A systemic functional analysis of multisemiotic biology texts 3

CHAPTER THREE
FRAMEWORKS FOR THE ANALYSIS OF VISUAL DISPLAY


3.1 Preliminaries to the Frameworks

3.1.1 The Social Semiotic / Sociological Approach versus the Psychological Approach

As may be clear from Chapter Two, SFL takes a social, cultural, or “inter-organism”
view of language rather than a mental, psychological, or “intra-organism” perspective
(Halliday 1978: 12-16). In the words of Halliday, in the sociolinguistic perspective,
“we take account of the fact that people not only speak, but that they speak to each
other” (1978: 57; my emphasis). Likewise, in studying semiotic systems other than
language, SFL-informed models take a social semiotic perspective rather than a
psychological one. They are concerned with how the cultural resources of painting,
dancing, sculpture and so forth evolve to make meaning in society, together with
language.
However, a cursory review of the literature shows that a particularly strong
influence in the study of illustrations in educational materials has been the
psychological approach
1
. This approach is characterized by, and centres around, the
experiment. When the researcher is interested in, for instance, whether an illustrated
text is more effective to learning than a non-illustrated text, he or she selects two
groups of subjects. One group (the experimental group) is given the illustrated
material and the other group (the control group) is given the non-illustrated, linguistic
only material. After some time of learning, either in the laboratory or in the normal

55
classroom, the two groups of subjects take a test. The performance of the two groups
in the test is used to help researchers determine whether to accept or refute the original

hypothesis. In any serious experiment, the hypothesis is built within a theoretical
framework and both the subjects participating in the experiment and the materials used
are selected to meet certain criteria.
It may be the case that psychological studies of illustrations can tell us whether
or not a type of instructional material or methodology is likely to produce positive
effects on learning in terms of the amount of recognition, recall, retention or
comprehension of selected items in the material. They tell us, for instance, what type
of colour or shape combination is more likely to be recognized by the learner. To put
it another way, such studies can reveal the workings of the human brain, that is what
the brain is capable of doing and how it is functioning.
On the other hand, the psychological studies do not reveal the social and
cultural aspects of the illustrations in educational materials. Nor do they show how
these non-linguistic materials have evolved as resources for meaning, together with the
linguistic materials, and how the human child develops these resources in the process
of his or her socialization and education in the community. Further, in the context of
science and science education, as Lemke (2002a) explains,

But mentalist psychology does not have much to say about science as a
social activity, as a system of interdependent actions and practices that
produce scientific statements and theories… It has little to say to us
about how to model the practices and activities of science for our
students, how to help them learn to integrate these various practices into
some semblance of the ways that scientists act or how to learn to be
even peripheral participants in the world-spanning activities of
scientific communities.


56
As discussed in Chapter One, if one of the goals of EST (English for Science
and Technology) teaching to non-native speakers of English is the familiarization with

the linguistic and non-linguistic conventions in international scientific and
technological settings, then the inadequacy of the psychological approaches becomes
obvious and we need therefore to incorporate the social semiotic approach to the study
of illustrations in science textbooks.

3.1.2 Social Semiotic Approaches

Before we describe the SFL-informed approaches to visual semiotics, we need to
comment on an approach to the study of visual display in science that is more in line
with social semiotic approach than with the mentalist approach. This is the
sociological or ethnomethodological approach, exemplified by Lynch and Woolgar
(1990) and Goodwin (2001). As the name of the approach indicates, this approach
seeks to find out how in an actual work setting the participants construct, use and
circulate the visual images (together with other semiotic resources such as language,
gaze, gesture) as an essential part of the task they are charged with performing.
Goodwin (2001: 167) has succinctly termed work-related visual practice as
“professional vision”. Examples of professional vision include field archeologists
“systematically classifying the colour of the dirt they are excavating”, map-making and
a video tape of some scene used in court as evidence for a certain verdict (Goodwin
2001: 167-177).
Although sociological studies of the use of visual displays have made
significant contributions to our knowledge and understanding, they often seem to lack
a coherent framework to explain how the various visual displays make meaning in

57
their natural and social settings. They have shown us what is happening through video
tape recordings, verbal accounts and historical documents, but they have not been
explicit enough about the systems and functions that underlie the use of visual images.
It is for an adequate description of the systems and functions in the visual displays in
science that we need to turn to social semiotic approaches.

