Cultural Image Construction Of China From The Perspective Of Multi-modal Metaphor Theory

Festive China is a series of videos about Chinese culture from China Daily.With beautiful visuals and clear English narration,it introduces the 24 solar terms and five traditional cultural festivals of China to audiences both domestically and abroad,resulting in high click rates.The videos use a large number of multi-modal metaphors,utilizing the synergy of color,composition of characters and background music to construct a positive image of China.This study takes Festive China as corpus and analyzes the modalities used in the videos from the perspective of multi-modal metaphor theory by a corpus tool ELAN 6.3.The study aims to analyze the distribution types and features of multi-modal metaphors to reveal the construction of the national cultural image and explore the functions of multi-modal metaphors in constructing national cultural image.The purpose of this study is to explore the functions of multi-modal metaphor,with a view to providing examples for the construction of China’s national image and the methods of international communication.The study found that the metaphorical representation of this series of videos is mainly manifested in multimodal mapping(75%),through which Festive China constructs an image of hardworking,intelligent,and optimistic Chinese people;a complete and harmonious Chinese family;a thriving Chinese nation;a harmonious and charming nature.Through metaphor selection,this series of videos achieves the functions of persuasion,emotion,and cognition,constructing a positive and friendly Chinese cultural image.