Abstract
This paper addresses the role of analogical argumentation in multimodal persuasive text genres that are used in social practices. By considering the multimodal “semiotisation” (linguistic and non-linguistic aspects) of the analogical argumentation presented in different text genres we will define a textual analysis methodology that takes into account the complexity of the text as our object of analysis. In order to prove the importance of analogical argumentation in these texts we will show samples of three multimodal text genres that were selected in Portugal during the last years—a political poster and two advertisements: one from commercial activity and the other from a non-governmental organization. This study provides some evidence on the influence of contextual aspects on both the multimodal argumentative materialisation of persuasive text genres and on the variousanalogical argumentative movements.
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Notes
- 1.
As Kress et al. (2001, p. 7) state: “Language—whether as speech or as writing—becomes simply one of several modes through which the business of science is done (…). We use the term multimodality to describe that approach”.
- 2.
From the framework of social semiotics, the works of Kress and van Leeuwen (2006); Kress et al. (2001); Kress and van Leeuwen (2001) based on Halliday (1985) are pioneers in the construction of a theoretical framework able to study communication situations in their semiotic complexity. Language (written or spoken) is simply one of the modes that are always and simultaneously in use in some activities. Language, whether in speech or writing, has always existed as just one mode in the totality of modes involved in the production of any text, spoken or written. A spoken text is not just verbal but also visual, combining with “non-verbal” modes of communication such as facial expression, gesture, posture and others forms of self-representation. A written text, similarly, involves more than language: it is written on something, on some material (paper, wood, stone, metal, etc.) and it is written with something (…). The multi-modality of written texts has, by and large, been ignored, whether in educational contexts, in linguistic theorizing or in popular common sense. Today, in the age of “multimedia” it can suddenly be perceived again as Kress and van Leeuwen (2006) state.
- 3.
Components of the genre have been developed by several authors. Maingueneau (1996) has developed 5 components: place and moment of realisation, legitimacy and status of partners, aim, material support and text plan. Whereas Adam (2001) has defined eight levels: the semantic, the enunciative, the pragmatic, the stylistic and the phraseologic, the compositional, the material, the peritextual and the metatextual. Bronckart (1999) defines three levels: the text plan, the textualisation mechanisms and the enunciative mechanisms. According to our corpora, we have defined eight components (Pinto 2010). For the contextual aspects, we have the components metatextual, intertextual,architextual,peritextual,language activity,situational (aim, interlocutive instances, support,time of circulation,place of circulation). For linguistic-textual questions, we have the components organisational, stylistic and extended enunciative.
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- 5.
- 6.
In this case “analogy, in turn, is a process of classification: x is like y (in criterial ways). Which metaphors (and, ´behind´ the metaphors, which classification) carry the day and pass into the semiotic system as conventional, and then as naturalized, and then as ´natural´, neutral classifications, is governed by social relations of power” (Kress and van Leeuwen 2006, p. 8).
- 7.
- 8.
A textual unit may be defined as an implicitly or explicit lexical, a propositional unit (verbal or non-verbal) that presents a unit of sense within a text (Pinto 2010, p. 201).
- 9.
As we know, according to Halliday, spoken and written texts always, and simultaneously, fulfill three broad communicative forms of metafunctions. The ideational function is the function of construction representations of what is going in the world and in our minds (see van Leeuwen (2006, p. 142). It is in the ideational function that the text-producer embodies in language his or her experience of the phenomena of the real world (see Halliday 1973, p. 106). The interpersonal function is the “participatory function of language”. It allows for the expression of attitudes and evaluations. It also allows the expression of a relation set up between the text-producer and the text-consumer (Halliday and Matthiessen 2004, p. 7). The “textual” metafunction, allows us to use language to marshal individual representations and specific linguistic resources. Specific lexicogrammatical and discourse level systemic can be matched to each of these three metafunctions. Kress and van Leeuwen (2006) have shown that image can fulfill these metafunctions, too. As our interest is to study persuasive text genres we emphasize the interpersonal metafunction (or the interactive meanings) in this image. This is the function of language to constitute social interactions and express attitudes towards what is being represented.
- 10.
For an extensive system network of the distinctive features of letterforms, see van Leeuwen (2006, p. 151).
- 11.
Our choice for the analysis was mainly the top part of the advertisement. The characters of the typography shown at the top of this text and the importance of the image were important factors in this decision.
- 12.
The concept of intermediality has been used with different meanings. For this paper, it is viewed as the co-relations between different media, which result in a redefinition of the media that are influencing each other, which in turn leads to a refreshed perception, as per Kattenbelt (2008, p. 7).
- 13.
Based on Bhatia (2008, p. 165),“Interdiscursitivity in this context can be viewed as appropriation of semiotic resources (which may include textual semantic, socio-pragmatic, generic, and professional)”, across any two or more text genres. As we work with text genres, we prefer the term “intertextuality”.
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Pinto, R. (2014). Analogical Argumentation in Text Genres: Empirical Studies. In: Ribeiro, H. (eds) Systematic Approaches to Argument by Analogy. Argumentation Library, vol 25. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-06334-8_10
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