There have been mainly three important SFL-informed studies of visual and
multimodal semiotics: O’Toole (1994; 1995) in the visual arts, Kress and van Leeuwen
(1996) and Kress (2000a) in the public communication, and Lemke (e.g. 1998a; 2000;
2003) in science and science education. I summarize the major contributions of each
study below, as a preparation for the proposal of my models for the analysis of biology
texts.

3.1.2.1 O’Toole’s Model (1994; 1995)

O’Toole (1994) marks a milestone in the efforts of systemic-functional linguists to
apply Halliday’s SFL to semiotics other than language, in this case, the displayed art,
including painting, sculpture, and architecture. The model he proposes for the analysis
of painting is reproduced in Table 3.1.
O’Toole’s (1994) model is based on three theses. First, “every piece of
communication has three main functions: 1) to engage our attention and interest, 2) to
convey some information about reality, and 3) to structure these into a coherent textual
form” (1994: 5), be it in the form of language, visual display, dance, or music. That is,
semiotic codes other than language have also to fulfil, simultaneously, what SFL refers
to as the metafunctions of language: ideational, interpersonal and textual

58
Function REPRESENTATIONAL MODAL COMPOSITIONAL
Unit
Narrative themes Rhythm Modality Gestalt: Proportion
Scenes Gaze Framing Geometry
Portrayals Frame Horizontals Line
Interplay of episodes Light Verticals Rhythm
Perspective Diagonals Colour
Actions, events Relative Prominence Relative position in work
Agents patients goals Scale Alignment

Focal/side sequence Centrality Interplay of forms
Interplay of actions Interplay of Modalities Coherence
Character Object Gaze Contrast: Scale Relative position in episode
Act/Stance/Gesture Stance Line Parallelism/Opposition
Clothing Components Characterization Light Subframing
Colour
Part of body/object Stylization Cohesion: Reference
Natural form (Parallel/Contrast/Rhythm)
MEMBER
WORK
EPISODE
FIGURE

Table 3.1 Functions and systems in painting (Source: O’Toole 1994: 24)

59
metafunctions. There is an important proviso, as O’Toole (1994: 232) explains,
“[h]owever, certain artists or schools of painting seem to foreground one of these
functions to a very marked degree”, although this also applies to some linguistic text.
That is, there is a monofunctional tendency in some acts of communication.
Secondly, the three functions spread throughout all ranks or units in the piece
of communication. In the case of painting, the above Table recognizes the ranks of
Work, Episode, Figure, and Member, each consisting of one or more of the next lower
rank (except the rank of Member), Work consisting of one or more Episodes, Episode
consisting of one or more Figures, and so on, the way language has a hierarchy of
ranks: Clause, Group / Phrase and Word (Halliday 1973: 141). It is also obvious that
in some cases, a Work may have only one Episode, Figure, and Member.
Thirdly, like language, displayed arts bear an intimate relationship with the
context of situation and context of culture. That is, the particular selections from the
options in all three metafunctions in visual display realize the context in which the

work of art is created and used, that is, a particular contextual configuration of field,
tenor and mode.
These three features set O’Toole’s approach on a sound social semiotic ground
and make it a rigorous, coherent and powerful model. Hence in my models for the
biology texts, I take O’Toole’s (1994) model as the point of departure.
O’Toole (1995) analyses and interprets Frank Hinder’s painting Flight into
Egypt using basically the same framework: a trio-functional analysis and an
interpretation that relates to its social context of creation and other discourses of art: art
history, art critics and teaching. What is noteworthy is that this functions and systems
chart (1995: 162-163) is more detailed than the chart given in O’Toole (1994: 24). For
instance, the chart (1995) recognizes five ranks rather than the four ranks as in the

60
1994 chart. The additional rank is School / Genre, referring to the typical selection
from all three metafunctions that characterize a particular type of painting, e.g.
Realism, Impressionism, Expressionism, Futurism, Constructivism, Surrealism,
Cubism, Baroque and the like. To be accurate, this is not a separate rank, but a
collection of features that some paintings tend to show or foreground in their selections
of the systems and options in the three metafunctions. That is to say, Baroque school,
for instance, tends to depict a certain subject matter (ideational), adopt a particular
interpersonal stance and have a particular means of textual coherence. Such
descriptions follow the trio-functional analysis rather than predetermine it (O’Toole
1995: 161). In addition, the systems in the 1995 chart are also more detailed than
those in the 1994 chart. For instance, in the Modal function at the rank of Work, the
1994 chart recognizes only “Gaze”, whereas the 1995 chart lists under “Gaze”:
‘Eyework’, ‘Paths’, ‘Rhythms’ and Intermediaries.

