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visual dimensions of discourse is indispensable. Studies of advertising, textbooks or
television programs obviously need such cross-media or multi-modal analysis. (1997,
p. 6)
3.5.1 Using images.
A survey of textbooks used in Queensland schools indicates that visual representations that
connect with the text, either through photographs, drawings or maps, as the most commonly
used in school textbooks, have not always featured prominently. It is not unusual for whole
textbooks to have pictures only at the beginning of a chapter (and sometimes not even that),
and the written text for the remainder (see, for example, F.J. Gould, 1909; and Cramp, 1927).
This starts to change around the middle of the 20 th century, and it can be evidenced that
visual cues for learning become more important as they feature in greater quantity throughout
textbooks (see, for example, MacKenzie, 1968; Department of Education, 1954/1963/1966;
and Stewart, 1986), particularly in the latter part of the 20 th century (and is quite possibly
linked with cheaper printing and distribution costs). Nevertheless, even in the earlier years of
the 20 th century visuals are used, with the Queensland School Readers being a noted
example, containing many colour plates and drawings. Therefore the need to analyse visual
material is important in conducting a thorough analysis. Van Leeuwen draws on the different
purposes for including visuals in official school texts, ranging from aesthetic to technical and
ranging in quantity from earlier years of schooling where there are many images to high
school where they become fewer. In relation to this, van Leeuwen writes,
…texts produced for the early years of schooling were richly illustrated, but towards
the later years of primary school images began to give way to a greater and greater
proportion of written text. In as much as images continued, they had become
representations with a technical function, maps, diagrams or photographs illustrating
a particular landform…for instance. (2006, p. 16)
The observation earlier, of the increase in use of visuals in the latter part of the 20 th century is
also made by Kress, Leite-García and van Leeuwen who write, “…it is simply the case that
the communicational and representational landscape, the semiotic landscape, has changed in
far-reaching ways over the last 40 years of so…The visual is now much more prominent as a
form of communication…” (1997, p. 257). This point is affirmed by Luke who writes that the
importance placed on written texts and images in conveying discourses, “…has also
succeeded in making texts and images the new battlegrounds for a politics of representation”
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