The Authors' Analysis Of An 'Activity-Focused' Image

 Martin & Rose (2007: 323, 325):

The inauguration photo construes a simple activity, in which the crowd is looking up to the stage and across to the left, underneath a huge flag. Within this activity however, the image could also be interpreted as implicitly classifying the ordinary people in the lower foreground, separate from the dignitaries above them on the stage. The central flag can then be interpreted as mediating these categories, representing the superordinate category of the nation. The flag itself is a compositional image, in which the categories of South African peoples and histories that it symbolises are implicit. That is, the red, white and blue refer to the pre-apartheid era British flag, and black, green and yellow to the flag of the African National Congress, all converging from the past towards the future.

In sum, these photos illustrate the four ideational categories we have suggested for images: classifying or compositional entities, and simple or complex activities.

 

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, the claim here is that this photograph is 'activity-focused' (on 'looking') rather than 'entity-focused'. However, Martin & Rose provide no rationâle, either in terms of content or expression, for this claim that it is the activity of looking that is under focus.

It might be alternatively argued that the photograph is 'entity-focused', since its most salient element is the new South African flag which is highly relevant to the represented occasion. Moreover, the authors themselves gloss the image (p323) as an entity, not an activity: 'new South African flag, in the crowd, at the inauguration'.

[2] To be clear, this demonstrates the arbitrariness of the authors' framework. On the one hand, having classified the photograph as 'activity-focused', Martin & Rose demonstrate that it can be just as easily classified as 'entity-focused'. On the other hand, their interpretation of the image as classifying 'ordinary people' as lower and separate from the dignitaries 'above' runs counter to the new social equality that the occasion celebrated. 

Alternatively, the photograph can be analysed, in terms of the textual metafunction, as foregrounding (highlighting) the crowd and backgrounding the dignitaries, which is more in keeping with the celebration of the liberation of the powerless from the powerful.

[3] Trivially, this mistakes meronymy for hyponymy. To be clear, 'nation' is not a superordinate ('hypernym') of 'ordinary people' or 'dignitaries' because these latter are not subtypes (elaboration: hyponymy) of 'nation'. On the other hand, 'nation' can be interpreted as comprising (extension: meronymy) both 'ordinary people' and 'dignitaries'.

[4] To be clear, unknown to Martin & Rose, in pointing out the relevance of the flag to the occasion, they have provided a cogent argument for interpreting the flag as the element under focus, and for interpreting the photograph as 'entity-focused', rather than 'activity-focused', in their framework.

[5] To be clear, Martin & Rose have not illustrated their notion of complex activities, and their simple activities were those of saluting ('entity-focused' image) and looking ('activity-focused' image). Moreover, their 'classifying' is merely the identification of a depicted entity, and 'compositional' merely acknowledges the fact that entities have parts.