
uated in the context of the social practices of disciplinary and professional
communities. The studies addressed the question of what are the practices
and discourses which constitute discipline specific knowledge. A multidimen-
sional framework (Alyousef, 2012; Mickan, 2014) was adopted to account for the
complexity of the multisemiotic or multimodal nature of academic disciplines.
The documentation included analysis of subject profiles, of subject content
descriptions, of program events such as lectures (see also Thesen, chapter 2 this
volume) and tutorials, and assignments tasks and assessments. A multidimen-
sional framework was developed to record participants’ multimodal academic
practices. Based on Halliday’s (1985) sfl, the characteristic features of the texts,
diagrams and tables in university postgraduate courses were analysed.
The study which generated the data used for analysis in this chapter was
designed to describe the academic literacies of disciplines in higher education.
Business studies was one of the disciplines studied. It included documenta-
tion of Management Accounting. Accountancy documents require understand-
ing the texts constituting particular business literacy and numeracy practices.
Subject specific epistemologies such as Budgeting are constituted with defin-
ing discourses which are embedded in different modes of representation. The
220 alyousef and mickan

analysis of the graduate attributes and learning outcomes stated in the Course
Profile (The Business School, 2010) comprises part of the description of the epis-
temology of the subject. The Course Profile (ibid) sets out the multimodal tasks
students needed to manage in terms of graduate attributes and learning out-
comes (Table 10.1). The Management Accounting curriculum related each grad-
uate quality to its corresponding objective(s) or indicator(s): 1) knowledge and
understanding, 2) learning outcomes and 3) communication skills. For exam-
ple, the graduate quality underpinning students’ ability to make budgets in this
assignment was exhibiting “knowledge and understanding of the content and
techniques of a chosen discipline at advanced levels that are internationally
recognized”, “skills of a high order in interpersonal, teamwork and communica-
tion”, and “a proficiency in the appropriate use of contemporary technologies”
(see also Williams, chapter 6 this volume, for the demands that students meet
when joining the academic community).
Embedded in the attributes and outcomes described in the Course Profile
(Table 10.1) are assumptions about the nature of business practices and the
management of semiotic resources for meeting program requirements. Man-
agement of information in business accounting included selection of “relevant
information for a variety of decisions to be made in managing any organi-
zation”; “Formulate and use standards and budgets for planning and control
purposes” and “Identify relevant costs for decision making purposes”. Inter-
personal communication skills were measured in terms of students’ ability to
examine diverse sources of information pertaining to management accounting,
to identify and discuss relevant information in a group setting, and to present
information in a manner that will assist managers in their decision-making
roles. The graduate attributes suggest the multisemiotic nature of business
practices. Included are expectations that students employ a range of contem-
porary management accounting technologies. The analysis which follows is of
one of the assignments in Management Accounting.

Management Accounting Assignment

The assignment analysed in this section was designed to measure students’

competence in ‘budgeting’. The task was to prepare documentation in the form
of a Budgeted Balance Sheet for a company “Frame-it” to support a finance
application. The components of the assignment are listed below:

1. Sales budget (4 marks)

2. Cash receipts budget (4 marks)
literacy and numeracy practices in management accounting 221

table 10.1 The graduate attributes and learning outcomes related to the assignment
adapted from the course profile (ibid, pp. 2–3)

1. Knowledge and This course seeks to give an understanding of the ways

Understanding in which management accountants can provide
relevant information for a variety of decisions to be
made in managing any organisation.

2. Learning Students should be able to

Outcomes 1) Appreciate how management accounting
information can assist management in their planning
and decision-making roles (Learning Outcome 2.1);
2) Formulate and use standards and budgets for
planning and control purposes (Learning Outcome 2.3);
and
3) Identify relevant costs for decision making purposes
(Learning Outcome 2.5).

3. Communication Students should be able to

Skills 3.1 Examine diverse sources of information and identify
which components of that information are relevant to
the decision to be taken.
3.2 Present information pertaining to accounting,
management, and social issues in a manner that will
assist mangers in their decision-making role.
3.3 Identify and discuss relevant information in a group
setting.

4. Graduate 1) Knowledge and understanding of the content and

Attributes techniques of a chosen discipline at advanced levels
that are internationally recognized;
2) Skills of a high order in interpersonal, teamwork and
communication; and
3) A proficiency in the appropriate use of contemporary
technologies
222 alyousef and mickan

table 10.2 Projected manufacturing costs for each product in 2011

Projected Manufacturing Costs s Frame l Frame

Metal Strips
s: 2/3 metre @ $3 per metre $ 2.00
l: 1 metre @ $3 per metre $ 3.00
Glass Sheets
s: 1/4 sheet @ $8 per sheet 2.00
l: 1/2 sheet @ $8 per sheet 4.00
Direct Labour
0.1 hours @ $20 per hour 2.00 2.00
Manufacturing Overhead
0.1 direct labour hour @ $10 per hour 1.00 1.00

Total Manufacturing Cost Per Unit $ 7.00 $ 10.00

3. Production budget (6 marks)

4. Direct material budget (10 marks)
5. Cash disbursements budget (6 marks)
6. Summary cash budget (6 marks)
7. Budgeted schedule of cost of goods manufactured and sold (4 marks)
8. Budgeted profit and loss statement (3 marks)
9. Budgeted statement of retain earnings (3 marks)
10. Budgeted balance sheet

The assignment was framed in a written text with information about sales,
history and costs of the company. It was also framed by tabulated data students
needed to use to construct the nine supporting schedules that led in the end to
the compilation of the tenth schedule, namely the Budgeted Balance Sheet.
The categories ‘Metal Strips’ and ‘Glass Sheet’ in column one (Table 10.2) are
italicised in order to facilitate readability. The tutor provides students with fur-
ther information related to sales history and expectations, for example: “Your
study of the organizations accounting system has revealed the following infor-
mation. 1. Sales in the fourth quarter of 2010 are expected to be 50,000 s frames
and 40, 0000 l frames.” Students are also provided with the manufacturing over-
head costs (Table 10.3).
 literacy and numeracy practices in management accounting 223

table 10.3 The manufacturing overhead budget for 2011

Manufacturing Overhead Budget 2011

Qtr1 Qtr2 Qtr3 Qtr4 Year

Indirect Materials $10,200.00 $11,200.00 $12,200.00 $13,200.00 $46,800.00

Indirect Labour 40,800.00 44,800.00 48,800.00 52,800.00 187,200.00
Other Overhead 31,000.00 36,000.00 41,000.00 46,000.00 154,000.00
Depreciation 20,000.00 20,000.00 20,000.00 20,000.00 80,000.00

Total Overhead $102,000.00 $112,000.00 $122,000.00 $132,000.00 $468,000.00

Finally, the tutor provides students with the projected balance sheet for Frame-
it Ltd (Table 10.4). The balance sheet typically consists of the three main cate-
gories assets, liabilities and equity. Each sub-category is assigned to its respec-
tive main category. The main categories are given more prominence (or sa-
lience) than the sub-categories by their placement at the beginning of the line.
The same applies to ‘current’, ‘non-current’ and ‘total equity’.
Table 10.4 represents technical knowledge in the field of Management
Accounting. In financial reporting, the terms ‘current’ and ‘non-current’ are syn-
onymous with the terms ‘short-term’ and ‘long-term’, respectively, and are used
interchangeably. Experience is reconstrued in accounting texts as discipline-
specific and the successful construction of financial statements is determined
by students’ understanding of the taxonomic relations that exist between the
three main categories. The schedules condense in nominal groups the actions
of accountants, which are multisemiotic and which signify professional prac-
tices. The tables and text constitute multimodal tools students needed to
employ in order to successfully accomplish the ten requirements.

