Architectural discourse: The material realization of framing and discourse in a university building

Using a multimodal social semiotic perspective, this article presents an analysis of the University of Southern Denmark as a text with particular focus on discourse and framing (cf. van Leeuwen 2005). The university consists of an original part and more recent extensions. The article examines how the original and the new parts of the buildings respectively realize different discourses related to education and the educational system more generally, and in particular how framing plays an important role in this respect. While employing van Leeuwen’s system network for framing (2005: 18) for the analysis, the analysis also points to potentially useful adjustments.