"Poof! a'm heppily saving the Lord...": multimodality and evaluative discourses in male toilet graffiti at the University of the Western Cape
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Date
2015
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Taylor & Francis
Abstract
This paper explores the use of punctuation, capitalisation, linguistic forms and
images in the construction of evaluative discourses in male toilet graffiti at the
University of the Western Cape. Of particular interest is how male students use
these devises in the discursive construction of the appraisal resource of Attitude,
Graduation and Evaluation. Using over 150 tokens of graffiti, the paper uses a multimodal
approach employing notions of resemiotisation and remediation to show
how taboo language, font size, images and sketches are repurposed to aid the evaluation
of the 'self' and the 'other' in toilet graffiti. The paper shows that through utilising
multimodal texts, graffiti writers are able to reformulate and situate novel
meanings in contexts; and in terms of appraisal, the verbal and non-verbal semiotic
material are strategically combined to engender novel evaluations.
Description
Keywords
Toilet graffiti, Evaluative discourse, Appraisal, University of the Western Cape, Multimodality
Citation
Ferris, F. S. & Banda, F. (2015). "Poof! a'm heppily saving the Lord...": multimodality and evaluative discourses in male toilet graffiti at the University of the Western Cape. African Identities, 13(4): 243-261