Problems With The Model Of Textual Organisation Of Images

Martin & Rose (2007: 326-7):

To interpret the semantic relations of images to texts in the layout of pages 202-3, we need to introduce several dimensions of textual organisation and image-text relations. Kress and van Leeuwen (1996) suggest two forms of textual organisation for images, ‘polarised’ and ‘centred’. On the one hand there is polarisation along horizontal and/or vertical axes. For images that are horizontally polarised, the lefthand side is glossed as Given and the right as New — organisation comparable to that outlined by Halliday for the English clause, as introduced in Chapter 6 above. For vertically polarised images Kress and van Leeuwen suggest the terms Ideal and Real, where Ideal may be characterised as a more general or abstract category, and Real as more specific or concrete. Alternatively, images may be organised around a Centre and Margin principle, with Centre the nucleus of information on which marginal elements depend. These axes are schematised in Figure 9.12.

A further textual dimension is the relative salience of elements in an image or page layout that draws readers’ attention to one element before another. Salience may be indicated by a number of factors, including size, colour intensity or the strength of vectors, as well as centre-margin, left-right, top-down positions.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, for Halliday, Given and New are elements of the information unit, not the clause.

[2] To be clear, 'ideal' and 'real' are ideational categories, not textual categories. That is, Martin & Rose follow Kress & van Leeuwen (1996) in mistaking a claim about ideational organisation for textual organisation.

[3] To be clear, the functionality of this problematic model can be tested by applying it to the following image:

The claim then is that this pictographic image construes the following textual distinctions:

• the 'New World' (western hemisphere) is Given, whereas the 'Old World' (eastern hemisphere) is New;
• the northern hemisphere as Ideal, whereas the southern hemisphere is Real; and
• the Mediterranean region is Centre, whereas all else is Margin.

Or more specifically:

• North America is Given and Ideal;
• South America is Given and Real;
• Eurasia is New and Ideal;
• Australasia is New and Real;
• Africa is Marginal and neither Given nor New.

[4] To be clear, Martin & Rose have just previously interpreted these factors as resources for interpersonal graduation but here reinterpret them as resources for textual salience.