Volume 11, Issue 3

Research on multimodal communication is complex because multimodal analyses require methods and procedures that offer the possibility of disentangling the layers of meaning conveyed through different channels. We hereby propose an empirical evaluation of the Filmic Metaphor Identification Procedure (FILMIP, Bort-Mir, L. (2019). Developing, applying and testing FILMIP: the filmic metaphor identification procedure , Ph.D. dissertation. Universitat Jaume I, Castellón.), a structural method for the identification of metaphorical elements in (filmic) multimodal materials. The paper comprises two studies: (i) A content analysis conducted by independent coders, in which the reliability of FILMIP is assessed. Here, two TV commercials were shown to 21 Spanish participants for later analysis with the use of FILMIP under two questionnaires. (ii) A qualitative analysis based on a percentage agreement index to check agreement among the 21 participants about the metaphorically marked filmic components identified on the basis of FILMIP’s seven steps. The results of the two studies show that FILMIP is a valid and reliable tool for the identification of metaphorical elements in (filmic) multimodal materials. The empirical findings are discussed in relation to multimodal communication open challenges.

This article examines a solo musical/dramatic performance of the Old English poem Beowulf . Drawing on recent literature on multimodal communication, conceptual blending, and music cognition, it specifically discusses musical means of constructing and manipulating narrative viewpoint, exploring how sound and embodied performance influence and create the meanings of verbal narrative. Blending analysis, focused as it is on the integration of disparate input concepts into one blended space and the meaning-making potential of this process, lends itself naturally to the interaction of various modes of communication. In Benjamin Bagby’s Beowulf , the embodied, preformative resources of oral storytelling—particularly musical sound—structure narrative viewpoint in ways not afforded by the text alone, and thus support the process of story-construction. The famously ambiguous “Unferð Episode,” a dialogic exchange incorporating complex viewpoint phenomena and embedded narratives, exemplifies how such manipulation of viewpoint constrains and guides interpretation. As this article demonstrates, Bagby’s storytelling tools—verbal delivery, musical organization, gesture, posture—do not merely communicate a sequence of events but define the ways characters, narrators, and audience members negotiate, view and construe the stories constituted by those events.

The purpose of the proposed paper – which places itself within the field of Postcolonial Critical Discourse Studies (see Esposito, E. (2021). Politics, ethnicity and the postcolonial nation – a critical analysis of political discourse in the Caribbean . John Benjamins Publishing Company) – is to analyse the multi-semiotic practices contributing to the characterisation of the protagonist of Trinidadian short-film “Doubles with Slight Pepper” as a cinematic portrayal of the hybrid Indo-Trinidadian identity. By way of a Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis (Kress, G. and van Leeuwen, T. (1996). Reading images: the grammar of visual design . Routledge, London, Kress, G. and van Leeuwen, T. (2001). Multimodal discourse. The modes and media of contemporary communications discourse . Hodder Educations, London, Kress, G. and van Leeuwen, T. (2006). Reading images: the grammar of visual design , 2nd ed. London: Routledge; O’Halloran, K.L. (2004). Multimodal discourse analysis . Continuum, London), the study aims to cast light on the strategies exploited by the filmmaker (1) to depict the protagonist (Dhani) as an in-betweener whose ambitions are inhibited by his social status stemming from generations of subjugation and misuse by colonialists; and (2) to promote Indo-Trinidadian cultural specificities. Following an introduction to the key concept of individual and collective identity with a focus on Trinidad and Tobago, and an outline of diasporic cinema as applied to the Indo-Trinidadian community, the Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis is carried out on the verbal, non-verbal, and visual sub-corpora gathered up in sequences according to the main three identitarian traits exhibited in the short-film: ‘religion/folklore’, ‘food’, and ‘lineage’.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, extensive research has been done on how the pandemic has been metaphorised. However, little research has focused on how the pandemic is associated with the depiction of gender relations in political cartoons. Therefore, this study showcases sexism and gender relations by examining how both gender and gender relationships have been expressed metaphorically. It draws on conceptual metaphor theory as well as concepts related to visual metaphors in multimodal discourse, covert sexism, and dehumanisation to analyse a corpus of 100 Arabic cartoons depicting men and women alone and as couples that were published during the COVID-19 pandemic. The results demonstrate that typo-pictorial metaphors and those related to body modification, dehumanisation, and the coronavirus are associated with prevalent covert sexism during the pandemic. In short, the findings suggest that COVID-19 has contributed to how women in relationships have been negatively portrayed in Arabic political cartoons. In terms of theoretical implications, the study results show that a more general theory of multimodal sexism in political cartoons should be used to address various types of identifiable sexism in multimodal contexts; this approach is useful for both multimodal scholars and discourse analysts in various disciplines.