| dc.description.abstract | This thesis is the result of an interest in the communicative and rhetorical powers of the written word and the picture. Separately, these modalities are able to convey meaningful messages; combined, their messages can be reinforced. The thesis aims to explore how the modalities are used in a Norwegian tourist brochure about Fjord Norway and a Scottish tourist brochure about the Highlands in order to create a distinctive and an attractive text. The empirical material is studied from both a social semiotic and a rhetorical perspective.
The analytical tools applied in this thesis are Michael Halliday’s metafunctions, the textual, the interpersonal and the ideational, as described in Halliday & Matthiessen (2004), Maagerø (1998, 2005) and Kress & van Leeuwen (2006). The metafunctions are used mainly to describe how meaning is conveyed by the arrangement of elements on the page, the engagement between the author and the reader and the representation of a visual journey through the tourist destinations.
The findings show that the written word and the picture interact differently in the two brochures. In the Norwegian brochure the modalities play together in order to convey a specific feeling which a journey to Fjord Norway will create. In contrast, in the Scottish brochure the modalities are used to introduce the reader to several attractions and suggestions for holiday activities. In order to explain the brochures’ different strategies properly, this thesis also introduces a new category referred to as enticing/alluring (“lokkende/forførende”). The main purpose of this category is to describe the function of pictures in tourist brochures. However, it also serves in this thesis as a means to describe the overall function of the two brochures. | no_NO |
