A Multimodal Discourse Analysis of Two Logos about Lanzhou China
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Abstract
BACKGROUND Logos are typical multimodal discourses combining languages, pictures, colors and so on with spatial distribution and often used in propagandizing a city. Lanzhou, the provincial capital city of Gansu Province in north-west China, released two logos about the image and the tourism successively to propagandize the city.
OBJECTIVE The purpose of the study was to analyze the logos from the perspective of linguistics and to identify how images and words in the logos work together to fulfill the aim of propagandizing the city, what the respective advantages and disadvantages of the two logos are, and how to achieve a better propaganda aim of the city logos.
METHOD Based on the Kress and Van Leeuwen’s visual grammar, this paper attempts to adopt a multimodal analysis and descriptive-analytical method to two logos about Lanzhou China and make a comparison between them, analyzing the representational meaning, the interactive meaning and the compositional meaning of the two logos.
CONCLUSION We found that images and words can work together to create a synergic effect of propagandizing the city, and multimodality is an effective way to present such information about the characteristics of a city in meaning-making process of logos. Through the interaction of these different semiotic elements, the logos express much more abundant information than separate ones.
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Multimodal Discourse Analysis, Logos, Lanzhou
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