Appraisal Theory: Can It Be Applied to Visual Images in Isolation to the Text?
Keywords:
Appraisal Theory, Resemiosis, Intersemiosis, Meaning-making, Saudi Women, MediaAbstract
The role of women in Saudi society is changing, but even the process of reform is subject to multiple interpretations. This makes the role of resemiosis when interpreting visual media particularly important, perhaps more than a direct focus on the semiotic modes adopted. Appraisal Theory captures this judgement process in terms of emotions experience by the reader/viewer and how the wider context such as the full news article, or even just the headline, forms a part of this process. This argues that in contested situations resemiosis is a critical part of the process and sometimes the apparent interpretation of a single image (intersemiosis) can be different to the interpretation of the whole. In these cases, it is not just that different semiotic modes carry different meanings but that a focus on one in isolation can be misleading as to the overall intent.
References
Adel, Mahmoud. (2019). The Image of Saudi Women in the Arab Press after the Launch of Vision 2030: An Analytic Study on the Sites of the Egyptian, Jordanian and Tunisian Arab Newspapers. The Scientific Journal of Media Research and Communications Technology, 5(5), 1-34.
Al-Asfour, Ahmed, Tlaiss, Hayfaa A., Khan, Sami A., & Rajasekar, James. (2017). Saudi women’s work challenges and barriers to career advancement. 22(2), 184-199. doi: doi:10.1108/CDI-11-2016-0200
Aldosari, Hala. (2018, 22 June). Saudi Women can Drive Now. Will That Hurt Saudi Women? Retrieved 20 October, 2023, from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/22/opinion/saudi-arabia-salmanwomen-driving.html
Alhuthali, Mohammed. (2018). Interpreting Stereotypes: Images and Text. International Journal of Linguistics 10(4), 113-123. doi: https://doi.org/10.5296/ijl.v10i4.13577
Boghani, Priyanka. (2019, 1 October). The Paradox of Saudi Arabia’s Social Reforms Retrieved 20 January, 2020, from https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/the-paradox-of-saudiarabias-social-reforms/
Braun, Virginia, & Clarke, Victoria. (2013). Successful Qualitative Research. London: Sage.
Chen, Yunru, & Gao, Xiaofang. (2014). Interpretation of movie posters from the perspective of multimodal discourse analysis. GSTF Journal on Education (JEd), 1(1).
Coffin, C. (2003). Exploring different dimensions of language use. ELT Journal, 57, 11-18.
Elyas, Tariq, & Aljabri, Abdulrahman. (2020). Representations of Saudi male’s guardianship system and women’s freedom to travel in Western newspapers: A critical discourse analysis. Contemporary Review of the Middle East, 7(3), 339-357.
George, B. (2018, 11 June). HRH Hayfa bint Abdullah Al Saud Retrieved 18 October, 2023, from https://en.vogue.me/fashion/princess-hayfa-vogue-arabia-cover/
Gratch, Jonathan, & Marsella, Stacy. (2005). Evaluating a computational model of emotion. Autonomous Agents and MultiAgent Systems, 11(1), 23-43.
Human Rights Watch. (2016a, 17 July). No freedom to travel - End Male Guardianship Retrieved 2 January, 2023, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-goe4zON-XE
Human Rights Watch. (2016b, 17 July). Trapped with Abuse - End Male Guardianship in Saudi Arabia Retrieved 3 January, 2023, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPht8rM_GaQ
Iedema, Rick. (2003). Multimodality, resemiotization: extending the analysis of discourse as multi-semiotic practice. Visual Communication, 2(1), 29-57.
Jewitt, Carey. (2005). Multimodality, “Reading”, and “Writing” for the 21st Century. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 26(3), 315-331. doi: 10.1080/01596300500200011
Kottasova, Ivana, & Thornton, Chandler. (2020, 27 February). Saudi female football team. Retrieved 18 October, 2023, from https://edition.cnn.com/2020/02/25/football/saudi-arabia-footballleague-women-rights-intl/index.html
Kress, Gunther. (2010). Multimodality: A social semiotic approach to contemporary communication. London: Routledge.
Kress, Gunther, & van Leeuwen, Theo (Eds.). (2006). Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design (2nd ed.). London: Routledge.
Lacroix, Stéphane. (2019). Saudi Arabia and the limits of religious reform. The Review of Faith & International Affairs, 17(2), 97-101.
Lannes, L. . ((2018, 22 June). Saudi women driving, from https://lauralannes.format.com/nyt-saudi-women-can-drive-now
Lazarus, R. S. (1991). Progress on a cognitive-motivational-relational theory of emotion. American psychologist, 46(8), 819-834.
Martin, James R, & White, Peter R. (2005). The language of evaluation: Appraisal in English. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan.
Nureldine, F. (2021, 2 November). First saudi females football team Retrieved 18 October, 2023, from https://www.gettyimages.ae/detail/news-photo/players-of-the-firstsaudi-womens-national-football-team-newsphoto/1236301181?adppopup=true
Padilla, Joseph E, & Padilla, Corazon A. (2022). Multimodal Discourse Analysis of COVID-19 Vaccination Campaign Posters: Visual Grammar Approach. Silliman Journal, 63(2).
Peng, Zhuyan. (2022). A Multimodal Discourse Analysis of Movie Posters From the Perspective of Visual Grammar—A Case Study of" Hi, Mom". Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 12(3), 605-609.
Rizvi, Lubna Javed, & Hussain, Zahid. (2022). Empowering woman through legal reforms-evidence from Saudi Arabian context. International Journal of Law and Management, 64(2), 137-149.
Satiti, Nur Latifah Umi. (2017). Representation of Muslim Women in the Western Media. Jurnal ILMU KOMUNIKASI.
Smith, Craig. A., & Kirby, Leslie. D. (2001). Toward delivering on the promise of appraisal theory. In K. R. Scherer, A. Schorr & T. Johnstone (Eds.), Series in affective science. Appraisal processes in emotion: Theory, methods, research (pp. 121-138). New York: Oxford University Press.
Steinberg, J. (2018, May 18). Saudi women driving ban Retrieved 2 January, 2023, from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/25/opinion/saudi-arabia-salmanwomens-rights.html
Symon, G, & Cassell, C. (2012). Assessing qualitative research. In G Symon & C Cassell (Eds.), Organizational Qualitative Research: Core Methods and Current Challenges. London: Sage.
Young, Jessie. (2018, 1 June). Vogue Arabia cover featuring Saudi princess sparks backlash Retrieved 18 October, 2023, from https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/vogue-arabia-coverintl/index.html
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2024 ESI Preprints
![Creative Commons License](http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by/4.0/88x31.png)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.