Abstract
The book proposes a multi-perspective analytical model for the understanding of corporate identity meanings embedded in historical discourse for the web. The suggested theoretical framework conflates methodological perspectives derived from Discourse Analysis, Multimodality and Cognitive Linguistics. The contribution of Cognitive Linguistics to the proposed analysis is based on two main assumptions. First, the lack of principled distinction between semantics and pragmatics, whereby meaning is a function of the activation of conceptual knowledge structures in context. Second – and this is crucial for hypertext analysis – language, as the outcome of general properties of cognition, is closely related to visual perception. The originality of this approach to web discourse analysis resides in the deployment of tools considering the cross-modal integration of different resource systems. It also offers interpretive keys for the understanding of mechanisms underlying the formatting of the message as a multimodal construct. The empirical analyses presented in the book illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed methodological approach.