Semiotic modes in the tourist brochures

With the different strata of a semiotic mode now established, we may begin to outline the semiotic modes deployed in the tourist brochures. To set us on the course, Figure 3.9 illustrates three semiotic modes commonly found in print media (see also Bateman 2009b). These three semiotic modes — text-flow, image-flow and page-flow — are abstractions which can be used to explain the multimodal phenomena observed in the data. According to Bateman (2008, p. 175), the afore-mentioned semiotic modes may provide a better understanding of how different semiotic resources are combined in the multimodal artefacts.

Now, to do so, Sections 3.4.1 and 3.4.2 introduce text-flow and image-flow respectively. Page-flow, however, warrants special attention because it may incor-porate both text-flow and image-flow. To account for its complexity, the entire Section 3.5 is dedicated to page-flow.

3.4.1 Text-flow

In its purest form, text-flow is a semiotic mode that consists of one-dimensional, linear-interrupted text (Bateman 2011, p. 26), which may be occasionally in-terrupted by graphic elements (see Figure 3.9). As a semiotic mode, text-flow is highly adaptive and possesses the entire meaning potential of written

lan-text-flow image-flow page-flow

header

text

text image-flow

1 2 3 4

sequence

header

image-flow

rhetorical relations

Figure 3.9: Three semiotic modes in printed multimodal artefacts (Source: Hiippala in press)

guage, constrained only by the material substrate and the typographic conven-tions. The adaptability of text-flow is demonstrated by its wide range of appli-cation. Consider, for instance, the difference between this dissertation and the tourist brochures currently under analysis. Although both employ text-flow, the semiotic mode is used for the exchange of different kinds of meanings in a different multimodal environment (cf. Halliday and Martin 1993; Martin and Veel 1998;

Hiippala 2007, 2012a).

Unlike page-flow, text-flow does not use the available two-dimensional space to construct additional meanings, but relies on the linear structure of unfolding lan-guage (Bateman 2011, p. 26). It is, however, naturally susceptible to a rhetorical organisation and may also contain navigation structures in the form of numbering and references (Bateman 2008, p. 175). Due to its adaptability, text-flow can be expected to be encountered in nearly every instance of data, but the GeM model can capture its rhetorical structure, typographic features, hierarchical organisa-tion, and positioning in a layout.

This is deemed sufficient for this dissertation, as the linguistic features of tourism discourse have been extensively described elsewhere (see e.g. Guijarro and Hernandez 2001; Bonelli and Manca 2002; Kaltenbacher 2006, 2007; Hiippala 2007; Valde´on 2009; Kv˚ale 2010; Thurlow and Jaworski 2010; Francesconi 2011).

This allows me to focus specifically on (1) how text-flow is used independently, (2) which semiotic modes and resources occur within text-flow, and finally, (3) how text-flow operates within page-flow. These issues become focal later in Chapters 7 and 8: the following section continues with a discussion of image-flow.

Figure 3.10: Bohemian Nordic Oddity (2006)

3.4.2 Image-flow

As a material substrate, complemented by sufficiently developed production and printing technologies (cf. Kress and van Leeuwen 2001), the printed page can be used to realise various types of images. To illustrate the use of images in the tourist brochures, we may draw on the previously discussed examples in Figures 2.4 and 3.3. However, working with the notion of a semiotic mode, it has to be kept in mind that the use of images within text-flow and page-flow differs significantly from image-flow, which is a semiotic mode with its own discourse semantics (Bateman 2009b, pp. 61-62).

According to Bateman (2008, pp. 175-176), image-flow emerges when images are placed in close proximity with each other, in order to establish a sequential rhetorical relation between them (for an example, see Figure 3.9). Yet all images in the tourist brochures cannot be interpreted this way, which suggests that the im-ages may involve several possible discourse semantic interpretations. Fortunately, as the material substrate of a page only allows the realisation of static image-flow (Bateman 2011, p. 26), we can directly exclude its dynamic counterpart in film (see e.g. Bateman 2007, 2009c; Tseng and Bateman 2010, 2012; Bateman and Schmidt 2012; Wildfeuer 2012).

Nevertheless, our limited knowledge of static image-flow and its relation to other semiotic modes⁷ present a significant challenge to this dissertation (cf. Hi-ippala 2012c, pp. 321-323). For this reason, the use of image-flow in the tourist brochures needs to be considered together with the tools currently available for the analysis of image-flow. To exemplify, Figure 3.10 shows a cover of a tourist brochure, which I have treated elsewhere as a narrative sequence depicting nightlife in Helsinki (Hiippala 2007, p. 82), but this interpretation does not arise from the structural configuration of the images. Consequently, the same interpretation is

7An example of a semiotic mode that deserves more attention is what could be referred to as the diagrammatic mode, see e.g. Guo (2004).

not necessarily shared by everyone, because the interpretation requires knowledge of the connotative meanings in the images, which arise from the Finnish culture.

Therefore, this kind of detailed, discourse-oriented multimodal analysis remains outside the scope of this dissertation. The decision to treat instances of data as image-flow need to be supported by explicit elements, such as arrows or connecting lines. Given our limited knowledge of image-flow and its communicative functions, it is reasonable to limit the possible interpretations until empirical studies of static image-flow become available. If examples of image-flow are encountered, the par-ticipating segments and their sequential relations are annotated using the layout and rhetorical layers.

This concludes the discussion of text-flow and image-flow. Next, I will move to consider page-flow, which may combine both of the aforementioned semiotic modes.