Multimodal Discourse Analysis Of Humor In British Sitcom Mr.Bean

With the arrival of the digital age and the wide application of the multimedia technology, communication means between people is no longer confined to language, but by multimodalities, including image, color, voice, gesture etc, therefore, multimodal discourse analysis should pay attention the effects of all kinds of social semiotics in social communication. As a kind of discourse genre, sitcom has the remarkable features of multimodal discourse, for instance, the mixed use of language, image, color, gesture, voice ect. The traditional discourse analysis of sitcom only focuses on the humorous language, but neglects the study of other semiotics. Therefore, this thesis selects famous British sitcom Mr. Bean as the object to study what multimodalities are in it, and to analyze this sitcom‘s three meanings——representational meaning, interactive meaning and compositional meaning, as well as the humorous effects produced by three meanings respectively.Based on Halliday‘s Systematic Functional Grammar(SFG), Kress & Van Leeuwen‘s(1996) Visual Grammar(VG) and Incongruity—Resolution Theory of Humor, firstly, the present thesis classifies the multimodalities of the sitcom Mr. Bean into three forms, namely, visual form, verbal form and auditory form. Secondly, stemming from Visual Grammar(VG), the present thesis analyzes the sitcom Mr. Bean from three meanings——representational meaning, interactive meaning and compositional meaning. Thirdly, based on Incongruity-Resolution Theory of Humor, the present thesis analyzes the humorous effects in three meanings respectively.According to the study of sitcom Mr. Bean, the present thesis finds that visual modalities, such as color, facial expression, gesture, eye-contact and tool, serve as the main forms of modality in Mr. Bean. Moreover, this thesis testifies that the Visual Grammar(VG) is also suitable to analyze the discourse of sitcom,therefore, the present thesis expands the applicability of Visual Grammar(VG). At last, this thesis finds that, besides verbal modality, Incongruity—Resolution Theory is also suitable to analyze other multimodalities, such as color, facial expression, gesture ect. Moreover, it aids people to better understand the humorous effects generated in three meanings, and helps them to better appreciate sitcom Mr. Bean.