Analysis of Management Accounting Assignment

The corpus for analysis comprised two group assignments written in English
(6,239 words). Utilising sfl as a framework, the experiential and the logical
dimensions included in the students’ assignments were examined. The pur-
pose of the analysis was to provide an explanatory account of how texts are
typically constructed and how they relate to context of use.
224 alyousef and mickan

table 10.4 Frame-it Ltd projected balance sheet

Frame-it Ltd
Projected Statement of Financial Position
as at 31 December 2010

Notes

Current assets
Cash at bank $95,000.00
Accounts receivable 132,000.00
Inventory:
Raw materials 59,200.00
Finished goods 167,000.00
Total inventory 226,200.00
Total current assets $453,200.00
Non-current assets
Plant and equipment (net of depreciation) 8,000,000.00
Total assets $8,453,200.00

Liabilities
Accounts Payable 99,400.00
Net Assets $8,353,800.00

Equity
Ordinary shares 5,000,000.00
retained Earnings 3,353,800.00
Total equity $8,353,800.00

Two assignments were written by two groups: Group 1, Abdulrahman, Abdullah

and Steve, and Group 2, Omar and Peter. Each group received a distinction
mark: 45 and 45.50 out of 50 respectively. Group 1 had three 2-hour meetings
and Group 2 three 3-hour meetings in order to accomplish the assignment
together. The total number of words in Group 1’s (Abdulrahman, Abdullah and
Steve) text was 2024 words (1416 in tables and 608 in the footnotes and the
memo) while it was 4239 words in Group 2’s (Omar and Peter) text (1495 in
tables and 2744 in the explanatory text).
literacy and numeracy practices in management accounting 225

Group 1 concisely presented its findings in 14 tables, in addition to a 206-

word memo and 402-word footnotes. The compositional makeup of the report
in Group 1’s text shows that tables were an essential and major component.
Group 2’s orthographic text surmounted tables in terms of the total number
of words, as each table was accompanied by explanatory text. The tables were
constructed with a lexicogrammar with a high level of abstraction.
In the next section we employ a Systemic Functional Multimodal Discourse
Analysis (sf-mda) (O’Halloran, 2008) to reveal the multimodal meaning mak-
ing processes which students need to manage to become full participants
within their community of practice.

Analysis of the Ideational Meaning: Experiential Meaning and

Logical Relations

In the assignments, the experiential world the texts referenced was mathemat-
ical calculations, often budgeting schedules, including the production budget,
budgeted profit and loss statement, and the ‘Budgeted Balance Sheet’. The writ-
ers assumed that they share with their reader specialist or expert knowledge, as
evidenced by their use of simple nominal groups which had technical meanings
such as total equity, total liabilities, accounts payable, accounts receivable, and
depreciation. The participant roles in the two texts were occupied by abstract
(or inanimate) lexis (or terminology). The two texts also included some terms,
which did not assume an expert’s knowledge such as ‘raw materials’, ‘finished
goods’, ‘inventory’, and ‘borrowing’. For example, the participants’ roles in the
‘Budgeted Balance Sheet’ is realised by both general and disciplinary-specific
abstract technical lexis, as shown in Table 10.5.
The first accounting literacy practice for constructing the balance sheet is
to insert the name of the entity, the title of the statement and the date (Table
10.5). The remaining entries are set out as a table. Then the main categories
assets, liabilities and equity are listed. Next, each sub-category is assigned to
its respective main category. Group 1 inserted a footnote, y, next to the sub-
category ‘Plant and equipment’ in the table to show their calculations. It also
inserted the footnote z to write an explanatory note.
Accounting students are expected to assign a given classification to its re-
spective category. The complexity is related to the logical interconnections
between the lexical strings in the balance sheet: What does the lexical string
‘accounts receivable’ mean? Is it assigned to assets, liabilities or equity? Or, is
it assigned to current and non-current assets or liabilities? For example, the
meaning-making processes for current assets include listing the sub-categories
226 alyousef and mickan

table 10.5 Group 1’s Budgeted Balance Sheet

Frame-it Ltd
Budgeted Statement of Financial Position
as at 31 December 2011

Notes

Current assets
Cash at bank $204,500.00
Accounts receivable 192,000.00
Inventory:
Raw materials 83,200.00
Finished goods 235,000.00
Total inventory 318,200.00
Total current assets $714,700.00
Non-current assets
Plant and equipment (net of depreciation) y) 8,920,000.00
Total assets $9,634,700.00

Liabilities
Accounts Payable 143,400.00
Net Assets $9,491,300.00

Equity
Ordinary shares 5,000,000.00
retained Earnings 4,491,300.00
Total equity $9,491,300.00

y) Plant and Equipment Calculation:

Plant and equipment 1 Jan 2011 (is) 8,000,000.00
add: Purchased plant and equipment (is) 1,000,000.00
less: depreciation for the year (is) z) 80,000.00
Plant and equipment 31 Dec 2011 (net of depreciation) (is) 8,920,000.00
z) No depreciation for the robot in 2011 because it will take most of year (2011) to train
staff and gain benefits in 2012.
literacy and numeracy practices in management accounting 227

table 10.6 Types of conjunctive ties in the two groups’ texts

Sub-category Types of cohesive ties Total Percentage

Elaboration Appositive 3 2.27 %

Clarification 22 16.67 %

Extension Additive 31 23.49 %

Variation 0 0.00 %

Enhancement Temporal 26 19.70 %

Manner/comparative 38 28.79 %
Causal 10 7.57 %
Concessive/conditional 2 1.51 %

Total 132 100.00 %

in the order of their liquidity (highest to lowest), thereby giving a clear picture
which ones can be easily converted to cash. As Halliday (1993, p. 132) states,
implicit conceptual structure and internal relationships “make demands on the
writer to ensure that the text provides the semantic information that the reader
needs in order to construct the taxonomies, decode the metaphors, and follow
the argument”. Both groups successfully compiled the balance sheet. They did
not face difficulties in the logical metafunction that is construed in the rela-
tions between the categories and the sub-categories.
The experiential metafunction realising the field of discourse was repre-
sented in the text by the students’ lexical choices within the transitivity
system, that is, the use of participants and process types (material, mental, ver-
bal, existential, relational and behavioural). The logical metafunction concerns
the representation of the relations between one process and another, that is,
between clauses. This is achieved through the conjunctive relationships that
are investigated first.
The conjunctive devices in the two groups’ texts are summarised in Table
10.6
The finding showed that the highest enhancing sub-component in the two
groups’ texts was manner conjunctive devices (in accordance with, as, based
on), as in “Direct labour is calculated as [Enhancement: Manner] shown …”
(Group 2 text). The extending sub-component additive conjunctions (and, also,
in addition) ranked the second among the other sub-components. The extend-
228 alyousef and mickan

ing sub-component alternative conjunction (on the other hand, whereas, nev-
ertheless) was not employed. Only one sub-component of extension devices
was used by both groups in the orthographic text, namely the additive con-
junctives, as in:

Other raw materials, such as [Elaboration: Appositive] cardboard backing,

are insignificant in cost and [Extension: Additive] are treated as indirect
materials. (Group 1 text)

No depreciation for the robot in 2011 because [Enhancement: Causal] it

will take most of year (2011) to train staff and [Extension: Additive] gain
benefits in 2012. (Group 1 text)

Included is the Budgeted Balance Sheet for the period ending 31 Decem-
ber 2011 and [Extension: Additive] supporting schedules used in the calcu-
lations. (Group 1 text)

For [Elaboration: Clarification] the s line, q1 2011 sales were calculated at

55,000, based on the instructions where 50,000 units were budgeted in
q4 2010 and [Extension: Additive] were projected to then [Enhancement:
Temporal] grow at 5,000 units per quarter. (Group 2 text)

Of these sales 60% were sold on credit, and [Extension: Additive] 80 % of

those sales were collected in q1 resulting in a sum of $ 264,000. (Group 2
text)

In addition, [Extension: Additive] 20% of the credit sales from the previ-
ous quarter were included, which amounted to $ 60,000. (Group 2 text)

