Chapter 5 - Modality: designing models of reality

Modality and Multiple Meanings
I’m having a difficult time this week juggling “modal” terms. Here in ENGL 853, Visual Communication, we’re discussing modality in terms of Kress and van Leeuwen’s definition: “The term ‘modality’ comes from linguistics and refers to the truth value or credibility of (linguistically realized) statements about the world” (155).

However, in ENGL 885, Teaching Composition, we are preparing for a final assignment, a multi-modal composition, in which we construct meaning using something beyond the traditional pen and paper (printed document). Our activity in ENGL 885 does not seem to be congruent with the above definition. Kress and van Leeuwen’s definition relates to truth, which, in my mind, is a social construction. The multi-modality of our composition, will also signify a “truth,” within different media, in my case, a web page, video, audio, text, and visual entities. I’m trying to stretch myself from the traditional school of composition, into new (multimodal) media, perhaps to the avant garde.

So what do these two interpretations of modality have in common? When the authors talk about the linguistic qualifiers that indicate lower or higher modality, I shudder to think these terms might transfer to my multimodal composition to affect the credibility of one medium over another. For am I not able to tell the “truth” or at least signify my meaning equally in all media at any given time, whether my audience reads it, sees it, or hears it? In the case of paper or another concrete object, my reader may also feel and smell the medium (on another “canvas”). I guess this will all become more clear when we discuss Chapter 6: The Meaning of Composition.

Here in Chapter 6, the authors say: "any text whose meanings are realized through more than one semiotic code is multimodal" (177). But what about the truth?