This study further supports this theory by the analysis of the posters of fifteen top grossing American romantic comedies. Based on Kress and Van Leeuwen’s framework (2006), the research indicates the similarities and differences in using semiotic elements to create meaning and promote the movies. The results not only identify the patterns in designing movie posters but also examine the effectiveness of the framework in analyzing multimodal texts. | VNU JOURNAL OF FOREIGN STUDIES VOL. 37 NO. 3 2021 79 A MULTIMODAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF ROMANTIC COMEDY MOVIE POSTERS Nguyen Thi Thuy Linh VNU University of Languages and International Studies Pham Van Dong Cau Giay Hanoi Vietnam Received 9 December 2020 Revised 20 March 2021 Accepted 18 May 2021 Abstract Multimodal discourse analysis MDA is a new and prominent approach in discourse analysis with a quite rapid pace of development. According to this approach meaning is made not only by words but also by the integration of other semiotic resources such as images sounds and colours. This study further supports this theory by the analysis of the posters of fifteen top grossing American romantic comedies. Based on Kress and Van Leeuwen s framework 2006 the research indicates the similarities and differences in using semiotic elements to create meaning and promote the movies. The results not only identify the patterns in designing movie posters but also examine the effectiveness of the framework in analyzing multimodal texts. Key words multimodal discourse analysis romantic comedy movie posters 1. Introduction Multimodal studies originated in the early 1990s and the past three decades have It has been long agreed that words witnessed numerous research fruits in this are not the only means of communication. field. Multimodality has considered different Instead the so-called modes including modes of communication such as the visual visuals gestures and actions always have mode of images gesture gaze posture social meaning Kress amp Van Leeuwen colour typography composition etc. Kress 2001 . When a text is constructed by the amp van Leeuwen 2006 Machin 2007 combination of words with other modalities Jewitt 2009 claiming that these elements such as pictures film video images and transfer and generate meaning. Studies have sound it becomes a multimodal text. This is not only focused on a single mode but also the subject of research of multimodal the integration of different
