AbstractsLanguage, Literature & Linguistics

Magazine covers are multimodal texts designed to draw the attention of potential readers. Health and fitness magazines, in particular, make up a large portion of the publishing industry, and previous research has pointed to their influence on readers’ perceptions of health and fitness. In order to interpret the multimodality of magazine covers, a different approach other than the purely linguistic one needs to be employed. Following the theoretical frameworks of Systemic Functional Linguistics and Social Semiotics, this study set out to investigate the verbal and visual construction of health on eight covers of Men’s Health and Women’s Health. The findings indicate that there are significant differences in how health is constructed on the men’s and women’s edition of the magazines. These differences mainly concern the way in which health is achieved, and the relationship between the viewers and the magazine. This not only indicates that different strategies were used to attract viewers, but also reveals something about the relationship the viewer is supposed to have with their bodies as well as their perceptions of health.