A Multimodal Discourse Analysis Of The Film The Sound Of Music

With the development of science and technology,the theories and methods of discourse analysis are accordingly developing.In modern society,the way that people communicate is no longer confined to language;the use of other media has become a common way of communication.Therefore,the traditional discourse analysis that regards language as the object to study has transformed into a multimodal discourse analysis of images,sound,language and music.Since the advent of multimodal discourse analysis in 1990 s,many famous scholars have devoted themselves to the study of multimodal discourse and have achieved remarkable results.In light of multimodal theory,this paper makes an analysis and study on the classic music movie The Sound of Music.First of all,based on Kress and Van Leeuwen's Visual Grammar,this study,employing quality and quantity approaches,studies the representational meaning,the interactive meaning and compositional meaning of the ten shots selected in the film,and draws a conclusion of the role of the visual mode in conveying meaning.Second,the author applies the classification and function of sound to analyze and discuss the sound of ten shots,and then obtains the role of the audio mode in conveying meaning.Then,the author uses Martin's Appraisal System to analyze and discuss the language of the ten shots,and obtains the role of the lingual mode in conveying meaning.In the end,the author discusses the relations among the three modes and the role they play in the construction of the topic of the film with the guidance of Zhang Delu's mode relation.The conclusions of this study are as follows: first,through the analysis of the visual mode,we can know that the film is a lively movie.The whole movie takes protagonist Maria as the main line.Second,through the analysis of audio mode,we can know this film let people feel cheerful and enjoyable.Furthermore,according to the explanation of lingual mode,we can know Maria is a positive person.Because of her positiveness,she transforms the behavior of the children.Finally,as for the relations of the three modes,the study shows that the relation between the three modes belongs to the primary and secondary relation of the complementary relation.In the ten shots,the primary modes of the first shot,the fourth shot,the sixth shot,the eighth shot and the tenth shot are visual and audio modes,lingual is the secondary mode.The primary modes of the other five shots are visual and lingual,the secondary mode is audio.Through the comprehensive analysis of the visual,audio and lingual mode,we can see the role of the three modes in the realization of the overall meaning of each shot.There are always two modes as the main modes or the primary modes.They will first get the concern of the audience.The third mode is a secondary mode,which is an auxiliary to achieve the whole meaning.Through the analysis of the three modes in co-occurrence significance,we can make a conclusion that the ten shots selected by the author can be connected to reflect the theme of this film.Maria's positive attitude and how her positive attitudes affect the seven children is the theme.According to the analysis of visual,audio and lingual mode of the film The Sound of Music,this study can expand the field of multimodal discourse analysis in theory and corroborate the feasibility and operability of Visual Grammar for film analysis.Simultaneously,this study not only can help the audience to appreciate the film from multimodality,but also provide a new perspective to enjoy other films.