256 Nina Nørgaard
MULTIMODAL STYLISTICS
One of the main trends in multimodal stylistics combines the traditional stylistic focus on
verbal text with the work done on multimodality by proponents of social semiotic multimodal
theory such as Kress and van Leeuwen (1996, 2001), O‘Halloran (2005), Baldry and Thibault
(2006) and Bateman (2008). With M. A. K. Halliday‘s Systemic Functional Linguistics, or
―social semiotics‖, as their theoretical foundation, these scholars of multimodality have set
out to explore whether and to what extent the principles of Halliday‘s linguistic theory of
language may apply to semiotic modes other than the verbal. In their seminal work, Reading
Images. The Grammar of Visual Design (1996), Kress and van Leeuwen, for instance,
examine the ability of visual images to construct ideational, interpersonal and textual (or
compositional) meaning similar to the types of meaning which Halliday described in relation
to verbal language in his Introduction to Functional Grammar (1994). Later followed
research into a larger variety of semiotic modes: e.g. sound (van Leeuwen, 1999), colour
(Kress and van Leeuwen, 2002), typography (van Leeuwen, 2005b, 2006) and layout
(Bateman, 2008), as well work with a more explicit focus on the meaning created by the
multimodal interaction of semiotic modes (Kress and van Leeuwen, 2001; van Leeuwen,
2005a; Baldry and Thibault, 2006; Boeriis, 2008). Currently, this work in social semiotic
multimodality is crystallizing into a systematic descriptive apparatus geared towards handling
semiosis which includes – yet extends beyond – the verbal.
To stylisticians with an interest in multimodal texts, combining the traditional stylistic
focus on wording (i.e. grammar and lexis) with the descriptive apparatus developed by
multimodal scholars would seem appealing. In addition to providing new (multimodal) tools
for the stylistic tool box, the linguistic grounding of the social semiotic take on multimodal
theory would seem to provide a more consistent terminology and descriptive apparatus than
would the combination of traditional stylistics with other semiotic paradigms. As illustration
of this, modality will serve as an example. In linguistics, modality is seen as an interpersonal
resource of meaning which enables speakers to express their commitment to a given utterance
in terms of probability, usuality, inclination and obligation (cf. Halliday, 1994: 88-92). It is
realised as the space between absolutely positive and absolutely negative, between ―is‖ and
―isn‘t‖, ―do‖ and ―don‘t‖. In addition to the polar utterances ―Peter is a student‖ and ―Peter is
not a student‖, the speaker may hence qualify – and thereby interpersonally colour – her
statement in terms of how committed she is to the truth value of the polar expression: ―Peter
may be/could be/should be/is probably/etc. a student‖. In linguistics, modality is typically
realised by means of modal verbs (―may‖, ―can‖, ―should‖, ―would‖, etc.) and modal adverbs
(―possibly‖, ―certainly‖, ―always‖, ―rarely‖, etc.). According to Hodge and Kress (1988: 128-
142), and later, Kress and van Leeuwen (1996: 159-180), modality may also be seen as an
interpersonal resource in visual communication where it concerns the truth value of the visual
representation. Here modality is realised in terms of parameters such as the articulation of
detail and background, of light and shadow, of depth and of colour – parameters which can be
manipulated (i.e. increased or decreased) and thereby have an impact on our judgement of ―as
how true‖ or ―as how real‖ something is represented (cf. van Leeuwen 2005a: 160). The
modality of a photograph of a tree where the details of the tree and its background are fully
articulated will hence be higher than one in which such details cannot be made out. Similarly,
the modality of the same photograph will be high if the colours are polychrome (i.e.