Volume 10, Issue 2

The general aim of this research is to address the importance of considering visual artistic imagery in engaging consumers for persuasion effects. In this study, I present properties of visual images crucial for aesthetic value and possible modes of engagement with artistic advertisements. I argue that both a visual rhetorical figure and a high sensory quality function to “make the familiar strange” and to engage recipients in the ad. The communicative effectiveness is tested through the experience of pleasure, immersion, narrative transportation, ad experience (involving sensory, cognitive and affective elaboration) and personal involvement. The results of the experiment show that a visual rhetorical figure and a high sensory quality of an ad influence communicative effectiveness of picture-based artistic advertisement. Plausibly, by making familiar strange, artistic ads become effective communicative tools, as they give an opportunity to engage with an ad in different ways and boost ad experience. It seems also that using artistic ads can be particularly effective in communicating brand personality. This research advances the theory and practice of communicative effectiveness of picture-based artistic advertisements.

In a 2017 landmark reform, Saudi authorities decided to lift the ban on women driving in this conservative society. In tribute to women’s newly-gained freedom to drive, major automakers turned to Twitter to launch creative femvertising campaigns that vividly articulate the female empowering motto ‘driving is feminine’. Building on the eloquence of visual rhetoric, which combines the communicative force of figurative language with the expressive potential of visual imagery, automobile advertisers resorted to visual metaphtonymy to efficiently target prospective female consumers. The selection of this visual compound, which emerges from the intricate interplay between metaphor and metonymy, allows for a dynamic interaction between the highlighting function of metonymy and the mapping role of metaphoric thought to establish informed parallels between femininity and automobility. Analysis of survey data on the likeability, complexity and effectiveness of a representative sample of four digital automobile advertisements asserts the role and value of visual metaphtontonymy in automobile femvertising.

In this manuscript, I present a signifier-based, multimodal discourse analysis of a focal event involving four children (ages 4–5) as they interacted with materials and with one another in their preschool classroom. I draw upon Jacques Lacan’s theory of the four discourses, applying the mathemes, or formulas that he developed, in order to map the multimodal signifier operations as they occurred in the moment-to-moment interactions during the event. My purpose was to use the signifier as a conceptual tool for multimodal discourse analysis, which revealed the highly particular discursive agencies that are characteristic aspects of signifier operations. Further, I examined the movement and operations of the signifiers as they were drawn from across modes and combined to create opportunities for the subjects to participate in the discourse. These signifier operations occurred according to discursive agencies of an educational discourse that both reduced and delimited subjectivities, as well as agencies that the focal subjects introduced to challenge and re-signify toward new ways to participate in the discourse.

This paper examines the use of video chat (VC) with a focus on expectations and construction of attention. It is based on micro analyses of recorded VC sessions (gathered between 2013 and 2015) and thematic analysis of 29 semi-structured interviews about VC practices (conducted in 2014 and 2015). Building on multimodal (inter)action analysis (Norris, S. (2004). Analysing multimodal interaction: a methdological framework. Routledge, Norris, S. (2016). Concepts in multimodal discourse analysis with examples from video conferencing. Yearbook of the Poznan Linguistic Meeting 2: 141–165) and key concepts from nexus analysis (Scollon, R. and Scollon, S.W. (2004). Nexus Analysis: Discourse and the emerging internet. Routledge), I examine how focused attention is constructed in VCs and how these practices are shaped by experiences with other forms of communication. I demonstrate that unlike other forms of distance communication, typical VC encounters require a full investment of attention. This can be formulated as an interactional maxim: focus your attention on the VC interaction . I discuss how other activities can be interwoven with a VC and examine the exceptional practice of lapsed VC encounters (previously open connections or always-on video). I argue that participants display an orientation towards the maxim when pursuing other courses of action, and that lapsed encounters operate under a different value system than typical focused VC encounters. Finally, I reason that VC is reserved for close relationships because of the required investment of attention.

Starting from the corpus of the Swiss National Science Foundation (FNS) project Italmatica. Understanding Mathematics at school, between common language and specialized language ( Italmatica. Comprendere la matematica a scuola, fra lingua comune e linguaggio specialistico ), an analysis of some examples taken from geometry textbooks used in the Italian primary school is presented. The analysis is based on the application of two intertwined theoretical frameworks: Duval’s semio-cognitive approach, which addresses problems related to mathematics education, and a linguistic approach to multimodal discourse analysis inspired by Bateman. The analysis shows how certain semiotic resources used as rhetorical devices for paraphrastic reformulation (restatement) can support or hinder the semiotic conversion of representations associated with two different semiotic registers (figural and natural language) in print documents with a strong multimodality component.

The article examines how the aspects of the social world are enacted in a theater play. The data come from a videotaped performance of a professional theater, portraying a story about a workplace organization going through a personnel training program. The aim of the study is to show how the core theme of the play – the teaming up of the personnel – is constructed in the live performance through a range of interactional means. By focusing on four core episodes of the play, the study on the one hand points out to the multiple changes taking place both within and between the different episodes of the play. On the other hand, the episodes of collective action involving the semiotic resources of singing and dancing are shown to represent the ideals of teamwork in distinct ways. The study contributes to the understanding of socially and politically oriented theater as a distinct, pre-rehearsed social setting and the means and practices that it deploys when enacting the aspects of the contemporary societal issues.