Multimodal Discourse Analysis Theory | Multimodal Discourse Analysis by Kress

𝐌𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐨𝐝𝐚𝐥 𝐃𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐬𝐞 𝐀𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐲𝐬𝐢𝐬 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐨𝐫𝐲 | 𝐌𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐨𝐝𝐚𝐥 𝐃𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐬𝐞 𝐀𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐲𝐬𝐢𝐬 𝐛𝐲 𝐊𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐬

Multimodal discourse analysis is an approach that looks at multiple modes of communication such as text, color, and images. It is a method of discursive analysis that looks at not just how individual modes communicate, but how they interact with one another to create semiotic meaning.

Major work in multimodal discourse analysis draws from Halliday’s (1978, 1989) social semiotic approach to language, a view that considers language as one among several semiotic resources (such as gesture, images, and music) that people use to communicate or make meaning, with each other.

Language, in this view, cannot be considered in isolation from meaning but needs to be considered within the sociocultural context in which it occurs.

Multimodal discourse analysis, thus, aims to describe the socially situated semiotic resources that we draw on for communication.

There are four assumptions about Multimodal Discourse Analysis.

The first is that language is part of an ensemble of modes, each of which has equal potential to contribute to meaning. Images, gaze and posture, thus, do not just support meaning, they each contribute to meaning.

The second is that each mode of communication realizes different meanings and that looking at language as the principal (or sole) medium of communication only reveals a partial view of what is being communicated.

The third assumption is that people select from and configure these various modes in order to make meaning and that the interaction between these modes and the distribution of meanings between them are part of the production of meaning.

The fourth assumption is that meanings that are made using of multimodal resources are, like language, social. These meanings, further, are shaped by the norms, rules, and social conventions for the genre that are current at the particular time, in the particular context.

Kress had some in-depth views and concerns about the subject.

What meaning is being made in a text?
How is meaning being made in the text?
What resources have been drawn on to make the meaning in the text?
In what social environment is the meaning being made?
Whose interest and agency is at work in the making of the meaning?

It does this by considering modes such as writing, images, color, and facial expressions and the relation between them. It considers which mode is foregrounded, which mode carries major informational weight, and which mode has what function in the text (Kress 2010 ).

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