The Multimodal Discourse Analysis Of Beijing Promotion Video For Winter Olympics From The Perspective Of Visual Grammar

The development of computer and Internet has changed our lifestyle dramatically both from the physical and psychological aspects. More and more types of communication equipment and channels have helped people get information easier and faster. And the information itself is not restricted to verbal language, but to all kinds of other non-verbal modalities, such as images, sounds, actions and smells. However, most analysis of communication is confined to the research about verbal language and hasn't taken other modalities into consideration. Only in last decade, did the researchers start to pay more attention to the analysis of multimodal discourse and resources to understand the meaning making in different ways and from different angles, and Kress and Van Leeuwen(1996) are prominent because of their work Reading Images, which proposes the grammar of visual design.This study bases on the structure of visual grammar, proposed Kress & Van Leeuwen(1996), and applies qualitative research method through text analysis and case study to analyze the multimodality of Beijing Promotion Video for Winter Olympics. The results are as follows.1. Images in the Beijing Promotion Video for Winter Olympics successfully construct all representational meaning, interactive meaning and compositional meaning according to the theory of visual grammar. 2. There are three other modalities in the video besides image: words, music, and sound. Different modalities are integrated to express meaning and most of the relations between modalities are complementary. And within complementary relations, there are both strengthening and non-strengthening relations. 3. As for the information that has been delivered by the video about Beijing and China, the video introduces the applicant city Beijing in detail which recognizes Beijing as the political, cultural and international communicational center of China. Meanwhile, the video introduces China's ability and preparation of holding next winter Olympic Games. Besides, the video shows the passion of our people about ice and snow sports and the long history of playing ice and snow sports in China, and also extends our warm welcome to friends from all over the world.This study analyzes the video from a new perspective and puts the theory of visual grammar and multimodal discourse analysis into practice. It also provides a new angle for audience to appreciate the Beijing Promotion Video for Winter Olympics as well as other videos and films and helps them to better understand how the Beijing Promotion Video for Winter Olympics set a great image of our country. This study will also provide some insight for photographers and movie makers when producing images. What's more, the study hopes to contribute to teaching activities in practice.