A Comparative Study of Chinese and English Advertisements from the Perspective of Visual Grammar Illustrated by the Cases of Cosmetics Advertising

Abstract

Relying on multimedia networks, commercial advertisements using multi-modal discourse such as sound, image, and text can be seen everywhere, which has also become one of the important means to promote and expand the market of many cosmetics products. With the booming development of the "beauty economy" cosmetics market and the general trend of cross-border e-commerce, it is of great significance to study Chinese and English print advertisements of cosmetics. This paper uses the reproductive meaning and interactive meaning of Visual Grammar proposed by Krees & Van Leeuwen to compare the Chinese and English print advertisements of cosmetics derived randomly from official propaganda channels, which are more representative and have wider coverage and higher acceptability. Through the literature and content analysis method, some reasons for the similarities and differences of Chinese and English print ads are proposed, which provide a new guidance for the analysis and design for both Chinese and English print ads to promote communication and cooperation between different cultures.