Visual Analysis Of Filmic Language From The Viewpoint Of Interpersonal Function

With the development of information technology, visual media as a means of communication and information transmission plays a more and more important role. Visual language greatly challenges the dominant power of verbal language. Therefore, in order to keep pace with this change, linguists have to take up the commission of analyzing, understanding and evaluating various kinds of visual discourses, among which filmic text with its fantastic charm draws the interest of linguists to analyze its characteristics and function.So far the analysis of filmic texts with a linguistic approach has gone a long way. It is Metz who brings cine-semiotics into the analysis of filmic discourse for the first time, though his theory sheds new light on the researching direction on films, it is also subject to plenty of criticism for its limitation in pure logic and abstraction of filmic language. In the following years, works in various perspectives such as psychology, anthropology etc come into being, among which functional approach with its high feasibility of researching draws the attention of many linguists. One of the milestones is marked by O'Toole's functional modal in the analysis of displayed art. And this successful work of O'Toole encourages plenty of linguists to analyze discourses in terms of their meta-functions such as Kress and Van Leeuvan's framework of transcoding visual communication and Kay L. O'Halloran's framework of Visual Semiotics in Film. These works prove that functional grammar serves as an effective tool in researching on all the semiotic systems, not just linguistic texts, but multi-modal ones.On the basis of systemic functional grammar, adopting Kress and Van Leeuwan's framework of visual communication, this thesis is mainly concerned with the interpersonal function of visual images in filmic discourse. It employs the method of qualitative analysis, since the theoretical framework of this thesis is put forward through reference, induction and comparison of academic research works, which is in turn applied to segmented cinematic discourses. Based on Kay L. O'Halloran's segmentation method, this thesis divides the filmic text into four units, which are image, shot, scene and sequence along the scale respectively. Therefore, it never limits its research to single and static images but tries to focus on dynamically represented texts with an aim to analyzing how the interpersonal function can be realized in a dynamic way.Through detailed analysis of systems of choices such as lighting, color, frame, gesture, perspective etc which refer to the devices for achieving interpersonal function, this thesis comes to meaningful conclusions and creative ideas in this researched area. Specifically, on the one hand, it takes dynamism which is the unique characteristic of film into consideration, and in this way it steps further than Kress and Van Leeuwan's theory which is only concerned with the static visual images. On the other hand, it focuses on only one function, which is interpersonal function, therefore, compared with previous research works; it is a new try to analyze filmic discourse in details. In addition, through analyzing comprehensively multi-modes such as illumination, color, brightness, frame, perspective etc of visual images in filmic discourses, this thesis also makes contribution to the comprehension of multimodal discoursesThe last but not the least, it expands the application scope of Halliday's functional grammar in the field of cinematic discourse to some extent. And it proves again how successful and feasible it can be to analyze multimodal discourse like filmic texts with a functional approach.