The integration of images into architecture presentations: A semiotic analysis

Abstract

In the discipline of architecture, images are central in the development of ideas and the communication of designs. This article focuses on the role of visual communication in a spoken academic genre – the architecture presentation. A set of analytical techniques drawn from linguistics (Kress and van Leeuwen, 1996) was used to investigate ten first-year architecture presentations in an attempt to understand first, the role of images and second, how novice students cope with the demands of a multimodal semiosis, namely the integrating of images, words and actions into a unified speech. The analysis was focused on three areas: the conventions and rhetorical effects of individual images; the co..