3.1.2.2 Kress and van Leeuwen (1996) and Kress (2000a)

Kress and van Leeuwen (1996: 15; original emphasis) first draw attention to the

emergence of the multimodal semiotic landscape in contemporary public
communication, such as newspapers, magazines, advertisements and so on, where
there involves “a complex interplay of written text, images and other graphic
elements” and where “these elements combine together into visual designs, by means
of layout”. In view of such recent and vibrant changes in public communication, Kress
(2000a) advocates a departure from the language-based theory of communication in an
attempt to account for the multimodal landscape. He (2000a: 183) writes:


61
[T]here are the strongest possible reasons for taking a completely fresh
look at this landscape, and for setting a quite new agenda of human
semiosis in the domain of communication and representation. Such an
agenda has, as some of its most urgent elements, the requirement for a
theorisation and a description of the full range of semiotic modes in use
in a particular society; a full understanding of the potentials and
limitations of all these modes; of their present use in a society; of their
potentials for their interaction and interrelation with each other; and an
understanding of their place and function in our imaginings of the
future.


That is, whereas O’Toole (1994; 1995) focuses on the displayed art, i.e. the refined
“high-brow” images of painting, sculpture and architecture, Kress and van Leeuwen
(1996) are concerned with the visual design of public communication, i.e. not only the
images, the linguistic text, but also their interaction, and Kress (2000a) is concerned
with the total multimodal communication sphere: images, written texts, sounds, actions
and other semiotic resources.
The basic view in Kress and van Leeuwen (1996) is that “language and visual
communication both realize the same more fundamental and far-reaching systems of

meaning that constitute our cultures, but that each does so by means of its own specific
forms, and independently”(1996: 17). By this they mean that the metafunctions that
are identified as applicable to language also apply to the visual communication,
although they are realized in the visual by different and independent forms. Indeed,
the bulk of their book is devoted to the exploration of the visual grammar that realizes
the ideational (Chapters 2 and 3), interpersonal (Chapters 4 and 5) and textual (Chapter
6) metafunctions. However, Kress and van Leeuwen (1996: 17) believe that “each
medium has its own possibilities and limitations of meaning” and that “[n]ot
everything that can be realized in language can also be realized by means of images, or
vice versa” (1996: 17).

62
Of particular interest is their discussion of the principles of composition, the
textual metafunction. They propose three simultaneous systems of visual composition:
the system of INFORMATION VALUE, whether an element is placed in the left or
right, top or bottom, centre or margin of the visual page has “specific informational
values” (1996: 183)
2
; the system of SALIENCE, the placement of the elements either
in the foreground or background, their relative size, contrasts in tonal value (or colour),
differences in sharpness, etc. serve to “attract the viewer’s attention to different
degrees” (1996: 183); and the system of FRAMING, the “presence or absence of
framing devices (realized by elements which create dividing lines, or by actual frame
lines) disconnects or connects elements of the image, signifying that they belong or do
not belong together in some sense” (1996: 183). Further, they hold that “[t]hese three
principles of composition apply not just to single pictures, they apply also to composite
visuals, visuals which combine text and image, and, perhaps, other graphic elements,
be it on a page or on a television or computer screen” and that in analyzing the
multimodal texts we need to “look at the whole page as an integrated text” (1996: 183;
original emphasis).

If we compare O’Toole’s model with Kress and van Leeuwen’s approach to the
visual images, we find that both take Halliday’s SFL as points of departure, but that
each has different emphasis. O’Toole tries to show that the system and function at
various ranks in language can be adapted to the study of visual arts, the framework in
general is applicable to visual studies, while Kress and van Leeuwen (1996) attempt to
show that, at a much more delicate level, the process types in language, for instance,
can find their equivalents or lack of equivalents in visual display. O’Toole stresses the
applicability of SFL in general orientation while Kress and van Leeuwen (1996) claim
a comparability at a more specific level. For instance, Kress and van Leeuwen (1996)

