Abstract

As the rapid development of commercial ads, we can experience a variety of brands on all kinds of media channels. Since 1960s, ads analysis has been a hot topic. Multimodal discourse analysis has been introduced to China for decades and domestic linguists have carried out in-depth studies on this field. The thesis analyzes iPhone5S ad from multimodal discourse analysis theory on representational meaning, interactive meaning and compositional meaning, and explores how image and language coordinate with each other and complement each other so that they can achieve the best persuasiveness.

Key words:  iPhone5S ad, multimodal discourse analysis, social semiotics

摘要

随着商业的迅速发展，人们能够在各种媒体广告中看到各种品牌的广告。自60年代以来，广告分析走俏。国内语言学家们对于这一理论在理论和应用上进行了广泛的研究。本文从多模态话语分析中的再现意义，构图意义和互动意义来分析所选的商业广告——iPhone5s广告，分析英语广告图片与文字是如何相互协调，互相补充融为一体的，从而更好地说服消费者去购买其产品。

关键词: 手机广告；多模态话语分析；符号学

1.1 Background
With the rapid development of multimedia technology, discourse analysis has entered our research field. In the multimedia era, the access and expression of information are not limited in words, so multimodal discourse analysis is essentially confined to break the limitations of language itself and form a broader resource which constructs more meanings. Multimodal discourse analysis can fully explain the significance of the language production and communication.
The emergence of multimodal discourse analysis greatly enriches the methods of discourse analysis. Analysis on social semiotics of multimodal discourse means that both the visual and verbal element can reflect the real world through a narrative process or conceptual process, communicate with the audience and thus persuade the potential customers into a buying action. Image as a social semiotic resource depicts the core message. Scholars at home and aboard have been trying to provide a much more systematic and operational theory to analyze ads. In this study, the multimodal discourse analysis will be used to disclose how visual elements and verbal elements, as well as other factors affect each other.