Classificational Processes

A brief overview of pages 79–87 of Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design by Gunther Kress and Theo van Leeuwen.

Classificational Processes

“Classificational processes relate participants to each other in terms of a ‘kind of’ relation, a taxonomy: at least one set of participants will play the role of Subordinates with respect to at least one other participant, the Superordinate.” (79)

Realizations

Covert Taxonomy — “A set of participants (‘Subordinates’) is distributed symmetrically across the picture space, at equal distance from each other, equal in size, and oriented towards the vertical and horizontal axes in the same way.” (87)

Single-levelled Overt Taxonomy — “A participant (‘Superordinate’) is connected to two or more other participants (‘Subordinates’) through a tree structure with two levels only.” (87)

Multi-levelled Overt Taxonomy — “A participant (‘Superordinate’) is connected to other participants through a tree structure with more than two levels. The participants which occupy intermediate levels are Interordinates, while those which occupy the lowest level (if the Superordinate is on top) or the highest level (if the Superordinate is at the bottom) are Subordinates.” (87)