Abstract
The objective of this thesis is to study the creolisation, which takes place in the hypermedia. This is the question, how pictures, verbal texts, videos, sounds and many other modes of representation merge into one functional and self-sufficient whole. The thesis asks, whether such integration may be understood and defined as the development of 'hypermedia language' a certain system, with its own rules, grammars and conventions.
The thesis starts by analysing, how different semiotic codes come into being, how they relate to each other and how they are syntactically organised into one coherent whole in the visual compositions of hypermedia texts. In this context the role of the visual composition as the integrating code is analysed. The conclusion reached, is that the manifold mix of differing coding what we have on our multimodal interfaces, could be seen to have quite similar built-up as for instance also verbal language has. It is also shown that if visual composition integrates the different modes according to its own principles, then this way rhetoric tropes are created, which embrace the modally differing elements. The point made, is that these multimodal tropes constitute the subcodes, which make up consistent multimodal texts by integrating them semantically. In this context the computer-interfaces are seen as the comprehensive and sophisticated set of rhetorical figures with several layers.
In the last chapter the tendencies of conventionalisation of the hypothetical 'hypermedia language' are tracked and explained by semiotic theories, which discuss the development of codes and languages in culture's diachrony. The thesis shows, how hypermedia develops into a grammatically sophisticated cultural sphere and analyses what are the cultural mechanisms, how the new grammars are created and conventions are born.