Multimodal Discourse Analysis in Film Subtitle Translation: A Comprehensive Overview and Future Directions

Multimodal discourse analysis is an emerging and prosperously developing research topic in the fields of linguistics and communication at home and abroad. Originating from Halliday's systemic functional linguistics, multimodal discourse analysis is an analysis of the multiple modalities of communicative signs, the relationships between the modalities, the overall meaning they constitute, and their characteristics and functions (Dai, 2019). It is concerned with the design, production and distribution of multiple modal resources in social contexts (Van Leeuwen, 2008), and the process by which modalities are recombined as social practices progress (Iedema, 2003). Film, as a multimodal discourse of cinema, contains multiple modalities such as subtitled text, images and music, requiring the translator to consider the existence and role played by various modalities when translating subtitles in order to maximize the meaning expressed in the film to the target language audience. Therefore, this discourse analysis theory, which takes into account both linguistic and non-linguistic modalities, is widely used in audiovisual translation.

Multimodal discourse analysis was initiated by Kress and Van Leeuwen, which has a deep relationship with Halliday's systemically functional grammar. Delabastita (1989) suggests that the construction of meaning in film relies on both verbal and non-verbal forms, and therefore the transformation of cultural information in film should be analyzed from a multimodal perspective. Kress and Van Leeuwen (1996) pointed out that multi-mode refers to all channels and media involved in the process of intercommunication. In addition to the basic language symbols encountered in daily life, it also includes resource semiotic systems such as color, image, music and color saturation. It is further proposed that the multimodal discourse analysis aims to show that meaning is conveyed not only through language, but also through many other modes. Taylor (2003) first proposed the theoretical framework of research on film and television translation from the multimodal perspective. Baldry and Thibault (2006) propose a multimodal approach to the transcription of audiovisual texts, suggesting that the distribution of information resources should be analyzed in terms of picture, sound, subtitles and action. As described by Jewitt (2009), language is only one of the patterns contained in an ensemble of many modes. Based on this, multimodal discourse analysis becomes widely popular and perfectly suitable for the study of movie subtitle translation. However, as far as the existing literature is concerned, foreign researches are generally theoretical, and there are not many research results on specific film subtitle translation from the multimodal perspective.

Domestic research on multimodal discourse analysis is relatively late. At the beginning of the 21st century, the theory of multimodal discourse analysis began to be introduced into China. Li (2003) studied the theory of multimodal discourse analysis with the theory of systemic functional linguistics. Zhu (2007) introduces the theoretical basis and research methods of multimodal discourse analysis, arguing that discourse analysis should not be limited to language itself, but should also pay attention to other forms of meaning expressions such as images, sounds and colours. Zhang (2009) constructs a theoretical framework for multimodal discourse analysis, by which he creates a comprehensive framework for multimodal discourse analysis consisting of a system of four levels and their sub-categories. In recent years, more and more scholars have been applying multimodal theory to translation studies. Through the search of keywords 'multimodal discourse analysis' and 'film subtitle translation' on CNKI, it can be found that scholars began to analyze and produce articles on this research topic in 2014 at the earliest. By February 2, 2022, the total number of articles is 42. Kan (2014) analyzed the English to Chinese subtitle translation of one of the Harry Potter films from the perspective of multimodal discourse analysis, analyzed the embodiment of multimodality in subtitle translation, which is the first related article in China. Lin (2022) analyses the subtitle translation of Journey to the West from a multimodal perspective, concluding that in actual translation, inconsistencies between the linguistic and visual schemas lead to the separation of the subtitles from the original text, and that the original message can be vividly presented by expanding the new translated content and supplementing the visual information in the schema with subtitles.

However, the previous studies on multimodal discourse analysis and film subtitle translation have some shortcomings. Firstly, most of the foreign research on multimodality is theoretical, lacking specific case studies on film subtitle translation. Secondly, the domestic research on multimodal discourse analysis is relatively limited, with few studies focusing specifically on film subtitle translation. Moreover, the existing studies have mostly conducted a general analysis of the four broad dimensions of the theoretical framework, without delving into the role of non-linguistic modalities in subtitle translation. Therefore, there is a need for more in-depth and specific research on the application of multimodal discourse analysis to film subtitle translation.