A Multimodal Analysis Of The Filmic Discourse Gone With The Wind

With the remarkable development of the multi-media and computer technology, the multimodal discourse analysis thriving in the 1990s has become a hot issue in the linguistic research. Multimodal discourse refers to those discourses that generate the integrative meaning through the interaction of two or more semiotic modes of communication, for example, language, dynamic and static visual images, music, sound, electronic media, film, print etc. In recent years more and more scholars home and abroad have conducted extensive research on the multimodal discourse analysis. The most famous scholars who have achieved great reward in this field are Kress and Van Leeuwen who put forwards the first systematic and comprehensive framework for analyzing multimodal discourse in the book Reading Images---Visual Grammar derived from functional grammar by Halliday. As the filmic discourse encompasses a variety of various semiotic resources such as visual image, sound, language, the multimodal discourse analysis provides the filmic discourse for a compatible way to analyze the filmic discourse. Besides the ample previous researches on films, however, are mainly constrained within the range of literature review or film review, few accounts with linguistic approach are given to its filmic discourse. As such, this thesis attempts to conduct the multimodal discourse analysis on the filmic discourse Gone with the Wind. The significance of the research lies in the fact that it can not only expand the application area of multimodal discourse analysis, testify the feasibility of applying the theory of systemic functional linguistics into the multimodal filmic discourse in theory, but also can deepen human's comprehension on the multimodal discourse analysis and enhance people's appreciation level on the film Gone with the Wind.The research is done by employing both the qualitative method and the quantitative method with the main content as follows: firstly, the thesis makes a recount on the definition and development of the filmic discourse and the multimodal discourse analysis, pointing out the goal and the significance of the research ; secondly, based on the theoretical framework of functional grammar and the visual grammar, the author proposes a framework for the multimodal discourse analysis on the film Gone with the Wind. Then under the guidance of the framework, the multimodal discourse analysis on the film is done from the three meanings in visual grammar, namely, the representation meaning, interactive meaning as well as the compositional meaning; finally, visual modalities and auditive modalities are analyzed synthetically with the aim to explore how these various modalities contributes to the overall meaning conveyed by the film Gone with the Wind.The research reaches the expectation. Through the case study of the filmic discourse Gone with the Wind, it is found that the theory of multimodal discourse analysis, especially, the visual grammar possesses a strong applicability on analyzing the filmic discourse. Not only does the research expand the fields of multimodal discourse analysis, deepen people's comprehension on it, but also provides the audiences for a new perspective of appreciating the film by reflecting the role of modalities other than language in disclosing the theme of the film and ultimately elevates their appreciation level on the film.