Multimodal Discourse Analysis:Approaching Filmic Discourse Of Pride And Prejudice

Multimodal discourse analysis emerged in the1990’s, and ever since it has attracted more and more linguists’attention, because it not only studies the traditional texts which former linguists focused on, but also studies the function of many social semiotics, such as image, sound, color and gesture. In the meantime, multimodal discourse analysis is deemed as a break-through for discourse analysis, enriching and developing its theoretical framework and practice.With the development of information technology, varieties of multimodal discourse such as advertisements, webpage and PPT appear continually, among which film is a common discourse material. Since film combines image, color, sound and technology, bringing the enjoyment of vision and hearing to people, it has drawn the interest of linguists to study its characteristics and function. However, in the field of multimodal discourse, filmic discourse is regarded as a complicated and tough subject, because the meaning construction of various semiotic systems is constantly changing in order to keep pace with the dynamic discourse.This thesis adopts qualitative research method, choosing movie Pride and Prejudice as material for analysis. On the basis of systemic functional grammar and Kress and Van Leeuwen’s visual grammar, this thesis combines linguistic elements and non-linguistic elements, analyzing how image, language, text and gesture are combined to construct a whole meaning in the film. The thesis is divided into six chapters. The first chapter is an introductory part, generalizing the background and significance of this research. The second chapter focuses on literature review, which contains fruitful studies of multimodal discourse analysis at home and abroad, and the research trend of filmic discourse. The theoretical framework and research method is in the third chapter, which elaborates functional grammar and visual grammar in details. The fourth chapter is the main body of the whole thesis. According to Kress and Van Leeuwen’s visual grammar, the film is analyzed from the perspectives of representative meaning, interactional meaning and compositional meaning. Representative meaning further divides into two patterns—narrative process and conceptual process. The interactional meaning is realized by four systems, namely contact, social distance, attitude and modality to express complicated and subtle relationships between characters. The compositional meaning contains three major systems:information value, salience and framing. The fifth chapter picks out two shots from the movie Pride and Prejudice. The selected images are analyzed synthetically to explore how these varies of modes are combined together to express the whole meaning in a film. The last chapter is conclusion. Multimodal discourse analysis provides a new perspective for film studies, which specially suits for the dynamic images, deepening audience’s understanding for the film and the original work. Meanwhile, this chapter brings up limitations of this study. This thesis mainly investigates the interactive meaning with the least attention paid to the compositional meaning. In the end, it also puts forward suggestions on how to interpret filmic discourse by means of multimodal devices.This research on the one hand finds that visual grammar possesses a strong applicability and feasibility on analyzing filmic discourse which takes dynamism into consideration. On the other hand, the analysis of multimodal systems enables us to comprehensively and exactly understand the meaning of language, and then explores how we achieve the purpose of communication by means of various modes. In the end, it provides us with a new perspective of appreciating film and literature, deepening our understanding and elevating our appreciation and taste for literature.