Multimodal Discourse Analysis Of TV Interviews

Nowadays,there appears to be a multimodal trend in human communication with the development of technology.Multiple modalities such as images,sounds,language and gestures,interact and cooperate with each other,which contribute to the final information transmission and meaning construction.Multimodal discourse is a set of practices with the interplay of two or multiple semiotic resources for meaning making,for instance,language,images,sounds,gestures and so on.It has gained importance and stature in current communication partly due to the impacts of global visual culture.Consequently,research in this field is hoped to provide both theoretical and practical implications.The TV interview discourse involves a variety of modes,such as language,images,sounds,gestures and so on,which can serve as an good indicator of the cooperation and synergy of multiple modes in multimodal discourse.Ellen Show is a representative TV interview program which has won 33 Emmy rewards.Based on a multimodal discourse analysis on this program,this thesis is intended to address following research questions: 1.How do modes interact with each other during the process of multimodal meaning construction in Ellen Show? 2.What are the roles of and the relationships among modes during the process of multimodal meaning construction in Ellen Show?The author annotates the communicative modes applied in the selected videos with the assistance of the software ELAN,this study adopts the method of qualitative and quantitative analysis on the basis of research.Using the institutional context and multimodal discourse research,the thesis discusses the relevant theories and research methods of multimodality in institutional discourse,and reveals the multimodal discourse features of Ellen Show.After analyzing,major findings are stated as follows: 1.Multimodal interaction provides a good reflection of mass communication goals and interpersonal communication characteristics,which shows the uniqueness of institutional discourse.During different stages of the interview,the multiple modes form various discourse interactions.The interaction between host and guest,the interaction between the host-guests conversations and the inserted videos,and the interaction in the inserted videos show the synergy effects among language symbols,visual symbols and auditory symbols,which combine together to form the dynamic discourse meaning.2.The language symbols play a dominant role in the TV interview Ellen Show.Visual symbols and auditory symbols are found to act as a means of addition,emphasis and explanation.All these modes are intertwined to construct the general meaning of Ellen Show and multimodal discourse meanings are finally achieved after the meaning construction of language,visual,auditory and other symbols.The case study of the Ellen Show proves the useful application of multimodal discourse analysis into TV interview discourse.Not only does the research expand the scope of multimodal discourse analysis and offer a better understanding of this theory from a new perspective of TV interview,but also facilitates a better appreciation for the audiences on the TV interview.