Pictogram and Ideograms as the Main Means of Multimodality (on the basis of the Australian newspapers)
Pictogram and Ideograms as the Main Means of Multimodality (on the basis of the Australian newspapers)

Summary/Abstract: In modern Australian newspaper advertisements there is a wide range of non-verbal means of communication though the most frequent and popular ones are ideograms and pictograms. Other non-verbal means of modern mass-media communication are unusual letter writing and their capitalization, substitution of letters with pictograms, images or ideograms, intentional spelling mistakes, unusual word building patterns, changes of sizes of letters, variations of fonts, texts layout and colours. Pictograms and ideograms can be independent transmitters of information but in the majority of cases they correlate with verbal signs. Like other signs they perform such functions as attractive, informative, expressive and esthetic. Copywriters and advertisers appeal to human emotions as much as possible keeping in mind the fact that when the information is not just seen but sensed and felt it will be remembered for a longer time. Non-verbal means in combination with verbal elements convey a certain pragmatic meaning and perform three main functions: (1) intensification of the meaning of verbal signs; (2) substitution of a verbal sign that has been omitted (this can happen on all language levels: phonetic, morphological, lexical); (3) addition of extra information to the verbal message, though, sometimes, it can be of an antonymic character. Besides that, they perform such specific functions as: duplication, specification, substitution of the whole verbal part or its section. According to the territorial parameter, non-verbal means of communication can be divided into two groups: international and national. Another distinctive feature of means of non-verbal communication is their ambiguity because decoding of the real semantics is defined by the context, linguistic distribution, and background cultural knowledge. Despite the heterogeneity of the constituent elements, multimodal advertisements are homogeneous units of information that are aimed at attracting customers’ attention, making them think and buy the promoted products or services or modify their behaviour.

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