Analysing characters' interactions in filmic text: a functional semiotic approach
2013; Routledge; Volume: 23; Issue: 5 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/10350330.2012.752158
ISSN1470-1219
Autores Tópico(s)Digital Games and Media
ResumoAbstractThis paper presents an analytical tool for constructing characters' action patterns in film. Understanding characters in moving images has been regarded as one of the most significant elements of narrative comprehension and interpretation because spectators' inferences of narrative structures are substantially mediated by characters. The social semiotic method presented in this paper shows how characters' actions and interactions can be systematically constructed based on the co-patterning of textual elements in film and how the patterns provide an analytical foundation for understanding and interpreting characters. In addition, this paper also reviews the previous explorations of the more fine-grained approaches to character analysis and then demonstrates how the method the paper suggests can support and strengthen the accounts provided to date. Most importantly, by comparing scenes within and across two war films, The Thin Red Line (1998) and Black Hawk Down (2001), the article will show the potential of this method for effectively constraining hypotheses for empirical investigations of filmic meaning.Keywords: film analysischaracters' actionsmultimodalitymultimodal semioticscohesionlanguage and filmfunctional linguistics AcknowledgementsAuthor would like to thank Prof. John A. Bateman for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this article.Notes on contributorDr Chiao-I Tseng is an associate researcher at the Faculty of Linguistics and Literary Science, Bremen University, Germany. Her research interests include film discourse, multimodal analysis and genre.
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