Stronger together: Moving towards a combined multimodal and intermedial model

Abstract

This article explores the complementary potential of intermedial and multimodal semiotic analysis. Both multimodal and intermedial research explore the multifaceted nature of communication. However, since research fields have different foci and analytical methods, they are less connected than they could be. We approach intermediality and multimodality as complementary frameworks and argue that there is much to gain in drawing on the analytical strengths of both. To this end, underlying differences in method and theoretical assumptions need to be made explicit. Drawing on John A. Bateman and Lars Elleström’s previous explorations of the common ground between the frameworks, we map an arena where multimodal and intermedial analysis can work together. We demonstrate how a combined multimodal and intermedial perspective can function by zooming in and out between the perspectives as we explore the role of “Ride of the Valkyries” in Wagner’s opera Die Walküre (1870), in a Nazi newsreel, and in Francis Ford Coppola’s movie Apocalypse Now (1979). The multimodal perspective provides us with nuanced language for transcribing and discussing how different semiotic resources work together, and the intermedial perspective allows us to discuss the chain of media transformation, where each instance increases and transforms the meaning potential of the “Ride of the Valkyries”.