The Construction Of Chinese Corporate Image In Foreign Documentary

With the implementation of the “going global” strategy,corporate image,as a valuable intangible asset,increasingly becomes an important way for enterprises to improve their competitiveness in economic globalization.The construction of corporate image also greatly affects the enterprise development.With the rapid development of information technology,the multimodal features of discourse become increasingly obvious.A wide range of multimodal discourse types such as films,televisions,and advertisements have gained widespread attention.Documentary,as a specific kind of films which is based on reality,is a typical multimodal discourse conveying information through multimodal semiotic resources such as images,sounds,and verbal elements.Documentaries,which have many themes,have gradually become one of the ways for people to know an enterprise,providing a new research direction for corporate image construction.The present study employs Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis(MCDA)to focus on how multimodal semiotic resources in documentary are employed to make meaning and to reveal the intention.MCDA aims to critically interpret multimodal discourse.Mainly combining Fairclough’s three-dimensional model and Kress and van Leeuwen’s Visual Grammar(VG),the present study takes corporate image and documentary as research objects,and uses the Netflix documentary American Factory which is about a Chinese enterprise building plant in foreign countries as research data.This research not only probes into the underlying ideology and power relations,but also focuses on the construction of Chinese corporate image in foreign documentary.It thus greatly contributes to the overseas development of Chinese corporate image and national image.In order to fulfill these aims,this thesis is conducted to address three research questions which are elaborated as follows:(1)What multimodal features can be identified in the construction of corporate images in the documentary?(2)What multimodal discourse strategies are employed to construct corporate images in the documentary?(3)What socio-cultural factors contribute to the multimodal discursive construction of corporate images?In the(multimodal)text dimension,the present study mainly explores the multimodal features of the documentary based on VG,such as the use of shots,colour,and composition.Different semiotic resources together contribute to the construction of meaning and corporate image.These multimodal features contribute to the construction of corporate images from several perspectives,such as professional,environmental,people-oriented,and customer-oriented perspectives.Secondly,in the discursive practice dimension,how multimodal discourse strategies in documentary in the present study work and affect corporate image construction in the production,comprehension,and reproduction of discourse are examined based on intertextuality analysis mainly in terms of specific intertextuality and generic intertextuality.Finally,in the social practice dimension,the socio-cultural factors underlying the multimodal discursive construction of corporate images are investigated at situational,institutional,and societal levels.These socio-cultural factors contribute to the construction of corporate images by influencing the choices of different representational ways.Through a multimodal critical discourse analysis of documentary,two important points will be made explicit in this thesis.On the one hand,the multimodal critical discourse analysis of documentary will,to a certain extent,not only extend the scope of multimodal discourse analysis,but also provide a new perspective for studying corporate image construction.On the other hand,this thesis will contribute to improving people’s level of multiliteracy,promoting the understandings of the general overseas Chinese corporate image,and also providing insights for companies into the enhancement of corporate image.