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MULTIMODAL MEANING-MAKING IN BRAZILIAN MAGAZINE ADS: THE ‘NEW WRITING’

Leonardo Pinheiro Mozdzenski - UFPE 1. Introduction Throughout the last three or four decades, the Western world has been witnessing a significant change in the way texts which circulate socially are produced and read. Until a few years ago, the modes of communicative representation of verbal texts (spoken and written language) and non-verbal texts (images, sounds, gestures, etc.) were treated in an isolated manner according to their specificities. These boundaries, however, are becoming more and more tenuous. Illustrations, photographs, graphics and diagrams, allied to composition and printing resources, such as type of paper, color, page layout, font, etc., are being systematically joined to written genres. According to Dionisio (2005, p. 159), “image and word maintain an increasingly closer, more integrated relationship”. For Lemke (2002), verbal and visual representations co-evolved historically and culturally to complement and coordinate each other. With that, texts started to be perceived as multimodal constructs in which writing is only one of the ways of representing messages1 (Kress & Van Leeuwen, 1996, 2001). It is also worth highlighting that the emergence of multimodal texts in the contemporary society started to demand, from the reader, a significantly higher number of cognitive operations for understanding what is being read. Nowadays, the insertion of an individual into social practices of reading and writing surpasses the simple acquisition of the reading-and-writing technology. Instead, literacy – or literacies, as Dionisio (2005) prefers – must comprise different types of knowledge representation, making individuals able to “attribute meanings to messages coming from multiple language forms, as well as being able to produce messages, incorporating multiple language sources” (Dionisio, 2005, p. 159). Starting from these basic notions, the main objective of this paper is thus to observe how this ‘new writing’ (Van Leeuwen, 2006) contributes to the multimodal meaning-making in Brazilian magazine ads. 2. Multimodal Meaning-Making in Brazilian Magazine ads As stated by Van Leeuwen (2006, p. 139), “writing itself has changed”. This means that it is not possible anymore to analyze a text only by noticing its linguistic features. In the age of the ‘new writing’ it is necessary – and not rarely even more important – to observe how language lato sensu is realized through typography, layout, colour and a number of semiotic means of expression – and not only through its verbal material. Especially regarding typography, we can perceive that it has gradually developed from a skill or ability used for ‘adorning’ the written world into “a semiotic mode, systematic, multimodal and able to realize not just textual, but also ideational and interpersonal meaning” (Van Leeuwen, 2006, p. 154). So it is fundamental to focus on the extent to which, within a text, it is possible for us to employ or to discern typographic resources to produce meaning, as Crystal (1997) asserts. This phenomenon can be plentifully observed in Brazilian magazine ads, as we can see through these following examples: Figure 1 (see next page) consists of an advertisement published in a special issue of Veja magazine (the most read weekly news publication in Brazil, similar to Time magazine in the USA). In fact it is an ad announcing the content of the magazine itself. This free special issue is meant to ‘offer’ its subscribers fifty ‘useful phone numbers’ of some services in Recife: restaurants, schools, fitness centers, shopping malls, hair salons, etc. The most salient visual strategy used here is to simulate telephone buttons. However in this advertisement the real numbers (0 to 9) and symbols (* and #)

1 Similarly, in spoken genres, the analysis of speech can no longer ignore gestures, intonations, facial expressions, etc., which are present in any verbal face-to-face exchanges.

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were substituted by the term “50 telefones” [50 telephones]. We can conclude that this expression is formed by two different words for they are separated by the symbol (*), which is usual in real phone buttons.

Although the original signs were replaced, the design of a conventional telephone is maintained: there are three columns and four lines of round buttons; the signs (letters and numbers) inside each button are very separate and self-contained, and they have regular, upright and well defined typefaces, slightly oriented towards the vertical dimension; and finally, the buttons use three-dimensionality as we can notice by the ‘light-and-shadow’ effect around them.

