Production and Interpretation

While reading Gunther Kress and Theo Van Leeuwen’s Multimodal Discourse for my Writing for Electronic Communities class, I came upon a very interesting concept, one which I had never really taken into consideration before. On page 68 Kress/Van Leeuwen state that “production plays an independent semiotic role in communication and does not merely realize what we have called design.”

I sat there and thought about this statement for a while, wondering what the authors meant. I had to reread the example passage to wrap my head around what, to some, might seem obvious, but I think I finally understand what is being discussed. Kress and Van Leeuwen explain how an existing design of writing is influenced by the voice that reads it out, or a song is changed by the physical articulation of the singer’s voice, the original written design is effected directly by the speaker or singer. In a sense the speaker and singer have added further meaning to the final production of the written piece, “meanings which are not pre-figured by the designs.”

Take for instance the written song, American Pie. When Don McLean sings it, his voice offers an interpretation that others don’t. He is the original singer, some might see his voice as the authority of the song. His voice offers a cadence of rock and roll Americana wrapped in musical reverence for America’s cultural and musical heritage. Then I looked at the covers of this song and wondered what other artists brought to the song to influence the final production and alter the interpretation. The most obvious is Madonna’s version. Put aside that this version is shorter than the original lyrics and composition, Madonna’s voice has morphed a rock song into a dance-pop song, opening the piece up to a different interpretation, a younger generation and a new audience. While we can take into account the physical and vocal differences of each artist, noting how their voices physically change the final product of the song, you also have to look at how the artists personalities effect the final results. Don McLean is nostalgic and relives the 1950’s, lamenting the days when rock and roll was purer, but likewise, Madonna’s version is also reflective of history, setting the video of the song back in the 70’s, when McLean first recorded it, but her version also reflected social awareness of the present time (2000’s), focusing on issues such as gay relationships, AIDS, interracial families and ordinary people.  Even if my interpretation of what Kress and Van Leeuwen are trying to get at is inaccurate, I have come away considering how an original piece of writing can be changed and communication revolutionalized by the human touch of individuality, both through physical and vocal cadence, to personal morals and societal ideologies.