Rhetorical moves’ coherence, layout design and typographical realizations in travel brochures

Brochures are one of the significant marketing tools used to publicise marketing bushiness, including travel and tourism. A typical well-designed brochure contains typical and coherent rhetorical moves that serve a communicative function in the discourse. The coherence of these moves is hold by meaningful relations and organised layout structures. Although previous studies on promotional discourse analysis have focused on texts and visuals, there is still a lack of in-depth analysis regarding the coherence of moves in terms of layout design and typographical realizations. Therefore, this study is significant because it aims to bridge this gap by revealing a new direction for viewing rhetorical moves as texts. It emphasizes the importance of certain layout and typography in order to achieve the intended communicative purpose. The study utilized a quantitative genre multimodal analysis with a moderate sample size of fifteen travel brochures that were purposefully selected and collected during the annual MATTA Fair event in Kuala Lumpur. It employed two analytical frameworks: Bhatia's (1993) Move-Structural Model to identify the moves, and Bateman's (2008) Genre and Multimodal framework to identify the relations that reflect coherence, layout design structure, and typography.The data annotation process was implemented through manual coding annotation in the form of XML files. A set of software was used for coding and visualizing the data, namely the Genre and Multimodality (hereinafter GeM) tools and Python software.The findings of move analysis revealed that out of the nine typical moves only six moves were identified in both textual and visual modes. These moves were M4 (Detailing the product or service), M5 (Establishing credentials), M7 (Offering incentives), M8 (Using pressure tactics), and M9 (Soliciting response). Besides, M1 (Headine) was found to occur mainly in textual mode. In terms of coherence of moves, the findings showed that the M4 is formed coherently through the Elaboration relation. Other moves, such as M7 and M8, maintain coherence through Motivation relations. While M1, M5, and M4 reflect coherence through Background, Identification and Restatement relations. Regarding the layout design and location of moves, the findings indicated that M4 occupied the largest space compared to the other moves, which reflects its significance over the others. The typographical design reflected that creativity in designing brochures does not necessarily follow common standards. The study concluded that the occurrence of rhetorical moves in visual modes is a common feature in promotional genres. The study contributes to the field of move analysis by integrating the two main frameworks of Bhatia and Bateman into a single visualization structure. It also expands the areas of investigation beyond linguistic expressions.

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