Multimodal Comparative Analysis Of Chinese And American Hospital Websites

In 2008,the number and scale of China's Internet users surpassed that of the United States,ranking first in the world.China's Internet popularization has made a leap again,catching up with and surpassing the global average.Online access to medical services and search for health and medical information have become one of the choices of more and more Internet users,and the demand for online search of medical information and professional medical advice is increasing.The development of modern technology has enriched people's access to information,and more and more diverse media have been applied to information dissemination.In the past,text was the main method.Nowadays,the usage of this type of media was gradually reduced.Traditional language expression has been replaced by a compound discourse mode combining multiple media.Other modes such as pictures,music,colors,typography,etc.have changed from the previous supporting roles to today's dominant situation.Multimodality has become an indispensable part of today's social and cultural system.The rapid development of network technology is a sign that the medium has changed from single-modality to multi-modality.In multi-media social activities and multi-modal socio-cultural systems,the way of meaning generation has become a new perspective in contemporary human studies.In today's Internet age,it is important to interpret multiple modalities on a medium and their relationships.How to improve the ability to interpret multimodal discourse is a topic worthy of attention.As an important part of the health service system,hospitals reflect the main characteristics of the national health service,such as public welfare and security.At the same time,different types of hospitals also have the characteristics of production and operation.Especially in the face of major public health events,hospitals play a vital role.For example,since the outbreak of Novel Coronavirus Pneumonia in January 2020,the hospital responded quickly and took comprehensive measures to combat new crown pneumonia.A number of hospitals have set up an Internet free consultation project working group based on patient needs to provide online services.After a severe infection broke out in Wuhan,during this period,more than 500 people consulted online about the novel coronavirus pneumonia,and more than 400 people consulted about psychological problems related to anxiety and fear.A total of 622 patients with fever or epidemiological history of Novel Coronavirus Pneumonia were screened out,including 5 patients with both fever and epidemiological history.Internet hospital free consultation services and reduce the accumulation of various types of patients in the hospital,reduce the risk of cross infectionand the panic of patients with similar symptoms.The online access to medical services model in this epidemic not only meets the different needs of various types of patients,but also highlights the unique role of “patient-centric” in convenience and benefit.With the rapid development of the market scale and informatization,the hospital website plays an important role in the hospital informatization construction.It is the main window for the hospital to implement external exchanges and publicity,it is a publishing platform that reflects the hospital's various construction achievements,and it is one of the main media that reflects the image of the hospital and various subjects as a whole.In the future,the Internet will play an increasingly important role in the national medical service system,the operation and management of hospitals,and doctors' work models.Therefore,this thesis selects the web pages of operating hospitals as corpora,including a total of 40 different hospital web pages in China and the United States as research objects.This thesis is based on multi-modal discourse analysis,and uses theories such as appraisal theory,genre analysis theory,and visual grammar as the theoretical framework,focus on the move structure and the perspective of interactive meaning.It uses a combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods,and micro and macro research methods to compare and analyze the process of constructing meanings of various modes on Chinese and American hospital websites.In addition,the thesis finally analyzes the impact of culture on hospital web design from the fundamental differences between the two cultures.It aims to clarify the important role of language and images as a social symbol in the process of constructing meaning through a comparative analysis of specific data on the text,images,and graphics of the web pages of hospitals in the two countries.Improve the reading ability of multimodal discourse in the use of modality.This thesis takes the two modalities on the hospital website as the analysis objects.First of all,the text of the hospital profile section on the web pages of the two countries' hospitals is analyzed using James Martin's appraisal theory.It is found that the homepage of Chinese websites uses more words to describe the type/status/scale of hospital(49.1%),while the highest proportion of US homepages is the medical level of hospitals(36.4%);Then find out the types of moves in the discourse structure of the hospital introduction section of the two countries' web pages respectively.Using the move structures in genre analysis theory to analyze these types of steps,draw the following conclusions: there are 3obligatory moves on the web pages in both countries,and other moves are optional,some is highly optional;the hospital web pages in the two countries have six identical moves;the hospital web pages in the United States have more moves than the Chinese hospital webpages.Hospital web pages in both countries will first introduce the type,scale,and status of the hospital.The different move structures of the two countries represent different cultures and unique national condition,such as party building with Chinese characteristics.In terms of image analysis,the paper compares and analyzes the pictures on the web pages of hospitals in the two countries from the perspective of interactive meaning in visual grammar.The results prove that: the number of offer images provided by hospitals in both countries far exceeds the number of demand images(97% in China and 84.4% in the United States);in terms of social distance,the most commonly used hospital in both countries is the long shot(53.6%),which is used by US hospitals The most is medium shot(42.6%);In terms of graphic and textual relationships,most of the relationships between text and images presented on Chinese hospital web pages are independent,and text and images are used to explain different meanings.On the other hand,the relationship between texts and images on American hospital web pages is mostly Images and texts serve to explain each other.Finally,the thesis analyzes the impact of culture on hospital web pages design from the fundamental basis between the two countries' cultures,and explores the differences between the values,philosophical thinking,and religious beliefs of the two countries from an economic,political,and spiritual perspective.Analyze the basis of the similarities and differences between the web pages of the two countries from a cultural perspective.Basis for similarities and differences.In the end,it is concluded that different cultures and their respective national conditions affect the differences in text and images of Chinese and American hospital web pages.Culture is closely related to the setting of web pages.Different cultures determine different web page discourses.