The Multimodal Discourse Analysis Of Humor From The Perspective Of Visual Grammar

With the development of science and the society, especially the wide use of network and multimedia, many semiotic resources such as images, colors, sounds, actions, which have long been acting as paralanguage, are now playing more and more important roles in modern communications by cooperating with language semiotics to construct meaning. The means of conveying information tend to be diversified for the single text has gradually been replaced by diverse forms including audio, video, three-dimensional animation, etc. On the one hand, the means of expressing meaning have been enriched and the multimodal features of discourse have gradually been revealed. On the other hand, multimodal communication has gradually become the mainstream of people’s daily communication. Multimodal discourse analysis gradually rises and becomes one of the hot topics in linguistic research fields.In the middle of1990s, based on the Halliday’s theory of systemic-functional linguistics, Kress and Van Leeuwen construct a complete grammar framework to analyze visual images, providing a theoretic basis and an analyzing tool for the analysis of multimodal discourse. Based on visual grammar, both overseas and domestic scholars have analyzed many multimodal discourses such as ads, news, posters, emblems, etc, and proved the wide applicability of visual grammar.Of all kinds of humor forms, word humor has long been playing the dominant role, making humor research mainly focus on language semiotics. In recent years, with the rapid development of network technology and the wide use of computers, more and more humor pictures have been produced and spread on the internet. Most of these pictures, which usually consist of words, images, colors, etc, are multimodal humor discourses and can be interpreted by using visual grammar, but few relevant researches can be found.In order to explore the influences of different elements to actualize interactive meaning and compositional meaning on humor effects of multimodal humor discourses and examine the joint influence of interactive meaning and compositional meaning on humor effects,30humor discourses chosen from a famous website will be analyzed in a comprehensive way based on visual grammar proposed by Kress and Van Leeuwen.In this study, the researcher makes a qualitative analysis of the chosen data and studies the generation of humorous meaning from a new perspective. Firstly, the chosen humor discourses are examined from the points of contact, social distance, perspective and modality, with the focus on the influence of these elements on humor effects; Secondly, the analysis is conducted from the angles of information value, salience and framing, stressing on the function of these elements in humor discourses; Thirdly, a comprehensive analysis of the operating mechanism of the two meanings is carried on, probing into the new ways of humor study.This study finds that all elements of actualizing interactive meaning have some influences on humor effects. The influence of contact on humor effects is realized by providing the viewers with information or strengthening interaction with the viewers; The choice of different social distances reflects different social relations between the represented participants of humor discourses and the viewers; The subjective attitudes of the producers shown in the choice of different perspectives can further affect the viewers’ attitudes; What is expressed by modality is the truthfulness of humor discourses. As far as compositional meaning is concerned, the layout of humor discourses will greatly influence humor effects. For the part of information value, the most important element in a humor discourse will be placed on the top or on the right. Salience reflects the different degrees of attracting the viewers’attention; whether there exists the means of framing shows the belonging relations among different elements. In most cases, the elements to actualize both the interactive meaning and compositional meaning have to interact with each other in order to achieve better humor effects.Theoretically, this study examines the power of visual grammar in interpreting humor discourses, providing a new angle for further study of humor, enlarging its applicable scope and proving its validity; Practically, this study provides the humor discourse producers with a chance of better knowing and understanding visual grammar, with which all elements to realize interactive and compositional meanings can be taken into account in the process of humor discourse producers’ creation in order to produce more humorous effects; at the same time, it is beneficial for the viewers of humor discourses to appreciate humor better, improving their humor appreciating level.