Multimodal Analysis Of Interactive Meaning In Chinese Speeches Of Chinese Bridge

With the development of the Internet era and the gradual maturity of multimedia technology,the inherent communication mode of humans has also changed,such as music,pictures,videos,etc.,which can construct meaning in communication.Therefore,multimodal research has attracted the attention of scholars.Chinese Bridge has become one of the world-renowned Chinese language learning platforms,and its Chinese speech,as a typical dynamic multimodal discourse,showcases the power of Chinese language to the world in a unique way.However,in recent years,research on Chinese Bridge has mainly focused on Chinese as a foreign language and cross-cultural communication,and few researchers have explored it from a multimodal perspective.Therefore,this dissertation will take a dynamic perspective,based on the theory of multimodal interaction analysis,to attempt to further understand the interactive meaning between the speakers and the audiences in the Chinese speech of Chinese Bridge.This thesis takes the theory of Multimodal Interaction Analysis proposed by Sigrid Norris as the theoretical and methodological framework.The basic unit of analysis in this theory is action,which focuses on how social actions are realized by using multimodality.Social actions can be divided into lower-level actions(the smallest interactional meaning unit),higher-level actions(made up of a multiplicity of chained lower-level actions),and frozen actions(higher-level actions,which are entailed in material objects).Given that the above three social actions have varying degrees of applicability in the research,among which higher-level actions have the strongest applicability,this thesis mainly focuses on the analysis of higher-level actions.This thesis also draws on Zhang Delu’s Comprehensive Theoretical Framework for Multimodal Interaction Analysis,as well as his research on modal relations.This study selects the videos of Chinese speech of Chinese Bridge in the past four years as the research corpus,and adopts a combination of quantitative and qualitative research methods to analyze the following three research questions:(1)What are the types and the distributions of the higher-level actions in Chinese speech of Chinese Bridge?(2)How are the higher-level actions in Chinese speech of Chinese Bridge realized by various communicative modes?(3)What are the modal relations between the communicative modes in higher-level actions of Chinese speech of Chinese Bridge?According to the research,there are 10 different higher-level actions in terms of the types and distribution of higher-level actions,of which 8 are from the speakers and 2 are from the audiences.High interactivity higher-level actions often account for more frequency and duration of utilization.In terms of the realization of these higher-level actions in the Chinese speech of Chinese Bridge,the above higher-level actions are mainly realized by modal density and modal configuration.As for modal density,it is realized by modal intensity or modal complexity(or both).Communicative modes with high modal intensity usually have a significant impact on the performing of higher-level actions.In all the higher-level actions in the Chinese speeches,the spoken mode is a primary communicative mode with high modal intensity.When the mode of spoken language stops or changes,the higher-level actions constructed by this mode will also immediately stop or change,while other secondary communicative modes such as gesture,posture,facial expression etc.play an auxiliary role.This study further demonstrates that higher-level actions are influenced by high density modes by comparing finalists and unsuccessful participants.High density will enable better completion of higher-level actions,but overuse can have a negative impact.As for modal configuration,all higher-level actions in the Chinese speech of Chinese Bridge are composed of at least 2 modes,including embodied and disembodied modes.Different communicative modes have different hierarchical positions in the higher-level actions.Usually,communicative modes with high modal intensity occupy a higher hierarchical position,and other communicative modes with medium or low modal intensity are in a subordinate position.In terms of modal relations,the successful foreign speakers in the Chinese Bridge competition,may even use up to 7 different modal combinations to construct higher-level actions during their speech.Most of the modal relations within these modal combinations are complementary,including reinforcement and non-reinforcement relations.Some are non-complementary,and they belong to overlapping relations of non-complementary relation.In addition,the over use of communicative modes can lead to negative interactions between modes,which leads to the counteracting sub-relation in the overlapping relation between modes.This thesis conducts a multimodal interaction analysis of the Chinese speech of Chinese Bridge,broadening the application scope of the multimodal interaction analysis theory,and providing a reference for the multimodal research methods of dynamic speech discourse to a certain extent.Meanwhile,through this study,speakers can be made aware of the importance of multimodal interaction,and thus more reasonably arrange the modal density and modal configuration in higher-level actions to achieve better speech effects.