Multimodal Discourse Analysis Of Obama's Speeches On Syria Chemical Weapons

Multimodal discourse analysis explores the meaning of discourse by means of verbal and non-verbal researches. This article analyzes Obama's speeches on Syria chemical weapons from language mode, voice mode, gesture mode and expression mode. The author finds out that the integration of different modes can help speakers to deliver the speech well. This thesis studies the message conveyed by each modes and their interactive significance during the course of communication. Through the analysis, the author tries to find out how these modes interact and cooperate to deliver the information, and whether the interaction and cooperation are complementary or non-complementary as to reveal the implicit ideology and information in the speeches and to point out Obama's change of attitude on Syria chemical weapons as well as the reason of it.There are five parts in the dissertation. The first part introduces an overall framing of the whole study about what, how and why to do the research and the organization of the thesis. The second part presents a review of multimodal discourse analysis and political discourse analysis. The third part introduces several established models of Multimodal Discourse Analysis, and based on which, a proposed model of Multimodal Discourse Analysis on Political Discourse is discussed. Then, through the analysis of two speeches, the forth part exemplifies and elaborates how the language and non-language work together to convey the communicative information, and the meaning increment and decrement among different models. The final part sums up the major findings of the research, discusses the significance of the study, and suggests limitations and further directions for future research.The research indicates that the interaction among different modes in political discourse can not only cause increment as the modes work together with each other, but also decrement as the modes work against each other. The thesis has proved that Multimodal Discourse Analysis is a useful tool for analyzing multimodal political discourse which also has a certain guiding significance. Multimodal Discourse Analysis on Political Discourse can reveal the hidden power and ideology, assist readers'recognition and understanding of political discourse, enhance the construction of our national discourse power and resist the discourse hegemony.