| With the advent of the digital age and the widespread use of multimedia computer technology,discourse is not presented in a single modality,but simultaneously presented in multiple modalities.Based on Halliday's meta-function theory and Kress& Van Leeuwen's Visual Grammar as well as Van Leeuwen's Audio Grammar,this paper takes 10 popular science videos selected from Scientific American's official website as the research object,and employs the MMA video software developed by Professor Kay O' Halloran and her professional team.The videos are analyzed and discussed separately from three modes of language,image and sound.In terms of language,ideational function,interpersonal function and textual function are analyzed;images are investigated from the perspective of representational meaning,interactive meaning and compositional meaning;sound which mainly refers to background music is analyzed from the systems of perspective and melody.The relationship between visual modality and auditory modality is further discussed in the end.It is found that in the ideational function of language mode,clauses of material process account for the highest proportion to describe the objective world of science.As for interpersonal function,declarative mood is mainly used to explain scientific phenomena and facts directly and quickly,conforming to the functional tone of language used in the popular science videos.The proportion of topical themes ranks the highest in the analysis of textual function,and most of them appear along with textual theme in multiple themes,which is very helpful for the popularization of the scientific knowledge logically.From the perspective of visual mode,action process and analytical process are much preferred in conveying representational meaning,which contributes to rigorous and objective elaboration of scientific phenomena.In the expression of interactive meaning,indirect gaze is more frequently utilized than direct gaze,implying that the popular science video is likely to be “offer act”-oriented;in addition,the close-up shot is more popular slightly,which is more conducive to the close analysis of internal structure of the subjects and shorten the distance with the audience;with regard to compositional meaning,the distribution of left to right and center to margin are frequently used,putting the “new” and “important” information in the right and central part.In the aspect of audio mode,it is found that whether as figure or ground,various melodies used in the popular science videos possess different characteristics in pitch movement,pitch range and pitch level corresponding to their specific themes and contexts,which aims to promote the auditory meaning and make the knowledge more easily understood and accepted by the audience.Last,the modalities manifested in the videos are visual modality and auditory modality,with the former mainly including shots in the videos and the latter mainly background music and language of voiceover.Since only one modality cannot express the full meaning of each popular science video,the visual modality and auditory modality are complementary to contribute to the full meaning construction. |
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