The transitivity analysis revealed the students’ use of the management account-
ing language and their understanding of the field through the selection of the
discipline’s technical lexis for participants, process types, and circumstances.
Table 10.7 presents the process types used by the two groups.
The transitivity analysis of the experiential metafunction in the two texts
revealed that over 78% of the process types were relational identifying, while
the second most frequently occurring process type was material. It also
revealed that over 72% of the process types were implicit relational identifying
processes that are expressed in financial tables. These processes were used to
identify the value of key accounting terms. A relational identifying clause adds
further information, and since it takes the form x equals y it has a thematic
literacy and numeracy practices in management accounting 229

table 10.7 The frequency of process types in the two written

assignments

Process type Absolute Values in

values percentages

Material Explicit 260 16.22%

Implicit 0 0.00%
Total 260 16.22%

Relational Explicit 101 6.30%

Identifying Implicit 1162 72.49%
Total 1263 78.79%

Relational Attributive 13 .81%

Behavioural 5 .31%

Existential 6 .38%

Mental Explicit 54 3.37%

Implicit 0 0.00%
Total 54 3.37%

Verbal 2 .12%

Total 1603 100%

equative structure (Halliday, 1967). This structure is linked by a relationship of

identity, expressed by some form of the verb be that links the Rheme with the
Theme, and has two identification functions: “a ‘thing to be identified’ and an
‘identifier’, that with which it is to be identified” (ibid, p. 224). So, for example,
the meaning of the clause “Sales units for s q1 55,000” in Table 10.8 below is
realised semantically as “Sales units [Token, Identified] for the s Line in Quarter
1 is [Process: Implicit Relational Identifying] 55,000 [Value, Identifier]”.
A tutor may also elaborate by saying “the number of units sold for the s Line
in the first Quarter is 55,000” since this interpretation is congruent with the
spoken mode of accounting budgets. Unlike the spoken mode, messages are
condensed in the Sales Budget through the deletion of action processes, human
 230 alyousef and mickan

table 10.8 Group 2’s Sales Budget for s and l Line

Sales budget s

q1 q2 q3 q4 Total

Sales units 55,000 60,000 65,000 70,000 250,000.00

Selling price per unit ($) 10 10 10 10 10
Total revenue ($) 550,000.00 600,000.00 650,000.00 700,000.00 2,500,000.00

Sales budget l

q1 q2 q3 q4 Total

Sales units 45,000 50,000 55,000 60,000 210,000.00

Selling price per unit ($) 15 15 15 15 15
Total revenue ($) 675,000.00 750,000.00 825,000.00 900,000.00 3,150,000.00

Total Sales ($) 1,225,000.00 1,350,000.00 1,475,000.00 1,600,000.00 5,650,000.00

actors, and the sequences of clauses. The total number of the implicit relational
identifying clauses in Table 10.8 is 35. The discourse of the multimodal budget-
ing schedules is highly metaphorical since their components use the implicit
relationships between Token and Value to refer to the participants in a rela-
tional identifying clause. Mental processes rarely occurred in the two texts.

“This [Actor] gives [Process: Material] a figure of $ 30,400 for the s line
and $52,800 for the l line [Goal]”/ “Budgeted accounts receivable [Actor]
are taken [Process: Material] from the cash receipts budget [Goal] in
Table 2 [Circ: Location, Spatial]”. “In order to determine [Process: Mental]
the budgeted cost of goods sold [Phenomenon]”/ “and were projected to
[Process: Mental]”.

Behavioural, existential, and relational attributive processes were minimally

used in the two texts. Attributive processes are used for classifying technical
terms into taxonomies, as in “Other raw materials, such as cardboard backing
[Carrier], are [Process: Relational Attributive] insignificant [Attribute]”. Word
classes and sub-classes are construed by attributive clauses. “Other raw materi-
als” are assigned the characteristic of being “insignificant”. Temporal (“in each
literacy and numeracy practices in management accounting 231

quarter”, “over 2011”, “in the same quarter”) and spatial (“in Table 4”) circum-
stances were the most common types in the two groups’ texts. Whereas tem-
poral circumstances specify the duration of time, spatial circumstances specify
spatial location. There were instances in which processes such as ‘calculate’
and ‘show’ were relational identifying, rather than material or mental pro-
cesses, due to the existence of modality and the explicit marker of Value ‘as’
(Table 10.9).
The nuclear participant, the Assigner, is unspecified in the passive construc-
tions above. This seems to be a characteristic feature of accounting discourse
since the aim is to emphasise the process rather than the agent who is perform-
ing the action.

The most frequently used words in each text were calculated (Table 10.10), using
Textalyser (2004).
Groups 1 and 2 used the spelling variants Qtr and q for the word Quarter
respectively. As the two texts shared a common field, 8 out of the 10 most
frequently used key words in the texts were similar, though the frequency of
occurrence for each word in the Group 2’s text exceeded Group 1. This was
ascribed to the fact that the Group 2’s text contained 2215 more words than
did Group1. The accompanying text in Group 2 writing was subordinate to the
tables through the use of markers that refer readers to information in other
parts of a text (colon, see Table, as shown in the Table). As a result, Group 2
used the words ‘table’ 48 times and ‘shown’ 37 times in contrast to none for
Group 1. On the contrary, Group 1 text did not include intra-textual references
between writing and the tables as the text was not accompanied by explanatory
text; rather footnotes and the memo. Whereas meaning in financial tables and
graphs is produced from the complex interplay between orthographic texts and
numerical representations, this does not seem to apply to Group 2’s text since
the accompanying text did not emanate from the writer’s reasoning of the data
in tables, as shown in Table 10.11.
The orthographic text surrounding the tables in Group 2’s assignment was
not assessed by the tutor because it was considered redundant; it repeated the
data in the tables and, therefore, it did not add new information based on the
findings in tables.

Discussion of the Findings and Conclusion

The assignment required students to produce nine schedules for a ‘Budgeted

Balance Sheet’. As stated in the Course Profile, students needed to exhibit their
 232

table 10.9 Examples of relational processes used to assign a new function to the participant
source: extracts from the two groups’ assignment

Group 1 5. and are treated as indirect materials.

Token: Identifier Process: Relational Identifying Value: Identified
24. m) Calculated as 20% of 1st quarter sales for 2011.
Token: Identifier Process: Relational Identifying Value: Identified

Group 2 51. Beginning inventory is shown as the ending inventory for the previous quarter.
Token: Identifier Process: Relational Identifying Value: Identified
58. Beginning inventory is shown as the ending inventory for the previous quarter.
Token: Identifier Process: Relational Identifying Value: Identified
86. The beginning inventory is calculated as the ending inventory for the previous quarter.
Token: Identifier Process: Relational Identifying Value: Identified
110. The beginning inventory is calculated as the ending inventory for the previous quarter.
Token: Identifier Process: Relational Identifying Value: Identified
182. For q1, this is calculated as beginning inventory—glass sheets—for both
the s and l lines, multiplied by the price per sheet
Token: Identifier Process: Relational Identifying Value: Identified
194. For q1, this is calculated as ending inventory—glass sheets—for both
the s and l lines, multiplied by the price per sheet
Token: Identifier Process: Relational Identifying Value: Identified
293. Accounts payable is calculated as 20% of $717,000,
Token: Identifier Process: Relational Identifying Value: Identified
alyousef and mickan
literacy and numeracy practices in management accounting 233

table 10.10 Frequency count and top key words in the two texts

Group 1 Text (2024 words) Group 2 Text (4239 words)

