The graphic design of texts has become a linguistic object in its own right. To date, however, it has rarely been considered from a sociolinguistic perspective. The present volume attempts to fill this gap by offering the first comprehensive sociolinguistic theory of visual communication. It shows how meaning is generated through graphic variation, based on collective communicative knowledge and social attribution processes.

Jürgen Spitzmüller, Universität Zürich, Schweiz.