A Contrastive Multimodal Discourse Analysis Of Chinese And American COVID-19 Prevention Public Service Announcements

COVID-19 prevention public service announcement(PSA),as one of the most important ways to disseminate information,is a common multimodal discourse that uses various symbolic modalities such as texts,images and sounds delivering effective messages to achieve good publicity effects.Be that as it may,multimodal discourse analysis(MDA)on COVID-19 prevention PSAs remains in its tracks.According to CNKI,only two multimodal discourse analysis of COVID-19 prevention PSAs are found among 58 related researches with no contrastive researches(by 2021.1).Contrastive researches of COVID-19 prevention PSAs from MDA boost a high value in completing MDA research objectives and translating COVID-19 prevention PSAs.Thus,three metafunctions in Systematic Functional Grammar,Visual Grammar and Audio Grammar are applied to make an MDA of Chinese and American COVID-19 prevention PSAs through self-built closed corpora.The samples of PSAs are taken from CCTV national library of outstanding radio and TV PSAs(gy.nrta.gov.cn)and American Public Service Advertising Association(www.adcouncil.org)separately.with an aim to solve the three research questions:(1)What is the multimodal meaning construction mechanism of Chinese and American COVID-19 prevention PSAs?(2)What are the multimodal similarities and differences between Chinese and American COVID-19 prevention PSAs?Research found Chinese COVID-19 prevention PSAs often use firstperson dominant material process texts with long shot offering images and higher experts voice to convey multimodal epidemic prevention messages,while the multimodal meaning construction mechanism of American COVID-19 prevention PSAs is more likely to be as second-person dominant relational process texts supplemented by close shot demanding images and lower stuffs voice.Basically,as no textual modality similarities showed up,there are two multimodal similarities found between Chinese and American COVID-19 prevention PSAs.To begin with,Narrative representation,frontal horizontal perspective and high-sensory modality are highly used to build a true,equal and formal perspective through visual modality.Then sound qualities like experts or staffs are also a common use to gain public trust.Also,three multimodal differences are found as following: Firstly,Chinese PSA texts are dynamic verb-oriented,meanwhile,the use of the first person is used to reduce the sense of responsibility imposition,while American PSA texts are more relationship-oriented,producers communicate with the audience mainly through the second person.Secondly,Long shots are frequently used in Chinese PSAs to build a realistic visual perspective,again American PSAs use close shots to contact with viewers.Finally,rising pitch is a common use in Chinese PSAs to make the works more formal,whereas American PSAs use falling pitch to resonate with the audience.By exploring the multimodal meaning construction mechanism of Chinese and American COVID-19 prevention PSAs,it proves that there are possibilities of similarities in multimodal understanding among different cultures,with an aim to provide some linguistic references for the mutual translation of Chinese and American PSAs,especially COVID-19 prevention PSAs.