This study proposes a social semiotic analysis of visual communication in a
scientific research genre, the conference presentation. It focuses on the
spatial and temporal visual resources available in this genre to create
texture and cohesion, and examines how logical relations, discourse
structure and rhetorical claims are expressed visually in this particular
communicative context. By comparing how three different scientific
disciplines ? geology, medicine and physics ? exploit these resources in
field-specific ways, it shows that visual communication in science is deeply
embedded in disciplinary practice and varies in response to the type of
data investigated, the methodology and epistemology of each field. The
data used for the study and recorded on video film comprise over 2000
visuals (slides and transparencies) projected during 90 presentations given
at international scientific conferences. |