Multimodal Analysis Of Business Presentations

In the multimedia age, there is an increasing awareness that meaning is rarely made with language alone and the media and modal for communication have changed greatly. People conduct communication through many kinds of modals simultaneously, such as space, gestures, gaze, posture, motion, sound, tone of voice, music, three-dimension objects, oral, written, images, tables, diagrams, pictures, etc.( Baldry & Thibault, 2006)Along with the emergence of technological innovations, business communication has developed numerous new forms. Among them, business presentations which are frequently used in business report, products launching, and training programs, have become an indispensable part of the business world.Taking into account of the increasing awareness of multimodal communication in business field, the research analyzes a business presentation from Apple, trying to discover the characteristics of linguistic, visual and auditory semiotics in modern business presentations, and explore how the interpersonal function, interactive meaning and speech emotion exchange are realized respectively by different semiotics. One highlight is that the present research is carried out by using an interdisciplinary method and analyzes auditory semiotics tentatively through speech recognition software.The major findings of the research can be listed as follows. Firstly, in the multimodal discourse of business presentations, interpersonal function is realized mainly by verbal linguistic semiotics, but its dominance is weakened by the integration of other modals in communication. The language featured by plain and objective mood and modality, has created a sincere communication environment. Secondly, interactive meaning of the visual contact is realized by frame, perspective and other technical devices of the camera. Most of the images are offering information with close-up frame, eye-level perspective and high modality of colors. Thirdly, the non-verbal auditory semiotics cooperates closely with language and images in terms of speed and rhythm. As for speech emotions, positive and neutral emotions are widely used in business communications, which makes the speaker approachable and convincing. In general, the business multimodal discourse is dominated by verbal speech with multi modals function simultaneously. The integration of different semiotics enhances the credibility, efficiency and interactive effects of the communication.By analyzing world renowned business presentation and discussing the relationship between multimodal and communication, this thesis attempts to help companies and business people build and reinforce communication with customers, thus bringing more economic benefits.This thesis is composed of five chapters. The first chapter mainly introduces the concepts and definitions related to the research, the objectives and significance of the thesis. The second chapter reviews the studies on multimodal discourse analysis by scholars from home and abroad. The third chapter proposes an integrated theoretical framework of this research based on previous theories. The fourth chapter focuses on data, methodologies and the process of analysis. The results are discussed in detail at the end. The fifth chapter draws conclusions of the thesis, and gives some implications on the results. Besides, limitations of the thesis and suggestions for further researches are pointed in this chapter.