"It is a truth universally acknowledged that visual information plays an ever greater role in modern communication. Undoubtedly, language remains our species' most sophisticated channel for exchanging information, but the verbal mode is increasingly complemented, sometimes even replaced, by other modes, among which the visual mode takes pride of place. Despite the fact that conveying information visually dates back to pre-historic times, accounting for visual communication in a scholarly viable manner remains difficult. One important reason for this is that while visuals (a broad term which in this book will be used to refer to all sorts of non-verbal information in static images, including not just pictures, but also for instance lay-out features, colors, typography, and motion/emotion lines in comics) usually have a structure, they do not have a grammar and vocabulary in the sense that language has. What complicates matters is that visuals are often accompanied by written language, for instance in the form of names, labels, captions, or tag lines, and it is this combination that is by far the most frequently studied variety of multimodal discourse. Insightful and programmatic work on visual and multimodal discourse has since the 1960s been done under the banner of semiotics, many of its more recent manifestations inspired by Hallidayan Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL)."--

Successful communication requires optimal relevance to a target audience. Relevance theory (RT) provides an excellent model based on this insight, but the impact of the theory has until now been restricted due to an almost exclusive focus on spoken face-to-face communication. Visual and Multimodal Communication: Applying the Relevance Principle is the first book to systematically demonstrate how RT can fulfill its promise to develop into an inclusive theory of communication. In this book, Charles Forceville refines and adapts RT's original claims to show its applicability to static visuals and multimodal discourses in popular culture genres. Using colorful examples, he explains how RT can be expanded and adapted to accommodate mass-communicative visual and visual-plus-verbal messages. Forceville addresses issues such as the difference between drawing prospective addressees' attention to a message and persuading them to accept it; the thorny continuum from implicit to explicit information; and the role of genre. Case studies of pictograms, advertisements, cartoons, and comics provide contemporary and accessible examples of the importance of genre and of how the RT model can be connected to other approaches. By expanding the application of relevance theory to include mass-communicative messages, Visual and Multimodal Communication reintroduces a central framework of cognitive linguistics and pragmatics to a new audience and paves the way for an inclusive theory of communication.

This book draws on visual data, ranging from advertisements to postage stamps to digital personal photography, to offer a complex interpretation of the different social functions realised by these texts as semiotic artefacts. Framed within the media environment of the city of Hong Kong, the study demonstrates the importance of social context to meaning making and social semiotic multimodal analysis. This book will be of interest to readers in the arts, humanities and social sciences, particularly within the fields of semiotics, visual studies, design studies, media and cultural studies, anthropology and sociology.

This book examines the relationships between online visual interfaces and language use in educational contexts and the features that underpin them to explore the complex nature of online communication and its implications for educational practice. Adopting a case study approach featuring a global range of examples, the volume uniquely focuses on multimodal intercultural interactions, with a particular interest in videoconferencing, to look at how they project and reflect particular cultural values and tendencies concerning language use and how they elucidate the complex cultural identifications and affiliations inherent in intercultural encounters. The book employs a diverse range of theoretical and research frameworks to highlight the dynamic connections between digital technology, social life, and language use, and the ways in which they can inform language education, making this an ideal resource for students and scholars in applied linguistics, communication studies, media studies, information studies, and education.

This book brings together a broad and diverse range of new and radical approaches to public relations focussing on the increasingly vital role that visual, sensory and physical elements factors play in shaping communication. Engaging with recent developments in critical and cultural theories, it outlines how non-textual and non-representational forces play a central role in the efficacy and reception of public relations. Challenging the dominant accounts of public relations which center on the purely representational uses of text and imagery, the book critiques the suitability of accepted definitions of the field and highlights future directions for conceptualizing strategic communication within a multi-sensory environment. Drawing on the work of global researchers in public relations, visual culture and communication, design and cultural theory, it brings a welcome inter-disciplinary approach which pushes the boundaries of public relations scholarship in a global cultural context. This exciting analysis will be of great interest to public relations scholars, advanced students of strategic communication, as well as communication researchers from cultural, media and critical studies exploring PR as a socio-cultural phenomenon.

A one-stop source for scholars and advanced students who want to get the latest and best overview and discussion of how organizations use rhetoric While the disciplinary study of rhetoric is alive and well, there has been curiously little specific interest in the rhetoric of organizations. This book seeks to remedy that omission. It presents a research collection created by the insights of leading scholars on rhetoric and organizations while discussing state-of-the-art insights from disciplines that have and will continue to use rhetoric. Beginning with an introduction to the topic, The Handbook of Organizational Rhetoric and Communication offers coverage of the foundations and macro-contexts of rhetoric—as well as its use in organizational communication, public relations, marketing, management and organization theory. It then looks at intellectual and moral foundations without which rhetoric could not have occurred, discussing key concepts in rhetorical theory. The book then goes on to analyze the processes of rhetoric and the challenges and strategies involved. A section is also devoted to discussing rhetorical areas or genres—namely contextual application of rhetoric and the challenges that arise, such as strategic issues for management and corporate social responsibility. The final part seeks to answer questions about the book’s contribution to the understanding of organizational rhetoric. It also examines what perspectives are lacking, and what the future might hold for the study of organizational rhetoric. Examines the advantages and perils of organizations that seek to project their voices in order to shape society to their benefits Contains chapters working in the tradition of rhetorical criticism that ask whether organizations’ rhetorical strategies have fulfilled their organizational and societal value Discusses the importance of obvious, traditional, nuanced, and critically valued strategies such as rhetorical interaction in ways that benefit discourse Explores the potential, risks, paradoxes, and requirements of engagement Reflects the views of a team of scholars from across the globe Features contributions from organization-centered fields such as organizational communication, public relations, marketing, management, and organization theory The Handbook of Organizational Rhetoric and Communication will be an ideal resource for advanced undergraduate students, graduate students, and scholars studying organizational communications, public relations, management, and rhetoric.