Visual and Multimodal Communication

Successful communication requires optimal relevance to the target audience. Relevance theory provides an excellent model based on this insight, but until now the impact of the theory has been restricted due to an almost exclusive focus on spoken face-to-face communication. Visual and Multimodal Communication is the first book to systematically demonstrate how relevance theory can fulfill its promise to develop into an inclusive theory of communication. This book explains how relevance theory can be adapted to accommodate mass-communicative messages in pictograms, advertisements, cartoons, and comics, paving the way for a theory of communication covering different modes, media, and genres.