Startseite It’s all about logics?! Analyzing the rhetorical structure of multimodal filmic text
Artikel
Lizenziert
Nicht lizenziert Erfordert eine Authentifizierung

It’s all about logics?! Analyzing the rhetorical structure of multimodal filmic text

  • Janina Wildfeuer EMAIL logo
Veröffentlicht/Copyright: 7. November 2017

Abstract

This paper focuses on questions concerning the process of making meaning out of the filmic text by asking for the argumentative patterns that enable the recipient’s inference processes during his/her interpretation. Film analysis, and multimodal analysis in general, is no longer seen as simply decoding the semiotic resources, but asking for inferential processes of reasoning about the best and most plausible interpretation. For this, the paper presents an analytical approach based on recent advancements in contemporary discourse semantics and multimodal discourse analysis which outlines the discursive and rhetorical structure of filmic text and retraces the inference process of the recipient in detail. The aim is to show how multimodal film leads its spectators to acknowledge the argumentative reconstruction of its content by relating the diegetic world to its reality and proving its validity. An example analysis of the short film El Vendedor de Humo (2012) shows how it is possible to elucidate a film’s rhetorical structure and to outline the process of logically reasoning about semantic and pragmatic information in the text. The aim is thus to gain a detailed look at how premises and arguments for the interpretation are made available in multimodal context and how they are operated by the recipient.

References

Alcolea-Banegas, Jesus. 2009. Visual arguments in film. Argumentation 23. 259–275.10.1007/s10503-008-9124-9Suche in Google Scholar

Aristoteles. 1999. Rhetorik, Gernot Krapinger (ed.). Stuttgart: Reclam.Suche in Google Scholar

Asher, Nicolas & Alex Lascarides. 2003. Logics of conversation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Suche in Google Scholar

Bateman, John A. & Karl-Heinrich Schmidt. 2011. Multimodal film analysis: How films mean. London: Routledge.Suche in Google Scholar

Birdsell, David S. & Leo Groarke. 1996. Toward a theory of visual argument. Argumentation and Advocacy 33(1). 1–10.Suche in Google Scholar

Birdsell, David S. & Leo Groarke. 2006. Outlines of a theory of visual argument. Argumentation and Advocacy 43. 103–113.10.1080/00028533.2007.11821666Suche in Google Scholar

Blair, Anthony. 1996. The possibility and actuality of visual arguments. Argumentation and Advocacy 33(1). 23–39.10.1007/978-94-007-2363-4_16Suche in Google Scholar

Bordwell, David. 1985. Narration in the fiction film. London: Routledge.Suche in Google Scholar

Bordwell, David. 1989. Making meaning: Inference and rhetoric in the interpretation of cinema. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.10.4159/9780674028531Suche in Google Scholar

Bordwell, David. 2006. The way Hollywood tells it: Story and style in modern movies. Berkeley: University of California Press.10.1525/9780520932326Suche in Google Scholar

Bordwell, David. 2008. Poetics of cinema. London: Taylor & Francis.Suche in Google Scholar

Bordwell, David, Janet Staiger & Kristin Thompson. 1985. The classical Hollywood cinema: Film style and mode of production to 1960. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.10.2307/1772109Suche in Google Scholar

Doxiadis, Apostolos. 2010. Narrative, rhetoric, and the origins of logic. Story Worlds 2. 77–99.Suche in Google Scholar

Herman, David. 2002. Story logic: Problems and possibilities of narrative. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.Suche in Google Scholar

Hobbs, Jerry R. 2003. Discourse and inference. Information Sciences Institute. http://www.isi.edu/~hobbs/disinf-tc.html (accessed 18 October 2017).Suche in Google Scholar

Hobbs, Jerry R., Mark E. Stickel, Douglas E. Appelt & P. Martin. 1993. Interpretation as abduction. Artificial Intelligence 63. 69–142.10.3115/982023.982035Suche in Google Scholar

Iser, Wolfgang. 1980. Interaction between text and reader. In Inge Suleiman & Susan R. Crosman (eds.), The reader in the text: Essays on audience and interpretation, 106–119. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.10.1515/9781400857111.106Suche in Google Scholar

Kamp, Hans & Uwe Reyle. 1993. From discourse to logic: Introduction to modeltheoretic semantics of natural language, formal logic, and discourse representation theory. Dortrecht: Kluwer.Suche in Google Scholar

Knape, Joachim. 2005. Rhetorik. In Klaus Sachs-Hombach (ed.), Bildwissenschaft: Disziplinen, themen, methoden, 134–148. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.Suche in Google Scholar

