Multimodal Discourse Analysis Of Digital Product Print Advertisements

Since the discourse analysis theory was put forward by Zellig Harris in the 1950s,the analysis of discourse has been studied for more than sixty years.The research object has also shifted from the study of language itself to the study of other mode resources.Therefore,in the 1990s,multimodal discourse analysis gradually became popular in the field of linguistics.More and more scholars actively explored the mechanism and significance of how multiple modes interact and integrate.The development of digital products in the past two or three decades grew rapidly.The digital products represented by computers and mobile phones have become an indispensable part of daily life while changing the way people communicate.Digital product print advertisements have also grown considerably in the past decades along with the popularity of the product itself.As regards the shortcomings of current study,this research aims at solving three questions:1.What are the visual features of digital product print advertisements?2.What are the linguistic features of digital product print advertisements?3.How are visual and verbal modes integrated and connected to construct meaning?Based on Kress&van Leeuwen' s Visual Grammar,combined with Halliday's Systemic Functional Grammar,this study explores the multimodal discourse analysis of 40 digital product print advertisements and discovers their visual and linguistic features.Visual mode is analyzed through Visual Grammar and verbal mode is analyzed through Systemic Functional Grammar.This research has found that:1.Digital product print advertisements include not only many narrative representations about events and acts,but also many conceptual representations.Digital product print advertisements intentionally keep a median social distance with viewers so as to provide objective information.Visual designers also utilize some framing techniques to highlight products and valuable information.2.Material and relational processes are the main two processes in ideational function.Mood and modality value stay at median level to demonstrate products ' selling points.3.Meaning construction between visual and verbal modes is made through common points in their meta-functions.Repetition,synonymy,metonymy rules are used in the interaction between representational and ideational functions.In terms of interactive and interpersonal functions,mood and modality system are the two connection rules between them.Information value and salience are the connection rules between compositional and textual functions.To a certain extent,this research makes up for the shortcomings of the current domestic multimodal discourse analysis field on the topic of digital product print advertisements.Secondly,it aims to improve consumers'ability to read multimodal advertisements.Some insights are given to advertising designers to promote the development of the digital product advertising industry.