SFL and Multimodal Discourse Analysis

doi:10.1017/9781316337936.019

17 - SFL and Multimodal Discourse Analysis

from Part II - Discourse Analysis within SFL

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 May 2019

Sabine Tan and

Edited by

Lise Fontaine and

Geoff Thompson: Affiliation:
University of Liverpool
Wendy L. Bowcher: Affiliation:
Sun Yat-Sen University, China
Lise Fontaine: Affiliation:
Cardiff University
David Schönthal: Affiliation:
Cardiff University

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Summary

This chapter describes how Michael Halliday’s systemic functional theory (SFT), most fully developed as Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), provides an unrivalled platform for modeling, analyzing, understanding, and interpreting multimodal texts, interactions and events. The resulting approach, called systemic functional multimodal discourse analysis (SF-MDA), is explored in this chapter as (a) a theoretical construct and (b) research and analysis in action. The approach is demonstrated through multimodal analysis of the World Health Organization (WHO) Ebola webpage, using purpose-built software. The webpage was chosen for illustrative purposes because it features a variety of discourse types, offering the opportunity to explore multimodal semiosis across linguistic text, photographs, scientific graphs, infographics, hyperlinks, and videos. Key concepts such as ‘intersemiosis’ and ‘resemiotization’ are explicated to provide a detailed account of how meaning arises through the interaction of choices from different semiotic resources and how these meanings can be modeled, analyzed, and interpreted. The chapter highlights the major theoretical and analytical challenges facing multimodal analysts today, together with the associated vision for future research in the field.

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Type: Chapter
Information: The Cambridge Handbook of Systemic Functional Linguistics , pp. 433 - 461

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316337936.019 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2019

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