RE-CONTEXTUALISING ‘GREETING’: A MULTIMODAL ANALYSIS IN AN EFL TEXTBOOK

Abstract

This paper provides an account of multimodal meanings represented in an English textbook as a teaching and learning resource. This study explores how ideational, interpersonal and textual meanings are represented across visual and verbal modes and their intermodal relationship. This study employed a qualitative case study design. The major theoretical basis for this research is Systemic Functional Linguistic Multimodal Discourse Analysis (SFL-MDA) which focuses on how meaning is made through the use of multiple modes of communication. The data were obtained from one chapter of the textbook for the seventh grade, which is about greeting. In general, the findings show that, ideationally, the images can be categorised as narrative representation and, verbally, the texts are dominated by relational processes. Moreover, a visual and verbal relationship can be categorised as projection-locution. Interpersonally, it is shown that images can play an essential role in shaping readers’ feelings or attitudes through cartoon characters, color, natural coding orientation, and typeface. Together with the verbal mode, images play a role in positioning the readers’ interaction with the textbook. Textually, the book’s page layouts reflect the organisation of meaning across texts and images and affect the viewers’ reading path.