Interpreting the Construction of the Multimodality of E. E Cummings’ "Eccentric Typographical" Poem "l(a"

Abstract

Kress and Van Leeuwen, who introduced the meta-function into visual circumstances and established the Grammar of Visual Design which is developed from the theoretical framework of Halliday's systemic functional grammar and provides a theoretical foundation for researches on multimodality, holds that not only verbal semiotics but also visual semiotics can express meaning. Therefore, based upon the theory of systemic functional grammar and the theory of multimodal discourse analysis, this paper takes E. E cummings' poem l(a as an example and attempts to propose a model of multimodal approach to visual poems. The particular focuses of the study are laid on interpreting the construction of its verbal modality which includes the ideational metafunction, interpersonal metafunction and textual metafunction, and the construction of its visual modality (typographical aspects) which includes the establishment of visual grammar systems and the ways the grammatical structures of visual modality realize representational metafunction, interactive metafunction and compositional metafunction so as to explore different possibilities of interpreting the poem. It is proved by the study that multimodality approach proves a systemic and more through way in interpreting such poems. Meanwhile, it further verifies the fact that multimodal analytic approach to discourse integrates language and language-related resources, with the result of making the discourse interpretation more comprehensive and approximative. Hopefully, the provoking result of this study will inspire further studies on multimodal approach to visual poetry.