• International Journal of Contents
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• 제11권2호
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• pp.50-56
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• 2015

The area of discourse analysis has long neglected the value of images as a semiotic resource in communication. This paper suggests that like language, images are rich in meaning potential and are governed by visual grammar structures which can be utilized to decode the meanings of images. Employing a theoretical framework in visual communication, two digital images are examined for their representational and interactive dimensions and the dimensions' relation to the magazine advertisement genre. The results show that the framework identified narrative and conceptual processes, relations between participants and viewers, and symbolic attributes of the images, which all contribute to the sociological interpretations of the images. The identities and relationships between viewers and participants suggested in the images signify desirable qualities that may be associated to the product of the advertiser. The findings support the theory of visual grammar and highlight the potential of images to convey multi-layered meanings.

• 수완나부미
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• 제15권2호
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• pp.91-129
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• 2023

This paper reports the findings of a multimodal study conducted on 10 travel blog posts about Vietnam by seven British professional travel bloggers. The study takes a sociolinguistic view to tourism by seeing travel blogs as a source for linguistic and other semiotic materials while considering language as situated practice for the social construction of fundamental categories such as "human," "society," and "nation." It borrows concepts from Halliday's Systemic Functional Linguistics for interpersonal metafunction to develop an analytical framework to study how the co-occurrence of text and still images in these travel blog posts formulated the portrayal of Vietnam as a tourism destination and indicated the main sociolinguistic features of the blogs. The analysis of appreciation values and interactive qualities encoded in evaluative adjectives and still images show that Vietnam is generally portrayed as a country of identity and diversity. It provides tourists with positive experiences in terms of places of interest, food and local lifestyles and is cost-competitive. Strangerhood and authenticity are two outstanding sociolinguistic features exhibited in these travel blog posts. The findings of this study also underline the co-contribution of the linguistic sign, in this case evaluative adjectives, and the visual sign, in this case still images, as interpersonal meaning-making resources. To portray Vietnam, still images served as integral elements to evidence the credibility of verbal narrations. To unveil sociolinguistic characteristics of travel blogs, still images supported the linguistic realizations of authenticity and strangerhood on the posts, and in some case delivered an even stronger message than words. Not only does the study present a source of feedback from international travelers to tourism practice in Vietnam, but it also provides insights into multimodal analysis of tourism discourse which remains an under-researched area in Vietnam.