Word Instances Frequency Word Instances Frequency

Qtr/ quarter 64 7.2% Quarter/q1/q2/q3/q4 186 10.47%

Total 27 3.1% Total 71 4%
Inventory 21 2.4% Cash 50 2.8%
Cost 20 2.3% Table 48 2.7%
Sales 19 2.1% Inventory 44 2.5%
Per 17 1.9% Cost 40 2.3%
Production 16 1.8% Sales 37 2.1%
Units 16 1.8% Shown 37 2.1%
Goods 15 1.7% Units 36 2%
Cash 15 1.7% Per 32 1.8%

ability to “examine diverse sources of information and identify which com-

ponents of that information are relevant to the decision to be taken” (The
Business School, 2010, pp. 2–3). To accomplish the task students needed to
interpret subject-specific texts in conjunction with tables and graphs. They
needed to manage the dynamic interaction of the experiential and the logical
meanings in texts and tables, which construe management accounting knowl-
edge.
We analysed the experiential and the logical meanings in the students’ man-
agement accounting texts. Our findings suggest that students were constrained
by the ideological conventions of constructing budgeting tables. We also found
that financial tables utilise structural condensation to encode numerical data
in the most economical manner. This finding is in line with Alyousef’s (2012,
2015a; 2016) text-based studies of tertiary finance and marketing texts. The find-
ings of the transitivity analysis show that over 78% of the process types in the
two texts were relational identifying. It was also found that over 72% of the pro-
cess types were implicit relational identifying processes that are expressed in
financial tables. The value of technical terms is given by implicit relational iden-
tifying processes that have an underlying ‘equative’ meaning. The Token-Value
direction of identification, from general to specific, is adopted. This is not sur-
prising since these texts deal with numbers and, as Halliday and Matthiessen
(2004, p. 234) note, Token-Value structure play an important role in the register
of commercial and scientific discourse.
 234 alyousef and mickan

table 10.11 Group 2’s Production Budget for s and l Line

For the s line in q1 2011, this amounted to 11,000 units, resulting in units to be started in the
quarter of 56,000. This calculated was then repeated for each of the following quarters in the 2011
year.
For the l line in q1 2011, total inventory needed amounted to 55,000 units (45,000 + (50,000
* 20%)). Beginning inventory is shown as the ending inventory for the previous quarter. For the
l line in q1 2011, this amounted to 9,000 units, resulting in units to be started in the quarter
of 46,000. This calculated was then repeated for each of the following quarters in the 2011 year.
Figures for the 2011 year are shown in Table 3 below:

Production budget S

Q4 2010 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Total Q1 2012

Sales in units 50,000 55,000 60,000 65,000 70,000 250,000 75,000

Add: desired end. inventory 11,000 12,000 13,000 14,000 15,000 54,000 16,000
Total needed 61,000 67,000 73,000 79,000 85,000 304,000 91,000
Less: beg. Inventory 10,000 11,000 12,000 13,000 14,000 50,000 15,000
Units to be started 51,000 56,000 61,000 66,000 71,000 254,000 76,000

Production budget L

Q4 2010 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Total Q1 2012

Sales in units 40,000 45,000 50,000 55,000 60,000 210,000 65,000

Add: desired end. inventory 9,000 10,000 11,000 12,000 13,000 46,000 14,000
Total needed 49,000 55,000 61,000 67,000 73,000 256,000 79,000
Less: beg. Inventory 8,000 9,000 10,000 11,000 12,000 42,000 13,000
Units to be started 41,000 46,000 51,000 56,000 61,000 214,000 66,000

Total units to be started 102,000 112,000 122,000 132,000 468,000

Furthermore, we found that the second most frequently occurring process

type in the texts was material process. Although mathematical Operative pro-
cesses, such as calculate, work out, subtract and add, metaphorically realise
processes of cognition, they also realise material processes since their calcu-
lation in ms Excel spreadsheets involves action. This finding contrasts with
O’Halloran’s (1996, 1999, 2005, 2008) generalisation that mathematical dis-
literacy and numeracy practices in management accounting 235

course is characterised with the metaphorical shifts between material and

mental processes like count and work out. The study also found that the partic-
ipants successfully assigned each accounting sub-category (or lexical string) to
its respective main category. As a result, the taxonomic classifications in mul-
timodal budgeting schedules contribute to the texts’ cohesiveness. Finally, the
frequency of the enhancing sub-component manner conjunctive devices (in
accordance with, as, based on) ranked the highest in the two groups’ texts, fol-
lowed by the extending sub-component additive devices (and, beside, then).
Whereas extension adds to or varies a clause message by adding something new
to it, enhancement expands the utterance by providing circumstantial details
such as time, place, manner, cause or condition.
The findings also revealed that some mental or material processes, like ‘treat’,
‘regard’, ‘consider’ ‘show’ and ‘calculate’, were construed by relational identify-
ing processes due to modality and the existence of the explicit marker of the
Value ‘as’: “Beginning inventory [Token, Identified] is shown [Process: Relational
Identifying] as the ending inventory [Value, Identifier] for the previous quarter”.
Looking ‘from above’ the clauses, material and mental clauses are concerned
with our outer and inner experiences respectively, whereas they model expe-
rience as ‘being’ rather than as ‘doing’ or ‘sensing’ when looking ‘from below’.
As a result of this, metaphorical modality occurs through the transitivity
system instead of the lexico-grammatical system.
The research case study revealed that accounting discourse is not only rep-
resented by quantitative technical calculations but also by qualitative mate-
rial. Students were expected to engage in interdiscursive multimodal literacy
and numeracy practices resulting not only from their engagement in non-
technocentric tasks (the use of accounting discourse) but also in tasks involving
technology (the use of word processors, spreadsheets). The students demon-
strated their grasp of management accounting language through their selec-
tions of technical lexical strings and through resolving the logical interconnec-
tions between these strings.

Implications of the Study

In Higher Education academic work involves a social negotiation process of

meaning-making between context, students’ understanding of the text and
their prior knowledge and experiences. The international students in this study,
who were not native speakers of English and who are representative of increas-
ing cultural and linguistic diverse student cohorts, relied on a range of past and
present discourses, or ‘interim literacies’, which served as ‘building blocks’ in
managing budgeting discourse (Paxton, 2007, 2011).
236 alyousef and mickan

The approach in this study and related studies (Alyousef, 2012, 2015a, b,
2016; Alyousef & Alnasser 2015a, b; Micakn, 2013a, b) has enabled a multiple-
perspective examination of academic literacies embedded in disciplinary prac-
tices. The approach is significant for the understanding of knowledge build-
ing as a complex fusion of multimodal practices. Students’ construction of
meaning in management accounting is embedded in interdiscursive multi-
modal practices involving the use of technocentric and non-technocentric
tasks. Whereas the former involves the use of spreadsheets, the latter includes
the application of the general principles to the analysis of budgeting categories,
the recognition and interpretation of implicit relational identifying processes
in budgeting schedules, and the analysis of the taxonomic lexical logical rela-
tions between the categories. Management accounting students need to repre-
sent the logical connection between each sub-category and its main category in
the schedules. The application of systemic functional analyses to subject spe-
cific texts exposes the linguistic construction of text together with visual and
numerical semiotic resources. Implicit relational identifying processes play a
dominant role in accounting budgets, as they present the value of technical
terms (see also Simpson, chapter 11 this volume).
Underpinning a study of this kind are both curriculum design issues to do
with subject specific epistemology as well as research methodologies appro-
priate for revealing the multimodality of disciplinary knowledge—the litera-
cies and numeracies embedded in teaching disciplinary knowledge. Analysis
of the postgraduate module Management Accounting as part of a Business
degree makes explicit the technicality of discipline specific knowledge and
skills. Students enrolling in a new academic subject are confronted with multi-
ple expectations represented in subject profiles, outcome statements, graduate
attributes, multimodal materials, resources and assessment tasks. The peda-
gogic task is to make the multiple components visible and comprehensible to
students.
For a professional award such as accounting, students need to manage the
social practices of a profession—the literacy and numeracy practices which
characterise the workplace practices of an accountant. The design of curricu-
lum requires students’ engagement and negotiation with subject specific prac-
tices aligned with the professional practices of business accounting. Employers’
expectations of graduates being work-ready require congruence between aca-
demic accountancy practices and workplace practices. The practical implica-
tions for educators relates to the elucidation of the implicit literacy and numer-
acy disciplinary practices. This is a curriculum design issue for Higher Educa-
tion (Mickan, 2013a). It is important to make entrepreneurial knowledge and
skills explicit for students through depiction and analysis of the multimodal
literacy and numeracy practices in management accounting 237

practices. Knowledge building is a process of socialisation, of students’ engage-

ment and negotiation in the multimodal practices of a particular discipline.
These practices are constructed by and enacted with subject specific texts or
discourses and other resources. Induction or apprenticeship into accountancy
as a profession requires explicit analysis and instruction in the multisemiotic
texts required for the conduct of professional practices.
This chapter sets out an approach to the study of multimodality in the con-
text of subject specific knowledge. It suggests that research into the multimodal
literacy and numeracy practices is multisemiotic and therefore requires a mul-
tidimensional framework for analysis that situates language in social and cul-
tural contexts of use in both disciplinary and professional communities.

