A Multimodal Discourse Analysis Of The Documentary Great Changes-Salute To The 40^th Anniversary Of Reform And Opening-up From The Perspectives Of Visual Grammar And Inter-Semiotic Complementarity Theory

Multimedia technology,one of the rapidly developing technologies in the 21 st century,has revolutionized the way information is transmitted.The integration of images,sounds,videos,and other multimedia,together with language and text modality,much caters to human communication needs.Other meaningful symbols have also gradually attracted people's attention.Accordingly,the theory of multimodal discourse analysis came into being.In the 1990 s,Kress & van Leeuwen proposed visual grammar based on Halliday's systematic functional grammar;in 2007,Royce proposed a theory of inter-semiotic complementarity based on systematic functional grammar and visual grammar.The three theoretical frameworks mentioned above provide a theoretical basis for the analysis of multimodal discourses.Among them,systematic functional grammar includes ideational meaning,interpersonal meaning,and textual meaning;visual grammar includes representational meaning,interactive meaning,and compositional meaning;and inter-semiotic complementarity theory includes ideational inter-semiotic complementarity,interpersonal inter-semiotic complementarity,and compositional inter-semiotic complementarity.This study mainly uses qualitative study methods to conduct a multimodal discourse analysis of the documentary: Great Changes-Salute to the 40 th Anniversary of Reform and Opening.The documentary broke the traditional form of documentary filming,linking the changes of the fate of ordinary people to the dramatic changes of the country,and praised the correctness of the great decision of reform and opening up.After the documentary was broadcast,it caused a strong resonance among the audience.The author first used the screenshot function that comes with the computer to capture pictures of key locations(realistic or metaphorical)in the documentary as study material.This study mainly analyzes the reason why this documentary is striking through visual grammar and inter-semiotic complementarity theory.In order to facilitate the research,the pictures selected in this study are all from the four-minute for two-episode version of the documentary.A few pictures will be intercepted in each episode of the documentary,a total of 68 pictures are intercepted,and 36 representative pictures are selected for analysis.At the same time,data on visual,textual,and auditory patterns were also collected.Based on visual grammar and inter-semiotic complementarity theory,the content composition and multimodal discourse features of the documentary are studied.The analysis of each sub-theory will be described and explained by one or two figures.Finally,based on the analysis results,the realization of multimodal discourse,visual grammar and inter-semiotic complementarity theory is summarized,and the textual features of the documentary are explored by combining modalities such as music and commentary.The study found that:(1)Visual grammar perspective: in terms of representative meaning,narrative representation is more than conceptual representation.The narrative images of representative meaning mainly reflect people's behavior and social phenomena.In conceptual representation,the use of most pictures is related to specific goals,and is mainly used to express some stable and universal features.In terms of interactive meaning,demand images mainly exist in animals or humans and have eye contact with viewers,which will make the audience curious about the needs of the image participants and want to know what they have experienced or what they want to say.Offer images usually provide specific scenes,and the purpose is to provide information.The close-up shots are usually used to describe the scenes of people's hard work and their comments on the present and the past;the medium-range lens is mainly used to portray the builders who have contributed to the country;the perspective reflects the audience's participation,and it consists of two perspectives: a horizontal perspective and a vertical perspective.This documentary focuses on horizontal angles,supplemented by vertical angles,so that viewers can better feel the changes in various fields of the country.The modality is mainly based on the high modality,which fully displays the colorful material and cultural life.In terms of compositional meaning,important information is very prominent,usually placed in the center or in the foreground.By studying the compositional meaning,we can clearly understand how the representative elements and interactive elements are merged together,so as to understand the theme and overall meaning of the documentary.(2)Inter-semiotic complementarity perspective: The documentary involves a combination of language,music,color and other modalities.Not every modality can express the theme of a television documentary individually.When a modality cannot fully convey its meaning,the documentary uses other forms to supplement information.For example,the synchronized sound of historical images reflects the timeliness of the feature documentary and enhances its historical reality.Proper use of background music in documentaries can reflect the theme and resonate.The documentary uses some classic songs that can evoke the memory of the audience born in different eras as background music,which greatly enriches the audience's audio-visual experience.All in all,the documentary's correct and effective use of multiple modalities reflects the huge changes that have taken place in China since the reform and opening up.The clever use of multiple modalities makes the documentary more vivid,allowing viewers to better appreciate the documentary and understand the theme and culture of the documentary.