Multimodal Discourse Analysis Of Meaning Construction In Luoyang Print Real Estate Advertisement

Current days have witnessed a rapid development of science and technology, which brings a trend of renovation and upgrades in the field of IT industry. Print real estate advertisements, carriers of information dissemination, tend to be multimodal ones. Some non-verbal semiotic modes like image, color and typographic designs have become the very choices for advertisement producers to construct meaning and present their ideology. Therefore, in this age of broadcasting, the analysis of meaning can not be confined to the verbal elements in terms of PREA, the former researches will not satisfy the objectives of current studies. As a result, a new system of grammar needs to be set up to decode the meaning making processes in multimodal texts. Thus the research into the meaning construction of PREA from a perspective of multimodalilty has some research value and practical significance.This research makes an attempt of a qualitative method based on incisive exploration of related data. Thirty samples are selected from Luoyang Evening News to formulate the generic structure potential of Luoyang PREA. Then, Halliday’s Systemic Functional Grammar and Kress and Van Leeuwen’s Visual Grammar and some related patterns are introduced, and six samples are chosen from thirty PREAs to thoroughly analyze the meaning making processes of three meta-functions from a two-way perspective of intrasemiotic relations and intersemiotic relations to explore how the visual and verbal semiotic modes make joint efforts to create meaning and construct ideology. All the samples are chosen from Luoyang Evening News, which gain local representativeness and comply with the needs of research.The research of meaning construction in Luoyang PREA is conducted by theories of MDA from three perspectives of transitivity, interactivity and intersemiotic relations. The findings of the research have certified that Luoyang PREA is a multifunctional construct consisting of three lines of meaning reflected in verbal and visual modes respectively and jointly. The findings are listed in detail:①all the samples are multimodal ones and lead and announcement are obligatory elements in overwhelming majority of the advertisements, thus they become the kernel elements of meaning making in multimodal texts;②The ideational meaning of Luoyang PREA is mainly embodied in its relational process, and the verbal and visual semiotic modes are a bi-directional meaning investment process by their attributive relational process and identifying relational process. Furthermore, the relational process are processes of being and having, which will objectively and unambiguously articulate the defining properties and related values of the targeted products;③The interpersonal meaning is complected by multimodal acts of Luoyang PREA. In most cases, property developers seldom promote their products directly, but foreground the value of the property by speech acts and image acts to appeal to the customers to buy their houses in an implied way;④Kress and Van Leeuwen have put forward that compositional meaning is realized by top-bottom structure, left-right structure or center-margin structure. However, the weaving of Luoyang real estate advertisement is relatively simple, which is achieved by head-tail opposition. All in all, both verbal and visual modes make a joint effort to create meaning to make Luoyang PREAs harmonious multimodal texts.The research validates the applicability of intersemiotic patterns of multimodality in Luoyang PREA, elucidates how meaning-making process is conducted in multimodal text. The application of western multimodal grammar to Luoyang PREA and the research findings conformed to the expected objectives of the research, which all declare that these theories shows certain feasibility in Chinese culture.