A Comparative Study Of Representational Meaning Of Images In Chinese And American Primary English Textbooks:the Perspective Of Multimodality

Modality,as a kind of symbolic resource to convey meaning,has gradually changed from monomodality to multimodality.MDA has become a hot topic in linguistic field.Previous studies have made constructive achievements in the three functions of images(representational meaning,interactive meaning,and compositional meaning)and the relations between images and texts.However,most of them focus on multiple levels of images,and it is difficult to discuss one of them in depth.Therefore,this study is devoted to exploring the representational meaning of images.Textbook,as the basic carrier of knowledge transmission,it’s content form changes from text-based monomodal discourse to multimodal discourse constructed by various symbolic resources.Various types of image resources are included in primary English textbooks and have attracted the attention of multimodal scholars.However,most of the research results focus on the comparative study of different versions of English textbooks,the diachronic study of different grades,or the comparative study of two languages(English-Chinese,English-Japanese,etc.).There are relatively few research results on the comparison of English textbooks at home and abroad,but the comparison of the similarities and differences between English textbooks at home and abroad plays a significant role in promoting the compilation of textbooks and the improvement of teaching methods.Based on Kress and van Leeuwen’s Visual Grammar(2006)and Royce’Intersemiotic Complementarity Theory(2007),this study selects Chinese and American primary English textbooks(starting from grade1)as the research data.This study adopts a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods to compare and analyze the similarities and differences in the distribution and realization of the process types,participants,settings,and image-text ideational semantic relations in Chinese and American textbooks.This study attempts to answer the following questions:1.What are the distributive features of multimodal transitivity system that realizes the representational meaning in Chinese and American primary English textbooks,and what are the similarities and differences?2.How is the representational meaning realized through multimodal transitivity system in Chinese and American primary English textbooks,and what are the similarities and differences in their realizing methods?3.What are the distributive features and realizing methods of relations between images and texts in Chinese and American primary English textbooks,and what are the similarities and differences?The main findings are as follows:In terms of the distribution of multimodal transitivity system,in process types,the two process types of images in the MHEP account for a certain proportion,and the narrative process accounts for 69.41%,which is about twice that of the conceptual process(30.59%).In contrast,the process types of the images in the PEP have a certain tendency to be represented mainly in the form of narrative processes,which account for 98.17%.The significant difference lies in the speech process in the narrative process,which appears only in the PEP.In terms of the participants,all participants appear as cartoonic images in the PEP,while there are 90 images of participants as photographic images in the MHEP.In terms of settings,there is little difference in the frequency distribution of settings.There are three methods to realize the representational meaning of images:process types,participants and settings.In terms of process types,PEP focuses on constructing the knowledge structure of oral expression through daily dialogues,while MHEP focuses on constructing knowledge concepts of specific characters or cultural backgrounds through static things.In terms of participants,two sets of textbooks focus on stimulating students’ interest in interaction through cartoonic images multiple participants with distinct characteristics.In terms of settings,PEP focuses on using the local setting to construct the common sense of life,while MHEP focuses on using the non-local setting to transfer knowledge that may not be accessible in life,such as field exploration,world historical and cultural monuments,etc.In image and text relation,repetition accounts for the largest proportion in both PEP and MHEP,followed by synonymy,and the proportion of other image and text relations is lower,but the difference between the two sets of textbooks is that the collocation in the PEP accounts for 10.18%,which is higher than the MHEP 0.77%,especially in the first grade.Collocation relations usually convey abstract meanings,which means that textbook writers,in addition to presenting knowledge directly to students,also pay attention to students’ thinking ability to complete the matching of images with the meaning of text.Through the comparative analysis of multimodal resources in Chinese and American primary English textbooks,this study has certain enlightenment for the compilation and design of textbooks.The reasonable application of image resources in textbooks is helpful for teachers to cultivate students’ multiliteracies.