More Kress and VanLeeuwen

To be fair, this is the first Kress and VanLeeuwen that we have read this semester. I am trying to think, though, if I have been in this program a semester without reading them? It seems as though they have been omnipresent in my phd work...

Multimodal Discourse, however, is by far my favorite. I don't know why. Perhaps this is actually easier to read, or perhaps I am finally getting used to the way they right.

Regardless, I will never see home dec magazines the same way again. I never thought about they way they shape the way we see our homes. I am sure that television programs do the same thing. We have a house that was built in the the early 20th century. It was certainly built before 1936 (a city directory lists an inhabitant here then). When we moved in, it had three bedrooms, a kitchen, a bathroom, a tiny laundry room (that probably used to be a back porch), a living/dining room. We think the bathroom was likely carved out of the middle bedroom. The attic, which we use as storage, at one time was used as a bedroom, judging from the phone and cable hook-ups. We interpret this house differently from the previous inhabitants. And we chose an old house, in an old part of town, whereas most of my friends live in newer homes in "better" parts of town. When I moved in my house, it had carpet in the living room, bedrooms, and attic, with cheap lino in the kitchen, dining, laundry, and bath. Underneath the carpet was hardwood floors.

How do we decide what is important in a house? Or even where the television goes? A lot of magazines I see do not even show televisions in their living spaces, but I know most households in America have several. Where are their computers? We have a computer for each person, here. Those do not "fit" into a decorating scheme. At all.

I can compare this to my friend Cindy's house. Granted, her home is bigger. There are still fundamental ways that her house is different. Each bedroom has its own bathroom. These were purpose built and integrated into the home. The laundry room was intended to be there. You do not go through it to get to the back door. Different kinds of flooring are used for different functions of the house. She has ceramic tile in the kitchen/dining/breakfast/laundry area, carpet in the bedrooms, and hardwood in the living rooms.

I say all of this to say this: we participate in many ways of making meaning. And we are not even aware that we do this. Similar conceptualizations of making meaning exist in other contexts besides our homes. Clothing is another area. This year, I intentionally upgraded my wardrobe to see what would happen. (I wear mostly skirts now, instead of slacks). A thought experiment, if you will. Student treat me more professionally and with more distance. When I wore mostly "business casual" they told me more about their personal lives. There is a grammar, evidently, of how you talk to people based on how they dress. I don't think I am any less approachable, personally. The only thing that has really changed has been my clothing.