Kress, Gunther & van Leeuwen. Theo 2001. Multimodal discourse: The modes and media of contemporary communication. London: Arnold.Suche in Google Scholar

Kress, Gunther & Theo Van Leeuwen. 1996. Reading images: The grammar of visual design. London: Routledge.Suche in Google Scholar

Kuypers, J. A. 2009. Rhetorical criticism: Perspectives in action. Lanham, MD: Lexington.Suche in Google Scholar

Maestro, J. (dir.). 2012. El Vendedor de Humo. Spain: PrimerFrame. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwWqMgddes4 (accessed 18 October 2017).Suche in Google Scholar

O’Halloran, K. 2004. Visual semiosis in film. In Kay O’Halloran (ed.), Multimodal discourse analysis: Systemic functional perspectives, 109–130. London: Continuum.Suche in Google Scholar

O’Keefe, D. J. 1977. Two concepts of argument. Journal of the American Forensic Association 13. 121–128.10.1080/00028533.1977.11951098Suche in Google Scholar

O’Keefe, D. J. 1982. The concepts of argument and arguing. In J. R. Cox & C. A. Willard (eds.), Advances in argumentation theory and research, 3–23. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press.Suche in Google Scholar

Peirce, Charles S. 1931–1966. The collected papers of Charles S. Peirce, 8 vols., C. Hartshorne, P. Weiss & A. W. Burks (eds.). Cambridge: Harvard University Press. [Reference to Peirce’s papers will be designated CP followed by volume and paragraph number.]Suche in Google Scholar

Roque, Georges. 2012. Visual argumentation: A further reappraisal. In F. H. Van Eemeren & B. Garssen (eds.), Topical themes in argumentation theory: Twenty exploratory studies, 273–288. Dortrecht: Springer.10.1007/978-94-007-4041-9_18Suche in Google Scholar

Sandys, John Edwin, Edward Meredith Cope & Aristoteles. 1970. The rhetoric of Aristotle, John Edwin Sandys (ed.). New York: Olms.Suche in Google Scholar

Sperber, Dan & Deirdre Wilson. 1986. Relevance: Communication and cognition. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Suche in Google Scholar

Thompson, Kristin. 1988. Breaking the glass armor: Neoformalist film analysis. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.10.1515/9780691213156Suche in Google Scholar

Van den Hoven, Paul. 2011. Iconicity in visual and verbal argumentation. In F. H. Van Eemeren, B. Garssen, D. Godden & G. Mitchell (eds.), Seventh international conference of the international society for the study of the argumentation proceedings, 831–834. Amsterdam: Sic Sat.Suche in Google Scholar

Van den Hoven, Paul. 2012. Getting your ad banned to bring the message home? A rhetorical analysis of an ad on the US national debt. Informal Logic 32(4). 381–402.10.22329/il.v32i4.3588Suche in Google Scholar

Van den Hoven, Paul & Ying Yang. 2013. The argument reconstruction of multimodal discourse, taking the ABC coverage of president Hu Jintao’s visit to the USA as an example. Argumentation 27. 403–424.10.1007/s10503-013-9293-zSuche in Google Scholar

Van Dijk, Teun A. & Walter Kintsch. 1983. Strategies of discourse comprehension. New York: Academic Press.Suche in Google Scholar

Wildfeuer, Janina. 2012a. Intersemiosis in film: Towards a new organization of semiotic resources in multimodal filmic text. Multimodal Communication 1(3). 276–304.10.1515/mc-2012-0016Suche in Google Scholar

Wildfeuer, Janina. 2012b. More than WORDS: Semantic continuity in moving images. Image and Narrative 13(4). 181–203.Suche in Google Scholar

Wildfeuer, Janina. 2014. Film discourse interpretation: Towards a new paradigm for multimodal film analysis. London: Routledge.10.4324/978020376620Suche in Google Scholar

Wirth, Uwe. 2000. Die Welt als Zeichen und Hypothese. Perspektiven des semiotischen Pragmatismus von Charles Sanders Peirce. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.Suche in Google Scholar

Wirth, Uwe. 2005. Abductive reasoning in Peirce’s and Davidson’s account of interpretation. Semiotica 153(1/4). 199–208.10.1515/semi.2005.2005.153-1-4.199Suche in Google Scholar

Published Online: 2017-11-07
Published in Print: 2018-01-26

© 2018 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Heruntergeladen am 30.9.2025 von https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/sem-2015-0139/html?lang=de
Button zum nach oben scrollen