Acknowledgements

Dr Hesham Alyousef expresses his appreciation to the Deanship of Scientific

Research at King Saud University and to the Research Center at the Faculty of
Arts for funding the current research study.

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 chapter 11

Drawn Writing: The Role of Written Text in Civil

Engineering Drawing

Zach Simpson

“Shift Ground”: An Introduction

It is now widely accepted that meanings are made in diverse ways: ways that
extend well beyond verbal communication in either written or spoken forms.
Taking this point as given, the question then arises as to how these ‘ways of
meaning-making’ relate to each other. More specifically, research attention
now needs to focus on how different modes of meaning-making work with,
or even against, each other. A mode here is defined as a “socially shaped and
culturally given resource for making meaning” (Kress, 2009, p. 55). Examples
of mode include image, writing, layout and myriad others. Research attention
increasingly seeks to understand the unique contributions that each mode
makes to the meaning-making ensembles that characterise the vast majority of
texts. The outcome of this work has been calls for still further research focusing
upon the relationships between modes within multimodal texts (Unsworth &
Cleirigh, 2009), particularly across varying genres within varying disciplines
(e.g. Alyousef & Mickan, chapter 10, Bell, chapter 7 this volume, Guo, 2004).
Little of this work has focused on the pedagogical implications of improved
understanding of the interaction of modal resources.
This chapter heeds the call for focused attention on modal integration
within particular genres and disciplines in higher education. The discipline
at the heart of this chapter is Civil Engineering, a discipline heavily reliant on
meaning-making practices that extend well beyond the linguistic. Indeed, the
Civil Engineering practitioner must be able to ‘read’ and produce a variety of
text-types drawing upon any number of genres, modes and technologies: maps,
calculation sheets, drawings and so on. In this chapter, the particular focus is on
the modal resources at play in Civil Engineering drawings. Even more specifi-

Simpson, Z. (2016). Chapter 11. Drawn Writing: The Role of Written Text in Civil Engineering
Drawing. In R. Fidalgo & T. Olive (Series Eds.) & A. Archer, & E.O. Breuer (Vol. Eds.), Studies
in Writing: Vol. 33, Multimodality in Higher Education, (pp. 241–255). Leiden: Brill.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2016 | doi: 10.1163/9789004312067_013

242 simpson

cally, attention is given to one set of resources and its functional role within
Civil Engineering drawing, namely, written text. This is done by examining one
drawn text and providing a fine-grained analysis of how the written compo-
nents of the text contribute to the overall meanings therein.
The decision to focus this chapter on the written mode may surprise, given
the extensive work that has been done on written verbal communication over
the last many decades. However, as Lim (2004) argues, although semiotic re-
sources should be given the same status within multimodal texts, this does not
mean they exert the same degree of influence. As its very name suggests, the
Civil Engineering drawing is one text form in which the pictorial dominates
meaning-making and thus cannot be considered a second-order means of rep-
resentation (Ivarsson, Linderoth & Saljo, 2009). Thus while much literature
has examined the interaction of language and other modes in texts in which
language carries the bulk of the semiotic load (e.g. Roehrich, chapter 9 this vol-
ume), comparatively little attention has been given to how language works in
(con)texts where its meaning-making potential is somewhat curtailed, where
it becomes secondary to other modal resources. It is for this reason that this
chapter examines the particular functions of the written components of civil
engineering drawing (see also Bell, chapter 7 this volume).
This research was undertaken at a university in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Higher Education in South Africa, like elsewhere in the world, is characterised
by unequal access to valued meaning-making resources on the part of students
in the system. The professional draughtsperson is not at the centre of this
discussion; instead, this chapter focuses on the Civil Engineering diploma
student and on a text produced in a first-year university diploma programme
in Civil Engineering. As such, there is a pedagogical concern at stake: how do
students negotiate this shifted ground in which writing becomes subservient
to the image. How are students’ drawn texts informed by questions of identity
and power? Are students constrained by inequalities regarding student access
to valued meaning-making resources, as is the case throughout the domain
of higher education, particularly as it relates to questions of language? These
questions are reflected upon in the conclusion of this chapter and suggestions
are provided for further research that may, in a more detailed fashion, engage
with such issues.
drawn writing 243

“Space of Integration”: Making Meaning with Image and Writing

Multimodal approaches to literacy and pedagogy have drawn on a number of

core concepts. One of these is the notion of the inter-semiotic relationship,
which has been defined as the contribution that each mode makes to the
overall meaning of a multimodal text (Jewitt, 2009). In order to determine the
nature of these inter-semiotic relationships, researchers (Kress & Van Leeuwen,
1996; Unsworth, 2006 and many others) have generally adopted Halliday’s
meta-functions of language (Halliday, 1978). These meta-functions can be—
and have been—used to examine the ways in which meaning-making occurs
in semiotic systems other than language. The first of these meta-functions is
the textual meta-function, which holds that semiotic systems must be able to
be used to construct texts. The second meta-function, the ideational meta-
function, suggests that these texts must be able to represent objects, people,
processes and practices extant in the world. Finally, the interpersonal meta-
function dictates that semiotic systems be able to represent the relationships
between participants within texts and between readers (viewers) and writers
(creators). Kress (2009) argues, in simpler terms, that these meta-functions
imply that semiotic systems, or modes, must be able to represent what goes
on in the world, as well as the relations between sign-makers, signifieds and
audiences, as texts.
While these meta-functions have also been applied to describing the mean-
ing-making potential that exists in the interstices of image and language (or,
indeed, any other two or more modes), they do not provide for a specific focus
on the integration of semiotic systems and of how the combination of such
systems works to achieve meaning. Civil Engineering drawing, as a semiotic
system, draws upon image-based resources as well as alpha-numeric resources.
As such, it is necessary to employ a framework that offers a re-visioning of the
“space of integration between language and image as social semiotic systems
in order to provide a theoretical description of the dynamics of interaction
between language and image in meaning-making” (Unsworth, 2006: 60).
To this end, Lim (2004) proposes a meta-model, called the Integrative Multi-
Semiotic Model, as an apparatus with which texts that draw on both linguistic
and pictorial semiotic resources may be analysed. This model consists of vari-
ous planes along which writing and image, together, realize meanings. Table 11.1
illustrates these planes. The expression plane refers to what the text looks
like, including various graphological and typographical considerations at play
within the text. The content plane is concerned with what the text says, and
how it says it. This refers not only to the content (in the simplest sense of the
word) of the text, but also how it conforms, or not, to the grammatical conven-
 244 simpson

table 11.1 Integrative Multi-Semiotic Model

adapted from lim (2004, p. 222)

Written Pictorial
Components Components

Expression Plane Typography Space of Graphics

Integration
Content Plane Lexico-grammar Visual Grammar
Medium
and
Discourse semantics Discourse Semantics
Materiality

