The Role of Illustrations in Popularizing Medical Discourse

Abstract

This article deals with illustrations in popularizing medical discourse. This visual tool can be considered as a strategy of paraphrasing, since popularizing journalists simplify and make information more explicit by using other semiotic information related to the main scientific content. A comparable corpus composed of the online versions of two American, two French and two Italian magazines of science popularization has been analysed. The role of illustrations, as well as their usefulness in terms of comprehension of the text, has been highlighted through a socio-terminological approach (Gaudin 2003). As far as a typological distinction of the illustrations is concerned, a Peircean classification has been adopted (Fisette 2009; Lathene-Da Cunha 2013). A number of observations emerge from the comparison between the magazines, per type and per language: the article shows that, while some illustrations contribute to a better intelligibility of the article’s content, others influence readers’ sensitivity.