Abstract Information graphics, or infographics, have long been regarded as a data visualisation format to turn mass data into systematic, comprehensible information. The infographic content in printed and online news media has provided substantial news value to enhance the credibility of news agency (Meyer, 2004) as they provide objectivity, accuracy and aesthetic values. The voices of infographic designers are thus often hidden behind the vividly presented information. While it is admitted that understanding infographics is a discourse-level problem (Carberry et al, 2003), little has been to explore the discourse functions the elements serve in the infographics, apart from more empirical explorations on content and automatic recognition (Carberry et al, 2003; Huang and Tan, 2007; Keefer, 2011; Meyer, 2004). In view of this, adopting the visual and verbal APPRAISAL theories (Economou, 2006; Macken-Horarik, 2004; Martin, 2001; Martin and White, 2005), this paper investigates the interpersonal meanings construed in the visual and verbal elements of one infographic content from an online local newspaper about hunting endangered species. This paper aims to reveal the potential voices and evaluation of the infographic designers, and identify the discourse functions served in the elements for future empirical studies and other practical implications.

1. Interpersonal meanings
in Internet news
infographic on ivory
poaching
Eric Cheung (13901602R)
Infographic: “Everything you need to
know about ivory poaching” (published
on 7 January 2014 from SCMP by Adolfo
Arronz)
Retrieved from:
http://www.scmp.com/infographics/article/1399263/everyt
hing-you-need-know-about-ivory-poaching

2. Infographics: significance
• Portmanteau of information and graphics
• “An informational contribution… done with
iconic and typographical elements” (Sancho,
as cited in Giardina and Medina, 2012, p.246)
• “Infographics are getting widespread in the
Internet media” (Dur, 2014, p.137)
• Evolving infographics to allow interactivity –
adding values to journalistic media

3. Major research on infographics
• Quantitative
– Content analysis (Giardina and Medina, 2012)
– Distribution of infographic types (Ghode, 2012;
Jacobson, 2012)
• Experimental and cognitive
– Navigation path (Holsanova, 2005)
– Automatic recognition (Huang and Tan, 2007)

4. Research Gap
• Understanding infographics is a “discourse-
level problem” (Carberry et al., 2003)
• Necessitate investigation of how visual-verbal
text complexes are socially constructed
– With the use of a variety of semiotic resources
– Visual: image, diagram, vectors, colour, fonts
– Verbal: textual structure, texture, word choice
• Social semiotics of infographics in the new
media

5. Systemic-functional Multimodal
Discourse Analysis (SF-MDA)
• SF-MDA: the promising potential of analysing
the dynamics of the semiotic resources in the
infographics construing meaning
• Theorising how different semiotic resources
interact to construe meaning with the
principles of metafunctions
– ideational/representational (construing reality)
– interpersonal (enacting social relations)
– textual/organisational (organising discourse)

6. Research questions and approaches
• How is the information structured to maintain a
consistent meaning throughout the text?
– Information value, salience and framing(Kress and van
Leeuwen, 2006)
• How are the interpersonal meanings construed in the
visual-verbal text?
– Verbal APPRAISAL (Martin and White, 2005)
– Visual APPRAISAL (Bednerak and Caple, 2012; Economou,
2009; Swain, 2012)
• Close discourse analysis
– Annotating the infographic data
– Interpreting the statistical findings

7. Interpersonal meanings explicated
• APPRAISAL (Martin and White)
– ATTITUDE (explicit emotion and valuation)
• Affect (expressing emotions – e.g. happy, secure)
• Judgement (valuating people – e.g. honest, capable)
• Appreciation (valuation things – e.g. quality,
composition)
– ENGAGEMENT (single or multiple, alternative voices)
• Contract (highlighting authorial presence – e.g. deny)
• Expand (suggesting possibilities and alternatives)
– GRADUATION (degree of intensity/quantity)
• Focus
• Force

8. Economou’s (2009) visual graduation
• Force
– Quantification
• Number
• Mass
• Extent (proximity,
distribution)
– Intensification
• Brightness
• Vividness
– Repetition (of similar,
countable items)
• Focus
– Specification
• Clarity
• Substantiation
• Completion
• Graduation values
– High
– Median
– Low

