Museums are places of education and communication that tend to be inclusive for the full achievement of these functions. Textual content in museums is a coded message aiming at educating the public, conveying institutional perspectives, and constructing how certain knowledge is comprehended and perceived. To illustrate, a painting or a statue in a museum might be seen as heroic or tragic, and it is up to the textual content to remove such an ambiguity.
Accordingly, museums usually employ clear language without involving jargon as much as possible and offer multilingual explanatory texts with high diversity (UNESCO, 2015). Museums are typified by their multimodality and aim at providing framings for certain heritages or ideas. Meaning in museums is not the outcome of one single element; it is rather the result of the harmony created by the diversified elements it includes. That is why the textual content should flow with those other multi-semiotic components and be integral to them (Kress and Leeuwen, 2006).
For example, object display, lighting, and labels should all be in accordance with the text’s size and position (Ravelli, 2006). This is theorised to enhance Bal’s (1996) conception of double exposures, which describes the textual content in the museum as the magical tool that offers plotting and contextualisation, viewing the whole museum as a long story extending to manifold chronological durations.
Multilingual content is also a paramount part of museums. These offer insights into the foreign visitors, as they clarify and contextualise their views on the exhibitions. They may even be utilised for the process of nation branding, for a state to market itself to international visitors. This is done because textual content can significantly add value to the exposed content.
Such content can also be of use nationally. Museum visitors encompass local people who may also understand foreign languages. This provides new aspects for the national visitors who may find out how their culture is depicted through the lenses of another. Essentially, this can be extremely educational and may propel further appreciation for one’s own culture