Page 406 - Handbooks of Applied Linguistics Communication Competence Language and Communication Problems Practical Solutions

384 Martin Reisigl

The first three strategies are differentiated on the basis of criteria such as dis-
tance, angle and gaze, which constitute three key factors that are involved in
each visual representation and can be integrated into a system network.
Different degrees of distance are visually represented within a continuum of
close shots and long shots. Visual discrimination by symbolic distanciation
means to depict specific persons or groups of persons in relation to the viewers
as if they were not “close” to the viewers, as if they were “strangers” far from
the observers (see van Leeuwen 2000: 339). Such a representation entails an un-
differentiated, de-individualizing portrayal without any details. Long shots,
however, are not a means of visual discrimination per se, but – since any form of
discrimination is a relational issue that involves a comparative figure – become
discriminatory against specific persons or social groups only if there are other
persons or groups, which, in comparison to those preferentially depicted by long
shots, are preferentially represented by close-ups, which imply greater nearness,
differentiation and the possibility to perceive more individual characteristics.
Kress and Van Leeuwen discovered in a case study on the Australian school
book Our Society and Others, that in the chapter on Aboriginal people, all Abo-
rigines except one were represented by long shots, whereas the book’s depic-
tions of non-Aboriginal people did not follow this pattern (see van Leeuwen
2000: 337). Comparisons like this one permit a diagnosis of whether there is
discrimination at work or not. Such a comparison of the representation of in-
and outgroups has to draw on representative empirical findings, since symbolic
distanciation is predominantly part of a pattern or syndrome not recognizable at
first glance, and thus part of implicit discrimination.
The angle from which a person is depicted can tell both (a) about the relation
of power between the viewer and the represented person (this aspect regards the
vertical angle from above, from below or on eye level), and (b) about the re-
lation of involvement between the viewer and the represented person (this as-
pect concerns the horizontal angle, i.e. the frontal or oblique representation).
Presupposing that looking up at someone from a low angle in many social con-
texts means to be less powerful, that looking at someone from eye-level denotes
a symmetric power relationship or equal social position, and that social super-
ordination or domination is related to a relatively high, more elevated point of
view (one may just think of the “boss’s chair”), to visually represent somebody
as below the viewer, as “downtrodden” (van Leeuwen 2000: 339), can mean to
symbolically disempower the depicted person. Symbolic disempowerment be-
comes implicit discrimination, if specific social groups and their members (e.g.
outgroup and minority members) are systematically more often “objects” of a
perspectivation from above or a bird’s eye view than other social groups (e.g. in-
group and majority members).
The relation of involvement and detachment, which concerns the apparent
social interaction between depicted figures and viewers, is visually expressed