The Multimodal Discourse Analysis of the Film Poster “yi tiao gou de shi ming” (A Dog’s Purpose)

【Abstract】Nowadays， more and more semiotic resources are used in designing film posters. Thus， the multimodal discourse analysis is more adaptive when we want to interpret the meanings of these resources accurately. Under the circumstances， this article analyzes the film poster named “yi tiao gou de shi ming” based on Halliday’s Systemic Functional Linguistics （SFL） and Kress and Van Leeuwen’s Visual Grammar （VG）. It aims to investigate how to use the VG to analyze film posters. As a result， it shows the representational meaning and the interactive meaning expressed through this film poster.

【Key words】Semiotic resources; Multimodal discourse analysis; SFL; VG; Film posters

【作者簡介】白璐（1995.07.05-），女，漢族，山西太原人，現就讀于長安大學外國語學院2017級外國語言學及應用語言學專業，碩士研究生，研究方向：多模態話語分析。

1. Introduction

Film posters are effective tools to attract peoples’ attention. Traditional film posters are composed of words. Nowadays， there are more film posters which combine words， graphs， and other elements to convey meanings. Therefore， the meanings movie posters expressed are not only come from the words， the visual images， color， position of protagonist， etc. can also express meanings. Based on Halliday’s SFLand Kress &Van Leeuwen’s VG，this paper analyzes a propaganda poster of a film named “yi tiao gou de shi ming”（ A Dog’s Purpose） which is shown in China on 3rd March， 2017.

2. Theoretical Basis

Based on Halliday’s SFL， Kress and Van Leeuwen （2006[1996]） extended the meta-functional theory to visual communication， that is， the VG. There are three components in VG： the representational， interactive and compositional meaning. Representational meaning expresses the interactions among the represented participants， things， the actions they carry out and the environment. And it can be divided into two types： the narrative process and the conceptual process. There are four factors in interactive meaning including visual contact， social distance， perspectives and modality.

3. Methodology

3.1 The representational meaning

From this poster we can find that there are three participants： a dog with a rugby ball in its mouth and two men. The two men are the same person at different age stage. And we can easily find that there are vectors exit， thus， it is a narrative process.

For the dog， the vector emanates from the eye-line of its eyes， which points to the audience who look at this poster， thus， it is a reaction process. What’s more， the dog is running， thus， it is an action process.

3.2 The interactive meaning

3.2. 1 Visual contact

In this film poster， the dog looks directly at the viewers. It means that the dog wants to establish a closer interactive relationship with the viewers. The man in the poster offers some information in that he doesn’t look at the viewers.

3.2. 2 Social distance

In this film poster， the dog and the man are all full figures. It establishes an impersonal relationship between the represented participants and its viewers.

3.2.3 Perspectives

In this film poster， the dog is taken from a frontal angle， which can make audience to be involved in the story and to see the dog in an empathetic light. For the man， it is taken from an oblique angle which shows a kind of detachment relationship with the viewers since the protagonist is the dog.

3.2.4 Modality

In this film poster， the use of yellow color signifies a lifestyle of warmth of care and love between the dog and its original owner.

4. Conclusion

This paper analyzes the poster systematically since it interprets the representational meaning and the interactive meaning of this film poster. Although the analysis is based on the VG， there is still subjectivity to some extent exist.

References：

[1]Halliday， M. A. K. An Introduction to Functional Grammar[J]. London： Arnold，1994.