The construal of Ideational meaning in print advertisements 2 
The construal of ideational meaning in print advertisements
A replication study of four types of advertisements
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1 An introduction to semiotics and ideational meaning
This paper aims to replicate the study of Cheong Yin Yuen based on his paper ‘The construal of Ideational meaning in print advertisements’ (2006). Research is conducted in the field of semiotics. This paper begins with an introduction to semiotics and ideational meaning based on the paper ‘Visual Meaning: a Social Semiotic Approach’, written by Carey Jewitt and Rumiko Oyama (2008).
Jewitt and Oyama relate semiotics to ‘what can be said and done with images, and how the things people say and do with images can be interpreted’. They also outline the three kinds of semiotic work, more known as Halliday’s ‘metafunctions’.
There are three kinds of semiotic work, which occur always simultaneously. Halliday distinguishes these as the ideational metafunction, the interpersonal metafunction and the textual metafunction. The ideational function creates representations. In Cheong’s definition of the ideational meaning, Halliday is also quoted, saying the ideational metafunction involves ‘understand[ing] the environment’, ‘[enabling] humans to … make sense of what goes on around them and inside them’. In the interpersonal metafunction, language plays a part in creating interactions. The textual metafunction ties representation and interaction together into specific kinds of texts or communicative events such as classroom conversations or advertisements. This paper focusses on the ideational metafunction of semiotics.
The ideational meaning is conveyed by the ‘participants’ depicted in images and uses the ‘syntax’ of images as an important source. In space-based semiotic modes such as images or print advertisements, syntax is a matter of spatial relationships, of ‘where things are’ in the semiotic space and of whether or not they are
A replication study of four types of advertisements
Druk <Ctrl + Alt + Shift + S> om het taakvenster met stijlen weer te geven
1 An introduction to semiotics and ideational meaning
This paper aims to replicate the study of Cheong Yin Yuen based on his paper ‘The construal of Ideational meaning in print advertisements’ (2006). Research is conducted in the field of semiotics. This paper begins with an introduction to semiotics and ideational meaning based on the paper ‘Visual Meaning: a Social Semiotic Approach’, written by Carey Jewitt and Rumiko Oyama (2008).
Jewitt and Oyama relate semiotics to ‘what can be said and done with images, and how the things people say and do with images can be interpreted’. They also outline the three kinds of semiotic work, more known as Halliday’s ‘metafunctions’.
There are three kinds of semiotic work, which occur always simultaneously. Halliday distinguishes these as the ideational metafunction, the interpersonal metafunction and the textual metafunction. The ideational function creates representations. In Cheong’s definition of the ideational meaning, Halliday is also quoted, saying the ideational metafunction involves ‘understand[ing] the environment’, ‘[enabling] humans to … make sense of what goes on around them and inside them’. In the interpersonal metafunction, language plays a part in creating interactions. The textual metafunction ties representation and interaction together into specific kinds of texts or communicative events such as classroom conversations or advertisements. This paper focusses on the ideational metafunction of semiotics.
The ideational meaning is conveyed by the ‘participants’ depicted in images and uses the ‘syntax’ of images as an important source. In space-based semiotic modes such as images or print advertisements, syntax is a matter of spatial relationships, of ‘where things are’ in the semiotic space and of whether or not they are
References: Cheong Yin Yuen (2006). The construal of ideational meaning in print advertisements. In: O’Halloran, K. (ed.), Multimodal Discourse Analysis: Systemic Functional Perspectives. London: Continuum, 163-197. Jewitt, Carey & Oyama, Rumiko (2008). Visual meaning. A social-semiotic approach. In: Van Leeuwen, Theo & Jewitt, Carey (eds.), Handbook of Visual Analysis. London: Sage, 134-156.