A Comparative Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis Of Chinese And Amedican Environmental Protection Cartoons

As discourse analysis studies have boomed in recent years, an increasing number of discourse analysts do more and deeper research into multimodal texts.Correspondingly, the research objects of discourse analysis have gradually begun to transit from verbal texts to non-verbal texts. Environmental protection cartoons are essentially produced based on environmental issues and problems in a simple or exaggerated way in order to alert human beings, which have caused wide public concern home and abroad.From the overview of multimodal discourse studies of abroad and home,discourse analysts have done more in-depth research on multimodal discourse and critical discourse abroad. However, related the studies of multimodal critical discourse are rather few. The studies of EPCs employing multimodal critical discourse theory are also limited. The previous studies for the cartoons are merely confined to other fields, and studies for the cartoons from the perspective of linguistics are less even for EPCs. This research is based on Kress and van Leeuwen’s visual grammar and David Machin and Andrea Mayr’s multimodal critical discourse theory and methodology to investigate the meaning-makings and uncover underlying ideologies and values buried in them taking Chinese and American EPCs as research corpus.This thesis selects 100 pieces of Chinese and American EPCs respectively as the research data, and then conducts a comparative study of representational meaning, the interactive meaning, and the compositional meaning of Chinese and American EPCs under the framework of Kress and van Leeuwen’s visual grammar and David Machin and Andrea Mayr’s multimodal critical discourse theory and methodology. The result shows that there certainly are similarities and differences between Chinese and American cartoons in meaning makings from the visual and verbal perspectives. Due to cultural differences, they reflect different values and beliefs, but their common purpose is to alert human beings so as to reflect their behaviors to the environment.It is sincerely hoped that the present study could enrich the scopes and fields of discourse analysis and provide a new perspective of investigating cartoons.Meanwhile, it can contribute to obtaining a comprehensive understanding of Chinese and American EPCs for the viewers. Moreover, it is helpful to raise the readers’ multiliteracy and critical ability to Chinese and American environmental protection cartoons.