Abstract
Compared with analysing the meaning of discourse from the perspective of language only, multimodal discourse analysis embarking on modes like images, words, colour, sound and other elements can help understand the underlying meaning expressed more thoroughly. Systemic functional multimodal discourse analysis (SF-MDA) built upon systemic functional theory (SFT) is employed in this study. An illustrated article issued in The Economist is taken as an example to fully dredge the intersemiotic relations between the text and the image. By describing the text, interpreting and explaining the underlying sociocultural background of the countries involved, it functions to fully excavate the differences and problems faced by the two countries so that strategies can be defined to cope with the existent problems within. The study finds out that there is an intersemiotic complementarity between the verbal text and visual image. Hopefully, this paper can pave the way for the future research of intersemiotic relations between different modes.
Highlights
IntroductionSystemic Functional Grammar (SFG) provides a sense of how the English grammar makes meaning in written and spoken text, illustrating the distinctive contributions made by the different options within a given system, exploring the relationship between grammar and discourse semantics (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004)
This paper can pave the way for the future research of intersemiotic relations between different modes
Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG) provides a sense of how the English grammar makes meaning in written and spoken text, illustrating the distinctive contributions made by the different options within a given system, exploring the relationship between grammar and discourse semantics (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004)
Summary
Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG) provides a sense of how the English grammar makes meaning in written and spoken text, illustrating the distinctive contributions made by the different options within a given system, exploring the relationship between grammar and discourse semantics (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004) It provides a foundational base for describing, explaining and interpreting multimodal discourses including language and other semiotic resources such as images, sound, gestures, colour, embodied action and so forth (e.g., Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006; Jewitt, 2014). How do visual and verbal elements interact together in this illustrated article?
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