Figure 1: Veja (special issue), September 2006, p. 77

In contrast, on the top of the ad (Figure 1), there is an image of a yellow post-it note stuck on the telephone’s surface, where we can read “Para qualquer situação” [For any situation]. In this note, the typefaces are cursive, sloping, ‘script’-like and the letter forms are very connected to each other, clearly simulating a handwritten text. The composition as a whole can be satisfactorily comprehended if we consider its information value of top and bottom: ‘ideal’ and ‘real’ (Kress & Van Leeuwen, 1996). In other words, the message For any situation is located on the top of the composition (‘ideal’)

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indicating some hypothetic, fortuitous, imaginary ‘need’ of the reader (he or she is looking for a restaurant to lunch or for a fitness center to work out); and then, on the bottom, the reader can visualize the ‘real’ solution: he or she just has to telephone to one of the numbers announced inside the magazine. Note that these typographic resources and the other illustrations are interconnected and can not be analyzed isolatedly for they are used ideationally to represent the idea of a functional telephone directory. The advertisement reproduced in Figure 2 announces the launching of the website version of Exame magazine, which is specialized in the business world. Similarly to Figure 1, Figure 2 is also an ad published in Veja magazine, structured along the vertical axis; but here this multimodal display produces different meaning effects.

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Figure 2: Veja, 40(4), January 2007, p. 97.

First of all, there is a sharply defined framing disconnecting the two parts of the composition,

signifying that they do not belong together in some sense (Kress & Van Leeuwen, 1996). The upper section is the most salient and curious, and it represents the ‘ludic’ part of this ad: it interpersonally directs the viewer’s attention to decipher what is written. The typefaces of the sentence “Do geral ao mais específico, veja tudo sobre negócios” [From the most generic to the most specific, see all about business] are displayed in a way to simulate a traditional Snellen chart used for estimating visual acuity. This part of the composition is formed by five lines of ‘block letters’ (i.e. letter forms are quite

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separate with no readily seen connectivity, just like the original Snellen charts). The first row consists of two very large, bold letters and the following lines have increasing numbers of letters that decrease in size and weight.

The lower section displays the ‘product’ itself: we can observe a small reproduction of this new website on the left of the lower section. It means this image is the ‘given’ information: actually the readers are supposed to be familiar with how a usual website page looks like in order to indentify that it is a website page image. On the right of the lower section, in turn, the ‘new’ information is exhibited to the readers using apparently more ‘professional’ typefaces (regular, upright, separate): this new website has more daily news regarding the business world than others, it has exclusive and ‘inside information’ providing customized reports and data on a wide variety of commercial, financial and industrial activities, etc. The third advertisement (Figure 3, see next page), also published in Veja magazine, uses interesting and ‘appetizing’ typographic resources to publicize Habib’s, which is one of the Brazilian’s largest chains of fast food restaurants specialized in Arabic dishes.

The composition as a whole, differently from the previous ones, uses the information value of center and margin (Kress & Van Leeuwen, 1996). It means that the center is the most important and – in this case – the most salient visual constituent of the composition surrounded by subordinate elements (‘margins’). The information displayed in the nucleus of this composition is actually the slogan repeatedly used in Habib’s advertisings: “Muito mais por você” [Much more for you]. The typographic strategy employed here was to substitute some of the letters of this motto by pictures of food commercialized in Habib’s restaurants. So letter “o” (in the word “muito”) was changed into a sfiha (or Fatayer); letters “m” and “a” (in the word “mais”) were changed into a vanilla ice cream with chocolate syrup and into french fries, respectively; letter “o” (in the word “por”) was changed into a ball of strawberry ice cream; and letters “o” and “c” (in the word “você”) were changed into an Arabic dessert and into a slice of lemon, respectively. All together these images of food ideationally illustrate the idea of the whole Habib’s menu, and of course they intend to interpersonally stimulate the readers’ appetite.