Context Plane Register

Genre

Ideology

tions of texts of its type. Finally, the context plane moves beyond the text, and
examines how the text is informed by considerations of audience, value and
purpose.
While the space of integration operates primarily across the expression and
content planes, the nature of this integration is dependent on considerations
present on the context plane. Indeed, the entire text rests on the context plane,
as it incorporates concerns of register, genre and ideology. All of these planes
are mediated by the medium and materiality of the text. This is because the
availability of media and materials determines what texts are produced and
how they are produced. For example, in this chapter, a hand-drawn text is
analysed. This analysis cannot necessarily be taken to apply equally to draw-
ings produced using computer-aided drawing software applications, where the
media and materials used vary significantly. Each of the planes, and how they
are made manifest in civil engineering drawing, is described in the sections that
follow.
Lim (2004, p. 243) concedes that the Integrative Multi-Semiotic Model runs
the risk of being reductionist and overly-rigid and that not every aspect of the
model is relevant in every text. Despite this, “creating meaning from what we
see in a multimodal text involves a complex interaction of visual elements
and verbal English presented to the eye, as well as contextual and background
knowledge” (Goodman, 1996, p. 69). As a model for the description of meaning-
drawn writing 245

making involving both pictorial and linguistic resources, the Integrative Multi-
Semiotic Model reflects this complex interaction while, at the same time,
providing a framework for analysis that is relatively simple to employ. The
discussion that ensues in the remaining sections of this chapter is organized
according to these planes. It is important to note that they are separated here
for analytical purposes, but that such a separation is artificial as the meaning-
making process involves all three planes simultaneously. First, however, it is
necessary to discuss the particular example that will be drawn upon herein.

“Truss Forces”: A Sample Drawing Assignment

By way of example, this chapter draws on the text presented in Figure 11.1.
This text, in its entirety, was produced by the researcher-as-participant dur-
ing completion of a first year Civil Engineering drawing class. The researcher-
participant had no previous experience in the fields of Civil Engineering or
Drawing. This is part of a larger auto-ethnographic study into the social semi-
otics of engineering education (see Simpson, 2014, for an overview of the
autoethnographic aspect of this work).
The figure presents a drawn depiction and calculation of the forces acting
on the beams that make up a roof frame. The purpose for which students
were required to produce this drawing was to introduce them to the so-called
‘graphical method’ for resolving forces in a truss (the technical term for a roof
frame). This is in contrast to the analytical method that involves the use of
trigonometric functions. In industry, however, neither method would be used
extensively, given the abundance of software applications for this purpose.
In the text, the image in the top left shows the given roof frame, with the
given loadings (forces) acting on it. The component that dominates the right
hand side of the page—the force diagram—is a ‘drawn calculation’ of how
the loadings are transferred into the beams that constitute the roof. The table
in the bottom left corner presents the results of this calculation. The ticks
and mark allocation (65%) were later added by the course lecturer, by way of
assessment.
As can be seen in the text, written elements are evident in four places: the
labelling of the loadings in the given roof frame (e.g. 15 kN), the caption for the
image on the right (e.g. force diagram), the words that form the table on
the bottom left, and the text of the title block in the extreme bottom right hand
corner of the image. Using the Integrative Multi-Semiotic Model proposed by
Lim (2004), the particular functions that each of these occurrences of writing
fulfils within the context of this particular drawing will be discussed in the
246 simpson

figure 11.1 Resolution of forces: text produced in first year Civil Engineering diploma course on
drawing

sections that follow. It is hoped that this will elucidate some of the broader
functions of alpha-numeric representation within Civil Engineering drawing.

“Invisible Language”: The Expression Plane in Civil Engineering

Drawing

The expression plane is the interface between the text, and all its modal re-
sources, and the reader (Lim, 2004, p. 222). It refers to what the text looks like,
and is made up of the typography (or the graphology) of the written compo-
nents and the graphics that constitute the image. Lim (2004, p. 225) argues
that the expression plane is perhaps the most under-theorized of the planes.
This is an important omission, Lim continues, because both written and picto-
rial resources are only abstractions until such time as they are materialized in
the form of text. In addition to this, the choices made on the expression plane
contribute to the meanings of the content plane and both are mediated by the
context plane. As such, the various planes are mutually engendering (Lim, 2004,
p. 228).
drawn writing 247

In Figure 11.1, it is evident that the written components of the text are pre-
sented in ways that are graphologically congruous with the drawn components.
This is because the written and drawn components are produced in pencil,
both are produced in the same colour, and there are no significant differences
in terms of the darkness or thickness of the various components. It can also
be seen that the written components are uniform in size and that they are all
bordered (top and bottom) by thin, light lines. These aspects serve to ensure
that the written components blend into the drawn components, such that the
writing becomes ‘drawn writing’. That is to say, the strategies employed on the
expression plane serve to render the written elements as partially invisible as
language per se.
The particular graphological materialisation of this text serves to identify
the text as a drawn text, and not as a written text. And, the graphological
congruity between the modal resources serves to emphasise the fact that both
the alphanumeric and drawn components co-constitute this text and that
neither one operates outside of or in isolation from the other. In this way, a
strong sense of textual unity is created. This is crucial for the meaning of this
text because the ideational or content load carried by each modal resource
is similarly complementary, thus illustrating the previous point made that
choices made on the expression plane reflect meanings evident on the content
plane.

“Ideational Complementarity”: The Content Plane in Civil

Engineering Drawing

As mentioned above, the expression plane is reflective of the coherence and

complementarity of the content plane. The content plane of the Integrative
Multi-Semiotic Model is concerned with the strategic means by which mean-
ing-making occurs in texts which contain both linguistic and drawn compo-
nents. Unsworth (2006) argues that ideational meanings between image and
language come about through concurrence, connection or complementarity.
In the case of ideational concurrence, image and language present meanings
that are roughly equivalent in nature. In the case of ideational connection,
it is the relations between images and language (whether spatial, temporal,
causal or otherwise) that become meaningful within the text. Finally, where
ideational complementarity is employed, image and language present mean-
ings that are different to one another but still complement one another, either
by augmenting each other or by demonstrating divergence from one another.
In any event, such meaning-making relationships are not a one-way relation-
248 simpson

ship where image leads language or vice versa; instead, they are bi-directional
in nature (Liu & O’Halloran, 2009).
Ideational complementarity is evident in three of the particular uses of
writing in Figure 11.1: the ‘force diagram’ caption or label, the force labels
in the given roof frame, and the table in the bottom left.

‘Force Diagram’: Captions in Civil Engineering Drawing

Captions are not merely transductions, that is, the same information con-
veyed in a different mode; instead, they offer direction as to how to view the
image (Archer, 2012). The caption points to something salient in the image and,
together, they constitute a new composition (Archer, 2012). This is the case in
texts of many descriptions. For example, Guo (2004) shows that the caption for
statistical graphics acts as a parallel semiotic metaphor for the visual compo-
nent, thus making it possible to ‘read’ the graph.
In the Force Diagram caption, the text reads “force diagram (scale 1cm
= 2kN)”. The caption thus, very simply, identifies the image above it as a force
diagram. Because the drawing, on its own, is not necessarily obvious to all
readers, this identification does contribute to the meaning of this aspect of the
text. However, this is not the sole purpose of the caption, and the expert viewer
would immediately identify the image as a force diagram. Instead, therefore,
the semiotic load carried by the caption is more significant as a directive to the
viewer as to how to ‘read’ the image and, in particular, what to view as salient.
It serves as an indication that what is important in the force diagram is the
relative sizes of the various lines and not, for example, its shape.
Furthermore, through its provision of a scale, the caption directs the viewer
to engage with the diagram by, potentially, checking the correctness of the
values reported upon in the table on the left. But, it also offers insight into
the decision-making processes of the text-maker during production of the text.
This is because the scale utilised has a bearing on the measurement of the
magnitude of the forces in the beams of the roof frame. The larger the scale
utilised (that is, if 1cm represented 4kN), the smaller the final image would
appear which would in turn decrease the accuracy with which the resultant
forces could be determined. A smaller scale (such as 1 cm = 1kN) would produce
a larger image and, therefore, more accurate results, but would be constrained
by the margins of the page.
In this way, the caption draws attention to the contingent nature of this text,
in that it is the product of one individual’s decisions. Therefore, differences
among students’ drawn texts can reflect their differing understandings of what
constitutes salient information within, in this case, the resolution of forces
within trusses. As such, the drawn texts students produce are representations of
drawn writing 249

figure 11.2 Truss diagram—enlarged view

their learning and understanding, and analysis thereof can produce significant
pedagogical benefit.

