The Multimodal Discourse Analysis Of The Interactive Meaning In The National Publicity Film Of China

In the information age, meaning is realized not only through language but also through the interactionand cooperation of more than one semiotic resource such as images, colors, music, gestures and so on.These resources play important roles in human communication and information transmission, especially inpublic media communication. Multimodal Discourse Analysis refers to the analysis of different semioticmodes (vision, hearing, touch, smell etc.) in a text or more than one semiotic resource in a mode. Itgradually becomes the hot topic but the research on it is still at the beginning stage.The discourse of The National Publicity Film of China is typical. Based on the theory of Halliday’sSystematic Functional Linguistics and the Visual Grammar of Kress&van Leeuwen, this thesis attempts togive a detailed multimodal discourse analysis on the material of the National Publicity Film of China,aiming at finding out how the interactive meaning is constructed and how the interpersonal function thatChina communicates with the world is realized.In terms of methodology of the study, both qualitative and quantitative approaches are adopted. Forthe first research question, this paper uses the voiceover as a text, giving case study which followed bystatistics on each part based on the mood and modality of SFL. This step aims at finding out the structuralfeatures of promotion video on the perspective of interactive meaning construction. Then, with theguidance of the VG and the segment method of O’Halloran, the sample analysis and statistics on visual partare carried out from contact, attitude, social distance, and modality in accordance with its eight themes.Finally, by the discussion on the internal relations of text&image, background music, caption and othermodes, we makes clear that how does each part complement each other to construct the interactive meaningand convey the themes of the National Publicity Film of China.After the sample analysis and statistical analysis, this study gets the conclusion:On the verbal part: The NPFC gives priority to declarative mood, which gets the acceptance andresponse from its audience and influences their concept on China. The NPFC mainly adopts modalizationto offer the information about China, which is mainly realized by finite modal operators and modal adjuncts.The speaker tends to express the meaning of probability，showing the objective attitude of speaker towardsthe offered information and the speaker’s respect towards the audience all over the world.On the visual part: The NPFC prefers to “offer” act, choosing more shots of no direct eye contactbetween the represented participants and the interactive participants. The result just matches the feature of publicity film, that is, to offer essential information to the world as much as possible. On the close shotwhich realizes intimate/personal distance, medium shot which realizes social distance, long shot whichrealizes impersonal distance, the NPFC adopts almost balanced distribution with a little frequency on closeshot, which can make the audiences accept and recognize the information in an easy and relaxed way. Inaddition, the NPFC is tend to adopt oblique, eye-level angle to construct the interactive meaning in order torealize the interpersonal function. It offers the real information and invites audiences to equally take part inthe actions or situations in the images. The high modality on color saturation, color differentiation, colormodulation and brightness and so on will give the visual shock and urge the audience accept theinformation on modern China with interesting and energy.On the text-image: When the images can’t convey the implied information in the round, the verbal parttimely supplies. When the words can’t convey the information vividly, the image supplements in time. Onthe interpersonal function that China communicates with the world, the verbal part and visual partcomplement with each other and shows the effectiveness.On other modes: Other resources involved in this video such as the background music, the captionsand the sound specify, explain and complement with each other to construct the interactive meaning. Theyare the essential parts of this kind of video. All the semiotic resources forms an organic whole to make theinformation more faithful, images more vivid, meaning more considerable and themes clearer.Finally, our analysis on NPFC depends on historically and culturally specific needs. In fact, ourdifferent results get from each part just shows the different ways to realize different interpersonal functions.From this view, based on different interpersonal functions, the publicity film shows different features nomatter it is on travel, movie or sports events. Therefore, the SLF and VG can be effectively applied to theNational Publicity Film of China, a typical multimodal discourse.The author hopes that this study can demonstrate the applicability and practicality of MDA andfeasibility on the analysis of publicity film. It may show the features of interactive meaning construction inpublicity film and make a small contribution to the richness of researches in this field or help readersenhance their ability to read MD.