Besides this, letter “t” (in the word “muito”) was changed into a thin and smiling woman with open arms, engaging the gaze of the viewers (i.e. a ‘demand’ picture, as put by Kress & Van Leeuwen, 1996) and thus almost ‘inviting’ them to give her a hug. The ‘margins’ of this composition, on the other hand, are very similar to each other and typographically more ‘monotonous’. With the exception of their color titles (that visually rhyme with the ad’s colorful slogan), these four blocks of texts are written in regular, plain and white typefaces, and provide factual information about Habib’s. The last advertisement (Figure 4, see the page after the next) was published in Caras magazine (that is a weekly Brazilian publication focused on celebrities, similar to People magazine in the USA, and is very popular among female readers). In comparison with the first ones, this ad is visually ‘cleaner’ and – apparently – simpler in terms of its composition, but here typographic resources were used very creatively.

It announces a new shampoo for women, specially designed to reduce hair loss. The shampoo is depicted on the right side of the lower section: hence it follows that the product is a ‘new’ and a ‘real’ solution for this hair problem. In the center of the composition, we can observe that the word “Beleza” [Beauty] is written using a dark copper, soft, smooth, rounded ‘script’ font to express the idea of sophistication. However, the word misses its letter “l”, that has ‘fallen’ to the lowest part of the ad, where it remains looking like a lost curled lock of hair dropped from someone’s head. Cohesively, the text next to letter “l” reinforces this image: “Quando cai um fio de cabelo, você perde um pouco mais do que isso” [When a single hair falls, you lose a little more than this]. That is, you lose a little bit of your own Beauty, and that is why the word “Beleza” [Beauty] is incomplete.

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Figure 3: Veja, 40(6), February 2007, p. 17.

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Figure 4: Caras, 14(6), February 2007, p. 61.

3. Final Remarks So as we can briefly conclude from the analysis of those ads seen before, it is not possible to fully understand a ‘new writing’ genre without integrating all semiotic modes used to produce meaning: not only its verbal material, but also its typography, color, layout, etc. In other words, it is clear why a multimodal reading of the genre advertisement – or of any other genre – cannot be merely restricted to a conventional linguistic analysis nor to the cataloguing of its stable structures. To achieve their purposes (launching a new product or service on the market, gaining sales and exposure for it, etc.), Brazilian ads conduct an effective process of ‘deconstruction’ of what is usually seen as a ‘regular language’ through countless multimodal resources and rhetorical strategies which try to enrich

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the visual information of texts, making them more pleasant to read and supposedly more attractive and appealing to potential clients. In visually informative texts – such as those ads formerly examined –, several factors are taken into consideration, such as target audience (their expectations, previous knowledge, buying habits, familiarity – or lack thereof – with certain literacy practices, ideological orientation, etc.), the diverse possibilities of reading processing, the functionality of the contents presented and how they are presented, the use of images as a mechanism of organization, complementation, illustration, etc., among various other elements. With this, those advertisements aim at creating an seductive and harmonious text, able to efficiently ‘sell’ their products/services by transmitting information about their textual organization to readers through visible clues as we observed in the previous examples. References CRYSTAL, D. (1998). Towards a typographical linguistics. Type, 2(1): 72-73. DIONISIO, A. P. (2005). Gêneros multimodais e multiletramento. In: A. M. Karwoski, B. Gaydeczka & K. S. Brito (Eds.), Gêneros textuais: Reflexões e ensino. (pp. 159-177). Palmas/ União da Vitória: Kaygangue. KRESS, G.; VAN LEEUWEN, T. (1996). Reading images: The grammar of visual design. New York: Routledge. KRESS, G.; VAN LEEUWEN, T. (2001). Multimodal discourse: The modes and media of contemporary communication. New York: Oxford University Press. LEMKE, J. L. (2002). Travels in hypermodality. Visual communication, 1(3), 299-325. VAN LEEUWEN, T. (2005). Introducing Social Semiotics. New York, Routledge. VAN LEEUWEN, T. (2006). Towards a semiotics of typography. Information Design Journal, 14(2): 139-155.