Animal Farm’s Book Covers and the Death of the Core Text: A Study in Multimodal Translation
The book cover has mainly been studied as an intersemiotic translation of the author’s text.
Intersemiotic translation was defined by Jakobson (1959) as an interpretation of verbal signs through signs of non-verbal sign systems. Kaindl (2013) rethought and extended Jakobson’s definition by classifying intersemiotic translation into four types: intramodal, intramedial, intermodal and intermedial. Just as translation exists within and between modes and media, the book cover can display the publisher’s identity in addition to the author’s text. While a few studies have argued that the book cover is a multimodal representation of the publisher’s identity, these studies do not explicitly consider the book cover itself as a form of multimodal translation.
This study of the book cover argues for a new perspective on multimodal translation. I define multimodal translation as the interplay between the semiotic agents involved in book cover design and the social agents involved in the book’s production, distribution and reception. My research has investigated how the negotiation of the meaning between social agents involved with the production of the book manifests itself in the evolution of its cover. As far as in-house agents are concerned, I have decided to focus on art directors, commissioned designers, illustrators and photographers, who are the initial visual translators in visualising the book’s meaning. In addition, by placing myself as the target reader, and conceptualising my interaction and interpretation with book covers, I acknowledge that the reader is also a participant in this visualisation.
I propose a new methodological interpretative framework to evaluate the book cover, including the front cover, spine and back cover, as the outermost representational frame of multimodal translation. First, I discuss Stöckl’s network of modes, sub-modes and features in printed media (2004) which inspired my framework. I then integrate Kress and Van Leeuwen’s concepts related to multimodality and visual grammar (1996-2002). Next, I develop my framework drawing upon Stöckl’s and Kress and van Leeuwen’s concepts. I classify the semiotic agents produced by the social agents and the condensed discourse of the social agents into modes (verbal and visual), an in-between mode (typography), and smaller units (sub-modes, features and sub-features).
The argument put forward in this doctoral dissertation is built on five case studies: the editions of Animal Farm in the history of the Penguin publications (1951-2008). Changes in book cover designs reflect the socio-historical and cultural evolution of the Penguin brand. The 1951 and 1963 book covers suggest that Lane, the publisher, was a more prominent agent than designers in visualising the initial Penguin Books and Penguin Modern Classics series, respectively. The 1970, 2007 and 2008 book covers; however, revealed that towards the late 2000s the discourse of art directors and designers became more important in enhancing the cultural and commercial style and position of Penguin. Finally, in 2008 the involvement of Fairey – the Obey Giant brand mastermind – led to a visual climax in the history of Penguin’s orange fiction look and appeal.
Through the medium of street art, Fairey deconstructs the Penguin’s inter-series connection and take not only the author’s text, but also the publisher’s peritext from the book to the urban space, particularly the street.
My study has thus conceptualised the core text as the author’s text by hypothesising ‘the death of the core text.’ Arguing for the death of the core text implies a powerful and to some uncomfortable shift: the author’s text no longer occupies centre stage. Fairey’s street art discourse led me to propose a new definition of the ‘core text’ as my research developed and deepened. The core text is the main body of a book in which the author, publisher, designer and reader are active agents. As the socio-historical context of the publisher defines visualisation of the author’s text, the wider socio-historical context outside the publishing house defines the publisher’s peritext. I rethought and extended Genette’s concept of the paratext. The street – a timeless conveyor-belt of people, ideas, actions defining local and global societies – is itself an example of multimodal translation. It too, therefore, is central to understanding external and evolving environment as the book’s core text.
Fairey’s street art discourse has led me to argue that multimodal translation moves beyond verbal signs and semiotic agents into a new discursive space which I have conceptualised as a ‘network maze.’ The street becomes the outermost and the widest frame of multimodal translation that moves beyond the author’s text, framing the interrelated systems, including book cover, book, series, publishing house and bookshop. All the social agents interact with each other in this surrounding space; the result of this interaction is represented on and via the book cover, which becomes a book in itself, offering its own discourse and visualisation.
