An Incorporation Study Of Pictorial Illustrations In Dictionary From The Theoretical Perspective Of Multimodal Discourse Analysis

The definition mode of dictionary tends to be diversified along with the constant emergence of multimodal discourse. As the core part of a dictionary, definition of headword plays an irreplaceable role in a dictionary. Illustrations become an indispensable element in the definition of English dictionary so as to enhance diversification of dictionary definition and provide convenience for users to understand meaning of headword more precisely.As important means of dictionary definition, verbal text and pictorial illustrations are different in forms when realizing semantic relations of words. In multimodal dictionaries, text and image belong to forms of representation of multimodal discourse. Nevertheless, their relationship is no longer simply and unilaterally dependent and pictorial illustrations play the role of more than supplement in dictionary definition. Therefore, this thesis attempts to explain the complementarity relation of image and text with the deficiency of isolating verbal text and image definition being taken into consideration.Under the guidance of the theory of Multimodal Discourse Analysis (MDA) and on the basis of Royce (2007) and Martinec and Salway’s (2005) theories, an integrated theoretical framework for image-text relations in dictionary is proposed. It also conducts contrastive studies on the image-text relations between Advanced English Learner’s Dictionaries, for instance, LDOCE4(Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English,4th edition with writing assistant,2005), OALD6(Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary,6th edition,2000) and MED1(Macmillan English Dictionary for Advanced Learners,1st edition,2003) and American college dictionary:WNWCD4(Webster’s New World College Dictionary,4th edition,2001). The focus of the study is on the similarities and differences of headwords illustrated in the above two kinds of dictionaries and the relations between image definition and verbal text analyzed from ideational level and logico-semantic level. This thesis will approach its goals qualitatively as well as quantitatively.The results of the study show that nouns, verbs, adjectives and phrases are the main parts of speech illustrated in English learner’s dictionary (ELD) and college dictionary. In ideational level, there exist sense relations, such as synonymy, antonymy, hyponymy, meronymy and complex between verbal text and pictorial illustrations; in logico-semantic level, exposition, exemplification and clarification of elaboration are found between them. Meanwhile, some problems are found in incorporating pictorial illustrations as well and some practical and feasible suggestions are put forward accordingly.The study not only expands the application of MDA, but also offers some guidance to future’s image-text relations in multimodal dictionaries.