63
identify the visual Narrative and Conceptual process types and subtypes, while
O’Toole (1994) lists at the rank of Work only Narrative themes (equivalent to Kress
and van Leeuwen’s (1996) Narrative processes, but lacking in specificity), Scenes,
Portrayals (equivalent to Kress and van Leeuwen’s (1996) Conceptual processes, but
again lacking in specificity) and Interplay of episodes. In the discussion of textual
metafunction, O’Toole (1994) draws attention to Framing, Horizontals, Verticals,
Diagonals and so on at the rank of Work. Kress and van Leeuwen (1996), on the other
hand, divide the pictorial space into Left and Right, Top and Bottom, and in some
cultures Centre and Margin, and assign different information values to each of the
pictorial zones. One can, of course, notice that O’Toole’s Horizontals are equivalent
to Kress and van Leeuwen’s (1996) Left and Right, but the communicative values
assigned to such pictorial spaces are completely different. O’Toole (1994: 23) says of
Horizontals that “[w]ithin the frame, … forms are related to the horizontal axis and the
vertical axis, both of which contribute to stability and harmony, while their relation to
the diagonal axes tends to create energy and dynamism”, whereas Kress and van
Leeuwen (1996) treat of Left as the pictorial realization of what is Given, and Right of
what is New.
Another difference between the two approaches to the study of visual images is
that in O’Toole’s work the notion of rank scale, which derives from Halliday’s (1973:

141) chart for language, is crucial. Indeed, in all the functions and systems charts
proposed by O’Toole (1994; 1995) there is a rank scale. In Kress and van Leeuwen
(1996) and Kress (2000a), the notion of rank is implicit.
O’Toole (1994; 1995) and Kress and van Leeuwen (1996) form the two
comprehensive resources for the study of multisemiotic texts.


64

3.1.2.3 Lemke (1990; 1998a; 2000; 2002a; 2003)

Like O’Toole (1994; 1995) and Kress and van Leeuwen (1996), Lemke (e.g. 1998a;
1990) adopts the social semiotic perspective to the study of science and science
education and of the co-deployment of multiple semiotic modes therein. Lemke
(1998a; 2000) respectively documents that, in both professional print scientific papers
and the classroom science discourse of physics and chemistry, language, mathematical
symbolism, visual display, and / or gesture work together to make meaning and that
the reader of the paper and the student in the classroom are required to be multiply
literate rather than singularly-literate. Lemke (2003; 2002a; 1998a) also tries to
explain why science and science teaching are necessarily multi-semiotic. The main
reason is that different semiotic resources have different functionalities and limitations
and that as a result in an actual social setting more than one resource must be co-
deployed. A crucial point here is the distinction he draws between typological and
topological meaning-making. Lemke (2002a) notes that “[a]ll semiotic resources,
whether verbal language, mathematics, or visual representation, combine two basic
principles for making meaning: meaning by kind and meaning by degree”, but each
semiotic resource is particularly good at a certain type of meaning, or is organized
around a certain type of meaning. As Lemke (1998a: 87) points out,

Language, as a typologically oriented semiotic resource, is unsurpassed

as a tool for the formulation of difference and relationship, for the
making of categorical distinctions. It is much poorer (though hardly
bankrupt) in resources for formulating degree, quantity, gradation,
continuous change, continuous co-variation, non-integer ratios, varying
proportionality, complex topological relations of relative nearness or
connectedness, or nonlinear relationships and dynamical emergence…


65

Mathematics, visual representation, gesture and so on have evolved to chiefly help us
make these topological meanings. At the same time, we need bear in mind that these
resources also depend on typological meaning-making as an important semiotic
strategy (Lemke 2003: 223). Arithmetic operation in mathematics, for instance, is
either addition, subtraction, division or multiplication; there is nothing in between say
addition and subtraction. A picture of a cat is certainly different from that of a dog.
“But drawing and gesture [and mathematics] are much more powerful at expressing
topological, and therefore quantitative meanings, while verbal language is much better
at reasoning about relations among categories” (Lemke 2002a). “The phenomena of
scientific investigation possess critical features of both kinds: to characterize material
processes and their relationships we need both categorial descriptions and quantitative
reasoning” (2002a).
It might seem from the above that different semiotic resources operate
independently in a text: language attends to the categorial meaning and mathematics
and visual display the topological meaning, the two exist side by side, but do not relate
to each other. The reverse is as a matter of fact true. In addition to the internal cross-
modulation of meanings among the resources for the three metafunctions in any one
semiotic, Lemke (1998a: 92; original emphasis) suggests

In multimedia genres, meanings made with each functional resource in

each semiotic modality can modulate meanings of each kind in each
other semiotic modality, thus multiplying the set of possible meanings
that can be made (and so also the specificity of any particular meaning
made against the background of this larger set of possibilities).

