A Multimodal Discourse Analysis Of Secondary Vocational School English Textbooks

With the development of technology,multimodal textbooks have aroused great concern and the related research has become a hot field.In recent years,the high-quality development of vocational education has been widely concerned,so the research on secondary vocational English education is very important.However,most multimodal studies on English textbooks focus on ordinary middle schools and less attention is paid to secondary vocational schools.Given this context,this research takes 30 texts from the FLTRP version of secondary vocational English textbooks as the research data.From the perspective of systemic functional linguistics,with special reference to Kress & Leeuwen’s visual grammar theory(2006)and Martinec & Salway’s image-text relations theory(2005),it explores the construction of ideational meaning and interpersonal meaning in language and image,as well as their image-text relations in secondary vocational English textbooks.The research findings are summarized as follows:First,material process and relational process account for the largest proportion in the construction of ideational meaning in language.Most texts here are both descriptive and narrative,showing students’ daily life and employment direction.When constructing interpersonal meaning of language,positive happiness affect resources,positive normality judgment resources and positive valuation appreciation resources are emphasized.Textbook presents positive contents mostly,which can provide guidance for students’ daily behavior and develop their healthy aesthetic taste.Second,action process accounts for the largest proportion,followed by symbolic process and reaction process in constructing ideational meaning of image.These processes show colorful campus life,internship and communication in students’ daily life,and enable students to understand cultural diversity.In the construction of interpersonal meaning of image,the proportion of demand contact and offer contact is relatively balanced.These images help students to learn and use English language knowledge in real contexts,and to acquire reading skills and new words.Third,as for the image-text relation,extension accounts for the largest proportion,followed by elaboration and enhancement during the construction of ideational meaning.It is found that background information or word notes are usually supplemented in the form of “tips” cards.When constructing interpersonal meaning,elaboration accounts for the highest proportion,followed by extension and enhancement.Elaboration describes students’ daily life concretely in language and presents images realistically,which contributes to students’ overall perception of text.This research has both theoretical and practical significance.Theoretically,it provides some suggestions for the analysis of secondary vocational English textbooks.Practically,it helps teachers fully use textbook multimodal resources,cultivates students’ pluralistic reading ability,and provides reference for the perfection of textbooks.