Multimodal Discourse Analysis Of Children Literature

With the multiplication of semiotic modes, the discourse in our daily life is notmono-modal but multimodal. In order to explain the meanings of multimodal discourse,multimodal discourse analysis emerges accordingly. Despite the flourishing fruits ofprevious multimodal discourse analysis, the multimodal discourse theory and itsapplication call for more detailed study. It is known that the analysis of multimodaldiscourse in children literature is rarely studied. Therefore, there are mainly two purposesin this thesis as follows: to further verify that multimodal discourse analysis theory isapplicable to analyzing children literature; and to see how the visual and verbal modesare combined with color in the multimodal discourse of children literature to expressmeaning.This thesis is of theoretical and practical significance. With the respect to itstheoretical value, the author in this thesis makes a new attempt to apply multimodaldiscourse analysis to a brand-new form of literature, namely, children literature, thusbroadening the application of multimodal analysis theory. As for its practical significance,this study will cultivate children readers’ ability to comprehend multimodal discourseand facilitate the editorial work on the part of editors.The present thesis is divided into six chapters. Chapter One is the introductory partin which the research background and aims as well as significance are illustrated.Chapter Two is the literature review of previous studies abroad and at home. ChapterThree is the theoretical framework for the body part of the thesis. Chapter Four is theintroduction of selected data and the rationale underlying the selection. Chapter Five isthe body part of the thesis. It employs the mentioned theories to analyze the meaningrealized through different modes in the data. Chapter Six is the conclusion part. Itsummarizes the main implications of the study as well as its limitations. In addition, thetentative suggestions for further study of multimodal discourse analysis are made.