The Study On Symbols Meaning Generation Of Filmic Language

Nowadays, with the rapid development of the television media, a variety of visual symbol resources presentin front of people in a steady flow through the screen. In the time of information fleeting era, in addition to thelinguistic signs, people pay more attention to the status of colorful and more attractive visual symbols. Especiallyas a special media system, movies make full use of audio-visual symbols such as images, music, color,3Danimation in order to meet people’s growing needs of cultural information in films. Thus, as a tool ofinformation transforming and culture exchange, films play an important role in this society. And the researcheson its language have also become an inevitable requirement for the development of the times.This thesis makes a study on filmic language by applying the theory of semiotics. The theory of semioticswas first proposed by Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure who made a signifier and signified concept. Whilethe film image in the corresponding filmic symbols not only refers to signifier but also signified, the object andmeaning that shot expresses are included in the lens. Metz is the first one who introduce semiotics into filmiclanguage analysis, but his theory is mainly based on Saussure’s structural linguistics. And later many linguistslike O’Toole, Halliday made an attempt on filmic language from the angle of functional grammar. Their researchresults made great developments on visual symbols. Based on the former research, linguists like Kress, VanLeuuwen made succession research in this field and emerged a lot of results, which can further prove thefeasibility of functional grammar in analyzing visual symbols.This thesis attempts to take both quantitative and qualitative method while focusing on qualitative methodto analyze visual symbols in film. At the same time the research on filmic language is not limited to a singlestatic image but a comprehensive study of the dynamic image in the film. According to O’Halloran’s filmiclanguage segmentation method, the thesis also treats the lens as the basic unit and decomposition shot into lensframes. Finally makes a study on the dynamic visual symbols and language signs and their complementarysignificance in the film.Under the guidance of above theoretical framework, specific steps are divided into following three aspects:first, makes a research on the visual symbols selected from two films from angle of social distance, visual angle,the brightness, color which are proposed in visual grammar. Second, analyzes the monologues which arecorresponding to two screened lens from systemic functional linguistics point of view. Finally, the researchrelates to the visual symbols and language signs are how to achieve the complementary relationship between thesymbols. Through cases studies of two films, the conclusions of this study are mainly reflected in the following fouraspects: firstly, this study confirms that in the filmic language, monologue not only plays a certain symbolic role,visual symbols like the lens movement, frame, color play a more important role in the film. Secondly, a varietyof visual symbols doesn’t express meaning alone but express an integrated meaning by mutual combination. Andvisual symbols and film monologues are also not isolated, but complement with each other. Thirdly, from theperspective of research scope, this thesis takes dynamic visual symbols of the film into research field, whichmakes a breakthrough of Kress and van Leuuwan’s research limitations on static visual symbols. Also, visualsymbols and language signs are combined together in the thesis, which highlights language’ character of mutualinfluence, mutual promotion and indivisibility in filmic language analysis. Finally, from analysis, the thesisconfirms again the strong applicability of semiotics to the study of filmic language. The results are not onlyexpand the field and deepen the understanding of semiotics, but also provide a new angle for enjoying this kindof films. And ultimately enhance the level of the audience in appreciating films by perception of the newsymbols.