Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Ayodeji Olowu
Department of Languages, Rufus Giwa Polytechnic, Owo, Ondo State, Nigeria
E-mail: olowu@gmail.com
Abstract: This study identified and analyzed the visual and linguistic components
associated with the selected advertisement of malaria drugs. This was with a view to
describing the essential communication devices the advertisers of such drugs have
employed. Data for the study were drawn from both primary and secondary sources. The
primary source for the study comprised 4 purposively selected posters, stickers and drugs
literature advertisement on malaria. Analysis of the data followed the framework of Kress
and Leeuwen’s Multimodal Discourse Analysis. The results showed that such visual
resources as colour, pictures, symbols and icons, gaze and posture enhance the semantic
quality of the advertisement. In the whole, the study emphasizes the vitality of visual and
linguistic elements as important communication devices in advertising.
Keywords: multimodal discourse analysis, visual elements, communication devices, visual grammar.
double communicative connection: one suggests that images are never innocent.
between the people represented in the However, their messages often are
advert, also called represented naturalized by being associated with a
participants (Kress and Leeuwen 2006), given perceptual object. In analyzing
and one between the sender, that is the images, then, it is necessary to account
advertisement makers or copywriters not only for their cultural norms, but also
and the receiver (the viewer) of the for their perceptual qualities. Visual texts
advertising message. differ from verbal texts because they are
Essentially, we are considering new communicative across cultural codes
malaria drugs which have enjoyed heavy while also carrying culturally specific
advertisement recently. These are coatal meaning. Roland Barthes (1977) uses a
tamether, artrin, arenax plus, artecxin, p- linguistic approach for the study of
alaxin, camosunate, pemametre, lufart, visual communication, claiming that
amalar plus, amatem and lonart. A visual signification can be articulated
detailed multimodal analysis of these into the two separate levels of denotation
advertisement will be carried out. and connotation. The level of denotation
corresponds to the literal meaning of an
Visual images: A general overview image, the immediate meaning relating
In every imaginable public space, to what is objectively represented by the
visuals are presented for viewer’s image. The level of connotation
consumption. The young and old alike corresponds to the symbolic or
are bombarded by a cacophony of ideological meaning of an image, which
imagery in traditional print, books, corresponds to the meaning – or range of
magazines and newspapers, through possible meanings – inscribed by cultural
totalizing mass media formats and inside codes. The same denotative meaning can
the expanding e-work of the internet. On be associated with different connotative
almost every public space available, meanings according to the historical, and
images confront viewers. Kress and cultural contexts in which the message is
Leeuwen (2006) assert that: produced and interpreted.
Images are produced in the context of Theo Van Leeuwen and Gunther Kress
real social institutions, in order to play a are pioneers in the analysis of the visual
very real role in social life-in order to do dimension of printed texts. They
certain things to or for their readers, and in consider texts from “a multimodal
order to communicate attitudes towards perspective” to include semiotic modes
aspectsof social life and towards people that accompany language or through
who participate in them, whether authors which language is realized (Harrett and
and readers are consciously aware of them
Bell in Fairclough 1995:14). Textual
or not (p. 115).
analysis must describe the interplay
In “Rhetorics of the Image”, Roland
between the verbal and the visual, and
Barthes writes that “the viewer of the
effectively analyse visually exposed
image receives at one and the same time
meaning (Kress and Van Leeuwen
the perceptual message and the cultural
1996:186-7). The trend towards a
message” (Barthes 1977: 36). He then
multimodal appreciation of meaning
explains that the “confusion in reading”
making centres around two issues: first,
stemming from this corresponds to the
the de-centering of language as favoured
function and the communicative power
meaning making; and second, the re-
of the mass image. This ultimately
visiting and blurring of traditional
AYODEJI OLOWU & SUSAN OLAJOKE AKINKUROLERE
A Multimodal Discourse Analysis of Selected Advertisement of Malaria Drugs
Text B Text C