‘5kN’: Vectors in Civil Engineering Drawing

As was the case with the caption discussed above, the numeric labels for the
forces applied to the roof frame in the truss diagram (top left—and enlarged
in Figure 11.2) work in tandem with the drawn components to create meaning.
Here, the use of vectors is important: in fact, it could be argued that the vector
constitutes a third semiotic mode in this text. This is because vectors are based
upon a semiotic metaphor in which directional arrows are seen to represent
the application of a force (Kress & Van Leeuwen, 1996). Vectors also realise
what, in linguistic terms, would be called action verbs (Kress & Van Leeuwen,
1996).
This becomes evident when one examines the enlarged view of the force
vectors in the truss diagram. In this text, meaning can only be made by ‘reading’
the textual and visual components in tandem with one another. For example,
the two (or three) modes together allow the reader to draw the conclusion that:
there is a force of magnitude 5kN acting on the left hand-side of the roof frame
at 30° to the horizontal; at the same point, there is a force of magnitude 10kN
acting vertically downwards on the roof frame (all the beams in the roof frame
and the forces acting on it are vertical, horizontal or at 30° to the horizontal).
In this previous sentence, I have bolded the ideational aspects of the message
250 simpson

figure 11.3 Magnitude and nature of forces within

Truss members—enlarged view

that are carried by the vector, underlined those ideational aspects carried by
the drawn roof frame, and italicized those aspects carried by the alpha-numeric
elements.
It is clear to see that without any one of these components, the viewer/reader
would be unable to draw the necessary inferences to make meaning from this
text. Each one carries information that is criterial to the resolution of the forces
in the beams: the vectors provide the point of application and the text provides
the magnitude, while the drawn image presents the system under loading as
the object of interest.

‘Co-contextualisation’: Inter-Modal Reference in Civil Engineering

Drawing
The table in the bottom left of the image (and enlarged in Figure 11.3) is a display
of the results of the ‘calculation’ undertaken in the force diagram on the right.
It is the most ‘writing-heavy’ element of the overall text (besides, perhaps, the
title block at the bottom left, which will be discussed in the final section of this
chapter). However, all of the information displayed in the table is also provided
elsewhere (and with different semiotic resources) in the text. As such, the table
acts as a summary of the semiotic work of the other elements of the text.
For example, the first column of the table ‘names’ the various beams (or
members) that make up the truss (or roof frame). However, these ‘names’ are
derived from the letters in the original roof frame diagram (a through i) which
are used to ‘name’ the spaces between the individual beams. In turn, the beams
are named according to the spaces they delineate in the original roof frame
diagram above the table. As an example, member (beam) bh is the beam
drawn writing 251

that separates the space labelled b from the space labelled h. Such a semiotic
strategy can be termed co-contextualization (Lim, 2004; Liu and O’Halloran,
2009). Through this semiotic strategy, the textual components of the roof frame
diagram and the table are co-contextualised which fundamentally aids the
viewer/reader in deriving meaning from these two elements.
Furthermore, the third column of the table indicates the nature of the
force within each beam—whether a strut (compressive force) or tie (tensile
force). This information is co-contextualised through the use of small arrows
in the roof frame diagram above the table. If one examines member bh in the
roof frame diagram, one will notice two small arrows on either side pointing
outwards—towards the ends of the beam. These arrows indicate that the force
in that beam is a compressive force, or strut. This information is then co-
contextualised for the reader in the third column of the table. Similarly, the
magnitudes evident in the second column of the table would have been derived
from the force diagram on the left, using the scale provided in the caption for
that element.
Thus, the written elements in this text perform a summative function, while
the bulk of the semiotic ‘work’ is in fact undertaken by the pictorial elements.
It is worth noting that this is in contrast to many other kinds of texts in which
the linguistic dominates and the image or graphic performs a summative or
illustrative function. The implications of this are returned to in the conclusion
to this chapter.

“Where Writing Rules”: The Context Plane in Civil Engineering

Drawing

The context plane incorporates those elements external to the text, but which
nonetheless have a bearing on text-making. In particular, Lim (2004, p. 224)
mentions genre, ideology and register as constitutive of the context plane.
Civil Engineering drawings are governed by generic conventions that reflect
a particular ideological persuasion and the power relations of the academy
necessitate that students adopt these conventions and persuasions or risk
censure. Readers interested in such should consult Simpson (2014) for a fuller
account of these issues.
Nevertheless, the drawn text under discussion is not solely the creative
effort of its maker; instead, virtually every element of it has been produced in
such a way as to conform to generic expectations. By way of example, some
of the elements are produced using 0.3mm pencil lead, others using 0.5 mm
pencil lead. The decision as to which to use is rule-governed. Even that it is
252 simpson

produced in pencil is a disciplinary convention. In this way, decisions made on

the expression plane are reflective of constraints present in the context plane.
However, the question remains as to how the written elements contribute
to the overall meaning of this text on the context plane. In this regard, it would
appear that the context plane is the one plane in which written elements carry
significant semiotic load. This is because, if the text is to ‘speak’ for itself, its
context can only be derived from the title block in the bottom, right hand
corner, which is dominated by writing. The title block indicates who produced
(and, perhaps, who checked and approved) the drawing, the purpose for which
the drawing was made and other drawings which are meant to be considered
in conjunction with the present drawing. In addition to this, it indicates the
scale of the drawing, which is a vital aspect of the meaning-making process. In
many title blocks, the number of revisions a drawing will have gone through
is also indicated. In addition, any particular notes that need to accompany the
drawing will be listed. Other information that may be provided in the title block
includes references to the appropriate standards followed in producing the
drawing as well as information pertaining to the finished product being drawn,
such as the material from which it should be made or what kind of finishes it
requires.
It is thus evident that, in Civil Engineering drawing at least, written ele-
ments tend to carry the bulk of the contextual meanings within a drawn text,
whereas these elements support (albeit in a crucial way) the ideational mean-
ings within drawn texts. This underscores the notion of functional specializa-
tion (Unsworth & Cleirigh, 2009), wherein the written and drawn components
each fulfil specific roles in the text as a whole. This is in contrast to traditional
conceptions of representation in which language was seen to supersede all
other forms of meaning (Lim, 2004). Because written and pictorial resources
serve different but complementary functions and have evolved in order to be
used in conjunction with one another, it is fruitless to examine one semiotic
resource in isolation from another as this works against understanding how
resources work together to organize meaning (Archer, chapter 5 this volume,
Lim, 2004).

“Expertise Made Visible”: Implications for Pedagogy

This chapter has examined the ‘integration processes’ (Cope & Kalantzis, 2000;
Kress, 2000) evident within a specific kind of text: the Civil Engineering draw-
ing. Such integration processes explain how semiotic resources of various
kinds, such as written and pictorial resources, work together to enact meaning
drawn writing 253

