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Authorial engagement is expressed through choice, namely the type and the composition of the representation. These representational choices depend on context – aptness for purpose and audience. In writing, authorial engagement can be revealed through attitude markers, the use of pronouns, active and passive voice, and rhetorical questions. Authorial engagement can even be established through the visual design of the writing such as typographical choices, the use of punctuation (for instance, the use of commas to pause and breathe), layout, the use of white space, spelling (is it grey or is it gray?) and ways of asserting identity through cool visual lexicons (such as homophones is short text messages).

In images, authorial engagement can be demonstrated through aspects such as the choice or type of image, how the image is sourced, the use of colour and even colour saturation, composition (what is foregrounded and backgrounded), and social relations between represented participants in an image (see Archer 2013). In terms of composition, Kress and Van Leeuwen talked about the concepts of given and new in their 2006 book, Reading Images. A grammar of visual design. Perhaps they have moved away from these more prescriptive notions now, but the fact remains that in composition, position matters. For example, in the past, the figure of Johnny Walker on the whiskey bottle was represented as walking from right to left. This directionality was seen as signifying movement into the past and it was then changed to the current logo where he walks from left to right, signifying walking into the future. Positionality and directionality as such are thus important semiotic resources for meaning-making.

Now, I will look at a how authorial engagement is realized in infographics and data visualizations. It is important to be aware of the construction of these texts as the assumptions underlying the numbers are generally hidden and numerical representations are often regarded as more factual and objective than other kinds of evidence. Here we need to look at: what is measured and summarized; the type and choice of information graphic; the composition of the graphic (Prince & Archer 2014). There are design choices to be made here in terms of size, shape, colour and composition in order to represent an argument to a particular audience in the most apt way. One could, for example, choose the default design option when creating a bar chart to represent data. This would comprise blue bars on a grey background. There are a host of other design choices that could be made, however, such as using different colours for different bars for ease of comparison or making the spaces between the bars narrower or wider, including horizontal lines to facilitate ease of reading. The range of options for representation of information is endless and can be creative depending on the communicative purpose and audience (see Abbildung 2).

Abbildung 2: Authorial engagement in infographics

The representational choices made in Abbildung 2 may not be appropriate in certain academic disciplines, and may, in fact, weaken academic voice, whereas they function well in popular journalistic genres. However, in creating information graphics, we need to be aware of the full range of representational resources in order to make appropriate selections for the particular domain in which we are operating, both in terms of content and voice. Understanding the relation between agency and constraints is crucial for exploring how we construct authorial voice here. As Thesen describes it, «voice, like language, is never neutral; it is always in tension between pulls towards convention (centripetal forces) and pushes away from the centre towards more hybrid, experimental and open forms» (Thesen 2014, 6). I have shown that authorial engagement in information graphics is largely realized through the choice of type of graphic and the composition of the graphic.

I want to move on to think about something a little different, to see how the notion of authorial engagement manifests in three-dimensional texts. In certain courses and subjects, students need to produce three-dimensional texts for assessment. Although these texts do not necessarily involve writing, they are academic texts produced for assessment. Examples of such text include architectural models, jewellery designs, art, engineering models. I have argued that authorial engagement is made manifest in designed artefacts through material choices around the surface of the artefact, the substance of the artefact, and through the traces of the tools of production (Archer 2018). In terms of the surface of the artefact, colour contributes to meaning-making through associations or symbolic meanings and through combinations of colours, hues, degrees of contrast, degrees of saturation and purity. Surface texture is another aspect to consider, for instance, metals, natural materials and synthetics could have high shine, be polished or unpolished, be hammered, embossed, rough or smooth, shiny or matt. Finally, light and shadow are of interest in terms of surface choices. Light reflects off surfaces and is influenced by the surface texture and material. In Abbildung 3, the surface texture of the earrings is smooth and polished. Transparency and opacity are employed as semiotic resources, as is light and surface reflection.

Abbildung 3: Authorial engagement manifest in the surface of the artefact

Choices around the substance of the artefact also realize voice and include the stuff or material out of which the artefact is made, such as iron, wire, paper. The physical materials could be raw or processed, natural (such as wood, bone, stone, shell) or synthetic (such as plastic or rubber), durable or non-durable, upcycled (as in Abbildung 4). Finally, the tools and the traces of the tools used in the production of an artefact also realize voice. The traces can include pen inscriptions rather than printed ink or erased pencil marks, scraping or marks from hammering or chiselling, as seen in the flattened bottle top earrings in Abbildung 4.

The advantage of looking at the three-dimensional texts above in the way that I have is to show that voice manifests in a number of different kinds of texts that students need to produce, and to work with the concept of voice and see how it manifests differently across different modes, media and genres. I have argued that authorial engagement is expressed through choice; the type of representation chosen and the compositional choices made. I have suggested ways in which these choices manifest differently across modes. Now, I will move on to discuss the ways in which academic voice is realized through citation.

Abbildung 4: Earrings upcycled from cooldrink bottle tops