Multimodality and Genre: A Foundation for the Systematic Analysis of Multimodal Documents

John Bateman presents a new approach to analysing page-based documents, such as magazines, books, webpages, newspapers and so on, that combine text, graphics and pictures in more or less complex layouts. Such layouts are becoming ever more sophisticated and their interpretation and effective use present serious challenges for visual literacy, document design and document interpretation. A major claim of the book is that we need detailed empirical analysis in order to advance our understanding of the complex multimodal meaning processes involved in page-based documents. To achieve this, readers are shown how to break the layout of any page down into configurations of basic elements and to use these for uncovering intended, and unintended, rhetorical organisation. Multimodal rhetorical analysis of this kind provides a powerful tool for pinpointing design problems. The book also explains how document genres change over time and why this forms an essential part of document production and analysis.

About the Author:
John Bateman is Professor of English Linguistics at the University of Bremen, Germany