This book develops a new framework for describing the structure of multimodal documents: how language, image, layout and other modes of communication work together to convey meaning. Building on recent research in multimodal analysis, functional linguistics and information design, the book examines the textual, visual, and spatial aspects of page-based multimodal documents and employs an analytical model to describe and interpret their structure using the concepts of semiotic modes, medium and genre. To demonstrate and test this approach, the study performs a systematic, longitudinal analysis of a corpus of multimodal documents within a single genre: an extensively annotated corpus of tourist brochures produced between 1967-2008. The book provides multimodal discourse analysts with methodological tools to draw empirically-based conclusions about multimodal documents, and will be a valuable resource for researchers planning to develop and study multimodal corpora.

This book develops a new framework for describing the structure of multimodal documents: how language, image, layout and other modes of communication work together to convey meaning. Building on recent research in multimodal analysis, functional linguistics and information design, the book examines the textual, visual, and spatial aspects of page-based multimodal documents and employs an analytical model to describe and interpret their structure using the concepts of semiotic modes, medium and genre. To demonstrate and test this approach, the study performs a systematic, longitudinal analysis of a corpus of multimodal documents within a single genre: an extensively annotated corpus of tourist brochures produced between 1967-2008. The book provides multimodal discourse analysts with methodological tools to draw empirically-based conclusions about multimodal documents, and will be a valuable resource for researchers planning to develop and study multimodal corpora.

This textbook provides the first foundational introduction to the practice of analysing multimodality, covering the full breadth of media and situations in which multimodality needs to be a concern. Readers learn via use cases how to approach any multimodal situation and to derive their own specifically tailored sets of methods for conducting and evaluating analyses. Extensive references and critical discussion of existing approaches from many disciplines and in each of the multimodal domains addressed are provided. The authors adopt a problem-oriented perspective throughout, showing how an appropriate foundation for understanding multimodality as a phenomenon can be used to derive strong methodological guidance for analysis as well as supporting the adoption and combination of appropriate theoretical tools. Theoretical positions found in the literature are consequently always related back to the purposes of analysis rather than being promoted as valuable in their own right. By these means the book establishes the necessary theoretical foundations to engage productively with today's increasingly complex combinations of multimodal artefacts and performances of all kinds.