ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the interrelationship between images and written language in a text entitled “Good Guys, Bad Guys” from a 1997 issue of the Australian sports magazine, Rugby League Week. An analysis of the written text and the images reveals how ‘ideational’ intersemiotic complementarity (Royce, 1998a, 1998b) is realized in this text. Ideational intersemiotic multimodal relations primarily construe features of the relevant field of the context of situation of the text in question, and work to bring ideational coherence to the internal multimodal features of the text. An interpretation of the choices realizing ideational intersemiotic complementarity against the backdrop of the broader context of the text points to a particular view of ‘good guys’ and ‘bad guys’ and reflects an ideology of masculinity that adheres to established hegemonic masculinity in western society. An interesting outcome of the analysis of ideational intersemiotic complementarity is that it reveals how a set of criteria for bad guys is condoned and excused, and in the end almost nullified. This outcome suggests possible ideological directions in the application of Royce’s concept of intersemiotic complementarity.
