A Multimodal Discourse Analysis Of The Public Service Advertisement: "Together Forever"

With the all-round advancement of multiple media and computer technology,along with the impact under the information era makes various semiotic resources constantly pour into the social practice. Under this kind of background, Multimodal discourse analysis(MDA) appears as a new tendency which gradually gains the overarching focus of the linguistics in discourse analysis since the 1990 s. Multimodal discourse involves discourses in which meaning-construction is co-functioned by multiple semiotic systems like gesture, color, building and sound. With the solid foundation of Halliday’s systemic functional grammar(SFG), numerous linguists have conducted unceasing explorations, the most remarkable scholars being Kress and van Leeuwen(1996). They propose the earliest comprehensive framework in their co-authored work Reading Image which exposes another information exchange mode from the perspective of tri-metafunctions of image and the so-called Visual Grammar is a derivative of SFG. Most recent attempts have been focused on the static discourse analysis, namely, MDA is still in a preliminary phase for attempts involved are scanty in flourishing the progress. Therefore, this thesis sifts public advertisement “Together Forever” as the research content, aiming to probe the process of meaning exposition of audiovisual modalities and their interrelationships.Public service advertisement exert moral influence on the social community in a more direct way while setting up correct values and practicing good behavior guidance by virtue of public figures. So choosing “Together Forever” as the research subject is of richness and dialecticalness. This thesis is done by adopting methods of qualitative research, which is run to deal with the following specific issues:1) How is the visual meaning expressed vibrantly in “Together Forever” under the guidance of three meta-functional meanings?2) How is the audio meaning conveyed via its perspective, melody and sound quality in “Together Forever”?3) How does each semiotic mode cooperate and interact together for the meaning-making in “Together Forever” in order to seek the optimum effect of ideological influence through this advertisement?This research is a brand new attempt to unfold an analysis in the basis of SFG and VG. Furthermore, it also synthesizes the academic achievement of van Leeuwen(1999) in the acoustic field. Finally, the mutual relation of audiovisual semioticresources is discussed from communications, targeted at how the ideologies implied in the advertisement. All semiotic modes co-construct to strengthen the distinctiveness and contagiousness of the implicitly transmitted theme. Upon a diligent attempt and exploration on “Together Forever”, major results can be generalized as follows:Firstly, this thesis attempts to respectively analyze two kinds of semiotic modes(image and verbiage) and the way that these two co-construct the communicative connotations on the content level based on three metafunctions. Both contribute to better embody the characters’ sentiment, present spontaneous consideration to the HIV-positive children during the image establishment of Peng Liyuan(Mother Peng).Secondly, the thesis has tentatively carried out an attempt on how the audio grammar makes a difference in dynamic discourse. As to the perspective, dialogues and narrations are generally placed in the foreground and the sound effect and music with lyrics act as background to intensify emotion. The melody pattern is a major aspect for the pitch features can conduct the sound act via incarnating the fine emotional experience which this advertisement tries to convey. The final part deals with the quality: the quieter, and the loser the voice is, the less conflict is concerned.Thirdly, the visual and audio modalities are tied as a unity, and the embodiment of their relationship throws light on the symbolic implications of art. The attempt is being well- organized through the integration of text, image and sound, which can be regarded as a typical sample and the design of “Together Forever” privileges the employment of asynchronous, rendering kind of unique, immediate but lingering charm and magic. Hence the psychological distance is bridged by the visuality and audibility and the way how the ideology exerts the optimum effect is also discussed.This present research has been assigned with certain significance and value. The extension of MDA to a new domain not only widens the dimension but verifies the practicality and explanatory power. It is a new thought of this thesis to employ sound theory with MDA system, which brings a new height of sophistication. The practical value lies in offering viewers new ways to “taste” the advertisement while reinforcing their connoisseurship on multimodal discourse.