The Use of Multimodality in Algerian and English Language Private Schools Advertisements.
Date
2016
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Mouloud Mammeri University of Tizi-Ouzou
Abstract
Communication is no more seen as a linguistic way to transmit ideas and messages
rather a multimodal practice. Advertising is one among the many fields that reflect the
combination of multiple modes to transmit different messages. The choices that govern these
compositions need to be thoroughly analysed to understand the meaning of both what is said
and what is not said. This research is an attempt to account for these aspects in a field that is
not previously tackled; the advertisements designed in the field of teaching languages. More
precisely, it deals with the advertisements of Algerian English and private language schools
and the way in which both the linguistic and visual modes are integrated to transmit their
messages. A further dimension of the work consists of establishing a comparison between the
two contexts. This investigation is carried out relying on two different qualitative research
techniques namely Critical Discourse Analysis and Social Semiotic Approach. These are
applied on a corpus consisting of eight advertisements, three from the Algerian context and
five from the English one. The study of this set of advertisements resulted in showing both the
linguistic and the visual principles adopted by these schools to achieve their communicative
purposes. Additionally, the comparison of these results reveals shared similarities as well as
differences. This research comes out with significant conclusions; it exposes the applicability
of the three metafunctions to non-western culture, which is the Algerian one. It highlights also
the importance of combining linguistic and visual resources either to add or to reinforce
meaning.
Description
72p.:ill;30cm.(+cd)
Keywords
Citation
Applied Linguistics and Social Semiotics