The step from text-flow to page-flow

In Chapter 7, I used the GeM-annotated corpus to examine the multimodal struc-ture of the tourist brochure in great detail. For instance, the analysis identified several configurations of text-flow, which were used to realise the stages of the genre of a tourist brochure. In addition, I also considered the integration of graphic elements into the multimodal structure of a tourist brochure.

However, what has not been covered yet is the semiotic mode of page-flow, which combines both text-flow and graphic elements in its expression (see Section 3.5). At this point, the defining characteristic of page-flow needs to be brought back into mind: the semiotic mode of page-flow combines the ‘output’ of the participating semiotic modes on the two-dimensional space of a page and uses the discourse semantics to signal the relations between the different modes (Bateman 2009b, 2011). In order to shed light on how different semiotic modes operate together as a part of page-flow, I will now move away from the detailed analyses of multimodal structure towards a more generic view by focusing on the page.

To grasp the role of page-flow in the tourist brochures, it is necessary to take a step back from the content and look at the entire page. I propose that a bet-ter understanding of page-flow may be achieved by bringing the perspectives of document theory described in Section 4.4 to bear on the data. In particular, the observation of Bateman and Schmidt that a multimodal artefact consist of “artic-ulated parts designed to be put together in various ways by its users” (2012, p. 48) is enlightening. What we need to know then is what triggers the discourse semantic interpretation associated with page-flow, instead of that associated with text-flow.

In terms of Waller (2012), we need to know which features of a multimodal artefact encourage a non-linear reading strategy (see Section 4.4.2).

In the analysis, I will place special emphasis on cross-layer analyses between the layout and rhetorical layers (Hiippala 2013). I predict that these layers contribute to the reader’s recognition of page-flow, because they shape the “articulated parts”

of an artefact, which the users are expected to put back together during the process of interpretation (Bateman and Schmidt 2012, p. 48). To proceed, the next step is to establish the difference between text-flow and page-flow. And as I will show below, this difference has to be grounded in the notion of multimodal structure.

When faced with an overtly visual multimodal artefact, the analyst may be tempted to consider that the active semiotic mode is page-flow. To exemplify, according to the calculations performed for Figure 6.4, roughly 62% of the to-tal layout space in Welcome To Helsinki (1998) is occupied by five photographs, which extend across the double-page (see Figure 8.1). The placement of these pho-tographs is indicated using the identifiers s-3.19to s-3.23 in Figure 8.2. As the area model in Figure 8.2 shows, the photographs are not placed within text-flow, but adjacent to it: on the left, on the right, and above. We can then present the

Figure 8.1: Welcome To Helsinki (1998)

following question: is this double-page an example of page-flow — or text-flow accompanied by an image-text-complex with a special configuration?

s-3.21

s-3.19

s-3.23

s-3.20 page-3-column-1

page-3-title

page-3-captions

page-4-column-1 s-3.22

Figure 8.2: An area model ofWEH 1998

JOINT

page-3-photography s-3.19: Photo: Helsinki Telephone Company facade s-3.20: Photo: Neorenaissance architectural details

page-4-photography s-3.21: Photo: Senate Square

s-3.22: Photo: Senate Square close-up in winter

s-3.23: Photo: Stadium tower page-3-title

illustration and title

page-3-column-1

text-flow:

a description of architecture

JOINT

page-3-captions

RESTATEMENT (individual relation for each photograph)

page-4-column-1

text-flow:

a description of climate

Figure 8.3: The layout and rhetorical structures inWEH 1998

Instead of making a decision based on the visual appearance of the double-page, a look at the rhetorical and layout structures may inform the identification of the active semiotic mode and strengthen its basis considerably. To begin with, the bounding boxes in Figure 8.3 show the layout chunks that constitute the layout structure. Additionally, Figure 8.3 shows the rhetorical relations that hold between the chunks. For increased legibility, the rhetorical structures of the text-flow columns have been collapsed. It should also be noted that a detailed analysis of the rhetorical structure in the layout chunk page-4-column-1 was already presented in Figure 7.2.

As Figure 8.3 shows, the overall rhetorical structure of the brochure is typical of text-flow, apart from one exception. Curiously, all captions are grouped under the same layout chunk and placed in the same layout area (page-3-captions).

For this reason, the photographs and their captions do not form distinct image-text-complexes (see Section 7.2.1).

To correctly infer the configuration of the image-text-relations in Figure 8.3, the reader must proceed through the captions and associate them with the correct pho-tographs, which requires two distinct interpretations. Forpage-3-photography, the correct order of captions and photographs proceeds from top to bottom. In the case of page-4-photography, the correct order follows a path from left to right. Otherwise, the double-page bears the hallmarks of text-flow with an accom-panying image-text-complex, but as the analysis shows, the interpretation of the page requires more than just a linear interpretation of text-flow.

In contrast, inferring the correct relation between the captions and the pho-tographs involves making sense of their organisation on the page. I would argue that this speaks in favour of the decision that the active semiotic mode is page-flow. What is even more important, the interface between the rhetorical and layout structures seems to hold the key to understanding the principles behind page-flow (cf. Hiippala 2013). Thus, I will take this interface as the point of departure for the following investigation of page-flow.