9. Evaluative key (or voice)
• Evaluation distribution with a particular type
of text (or register)
– The evaluation within a single text is stance
– Voice in journalistic discourse (White, 1998, 2006)
• Reporter voice (personal judgement absent; judgement
attributed)
• Correspondent voice (judgement confined to “esteem”)
• Commentator voice (use of judgement values liberally)
– Voice in political cartoon (Swain, 2012)
• Observer, jester, indictor voices

10. Genre and macrogenres
• “Genre” is the abstract level of how a text is
organised to reach social goals in stages (Martin,
1984)
– Engage (storytelling); inform (report); evaluate
(critique)
• “Macrogenres”: Texts are often comprised of
multiple “microgenres” (Martin and Rose, 2007,
p.218)
– Achieving multiple social purposes
– Elements composited according to information values
(Kress and van Leeuwen, 2006, p.177)

11. Composition of visual texts
• Relates the representational and interactive
meanings of the image to each other through
(Kress and van Leeuwen, 2006, p.177):
– Information value (zone of the image placed)
– Salience (point of attraction in the image text)
– Framing (connection of elements in the image)

12. Data of the present study
• Global genre: news story
Purpose: to narrate (lead story 1st)
• Prominent placement of
Information value
Ideal-Real: overarching info at the
top; practical info at the bottom
Centre-margin: elements arranged
around the elephant head and the
tusk
Major micro-genres
Historical recount (figures, tables)
Sequential explanations (“Tusk
extraction)
Compositional report (“Up close”)
Descriptive report (ivory as luxury
goods)

13. Potential navigation path
•The direction of the tusk is a vector
suggesting the reading path
•From the root of the tusk to the tip
•Justified by the textual cohesion
•25% of the tusk is inside…
•… as it contains 25% of the
tusk
•Elements of lower salience at the
marginal areas may attract less attention
•The elephant’s forehead and the two
types of elephants beside the forehead
•The tusks are the centre of focus
•Each element (unit) has a more
miniscule, subtle reading path (left to
right, top to bottom)

14. Visual-verbal APPRAISAL
Sub-types +ve (verbal) -ve (verbal) +ve (visual) -ve (visual)
Capability 1 0 0 0
Normality 0 3 0 5
Propriety 4 9 0 3
5 12 0 8
Sub-types +ve (verbal) -ve (verbal) +ve (visual) -ve (visual)
Impact 0 1 0 0
Quality 1 0 2 0
Valuation 2 1 0 0
3 2 2 0
Judgement
Appreciation

15. Verbal APPRAISAL
• Attitude
– Ivory has played an important role [+appreciation]
– Poachers [-judgement] need to cut off a big portion of the
elephant's head [-judgement]
• Engagement
– But [contract: disclaim: counter] to no [contract: disclaim:
deny] avail
• Graduation
– reverse a rapid [graduation: force] decline in the
population of African elephants

16. Visual-verbal APPRAISAL
Graduation
Sub-types Verbal Visual
Force 7 13
Focus 1 11
8 24
Sub-types Verbal Visual
Counter 4 0
Deny 1 0
Pronounce 1 0
6 0
Engagement: contraction

17. Visual APPRAISAL
High salience (graduation:
quantification: mass)
Mid salience (graduation:
specification: vividness)
Low salience (graduation: specification: low clarity/vividness)

18. APPRAISAL synergy creating
overall stance
• Attitudinal evaluation is mainly in verbal text
– “Lead” of the verbal texts and attitudinal meaning
– the major body text (larger font, next to
headline, attitude-dense)
• Visual elements provide graduation to up-
scale the poachers’ cruelty and immorality
– “Lead” of the visual texts – the elephant head
with the tusks (centre, high salience)

19. Summary of the study
• Objective images (Kress and van Leeuwen, 2006)
are embedded with author’s values
• Spreading of interpersonal meanings
– From the main text (at the Ideal position)
– From the salient illustration of elephant head (at the
centre position)
– Determining the overall stance of other elements
• The overall voice of the infographic is
“commentator” voice (White, 1998)
– Numerous judgement of social esteems and sanctions

20. Implications and future studies
• Visual and information literacy
– Clarity, consistency, precision and aesthetics (Duenes,
2008; Sancho, 2001)
– Criticality (understanding of ethical and moral social
values) and ability to express it verbally and visually
• Future studies
– Generalising the micro-genres in infographics for
empirical analyses
– Schematic structure of infographics
– Comparing visual-verbal interpersonal meaning
patterning in infographics within the same field