A Diachronic Comparative Study On China’s Image Promotion Film Posters From The Perspective Of Multimodal Stylistics

Film posters are multimodal texts designed to convey the rich themes of films and attract viewers through the verbal and non-verbal modes.At present,scholars mainly analyze film posters under the theme of science fiction and romantic love from the perspective of the art design and multimodal discourse analysis,but few researchers interpret national images in film posters.Therefore,taking China‘s image promotion film posters from 1949 to 1966 and in the 21 st century as research objects,this thesis aims to discuss foregrounded features of language,image,color,typography and layout,and inter-semiotic relations on the basis of the present multimodal stylistic theory.Then,a diachronic comparative study is organized not only to explore the differences between the foregrounded multimodal features of film posters in the two periods but also reveal the change of China‘s images in the past decades.The major findings of this study are interpreted as follows.Firstly,for the China‘s image promotion film poster from 1949 to 1966,material processes and relational processes are foregrounded features of the verbal mode.Reactional processes,action processes and symbolic processes are foregrounded features of images.Green,white,blue,red and yellow are foregrounded features of color.For the typography,slope and connectivity are foregrounded features.For layout,placing film titles and introductions on the top and images at the bottom are foregrounded features.The intensified complementary relation between modes is also a foregrounded feature.In the 21 st century,film titles in the form of noun phrases,brief introductions,genres and dedications are foregrounded features of the verbal mode.Reactional processes,action processes and symbolic processes are foregrounded features of images.White,blue,red,yellow,black and gray are foregrounded features of color.Both connected typeface and irregular typeface constitute foregrounded features of typography.The layout of placing film titles at the bottom and images on the top,and placing film titles in the middle and images above and below film titles are foregrounded features.The non-intensified complementary relation between the verbal and visual mode,and the intensified complementary relation between the verbal and typography mode,and between the visual and color mode are foregrounded features.Secondly,based on a comparative study,this research discovers film posters in the first period apply verbs,such as"destroy"(“消灭”)and"strike"(“打击”),to describe soldiers‘actions and relational processes depict soldiers‘bravery and fearlessness.For images,reactional processes and action processes in the first period depict soldiers‘fearlessness and actions in wars,but they present figures with different professions in the second period.In the first period,symbolic images symbolize revolutions,but they stand for the sportsmanship and traditional culture in the second period.For colors,green and blue indicate military identities and red stands for revolutions in the two periods.Yellow and white in the first period symbolize hope and military identities respectively,but yellow indicates danger and white describes the natural phenomena in the second period.For typography,the connected typeface highlights the feature of handwriting in the first period,but it publicizes Chinese characters in the second period.For layout,film titles and brief introductions in the first period are salient,but the information conveyed by images is salient in the second period.For inter-semiotic relations,the visual mode intensifies meanings in the verbal mode in the first period,but the verbal and visual modes in the second period are mutually complementary.In conclusion,film posters from 1949 to1966 portray revolutionary heroes and praise their patriotism and revolutionary spirit.Film posters in the 21st century embody themes of bearing history in mind,showing gratitude to martyrs,promoting Chinese traditional culture and building a responsible country.Therefore,China‘s image in the 21st century is more multi-dimensional.This research not only further verifies multimodal stylistics is an effective theory but also reveals China‘s images reflected by stylistic features of film posters in different periods.