"Words or Visuals: Which Speaks Louder?"

About the Author

Jennifer Heater is an undergraduate at Missouri Western State University in St. Joseph, MO. She is working towards her Bachelors in English with a Technical Writing concentration and is minoring in Communications. She anticipates graduating in Spring 2014 and then continuing her education seeking her Masters in Technical Communication. Although Jennifer is fairly new to the Technical Communication field, she is excited about her research and hopes to continue it throughout her Masters.

Contents

Introduction

Goals of Typology

Metafunctions

Tables

Conclusion

Works Cited

Metafunctions

Harrison, like many other scholars, uses Gunther R. Kress and Theo van Leeuwen’s theory of metafunctions as a framework for analyzing images for their meaning in Western culture. A closer look at Kress and Leeuwen’s theory shows the significance of effectively analyzing visual media before choosing or ruling out other images. The metafunctions help us create meaning for an image by breaking down attributes of the picture into three different categories and applying them simultaneously to an image. The three metafunctions are representational, interpersonal, and compositional. Below, I will analyze individually the three metafunctions as they apply to example photographs. I will also show the importance of educating technical communicators on visual rhetoric by showing the effects images have on the perception of the reader. If communicators take the time to apply these metafunctions while choosing images, it can enhance the communicator’s ability to get the intended message across to the reader.

The first metafunction is representational. Harrison states, “The representational metafunction is about the people, places, and objects within an image” (50). There are two structures of representational metafunctions, narrative and conceptual. Narrative structures allow the reader to create a story, while conceptual structures present readers with a concept. These two structures are broken down even further into processes. Each process describes how the image is analyzed. Narrative structures are broken down into actions and relational processes, while conceptual structures are broken down into classificatory, analytical, and symbolic processes. Narrative images enable viewers to create a story about the representational participants (RPs) in the image and include vectors of motion (lines of motion). Narrative images are further broken down into two processes, action and relational. Action process is a narrative created by some sort of vector. The vectors could be bodies, limbs, trees, roads, and so forth. A reactional process is a narrative that is created by the eye lines of RPs to create vectors. Figure 3 is a picture from the Flickr photo sharing Web site taken in Yorkshire Sculpture Park, England. Figure 3 is a narrative, action photograph. There is a vertical vector created by the tree. It demonstrates to the viewer strong relationship that goes past the hole that is being looked through. Circles are embedded image support. Kress and van Leeuwen explain, “Circles . . . are elements we associate with an organic and natural order. . . The world of organic nature is not of our making, and will always retrain an element of mystery” (qtd. in Harrison, 52). “Through the Round” is a representational metafunction with an action process. The embedded circle gives the perception of unlimited mystical organic and natural order with the tree reaching the skies. This photograph has unlimited possibilities of use. Table 1 outlines the basic structures and process of the representational metafunction. These structures and process can only add to the knowledge that technical communicators already have and help them make their images enhance the message being provided.

TABLE 1: REPRESENTATIONAL METAFUNCTIONS BASIC STRUCTURES AND PROCESSES

The second metafuntion is the interpersonal metafunction, which is explained by Harrison as “the actions among all the participants involved in the production and viewing of an image” (52-53). Interpersonal metafunctions ask the question “has the image engaged the reader?” This is a question that we as technical communicators should always ask ourselves when preparing a document. Many images use interpersonal metafunctions such as image act and gaze, social distance, intimacy, and involvement to engage the reader. Angles can create power between the reader and the image. In human images, social distance is created by the amount of the human that is photographed. For example, a close personal distance is created with head and face shots. Dragga and Voss discuss this in their article. As seen earlier, they believe that reports dehumanize victims by the selection of images used. Dragga and Voss explain, “We have thus incorporated within the humanistic field of technical communication a technique of visualizing information without adapting that technique to the Humanities, without fully humanizing it” (267). Images are crucial to giving the reader the full meaning of an image in text. Interpersonal metafunctions would also be a valuable tool for technical communicators to help enhance their overall meaning of a multimodal document. This metafuction can emphasize the wrong goals to reader and possibly distort the opinion of the reader. These features will be outlined below in Table 2 on the next page.

Figure 4: "Man Sitting II" offers all the interpersonal metafunctions with the exception on the perspective-the vertical angle and power feature.  (http://www.flickr.com/photos/carolinespics/6062508784/in/pool-1365211@N25/)

Figure 4 is from the Web site Flickr, taken at Yorkshire Sculpture Park in England. This image demonstrates several of the interpersonal metafunctions. The top left image is less engaging, demonstrating processes of offer, intimate distance, oblique and medium angle. The top left image is somewhat engaging, but does have some processes that make it less engaging. The top middle image is very engaging it has the processes of demand, intimate distance, frontal and medium angles. This image gives the viewer the perception of being one with the image. The top right image is less engaging than the first two. The image has the process of offer, public distance, oblique and medium angles. The bottom image is the least engaging image of the four. The bottom image has the process of offer, public distance, oblique, and medium angles. The last image puts distance between the RPs and viewer. Figure 4 is a good example of ways to compare interpersonal metafunctions. It gives the viewer examples of almost every interpersonal metafunction and the perception changes with each image. These examples can be applied to most cases when selecting an image for a document.