| Travel blogs are online travel diaries with words and pictures shared by travelers,aiming to provide travel information through the travelers’ own experience, which is arelatively euphemistic way to recommend the travel spot. Travel blog is a multimodaldiscourse consisting of both verbiage and image. However, the previous studies ontravel blog in linguistics mainly focus on the verbal part. Based on SystemicFunctional Linguistics, this thesis attempts to make an analysis on both verbiage andimage of travel blog in terms of Systemic Functional Grammar and Visual Grammarin order to explore how they make meaning and achieve communication.This study is based on18pieces of travel blogs and they can be classified intothree types due to different content and communicative purposes: TBI (travel blogsfocusing on the introduction to scenic spot), TBE (travel blogs focusing on bloggers’travel experience), TBT (travel blogs focusing on travel tips). The analysis includesthree phases: firstly, the verbal part will be analyzed in terms of Systemic FunctionalGrammar to discover the linguistic features of travel blogs and the differences andsimilarities among the three types of travel blogs; secondly, the images will bediscussed from the perspective of Visual Grammar to find out how images makemeaning and achieve communication; finally, the relation between verbiage andimage will be explored to discover how verbiage and image complement andcooperate with each other in making integrative meaning and realizing the finalpurpose of attracting potential travelers.Through analysis, we get the following findings: first, this study shows that theSystemic Functional Grammar and Visual Grammar are applicable in analyzing theverbal and visual parts in travel blogs; second, the verbal part shows the linguisticfeatures of travel blogs:1) material and relational processes are the main processes intravel blogs,2) the majority of the sentences are in declarative mood,3) the simpleand unmarked Theme are frequently used in travel blogs. With different purposes, thethree kinds of travel blogs are slightly different in some aspects of verbal expression;third, the image can also make meaning through vector, social distance, perspective, color contrast and so on; fourth, verbiage is the main way to express meaning andimage is subordinate to verbiage; fifth, the verbiage and image complement andcooperate with each other to make the integrative meaning and achieve the purpose ofattracting the potential travelers.The study has both theoretical and practical significance. Theoretically, it provesthe feasibility of multimodal discourse analysis on travel blogs in terms of SystemicFunctional Grammar and Visual Grammar. Practically, it is beneficial for potentialtravelers to obtain information effectively and for the bloggers to design the blogsproperly.The thesis consists of five parts. The first chapter is the introduction to theresearch background, questions, method, significance and layout of the thesis. Thesecond chapter reviews the concepts and previous studies about multimodal discourseanalysis and travel blog. The third chapter is a brief introduction to the theories of thethesis. The fourth chapter is the analysis on the travel blogs in terms of verbiage andimage and the relation between them, which aims to discover how they make meaningand achieve communication. The last chapter is the conclusion of the findings as wellas the limitations and suggestions for further study. |
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