A Multimodal Discourse Analysis Of Cosmetic Advertisements

The daily communication and information dissemination are not confined only to text verbal semiotic resource, nonverbal semiotic resources, such as images, colors and sounds also play an increasingly important role. The traditional discourse analysis that regards text as the research subject ignores the importance of nonverbal semiotic resources in the meaning construction, while multimodal discourse analysis enriches the research methods and overcomes this limitation. Based on Kress and van Leeuwen’s Visual Grammar, this thesis conducts a multimodal discourse analysis of cosmetic advertisements. First of all, fifty pieces of print cosmetic advertisements are collected and chosen as research materials in this thesis.Then,these collected cosmetic advertisements are classified. Finally,a research is conducted on the multimodal discourse analysis of cosmetic advertisements from the perspectives of representational meaning, interactive meaning and compositional meaning under the framework of Visual Grammar. The results show that, firstly, the representational meaning in cosmetic advertisements is constructed by narrative process and conceptual process or the combination of them, and the action process and reactional process of narrative process are frequently used in cosmetic advertisements. Secondly, the interactive meaning is realized by contact, social distance and attitude, which are mutually depended on one another. Offer act realizes contact, and close shot realizes intimate social relation, and horizontal angle and vertical angle realize attitude. Thirdly, the compositional meaning in cosmetic advertisements is established by information value,salience and framing,which are closely related to each other. The thesis helps provide a new angle for the research of cosmetic advertisements and enrich the analysis of advertising discourse. It may be conducive to a better understanding of cosmetic advertisements and a realization of their function and value.