A Cognitive Critical Approach to Visual Semiosis

摘要

This paper is a cognitive critical study of the spatial orientations of multimodal discourse. It attempts to establish the epistemological status of Kress & van Leeuwen's (1996) descriptive study of visual composition using Conceptual Metaphor Theory (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980), and uncover the ideological interests and meanings implicit in the spatial orientations. With car advertisements as data, it is found that the "upper" elements are interpersonally foregrounded to engage the viewers and the "lower' elements are ideationally foregrounded to provide more detailed information. From a cognitive perspective, it is argued that such associations between spatial orientations and their semiotic functions are metaphorical mappings based on our embodied experience.