A Multimodal Discourse Analysis On Chinese Anti-smokingpublic Service Posters

With the arrival of information age, the ways of communication are diversified. Influenced by this trend, more multi-media methods are used in the design of Chinese anti-smoking public service posters to reach the maximum effect. Accordingly, for better interpretation, new analytical method is of great importance both in theory and practice.Based on Halliday’s systemic-functional grammar as well as Kress and van Leeuwen’s visual grammar, two research questions are discussed:1. How are the representational, interactive and compositional meanings of Chinese anti-smoking public service posters realized through different modalities?2. How do different modalities interact with each other to realize the central meaning of the multimodal text?Qualitative research method and quantitative research method are adopted to analyze 20 Chinese anti-smoking public service posters. It is found that the theory of multimodal discourse analysis, especially the visual grammar is applicable in analyzing the Chinese anti-smoking public service posters. Concerning representative meaning, conceptual process plays a more important role than narrative process. The construction of interactive meaning is the interplay of several factors. It is found that offer act is used more than demand act in contact. Besides, the social distance between the represented participants and the viewers tend to be shortened which is realized by the close shots. Concerning perspective in interactive meaning, frontal angle is more commonly used in the posters which indicate involvement relation between the represented participants and the viewers of the posters. The construction of coherent compositional meaning is the result of the cooperation of information value, framing and salience. It is found that top-bottom composition is the major way to achieve information value. Besides, the salience of the poster is involved with many factors such as size, contrast in color, etc. What’s more, the interaction between different modalities should not be ignored in the analysis of Chinese anti-smoking public service posters. Different relation of modalities results in different effects of the posters.The present study can be divided into six chapters.Chapter one mainly introduces the basic content and structure of the present study, including the research background, significance of the research, research questions, and thesis organization.Chapter two makes a recount on the previous multimodal discourse researches abroad and home from two perspectives.In chapter three, the theoretical framework is presented, namely Halliday’s systemic-functional grammar and his social semiotic thoughts. Besides, Kress and van Leeuwen’s visual grammar is also used as the theoretical foundation for the present study.Chapter four discusses the research methodology of the study, which includes the process of collecting the data and methods to conduct this research.Chapter five is concerned with the data analysis and discussion. The first part of the analysis is concerned with the meaning construction in Chinese anti-smoking public service poster. And the second part discusses how verbal text and visual image interact with each other to realize the central meaning of the posters.In Chapter six, major findings are summarized. In the rest part of this chapter, implications, and suggestions for further researches are also proposed in this chapter.