Film Annotations As An Object Of Discourse Analysis

Abstract

In this paper discourse is viewed as a complex of linguistic, psychological, and social phenomena which is subject to both the rules of grammar and the more general rules of speech organization, interpretation, and coherence. The author analyses film discourse as one of the discourse types. Film discourse can be defined as a set of verbal and non-verbal components of film related narrative and is the result of the expansion of the film text concept. While both film text and film discourse include linguistic characteristics, film discourse additionally focuses on extralinguistic factors, such as cultural and historical background, knowledge of the target audience, the setting of the film, as well as non-verbal means (images, gestures, facial expressions). The study researches into film annotation as an important concept within film discourse. The main types of annotations which film discourse can be compressed into are treatment, synopsis, logline, tagline, and trailer. This paper provides a framework for the analysis and interpretation of film annotations from a linguistic perspective. Its aim is to give a detailed description of how content and structure of film annotations shape the perception of films and attract their audiences. It also intends to expand knowledge on the use of various resources and components in film annotations. The ways the components work together in constructing meaning and influencing the audience are analysed as well. Various examples of film annotations are provided to support the conclusions obtained from the conducted research.