In other words, in a joint construction, new meanings are created, meanings that did
not before exist in any single modality. Thus the co-deployment of different semiotic

66
resources expands or enlarges our meaning-making potential, the way grammatical
metaphor enables us to mean new meanings.

In line with Lemke’s research into the multimodal meaning-making in
scientific texts, O’Halloran (1996; 1999a; 1999b) discusses the joint-construction of
meaning in multi-semiotic mathematics texts and has identified a phenomenon called
“semiotic metaphor” (1996: 178; 1999b: 23; 2003). By “semiotic metaphor”,
O’Halloran (1999b: 23) refers to the phenomenon that, in the joint construction of
meaning in a mathematical text, when one code shifts to another, “a shift in the
functions of elements occurs and new entities are introduced”. In a similar vein,
Thibault (2001) analyses the multimodal meaning making on selected Australian and
Italian secondary school science textbook pages containing words and non-linguistic
resources such as table and photographic images. Following on from previous work,
in particular by Kress and van Leeuwen (1996), Royce (1998; 2002) proposes the
notion of intersemiotic complementarity
3
to account for the ways the linguistic and
visual codes interact to make meaning on a multimodal page.

3.2 Theoretical Frameworks

In this section
4
I first discuss the semantics of biology, what biologists do that
characterize them as biologists (Section 3.2.1), and then I present the frameworks for
analyzing the visual displays in the biology texts (Section 3.2.2), which include the
frameworks for analyzing schematic drawings, tables and graphs. I conclude this
chapter with a brief discussion of how the reader is expected or positioned to juggle

67
between the visual and the linguistic modes, that is, the question of the reading path
(Section 3.2.3).

3.2.1 Biology and Multimodality

Biology is “the study of living things past and present, including their structure,
function, chemistry, development, evolution, and environmental interactions”, the
‘environment’ here including both the physical environment and the biological
environment (Purves 1999: 769). Out of the different approaches to studying life, two
are particularly important to modern biologists: observation and experimentation.
Observation is to experience the living world and take note of the living organisms.
This represents the naturalist tradition of doing biology, exemplified by Charles
Darwin (1809-1882). And today’s biology majors at universities are required to go on
field trips as part of their degree programme. The key to experimentation, on the other
hand, is manipulation and control of “conditions in order to reveal or produce
observations that contribute to the solutions of puzzles” (Janovy 1996: 44). “Certainly
molecular biology and all its older relatives rely on experiments, and experimentation
is becoming more a part of ecological field research every day” (1996: 44).
Observation and experimentation as two important ways of studying life are reflected
in many universities’ curricula designed for biology majors. The practical classes for
biology majors in the Department of Biological Sciences at the National University of

Singapore, for instance, account for 27.0% and 39.5% of the total contact hours of a
Level 1000 (first-year) and Level 2000 (second-year) student’s learning life
respectively (see Table 4.1 below), which strongly suggests that hands-on skills are
crucial for a biologist in training.

68
On the other hand, a biologist also reads and writes papers, textbooks, and
other documents. Similarly, the bulk of a biology student’s learning time in the first
two years at college is spent in classes and tutorials (Haas 1994: 59-63) where he or
she is required to read, write and interpret verbal and non-verbal messages. Minds-on
skills are as important as hands-on ones. As pointed out by Osborne (2002: 206), “just
as there can be no houses without roofs or windows, there can be no science without
reading, talking and writing”.
Due to the nature of the inquiry of the discipline and its methodological
approaches, biology texts have always been multimodal, that is, deploying a range of
semiotic resources in addition to natural language. The reason for this is clear: natural
language alone cannot adequately communicate or construct the process and product of
observation and experimentation; the potential of natural language as a typologically-
oriented semiotic resource (Lemke 1998a) falls far short of the semiotic demands of
the discipline. For example, it will be difficult, if not impossible, to describe in natural
language alone the colours, shapes and the flight path of a butterfly.
Like research activities in other fields, many of the investigations in the
biological sciences are quantitative, involving the collection, presentation, analysis and
interpretation of numerical observations. The biological researchers apparently need
an objective method of organizing the data collected from field trips or experiments.
In addition, they must draw sensible conclusions from the analysis of the data. Many
have been guided by statistics. In the US, statistics was first introduced to the
university curriculum for biology students as early as 1897 at Harvard (Zar 1999: x);
biostatistics, or biometry, has nowadays become an important part of a biology
student’s education. This involves the deployment of appropriate statistical procedures

and graphs in biology texts.

