A Multimodal Positive Discourse Analysis Of Political Documentary

A documentary is a form of film or television arts based on real life,which keeps records of figures and events in reality and exerts an influence on the formation of people’s thoughts and values.Political documentaries,as one of the media for the spread of ideas,contain a wealth of values and ideologies.The Chinese political documentary China: Time of Xi has soon become the public spotlight at home and abroad since it was issued by American Discovery Channel.According to Xinhua News Agency,it is the first time that the international mainstream media has broadcasted a comprehensive and systematic interpretation of Xi’s thoughts on governing the country.Admittedly,a few contributions have been made on the study of China: Time of Xi.However,previous studies are mainly conducted from the perspectives of narratology and communication,it has rarely been studied from the perspective of linguistics.Being equipped with exquisite pictures,simple and vivid language,China: Time of Xi shows how President Xi has won the hearts of the people,leading China to achieve new development and carrying a big weight on the world stage.This thesis,based on the appraisal theory and multimodal metaphor and multimodal metonymy,establishes a three-dimensional framework to conduct a multimodal positive discourse analysis of China: Time of Xi from the macro and micro levels.Through the analysis,it is found that: at the micro-level,language and other semiotic resources are cooperating to convey the meaning of the discourse;at the macro level,different social groups are given a voice to express their opinions or views,and they hold a consensus view on Xi’s statecraft and China’s future development that is promising,delivering a positive image of President Xi and China being open,innovative and shared.The main contributions of the thesis are as follows:Firstly,this thesis attempts to transcribe a full multimodal data of China: Time of Xi,classify the data,and analyze the meaning-making process by integrating appraisal theory with multimodal metaphor and metonymy with a functional-cognitive method,compensating the deficiency of appraisal theory for it cannot provide an elaborate interpretation for multimodal discourse on the nonverbal dimensions.Additionally,through literature review,it is found that vast majority of previous studies on ideology are carried out from the perspective of critical discourse,revealing social and political problems and deconstructing the extant social system.This thesis probes into ideology from the perspective of positive discourse,focusing on the meaning of various semiotic resources,which contributes to build a friendly and harmonious society.Last but not least,this thesis offers an avenue for meaning interpretation of documentaries.