Similarities and Differences in Interpreting Multimodal Discourses Between "Decoders" and "Encoders".

In order to explore the gaps between decoder's interpretations and encoder's designing intentions with respect to the same multimodal discourses, thirty linguistic and thirty art graphic participants were chosen as decoders and encoders, respectively. The participants were required to interpret the same research data in terms of the best and the worst major colors, as well as the best and the worst synergetic patterns formed by major modes. It was found that the complete unanimity in terms of both color and spatial arrangements among the interpretations between participants only reached 43.3%. The unanimity in the interpretations from the perspective of color alone reached 46.7%. Moreover, the interpretations from the perspective of spatial arrangements present high unanimity, with a rate up to 70%. It is concluded that there are both differences and similarities between the interpretations made by encoders and decoders. The possible reasons underlying both differences and similarities are probed in the present study as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]