A Multimodal Discourse Analysis Based On Visual Grammar Theory

With the popularization of computers and the development of multimedia technology,the way we acquire information is no longer limited to words.People’s communication models gradually extend to social symbols that focus on vision and audition outside the language(such as image,sound,color,layout),and nonverbal information that focuses on vision(such as sounds,pictures and diagrams)is a strong challenge to traditional language symbols,which becomes the main source of getting information in daily life.In a sense,we have entered the era of multimedia.Therefore,the ability to read nonverbal information symbols,that is,multiliteracy,is particularly important today,and the information coding that combines multiple modalities can satisfy people’s communication needs better.In recent years,scholars at home and abroad have carried out various researches on multimodal discourse analysis.Since 1990 s,Kress and van Leeuwen’s Reading Images(1996)that bases on Halliday s systemic-functional grammar has constructed the theoretical basis and guiding methods for visual grammar.Therefore,the social semiotics framework of image analysis was born.The multimodal discourse analysis has been the focus of many scholars at home and abroad,and it is applied to many fields such as film,television,advertisement and teaching.There are words,images,and different colors and fonts in the movie,so it has a multimodal nature.For example,the film has a revelatory effect on personal life and social operation,which is based on meaning construction.Therefore,meaning interpretation is the core goal of film appreciation and is also one of the important subjects of film research.Based on the framework of Kress and van Leeuwen’s visual grammar theory,this thesis analyzes the multimodal discourse of the film Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.2directed by James Guun in 2016.This thesis selects representative scenes and images from the film,chooses the sound and picture in the shots to discuss,analyzes discourse meaning with different modalities together,shows the overall outlook that the film presents,and discusses the effect that uses different modalities in filmic discourse to express the movie s theme and shape the characters in the film.The main research questions of the thesis are:1.How are representational meaning,interactive meaning,and compositional meaning expressed respectively in the film Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.2?2.How do the words,images,sounds and scenes in the film Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.2 build the complete meaning of the discourse?Based on the analysis of audio and video materials in the film Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.2 and Kress and van Leeuwen’s visual grammar theory,the thesis gives the following conclusions: firstly,the thesis chooses several shots from the film Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.2 and analyzes the film in depth on the basis of visual grammar theory,and analyzes the shots from the perspective of representational meaning,interactive meaning and compositional meaning,thus the fact is discovered that visual grammar is effective for the analysis of the film Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.2;Secondly,the words,images,sounds and scenes in the film Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.2 interplay,they work together or highlight some modalities to build the complete meaning of the textual meaning.The thesis is a new attempt to analyze the filmic discourse in terms of representational meaning,interactive meaning and compositional meaning.This thesis is based on a case study of the film Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.2,discovers that use multimodal discourse especially the visual grammar to analyze filmic discourse is a necessary complement,and the audiences can understand the theme of the film more deeply through the comprehensive use of various modalities in the film.