Assignment One
Reading Review: Chapter 1 of Gunther Kress and Chapter 5 of Maureen Walsh
Technology plays a very important role in the overall change of each and every aspect of life of each and every people in every nation. Technology has a great effects or impacts to the social aspect of person. More importantly, the Internet has a great impact to the graphic facet of the linguistic nature of human. Graphic pertains to the different categories or forms of written language such as like typewritten, handwritten, calligraphic as well as other type of printed text (Crystal 2006, p. 203).
Due to the fact that the world is already facing the information age, there have been many important technologies and innovations that handles the different activities and tasks that pertains to information and data. In many cases, vast amounts of data are often has to be processed in microsecond. That is the reason why, the use of different visual representation is important. Visual representation has been the answer to the dilemma regarding the over-reliance on one medium that may be soluble by a change to a new medium, and that can be used in order to hold and process huge amounts of information (Kress 1997, p. 56).
Technology has affect communication in a sense that it helped to change the means of communication from the dominance of writing up to the system of media as a new mode of representing communication (Kress 1997, p. 58).
The study of Kress about the visual and verbal modes of representation in electronically mediated communication tackles one of the most important issue of the effects of technology, more specifically, the Internet to the language as well as the to the medium and mean of communication. The study shows the different representation of information and data from the previous time and the present way of presenting information.
One thing that is good about the writing is that it enables to show different theories that tackle about the change of the use of verbal and visual representation in communication. Another important aspect of the study is that it enables to shows different questions that are commonly asked by everyone who are interested in studying the change and the evolvement of communication as well as language, more primarily, those who are interested in investigating about the major effects of the Internet to the development or change in language as a whole.
Chapter 1 of Gunther Kress and Chapter 5 of Maureen Walsh, both focuses on the theory that the process of means of representation of communication is evolving. From the dominance of text up to the visual and continue to multimedia representation. Both of the study focuses on the ability of technology to enables for easy combination of different modes of representation such as sound, image, movement, together with the language (Kress 1997, p. 56). Thus he added that in order for the multimedia production to succeed, it will require a high level of multi-modal competence (Kress 1997, p. 56). This was agreed by Walsh (2006), when he said that texts that are used in the different technologies like the Internet and e-mails are referred as the multimodal, or those texts that have many or more than one mode that is why the meaning of the text is communicated or represented via the use of a synchronization of different modes (p. 104).
The change or the evolvement of the communication representation can be seen in different media that are used nowadays. Figure 1 shows the Westbury Home News, a newspaper that is being published during the 1926. It is showed that the use of pure textual form or representation was considered as the most powerful and acceptable form of communication during that time. The reason behind the said phenomena is due to the fact that technology was not that available or widely used by the media industry. Pure textual representation enables the reader to read and comprehend at the same time in order to understand the content of the news or of an article.
Figure 1 Newspaper in 1926
Source: (http://www.westburyfd.com/images/Anniversary_Book/Misc/Malaney_N ewspaper.jpg)
Figure 2 Newspaper with Visual Representation
Source: (http://www.marysplantfarm.com/images/newspaper2001-5-28_3b.jpg)
On the other hand, figure 2 shows the developed or evolved newspaper that is widely used nowadays. Due to the availability of different technologies like portable videos and cameras, it is easy for the media people to capture different image that will represent or show the general or summarize content of their article or story. Visual presentation has become common and widespread; this is due to the fact that the present-day culture is considered as visually dependent (Chaplin 1994, p. 276). Technologies like video-cameras had helped to record different crimes that helped solved different cases, due to the said reason, the media industry or the press had already embraced the use of the said technology that had helped to increase the interest of the people about the use of visual representation (Chaplin 1994, p. 276).
Another important similarity of the two studies shows or stated that there is a big difference between the use of text and visual representation in terms of the way or the decoding process of different readers. Walsh (2006) stated that reading is not a static but it is considered as a constant interaction between the reader and text (p. 104). That is why there are different strategies that are used in order to decode the message of the text like word recognition, pronunciation, vocabulary knowledge as well as the recognition of graphic, morphemic as well as the phonemic patterns (Walsh 2006, p. 104). In addition to the theory of the two authors, Mitchell (1995) said that word and image has been considered as the two most important distinctions between the different types of representation. The two are used as shorthand to signify the division, map as well as the organization of the different fields of the representation (p. 3).
The difference between the two modes of representation was showed by Kress by showing the perspective of a child about their adventure or experience to the toy-museum. The teacher asked the children to draw their experience. The result of the task showed that the child draw a recollection, reordering as well as the reconstitution of his or her experience. The image that was created by the child shows the mental remaking and visual representation of his or her experience during their trip to the said place. It might shows emotion such as happiness and excitement, based on the stroke and the figure that he or she had drawn, but it was shown in a general or summarized manner. That is why the author added that it will be different if the teacher has asked the child to describe his or her experience in a written story. The student will surely write the story in sequence (Kress 1997, p.70). The said theory was supported by Walsh by saying that the image is different by words because, the reader or the viewer read the word in sequential and syntactical manner (Walsh 2006, p. 110). While on the other hand, people have their different way in decoding or understanding the meaning of the image. It will vary on the first image of part of the image that caught the attention of the reader as well as the way we see or interpret it.
Figure 3 shows the theory of the two authors with regards to the difference between the visual and textual representation. In figure 1, there are three important parts or aspect of the image, the dog, the boy and the check and just do it sign. The difference of the visual representation from the textual is that there is no standardized pattern or flow of decoding the message. Do the understandings and responses of the readers happen holistically and syntactically? What part of the picture or image does first catch our attention? What is the order of our reading? Is it always the same? Do the eyes of the readers immediately go to the check sign because it was emphasized? Or to the boy out of curiosity about what he’s doing? Or is it the dog that first catches the reader’s attention (Walsh 2006, p. 110)?
Figure 3 Nike Advertisement
Source (http://img178.imageshack.us/img178/6715/nikejustdoitjt6.jpg)
Figure 4 Example of Pure Text Advertisement
Source: (http://www.kintehaley.org/advertisement.gif)
On the other hand, Figure 4 shows an advertisement during 1967 about the tobacco, slaves and lumber. In this type of representation or the textual representation, all of the reader will have to follow a standard form of decoding process which is to read the text from top to bottom. It includes the different aspects of language such as grammar, orthographic and the likes.
The main difference of the two studies focus on the visualization, where in Kress (1997) stated that it is considered as one of the unproblematic aspect of the translation process (p. 55), while Walsh (2006), stated that in order to do so, there are different levels that must undergo such as interpersonal, symbolic as well as social (p. 108). The point of the translation pertains to the ability of the readers to understand the contextual idea and thought of the text or of the communication.
References
Chaplin, E 1994, Sociology and Visual Representation, Routledge
Crystal, D 2006, Language and the Internet, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England
Kress, G 1997, Visual and Verbal Modes of Representation in Electronically Mediated Communication: The Potentials of New Forms of Text, in | Synder, I (ed.), era, Allen & Unwin, St Leonards, Chapter 3, pp. 53 - 79
Mitchell, W J T 1995, Picture Theory: Essays on Verbal and Visual Representation, University of Chicago Press, Chicago
Walsh, M 2006, ‘The “Textual Shift”: Examining the Reading Process with Print, Visual and Multimodal Texts’, Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, vol. 29, no. 1, pp. 24-37
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