Maciej Kawka

Multimodal Discourse – a new category of research?

The semantic category of multimodality grew out of a belief in the possibility of rejecting the language as their primary means of communication or at least reduce its participation in the processes of communication and the creation and transfer of meanings in favor of other sign systems. Multimodality and analysis of multi-modal, understood as a description and interpretation of socially situated sign systems, have become recently popular topics of current scientific debates according to a global proposition Gunther Kress and Theo van Leeuwen of multimodality any text – “all texts are multimodal”. The postulate the elimination of linguistic code of any communication processes, is related to the gradual dissipation of the concept of natural language multimodal communications, which can be explained by the increasing use of semiotic phenomena and their meta-language to describe the new spheres of reality. Born – as claimed by the enthusiasts of visuality and multimodality – real “civilization of the image” or linguistics of the image and rammar of the image.
 

The real or only the imaginary identities of the nations inhabiting the present territory of the Balkans have an aspect not only real as a combination of events and historical facts as well as contemporary changes, but also the dimension of transmedia tales of Macedonian identity. These two levels of forming or creating identity processes not only co-exist or compete with each other, they also permeate each other. Today, however, this second aspect of creating – often imaginative and self-identifying – transmedia auto-narrations about the origin of identity prevails. They are then an attempt, an effect of mediatisation processes, i.e. mediation of the memory of the past or the present by the media not only in the narrow sense as the press, radio television, the Internet, but also as all memory carriers (from historical sources, museums, monuments, anniversary celebrations to transmedia stories, film, theatre or widely understood art).

Press Text as a Subject of Research – Evolution, Transgression, Multimodality

In the linguistic concept of press studies analysis, focusing attention only on the text as a product of communication activities seems to be methodologically outdated today, which does not mean, however, that the media text has become a useless research category in favor of discourse or multimodal messages. On the contrary, it is precisely from the interest in the text – first colloquial, then literary, and then public statements, including journalistic ones – that the research on the structure and consistency of statements, including the press (media) genres, has developed. 

In accordance with the changes in the scope of research interests concerning text theory and press discourse, the concepts and methods of description are also subject to continuous development and expansion. Multi-channel nature, multimodality and the growing role of the Internet in the transmission of information, as well as the changing needs of the audience, require new methodologies for the analysis and description of media coverage.