Multimodal Discourse Analysis Of The Film Tess

Nowadays, the way people communicate with each other is not restricted to the language in spoken form or written from, but several kinds of semiosis to construct meanings and express information in communication. In 1990 s, MDA arose in response to the request for a developed theory capable of interpreting multi-semiotic modes apart from written language. It extends the study of language per se to the study of language in combination with other resources, such as images, scientific symbolism, gesture, action, music and sound. Absorbing the theory of metafunctions in systemic functional linguistics, Kress and van Leeuwen proposed three meanings in visual grammar: the representation meaning, interactive meaning and the compositional meaning. In recent years, multimodal discourse analysis(MDA) has become a hot issue in the field of linguistics, and there are some achievements, but the research of MDA still need further study, especially in the field of film. In addition, the film Tess(1979 version) directed by Roman Polanski has won popularity since it is published. The film has received numerous awards including Oscar awards, César Golden Globe Awards,and the Award of British Academy of Film and Television Arts. But there are few research achievements in the multimodal discourse analysis on the film Tess.By employing the method of case study, the thesis has made a multimodal discourse analysis on the film Tess. The data resource for the research is 30 pictures selected at random from film Tess(1979 version). The research procedure is as follows: firstly, it gives a literature review on SFL, visual grammar, and MDA(including the review on the multimodal discourse analysis of film), and illuminates the purpose and significance of the thesis;secondly, the thesis will propose a framework for multimodal discourse analysis on the film Tess, based on the theoretical framework of functional grammar and visual grammar. Then under the guidance of the framework, the multimodal discourse analysis on the film is done from the three meanings(the representation meaning, interactive meaning and the compositional meaning) in VG; finally, visual modalities and auditive modalities are analyzed synthetically with the aim to explore how these various modalities contribute to the overall meaning conveyed by the film Tess.It is found that the theory of visual grammar possesses a strong applicability to analyzingthe visual modalities in the film. As for the analysis of composition meaning, the thesis discovered that not all the information value should be realized in the same picture. The thesis also finds that most of modalities are in a complementation relationship. The thesis not only has expanded and deepened the research of MDA, but also has provided the audiences with a new perspective of appreciating the film Tess by reflecting the role of modalities other than language in disclosing the theme of the film.