within texts. However, this chapter has not focused on professional drawing
practice which, incidentally, almost exclusively takes place using computer-
aided drawing applications. Instead, attention has been given to the drawing
product of the researcher-participant as a first-year Civil Engineering diploma
student. Such a focus allows for consideration of the pedagogical implications
of an improved understanding of meaning-making in multimodal texts, such
as the Civil Engineering drawing.
New Literacy Studies theorists have placed a great deal of emphasis on the
fact that the conventions governing formal academic writing are ideologically
grounded and that, therefore, access to the resources of such writing is depen-
dent on access to ideologically and culturally relevant resources. It is important
to understand that this is no less true in the Civil Engineering drawing class-
room. This is because the drawing classroom is equally governed by conven-
tions, practices, resources, tools and technologies and because access to these
might be as discrepant as is access to institutionally valued linguistic prac-
tices. Further research, therefore, can examine the differential access to such
resources amongst students entering higher education.
The importance of this chapter resides in the fact that it begins the process
of providing a language with which to describe Civil Engineering drawings that
can help both instructors and students engage in more fruitful teaching and
learning. In addition, such a language improves our ability to analyse such
texts and understand the reflections of student learning present in the texts
our students produce. Given this, three additional avenues for further research,
each related to one of the planes of the Integrative Multi-Semiotic Model, can
be identified.
Kress (2010) argues that the texts students make reflects their interest in
the subject matter. This suggests that such texts are likely to be more coherent
and cohesive if their interest in the subject is genuine. An implication of this
is that it becomes important that the drawing exercises given to students are
meaningful to them within the context of their future aspirations. Practically,
this may mean that drawing tasks should be located within the broader aspects
of civil engineering practice that includes design and construction. That is
to say, drawing should be not be seen as a mechanistic and isolated activity;
instead, it should be seen as meaningful in that it is integral to the process by
which structures and services are constructed for use by people in society.
At the level of the content plane, it has already been mentioned that dif-
ferences between students’ drawn texts reflect differences in those students’
understandings of the content of their drawings. The text drawn upon as an
example in this chapter dealt with the resolution of forces within trusses which
further incorporated the issue of scale. It is possible that students’ challenges
254 simpson

regarding the completion of such drawing tasks may reflect underlying chal-
lenges regarding conceptual understandings underlying their drawings. Scale,
for example, is a particularly difficult concept for many first year university stu-
dents to grasp, and their misunderstandings of this concept may be rendered
visible in the drawings they produce. For this reason, drawn texts can serve to
provide useful insight into students’ learning.
Finally, if decisions made on the expression plane reflect meanings evident
on the content plane, it is entirely likely that those same decisions on the
expression plane will also reflect uncertainties or misunderstandings on the
content plane. As such, factors such as the relative neatness or darkness of lines
may give indications, albeit subtle, as to the relative expertise of students, both
in terms of drawing practice but also in terms of their engagement with under-
lying concepts and principles. This would extend to how written elements are
incorporated into their drawn texts.
In conclusion, the civil engineering student’s drawn texts are depictions of
that student’s knowledge and expertise rendered visible. As such, the drawn
text is as affected by identities, ideologies and power relations as is commonly
accepted now of formal written texts. As is also the case in other texts, Civil
Engineering drawings are multimodal texts, in which pictorial components
are integrated with other resources such as vectors and, important to this
chapter, writing. It is in the meaningful integration of these myriad resources
that students’ success resides.

Acknowledgements

The author thanks the editors, Arlene Archer and Esther Breuer, for feedback
given on early drafts of this chapter, as well as Brandon Collier-Reed for his
input into the larger project upon which this chapter is based. In addition,
feedback received from the anonymous reviewers was of tremendous value in
improving this chapter.

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Index

academic discourses 197, 210–213 discoursal self 167–168, 170–171, 173, 178,
academic argument 80, 82, 93, 84, 85, 87, 88, 181
93–96, 100, 104, 106, 110 discourse 36, 80, 84, 86, 168–170, 174,
academic literacy 197 184
academic writing 167–170, 173–174, 188, disruption 118
253 dissertation 82, 137
academic writing 84, 85, 88, 195, 197, 213
agency 22, 169, 172–173, 175, 178, 188–189 eccentricity 164
antecedent genres 115, 117–119, 121–125, 129– ekphrasis 154, 159
133 English 22–23, 25, 163
argument through comparison 97, 100, epistemology 22
106
argument through contrast 101–103 fables 145, 159
argument through induction 100, 103–104 fairy tales 145
argument through narrative 100, 101 film 114–115, 118–120, 127–128
assemblage 107 flash fiction 138, 139, 140
authorial self 167–170, 172, 174, 177–178, 185– formal 139, 140, 158, 161
189 freedom 138, 139, 142, 143, 150, 161, 162, 164
autobiographical self 167, 170, 171, 177, 181 functional specialization 252

balance 140, 162, 164 gaze 35

binary opposition 162 Genre 58–59, 61, 64–65, 67–68, 70–71, 73–74,
bisociation 139, 150 79, 83, 86, 88, 114–133, 137, 139, 150, 162,
boundaries 150, 154 167–170, 173, 175, 184, 244, 251
genre and multimodality (GeM) model 59,
challenging 137, 152 61–63, 68, 70
citation 95, 96, 105, 106–107, 110
co-contextualization 250–251 higher education 195, 242, 253
co-presence 33 history, absence of 34
coherence 68, 70, 73–74
cohesion 70–71, 73–74 ideational complementarity 247–251
communication 26, 80, 81, 85 ideology 244, 253
constraints 136, 138, 153, 156 Image Theatre 167–170, 175–176, 178–179,
contact zone 33 184–188
content 80, 137, 138, 139, 141, 142, 143, 144, 150, image-writing relations 97–100, 197, 243
153, 154, 159, 160, 161 Integrative Multi-semiotic Model (imm)
contradiction 156 243–245
convention 28, 251–252 inter-semiotic relationship 243
copy-and-paste 106 intersemiosis 197–200, 202, 206, 210–213
critical discourse analysis (cda) 32 intertextuality 87, 106
irony 125, 127–130
delimit 138, 164
diagrams 53–55, 56–57, 62–63, 73, 248– juxtaposition 94, 96, 100, 101–103, 108, 127,
250 138
difference 94–96, 102, 106
digital storytelling 115, 124 knowledge 21–24, 80, 86, 87
258 index

language as mode 242 reconciling 142, 150

layering 145, 161, 162, 164 reflection 137, 143, 153, 156
layout structure 62, 64–68, 73 reflective practice 137, 138
lecture as transmedial pedagogic form 37 remix 120, 123, 125, 129, 132
lecture note-taking 43 repeats 139, 140, 152, 159, 161
liberating 164 restriction 138, 139, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 150,
logico-semantics 199–202, 206–207 152, 153, 156, 157, 158, 163, 164
rhetoric 82, 88, 115–118, 122, 124, 130–132, 154,
Machinima 123, 131 159
meaning-making ensemble 241 Rhetorical Structure Theory (rst) 68
medieval university—lection and disputatio risk 143, 150, 159, 161, 164
39–42
medium 58–59, 61, 64, 73–74, 84 Scandinavian languages (as subject) 22–23
meta-functions (of language) 198, 243 social semiotics 96, 195–215
metacognition 53, 72, 75 sound 137, 143, 159, 160, 163
methodology 29 space of integration 200, 243–244
misreading 142, 156, 158 spaces for learning 26
Modal integration 199, 241, 252 spectacle 36, 41, 47
modality 96, 107, 108–110 speculation 140, 145
mode 55–58, 136, 139, 140, 161, 162, 163, 164, subversion 140, 159
241 suggestion 140, 144, 159
monograph 53, 55–56, 58–59, 62–66, 70– surveillance 36, 45
71 Systemic Functional Linguistics 197–199
motivated sign 27–28
multimodality 88, 163, 164, 199, 175 text-flow 56–58, 61, 65–71, 73–74
multisemiotic text analysis 199 texts 79, 80, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 136,
137, 138, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 152,
narrative 115, 118–120, 125, 131, 153, 154, 161, 153, 154, 155, 158, 159, 161, 162, 163, 164
163 textual poaching 120
New Literacy Studies School 169, 253 theatre of the oppressed 168, 175

ontology 22 ’Umbruch’ 21–22

uncertainty 163
page 54–57, 62–65, 151, 156, 158
parody 120, 125–130 vague language 140, 144, 159
pedagogy 25–26, 168, 175, 252–254 vectors (as mode) 249–250
persuasive 141, 142, 159 voice 106, 145, 167–169, 171, 172, 186
PhD 22–24, 138
places for learning 26 word count 138, 141, 142, 143, 152, 156, 159, 161,
popular culture 114–132 162
PowerPoint 24 writer identities 167–168, 170, 172, 176–177