Multimodal Discourse Analysis Of Commercial Advertisements From The Perspective Of Systemic Functional Linguistics

With the continuous development of science and technology and the wide use of multimedia and Internet network, multimode is more and more important in daily life. The information transmission is no longer relying on the single text; instead, it contains the images, colors, sounds and other modes. Halliday’s Systemic Functional Linguistics emphasizes the functions of the language. Its core idea is that the language, as a social semiotic, has three meta-functions:ideational function, interpersonal function and textual function. Based on the theory of Systemic Functional Linguistics, Kress and van Leeuwen (1996) interpret visual images from three aspects:representational meaning, interactive meaning and composition meaning, which can be called Visual Grammar, providing a theoretical basis and analysis method for multimodal discourse.As an effective way to publicize social consumption value and public service, the commercial advertisements everywhere have become an integral part of people’s life. And the commercial advertisements are becoming more and more multimodal, that is, it not only contains words but also contains the other modes like image, colors, sound and so on. Thus, if we want to interpret what the advertisements want to express, we need to take all these elements into consideration. Only in this way can we have a comprehensive understanding of the commercial advertisements. Systemic Functional Linguistics and Visual Grammar have important theoretical and practical significance to interpret commercial advertisements.This thesis is divided into five chapters. Chapter one and chapter two are the foundation of this article. They mainly narrate the research background, significance and the theoretical basis of this article. Based on Systemic Functional Linguistics, this thesis introduces the Multimodal Discourse Analysis theory. It also studies related researches on commercial advertisements at home and abroad through which it demonstrates the importance and innovation of this Thesis. Chapter three is the core of this article. It introduces the Systemic Functional Linguistics and Visual Grammar. It exemplifies the feasibility and operability of these two theories in guiding the interpretation of commercial advertisement, as they contribute to a comprehensive understanding and appreciation of discourse. Chapter four is the pillar of the thesis; it firstly introduces the characteristics of commercial advertisement; then analyzes the representational meaning, interactive meaning and composition meaning of advertisements with specific examples and also analyze the effects of other modes. Chapter five is the conclusion of the thesis, in which the author makes a summary of the thesis, then points out the limitations and raises suggestions for further research.