69249454-chandler-semiotics

TEXTUAL INTERACTIONS 193
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distinguish between ‘intimate’, ‘personal’, ‘social’ and ‘public’ (or
‘impersonal’) modes of address (Hall 1966; Kress and van Leeuwen
1996, 130–5). In relation to language, formality is quite closely tied
to explicitness, so that intimate language tends to be minimally
explicit and maximally dependent on non-verbal cues, while public
language tends to reverse these features (especially in print). In usage
related also to directness of address, social distance can also established
through the use of loaded quasi-synonyms to reflect ideological
distinctions of ‘us’ from ‘them’, as in ‘I am a patriot; you are a
nationalist; they are xenophobes.’
In visual representation, social distance is related in part to
apparent proximity. In camerawork, degrees of formality are reflected
in shot sizes – close-ups signifying intimate or personal modes,
medium shots a social mode and long shots an impersonal mode
(Kress and van Leeuwen 1996, 130–5; cf. Tuchman 1978, 116–20).
In visual media, the represented physical distance between the
observed and the observer often reflects attempts to encourage feelings
of emotional involvement or critical detachment in the viewer.
The cultural variability of the degree of formality signified by
different zones of proximity was highlighted in relation to face-toface
interaction in Edward T. Hall’s influential book – The Hidden
Dimension (Hall 1966). Proximity is not the only marker of social
distance in the visual media: angles of view are also significant. High
angles (looking down on a depicted person from above) are widely
interpreted as making that person look small and insignificant, and
low angles (looking up at them from below) are said to make them
look powerful and superior (Messaris 1997, 34–5 and 1994, 158;
Kress and van Leeuwen 1996, 146).
Note that while the significations such as those listed in relation
to photographic and filmic modes of address may represent the
currently dominant, conventional or ‘default’ linkages of signifiers
and signifieds, no programmatic decoding based on a ‘dictionary’
of one-to-one correspondences is possible – in analogue codes in
particular there is a sliding relationship between signifiers and signifieds
which may be anchored in various ways by the codes of the
particular textual systems in which they are employed (Nichols 1981,
108).