A Visual Grammar-based Comparative Study Of The Homepage Of Sino-US Financial Companies

With the popularization of computers and information technology,the way people obtain information is no longer limited to text,but has expanded to the combination of various social semiotics such as image,sound,color,etc.Therefore,multimodal study is becoming a hot topic in recent years.Based on visual grammar,this study aims to explore the use of visual resources in the homepage of Sino-US financial companies,which has a positive meaning in improving people's multiliteracy and can also provide a reference for website designers.This study selects 40 Chinese financial companies and 40 American financial companies from the Forbes Global 2000 as research objects,and investigates the images on their homepages.Through quantitative analysis,it is found that there are similarities and differences in the distribution of representational meaning,interactive meaning and compositional meaning between the two sides.With regard to representational meaning,the frequency of action process,reactional process,classificational process,and analytical process used by the Chinese side is lower than that of the American side.There is not significant difference in the distribution of action process,speech and mental process and classificational process between the two sides,but there is significant difference in the distribution of reactional process,analytical process and symbolic process.In terms of interactive meaning,there are both similarities and differences between the two sides in contact,social distance,perspective and modality,which are embodied in the subcategories of these four aspects.For contact,both parties employ more “offer” images than “demand”images,but there is marked difference in the distribution of the two.For social distance,there is no significant difference in the distribution of medium shot between the two sides,while they differ significantly in the distribution of close shotand long shot.For perspective,there exists no significant difference in the distribution of horizontal angle between the two parties,but there exists great difference in the distribution of vertical angle.For modality,no significant difference exists in the distribution of median modality between the two sides,but high and low modality does.As far as compositional meaning concerned,it mainly compares the distribution of information value and framing.As for information value,the proportion of “top and bottom” structure is similar between the two sides,while the proportion of “left and right” structure and “center and margin” structure are significantly different.As for the distribution of framing,the proportion occupied by the Chinese side is much lower than that of the American side.In addition to the quantitative analysis,the qualitative analysis is also made on the construction of representational meaning,interactive meaning and compositional meaning.Finally,this study discusses the possible factors that may cause the differences from a cultural perspective.To a certain extent,this research can enrich the understanding of how visual resources are used and distributed on the homepages of Sino-US financial companies and can also help improving people's multiliteracy and provide practical insights for website designers in how to make more effective use of visual resources to adjust to the international viewer.