A Study Of New Concept English 1 Based On The Theory Of Multimodal Discourse Analysis

New Concept English has been introduced into China for 40 years.It has provided great help to our English teaching.As an indispensable teaching link,textbooks are the key to improve teaching quality.Therefore,it is necessary to study the classical textbooks.Under the background of the new era,traditional English teaching methods cannot meet the needs of the times.Multimodal discourse analysis,a new teaching approach,emerges as the times require.Based on Kress and Van Leeuwen's visual grammar theory and Royce's intersemiotic complementarity theory,this research tries to study the modality in New Concept English 1.The paper aims to answer the following questions:(1)What are the characteristics of the visual function of image employed in New Concept English 1?(2)In what way to achieve the image and text complementary construction significance in New Concept English 1?(3)What are the feedback from teachers and students on the pictures,frames,colors,and the relationship of images and texts in New Concept English 1?The results show that:(1)The visual functions of the pictures in New Concept English1 include representational function,interactive function,and compositional function.Among of them,narrative representation occupies a large proportion in representational function;Contacts in the interactive functions are mainly offer;Close-up shot is the most common in the social distance;Attitude is expressed through the horizontal angles.These visual symbols can highlight the theme of the text and help students understand the text.(2)The New Concept English 1 conforms to six image and text relationships in Royce's intersemiotic complementarity theory.Among them,repetition,synonymy,and collocation are the main parts.Students can achieve their learning goals through the links of images and texts.Teachers can achieve their teaching goals by image and text relations.(3)Teachers and students believe that the rational use of images,appropriate use of colors,enrichment of teaching material modules,and addition of computer-aided instruction are helpful to improve teaching skills.Multimodal discourse analysis of New Concept English textbooks verifies the applicability of Kress and Van Leeuwen's visual grammar and Royce's intersemiotic complementarity theory in textbooks.This study provides help for teachers to use textbooks scientifically and effectively in the teaching process.It provides some suggestions for the improvement of the New Concept English series and gives some references to other textbooks.