69
The semiotic demands of the discipline do not stop here. In cell biology, in
particular, recourse to non-linguistic semiotic resources has been necessary since
Robert Hooke (1635-1703) first drew a picture of the “cell” seen under his microscope
as reported in Micrographia (1665). This time-honoured morphological approach to
the studies of the cell, with the help of a light microscope and an electron microscope,
has recently culminated in what we know as the ultrastructure of the cell. To
communicate what was observed under the microscope, the cell biologists have
developed a range of devices, including light micrographs, electron micrographs, and
schematic drawings, each of which has several sub-types, depending on the techniques
adopted. More recently, however, cell biologists have attempted to investigate the
biochemical basis of the structure and function of the living cell. Rather than merely
describe the mechanical or morphological features of the cellular life, this new
approach seeks to account for the cell and cell activity in terms of the structure and
function of its chemical components, the four major families of small organic
molecules (sugars, fatty acids, amino acids and nucleotides) and the macromolecules
(polysaccharides, lipids, proteins and nucleic acids). Most of the macromolecules
normally exist as specific biologically significant three-dimensional structures called
conformations, for example, the double helix for DNA, the extended chain
conformation for cellulose and the α-helix, β-pleated sheet, β-turn and loop
conformations for proteins. As noted by McMurry and Castellion (1999: xvi),
“[u]nderstanding many aspects of chemistry – such as the specificity and selectivity of
enzymes, or the action of drugs – requires understanding the three-dimensional nature
of molecules”. That is, the introduction of biochemistry means that the semiotic
demands of the discipline have exponentially increased so that natural language,
however important it may be, is inadequate as a single resource. As a result, other

70

semiotic means such as chemical notation, ball-and-stick models, space-filling models,
animations, video recordings and so forth have evolved for communicative purposes.
Natural language alone has been inadequate with morphological research; it is
naturally insufficient as a means to describe both the morphological and the
biochemical.

3.2.2 Theoretical Frameworks for the Analysis of Biology Texts

Myers (1990: 233-249) identifies, “in terms of realism and abstraction” (1990: 247),
five categories of visual displays in a sociobiology text: photographs, drawings, maps,
graphs / models / tables, and imaginary figures (1990: 234)
5
. The first three types have
some reference to our everyday visual experience while “Graphs, models, and tables
redefine space, … so that each mark has meaning only in relation to the presentation of
the claim” (1990: 235). In many textbooks on the molecular study of the cell, one of
which is ECB, biochemical symbolism constitutes yet another semiotic resource,
modelled after algebra (Hoffmann 1993: 27-28; Knight 1992: 176-179, 1996: 135). In
what follows, I present the frameworks for the analysis of schematic drawings (Section
3.2.2.1), tables (Section 3.2.2.2), and statistical graphs (Section 3.2.2.3). The reason
for identifying these various kinds of visual display is that they are different in form
and function; they have evolved to perform different functions. Lines, dots, curves,
and colours, if organized differently, have come to mean different things.

71

3.2.2.1 Framework for Analysing Schematic Drawings

By schematic drawings I refer to those that are designed to depict in a simplified way
some scene or process, actual or imaginary. The functions and systems chart for the

analysis of schematic drawings is displayed in Table 3.2.
Although the rank scale in the chart follows O’Toole (1994: 24), the functions
and systems are not, unsurprisingly, identical. For instance, in O’Toole’s (1994)
model, in the Modal function at the ranks of Work and Figure, Gaze is an important
means deployed by artists to attract the attention of the viewer. In the biological
schematic drawings I have analysed, Gaze does not appear to figure as an important
resource. More importantly, in the Compositional function, unlike in paintings where
usually little more than a title is provided to indicate what is depicted, in scientific
illustrations, Labelling appears frequently. This feature is related to the pedagogic use
of the schematic drawing. An important part of a biology student’s training is to learn
to recognize the shapes of components of an organism and learn how these
components are named by the scientific community; for example, a certain shape is
named the “stem”, or “root”, or “microtubule”. Labels and Leaders provide in part the
means for the enculturation of the learner into the discipline of biology. The
Representational meaning of the schematic drawing is what Lemke (1998a) calls the
“topological” meaning, especially, the Shape, Colour, Size, Spatial relation to each
other and to the whole structure, and Action. Such meanings are also typological in
that they fall into categories; for instance, the Shape is round, square, rectangular, and
so on. But the predominant aspect of these meanings in biology is topological where

