VISUAL LANGUAGE SKILLS: UTILIZING THE VISUAL ARTS/DESIGN IN A MULTI-MODAL LANGUAGE CLASSROOM Katherine Rhodes Fields, MFA Professor of Fine Arts Houston Community College, Houston, Texas

New London Group, Multiliteracies: Metalanguages to Describe and Interpret the Design Elements of Different Modes of Meaning “Elements of Visual Meaning such as: Colours Perspective Vectors Foregrounding and Backgrounding”

Principles and Elements “Language is a system of interdependent terms in which the value of each term results solely from the simultaneous presence of others.” - Saussure, Course in General Linguistics, 1974 Line Shape/Volume Color Unity/Variety Focal Point Scale/ Proportion Balance Rhythm Texture Space Motion Value

Visual Design Contextualizes: Media within Popular Culture that effects meaning making and discourse in order to socially endure within an L2 environment: Film/Cinema Advertisements Magazines, Newspapers, Online and Paper Based Television The Internet Social Media-Blogging/Twitter/Facebook Web Design/Computer Design Digital Arts/Photography The Culture of Fine Arts

“The illiterate of the future will be ignorant of pen and camera alike.” Laslo Maholy-Nagy, 1935

“ The evolution of language started with pictures, progressed to pictographs, self- explaining cartoons, to phonetic units, and then to the alphabet…Each step of the way was, no doubt, a progression toward more efficient communication.” -Donis A. Dondis, A Primer of Visual Literacy The Hunters of Lascaux

“Visual semiotics deconstructs the communicative visuals while in its attempt to attain the meaning and ideology.” Alev Fatos Parsa Sketches of Pierce and Saussure (The founders of semiotics, the study of signs) The structural model of signs is dependent on certain components and how they interact to create communication.

Visual Literacy Formalized In 1923 Kandinsky claimed that there is a universal correspondence between the 3 basic shapes and the 3 primary colors. Moving from hot to cold, light to dark, & active to passive, the series is an elementary sentence in the language of vision. Visual Syntax also exists within the guideline provided by the formal elements and principles of design that work together to clearly communicate a specific message.

Deriving Meaning in the Visual Arts Description: the creation of a mental image of something experienced, description is identifying qualities that help to make complicated things understandable by reducing them to their component parts. After all, "A picture is worth a thousand words.” Composition: the plan, placement or arrangement of the elements of art in a work. It is often useful to discuss these in reference to the principles of design, as well as to the relative weight of the composition's parts. Personalization: to design or produce (something) to meet someone's individual requirements or the representation of something inanimate or abstract as having personality or the qualities, thoughts, or movements of an individual or living human being. Contextualization: The varied circumstances in which a work of art is (or was) produced and interpreted.

Exploring Visual language to build upon skills for better Descriptive writing. Movie Magic-Color, Cinema & Conventions

Examples of Color Mosaics: Movie Magic Project

Situated Practice: How Color is used to convey meaning in popular cinema Overt Instruction Readings about cultural uses of color Instruction about how to create a mosaic Watch films/movies that use color as a means of communicating specific cultural ideologies Critical Framing Describing with writing how color is used in the film/movie, not just from watching the clips but by having personal association with making small “frames of ideas” with color chips (akin to a movie frame) Movie Magic/Descriptive Writing

The Real Color of Heroes and Villiains “In this movie, the undisputed hero, Harry Potter, is wearing black during this scene, while the villain is in pink, as well as her office, decorated in a kitschy and romantic style. In this case, the good is represented in black, while the evil is represented in pink and nice kitties all around her. According to the meaning of the colors in Argentina, Harry Potter´s analyzed scene is presented, let´s say, in a less orthodox way, compared to other movies. In fact, it could be possible to say that if we try to see the same scene without sound, without the dialogue, the Argentinean idiosyncrasy could understand a complete different situation from the same scene, or even the opposite one: the kind lady in pink, a color related with love in my culture, who likes innocent kitties and have a very polite way of behavior, could be seen as the hero, while Harry Potter, the boy in black tunic, with a angry look in his eyes, could be interpreted as the villain. Heroes and villains can be represented in different ways depending not only on the particular culture, but also on the individual background of the person who gives them life. But what is out of discussion is that heroes and villains are essential components of any movie, and the visual impact generated by the antagonism caused by the colors chosen to represent good and evil, are fundamental for a better construction of this characters.” Descriptive Text from Student BlogStudent’s Corresponding Mosaic

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