A Multimodal Framework for Computer Mediated Learning: The Reshaping of Curriculum Knowledge and Learning

whom or which the vector emanates, or who themselves form the vector. 'Goals' are
the participants at whom the vector is directed. When a picture or a scene within a
picture has both an actor and a goal it is transactive, representing an action that is
taking place between two parties. It is also possible to have a picture or scene with
only an actor and a vector. For instance, the eye-line and the direction of the gaze of
represented participants realise a special kind of vector. It can also realise a reaction
rather than an action. Such a reaction can, again, be transactive or non-transactive. It
can be that both the person (or perhaps animal) who is depicted as looking and the
object of his or her gaze (transactive reaction) are shown, or only the person looking
and not what he or she is looking at (non-transactive). The concepts of narrative
visual analysis (action, reaction, transactive, non-transactive) can be used to analyse a
visual text - to address questions such as who is shown active, and who is shown as
reactive in visual texts in relation to a particular issue. Alongside the realisation of
these processes narrative structures include what Kress and van Leeuwen (1996:) call
‘circumstances’. Circumstance is used to refer to the setting, means and
accompaniment of these processes.

Images that do not contain vectors are termed ‘conceptual structures’. They visually
define, analyse or classify people, places and things. One kind of conceptual pattern
is that of classification. This brings representations of entities, people, places or
things, together in one picture, distributing them symmetrically across the picture
space to show that they are equivalent in some respect, that they have something in
common, and that they belong to the same ‘group’. ‘Symbolic attributive’ structures
define the meaning or identity of a participant. For example, in Chapter Six, I discuss
the use of the props of scientific equipment in the CD-ROM Multimedia School
Science to confer the symbolic meaning of investigation.

Interpersonal Meaning

Images create particular relations between viewers and the world inside the picture
frame. In this way they interact with viewers and suggest the attitude viewers should

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