72


Function REPRESENTATIONAL MODAL COMPOSITIONAL
Unit
Overall shape; Frame;
Gestalt
: Framing, Horizontals,
Components of the structure; Size; Verticals, and Diagonals;
Whole process; Scale; Proportion;

Phases of the process Perspective; Geometry;
Full colour or black and white; Colour;
Colour contrast;
Drawing
’
s relation to running
Shade or light text: Spatial and Colour;
Labelling: Positioning, Colouring
and Leaders
Shape; Relative Prominence: Colour, Relative position in the structure
Colour; amount of detail; or process;
Size; Centrality; Colour contrast between
Spatial relation to each other, Lettering (for label and caption): components
and to the structure; type size, style (serif or san
Actions, events serif), Weight;
Line and arrow width;
Numerical sequence
WORK
EPISODE


Table 3.2 Functions and systems in schematic drawing (Adapted from O’Toole 1994: 24)

73



Function
MODAL
COMPOSITIONAL

Unit
Relative position in the
Components; Contrast: Scale, Line, Light, component or phase;
Acts Colour; Colour contrast or similarity;
Omission of detail Subframing
Natural form: Shape, colour, etc. Stylization; Cohesion: Parallel/Contrast in
and spatial relationship to other Conventionalization Shape and Colour;
components Reference through language
MEMBER
REPRESENTATIONAL
FIGURE


Table 3.2 (Continued)






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the irregularity defies any linguistic encoding except in the most general terms. The
exact Spatial relations and the moment-to-moment movement in space can best be
shown in a drawing or video recording rather than by verbal description.

3.2.2.2 Framework for Analyzing Tables

Gove et al (1986: 2324) define a table as “a systematic arrangement (as of numerical
values) usu. in parallel rows or columns for ready reference”. This definition draws

attention to several features of a table. First, a table is arranged in rows or columns on
a printed page or part of the page. That is, it makes use of the spatial resources of the
horizontal (rows) and the vertical (columns) of the printed page, foreclosing the
semiotic potential of other spatial relationships, such as the diagonal, circular, centre-
margin, etc. Second, a table has evolved to present a set of related numerical values or
facts. Thirdly, a table realizes the two functions of the information unit (Given and
New) of natural language by fixed spatial means on the printed page so that the
position a lexicogrammatical item occupies in the table signifies whether it is Given or
New. This facilitates a reader’s information retrieval and the comparison between
more than one set of information.
There are different types and styles of table. The Publication Manual of the
American Psychological Association (2001) recommends that a table consist of a title,
headings (column head, stubhead, and optionally table spanner, column spanner),
rules, table body and notes to table. The framework for the analysis of the APA style
numerical tables is presented in Table 3.3
6
.

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Functions
Units

REPRESENTATIONAL

MODAL

COMPOSITIONAL
TABLE
Typological meaning

(TRANSITIVITY);
Topological meaning
(quantity, degree, etc.)
Declarative;
Lettering: type
size; style (serif
or san serif);
weight; Frame;
line width

Vertical;
Horizontal; Spacing
between columns
and between rows;
Lines. Textual
ellipsis
CELL Number

Lettering; the
number of
decimal places;


Colour, shading
PERIPHERY
(excluding Notes
to the table)

MODIFICATION
(epithet function,

enumeration); unit of
measurement;
Circumstantial features:
Time, Frequency, etc.


ATTITUDE of
the nominal
groups;
positioning; line
width of the rule

Vertical aligning;
Horizontal aligning;
Placement relative
to the body of the
table.

Table 3.3 Functions and systems for numerical tables

Table 3.3 has a rank scale consisting of Table, Cell and Periphery. Cell is the
body of the table and Periphery provides essential information on how to read the table
and includes title, headings (column head, stubhead, table spanner, column spanner),
table number, and notes to the table (not analyzed here). Below I discuss some
features of a table as a meaning-making resource, particularly its textual metafunction.
Natural language has its own resources for the textual metafunction (see
Halliday 1994: 334 and Section 2.2.3 for a summary). Relevant here is the information
structure. By “information” is meant “the tension between what is already known or
predictable and what is new or unpredictable” (Halliday 1994: 296). In spoken

