Multimodal Discourse Analysis Of Interpersonal Meaning Construction In Annual Reports From Transnational Retail Corporations

With the rapid development of information technology,contemporary annual reports,as one of the most comprehensive ways for corporations to communicate to the public,have changed from simple written texts to multi-modal forms.The combination of written texts and visual images in annual reports tends to encourage the interaction between corporations and readers and establish a closer relationship between them to project a positive corporate image.Taking annual reports of transnational retail corporations as the research object,this thesis explores the interpersonal meaning construction in annual reports through multimodal discourse analysis.As the central part of appraisal theory,the attitude system is used to study verbal resources.The interactive meaning of visual grammar is adopted to analyze visual resources.The relation of verbal resources and visual resources is examined in light of the framework of intersemiotic complementarity.Written texts and relevant images of five annual reports have been collected as corpus data.Through quantitative research method,the distribution features of both resources are presented.The qualitative research method is employed to explore how verbal resources and visual resources construct interpersonal meaning.Through the analysis of verbal resources in annual reports,this research finds that annual reports employ a large number of attitude resources in the construction of interpersonal meaning.Annual reports prefer to choose positive attitude resources,which account for the vast majority,86.8%.The attitude system consists of affect,judgment and appreciation subsystems.The judgment resources contribute to the highest proportion,which reaches up to 51.6%.The appreciation resources rank the second with an occurrence of 28.1%,followed by the affect resources with the least proportion of 20.3%.More specifically,annual reports tend to use a large number of capacity resources and tenacity resources in the domain of the judgment system to demonstrate business strength,profession and credibility,aiming to consolidate a favorable corporate image with readers.In the analysis of visual resources,the interactive meaning of visual grammar has been studied,which includes contact,social distance and attitude.In the contact system,demand images take up 35% while offer images occupy 65%.The primary purpose of annual reports is to provide information to readers through the offer resources.However,interacting with readers through the demand resources is also an indispensable strategy in annual reports.Both demand and offer resources work together to enhance the interpersonal relationship between corporations and viewers.In terms of the social distance system,annual reports prefer to adopt medium shots(64%)and close shots(23%)to maintain an interactive relationship with viewers.Long shots with occurrence13% are rarely used.The attitude system consists of horizontal angle and vertical angle.In horizontal angle,frontal angle images account for a majority 65% while oblique angle images take up 35%.Annual reports prefer to choose frontal angle to create a high degree of viewers’ involvement.In vertical angle,only eye-level angle images are employed to embody an equal relationship between represented participants and viewers.Both frontal angle and eye-level angle in attitude serve to establish an intimate relationship.Finally,verbal resources and visual resources are analyzed together and the result shows that both resources complement each other in the realization of interpersonal meaning.Inspired by the importance and richness of multimodal resources in annual reports of transnational retail corporations,this study not only develops the application of multimodal discourse analysis in this type of business discourse,but also sheds light on the practical usage of annual reports by corporations to establish a favorable corporate image.