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language, the information unit is realized as a pitch contour so that a listener can
normally get a clue as to what he or she needs to take as New. In written language,
however, such prosodic, paralinguistic and indexical features are absent (see Halliday
1989 [1985]: 30-32) and thus ambiguity may result. Take the clause “A single-celled
yeast can divide every 90-120 minutes” as an example. Since written language does
not have an explicit indicator for the information structure, the way spoken language
does, there are more than one ways of interpreting the clause. That is, written
language cannot create the level of newsworthiness of some part of the information
desired by some human activities for some purposes. To overcome possible ambiguity
and meet the increasing demand of the textual metafunction, new resources are needed
to fix and facilitate the Given ^ New structure; among them is a table.
Three points may be noted about the table. First of all, a table is a demarcation
of a visual space into the top-bottom and left-right quadrants as in:


Top / left

Top / right


Bottom / left


Bottom / right

Second, such a demarcation of space is conventionally assigned Given ^ New
structure, that is, either Top is Given and Bottom is New (i.e. the column head is on the
Top and the body on the Bottom, a vertical orientation), or Left is Given and Right is
New (i.e. the stubhead is on the left and the body on the right, a horizontal orientation),

or both the Left and the Top are Given, the Right and the Bottom are New (i.e. the
column head is on the Top and the stubhead on the left, the body is below the column
head and to the right of the stubhead). By “conventionally assigned” I mean that there

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is no absolutely correct orientation, one or the other might be more popular at a given
time or in a given community. But for a given table such an orientation is fixed and
cannot be changed any more.
Thirdly, experiential functions take up each slot created by the grid, completing
the table and bringing it to life, as it were. The experiential meaning of the New (in
the body of the table) can be numerical (in numerical tables) or verbal (in word tables).
The nature of the experiential meaning is not what tells us whether a spatial-linguistic
composite is a table or not. As long as some experiential meaning fills up the slot, any
meaning (Actor, Process, Circumstance and so on), then the table is alive. It is
necessary to note, however, that the sequence the experiential items are arranged is
often such that some regular patterns can be displayed in the table. An excellent
example is the periodic table of the elements in chemistry. Dimitri Mendeléev (1834-
1907) arranged all the known elements by groups and periods. The principles are that
the element put in one group (one column) has the same number of electrons in its
outer shell and that the atomic number of the elements in each period (one row)
increases by one unit from the left to the right. By knowing an element’s position in
the periodic table, we know its electronic configuration and hence its chemical
properties.
Thus in a table, the textual meaning of Given ^ New combines with the spatial
arrangement of Left and Right and Top and Bottom, and with the experiential
meaning. Textual meaning (e.g. Given ^ New) and experiential meaning are
lexicogrammatical, common to spoken and written language, while the spatial
arrangement is written only, making use of the print or written media.
A table as an entity embodying the above three features simultaneously is a
powerful means of making meaning. It is good for comparing and listing data and

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gives a reader a particularly strong impact. No longer does the reader or writer have to
look around for the New in a piece of information; whatever is put in the New slot (or
the body of the table) is always and automatically New, and of course whatever is in
the Given slot is always Given. The information structure is routinized.
Many tables also deploy textual ellipsis so that both the headings and the body
contain a minimum number of lexicogrammatical items (see Lemke 1998a: 96-101 and
Baldry 2000b: 47-48 for a discussion). The reason for this is that ellipsis carries the
Given ^ New structure to its extreme: if only two lexical items are presented, one the
Given and the other the New, the possibility of ambiguity (between which is Given and
which is New, and within the New which part is to be given most attention to) is
completely eradicated. In other words, ellipsis maximizes the contrast between Given
and New by omitting all irrelevant information, resulting in the bare thematic items:
there is nothing else to distract the reader. Herein resides the power and clarity of a
table.
It may be noted that the numbers in the Cell of a table take an absolute stance
toward the reality they construct; there is no Modalisation at all, meaning that
whatever is included in the Cell appears as absolutely correct.
The textual organization of a word table is similar to that of the numerical
table. Like a numerical table, a word table stresses the division of the Given and New
of a clause so that the New can be recognized at a glance and the New of one clause
can be easily compared and contrasted with that of another clause. However, as
illustrated in Chapter 5 below, a word table may create a succession of Given and
New. As well, in a word table, there may not be so much textual ellipsis as in a
numerical table. The interpersonal and ideational meanings of word tables are also
different from those of numerical tables in that the clauses or clause fragments in word

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