THE REPRESENTATION OF PROTAGONISTS AND ANTAGONISTS IN MARVEL FILM POSTERS a MULTIMODAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS = PHÂN TÍCH DIỄN NGÔN đa PHƯƠNG TIỆN về các THỂ HIỆN NHÂN vật CHÍNH DIỆN và PHẢN DIỆN TRONG áp PHÍCH PHIM MARVEL

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION FACULTY OF LINGUISTICS AND CULTURE OF ENGLISH-SPEAKING COUNTRIES GRADUATION PAPER THE REPRESENTATION OF PROTAGONISTS AND ANTAGONISTS IN MARVEL FILM POSTERS: A MULTIMODAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS Supervisor: Student: Course: Nguyễn Thị Minh Tâm, Ph.D Lê Thị Thu Uyên QH2017.F1.E1.SPCLC HÀ NỘI - 2021 ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ KHOA SƯ PHẠM TIẾNG ANH KHOA NGƠN NGỮ VÀ VĂN HĨA CÁC NƯỚC NĨI TIẾNG ANH KHĨA LUẬN TỐT NGHIỆP PHÂN TÍCH DIỄN NGÔN ĐA PHƯƠNG TIỆN VỀ CÁC THỂ HIỆN NHÂN VẬT CHÍNH DIỆN VÀ PHẢN DIỆN TRONG ÁP PHÍCH PHIM MARVEL Giáo viên hướng dẫn: Nguyễn Thị Minh Tâm, Ph.D Sinh viên: Lê Thị Thu Uyên Khóa: QH2017.F1.E1.SPCLC HÀ NỘI - 2021 I hereby state that I: Le Thi Thu Uyen, class QH2017.F1.E1, being a candidate for the degree of Bachelor of Arts (programme) accept the requirements of the College relating to the retention and use of Bachelor’s Graduation Paper deposited in the library In terms of these conditions, I agree that the origin of my paper deposited in the library should be accessible for the purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the librarian for the care, loan or reproduction of the paper Signature Hanoi, May 4th, 2021 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS It has been a wonderful journey for me in completing this research and discovering a lot about the subject and myself as well First and foremost, I would like to express my greatest gratitude to my supervisor, Dr Nguyen Thi Minh Tam She has always been supportive and helpful She is always there when I am in need and opens up a lot of ideas for me to complete my research Had it not been for her devotion and encouragement, I would not have had the persistence to finish this research Secondly, I would also want to thank my family and my friends, specifically by boyfriend Truong Giang, by bestfriend In Hong and my Tichchu squad My family is always my ultimate source of motivation and support My friends are no less supportive and they also provided me a lot with their knowledge of the field in which my study is based on Lastly, I would like to give credit to ULIS All the knowledge and experience I had here is priceless Without ULIS, I would not have met so many dedicated teachers and sincere friends that positively influenced me and helped me become the person I am today i ABSTRACT This research examines the design of film posters employing multimodal analysis Two research questions were raised, one regarding the representation of lines of characters in film posters, the other question examines how the films’ plots are tailored into the posters In order to answer these two questions, eight representative film posters were collected from Marvel Cinematic Studios The data was then analyzed based on the adapted version of Kress and Leeuwen (2004)’s MDA framework Both quantitative and qualitative methods were employed in the analyzing process The findings revealed that Marvel Studio has significant features when illustrating its characters in posters, namely via perspectives, gaze, frame size The posters also contain many elements that help deliver the synopsis of the film These criteria not only reveal the circumstances of the film, but also indicate the characters’ personality and status Moreover, the design of the posters also provokes heated conversations among Marvel fans on a plethora of social platforms, which corresponds to the film studio’s marketing scheme that is to boost the film’s social coverage and brand awareness Key words: Multimodality, Visual grammar, Marvel Film Poster ii LIST OF FIGURES, TABLES, AND ABBREVIATIONS List of figures Figure Main types of visual representational structure (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006, p.59) Figure Interactive Meanings in Images (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006, p.149) Figure The interactive and compositional dimensions of visual grammar (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006) Figure 4.Analytical framework for MDA of Marvel Film poster 13 Figure Distribution of portrayal of characters in Marvel film poster 14 Figure Elements in the Micromodel of the Communications process (Kotler & Keller, 2016, p 585) 42 List of tables Table Three meanings in the clause (Halliday and Matthiessen, 2014, p.83) Table Three strands of meta-functions in SFL and VG Table Summary of the qualitative findings 15 Table Representation of Characters 38 Table Summary of elements delivering the film content 40 List of abbreviation SFL: Systemic Functional Linguistics VG: Visual Grammar MDA: Multimodal Discourse Analysis iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS i ABSTRACT ii LIST OF FIGURES, TABLES, AND ABBREVIATIONS iii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale and research questions 1.2 Scope of the study 1.3 Significance of the study 1.4 Organization of the thesis CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Theoretical Background 2.1.1 Systemic Functional Linguistics 2.1.2 Multimodal Discourse Analysis (MDA) 2.1.3 Film Poster as a subgenre of advertisement 2.2 Previous literature 10 2.3 Chapter summary 11 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 12 3.1 Data collection 12 3.2 Data analysis 12 3.2.1 Methods of the study 12 3.2.2 Analytical framework 12 3.2.3 Data analysis procedure 13 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 14 4.1 Findings 14 4.1.1 Statistical Findings 14 4.1.2 Qualitative Findings 15 4.2 Discussion: Answers to the research questions 38 4.2.1 Answering Research Question 1: “How protagonists and antagonists are multimodally represented in Marvel film posters” 38 4.2.2 Answering Research Question 2: “How Marvel’s film posters succinctly address the contents of the films?” 40 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 43 5.1 Summary of the main ideas 43 5.2 Implication 44 5.3 Limitations and suggestions of further research 44 REFERENCE 45 APPENDIX 47 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale and research questions In today’s age of electronic technology and media, communication is mostly depicted in the form of visual images such as advertisements, flyers, leaflets, brochures, posters, etc Recently, posters are considered a preferable means of communication due to its effectiveness in conveying messages In the movie industry, the mission of the film posters is not only introducing the upcoming films to the public, but also interacting with the audience via the astute and creative synthesis of various semiotic elements Why Marvel With technological development, discourse in posters is more complex than ever due to the combination of various symbolic resources Additionally, as audiences are rather critical about the aesthetic and collection value of the objects presented in the poster, the need to understand how each element affects the total comprehension of the text is crucial While interpreting the film posters through multimodal discourse, it is a viable research question to find out: (1) How protagonists and antagonists are multimodally represented in Marvel film posters? (2) How Marvel’s film posters succinctly address the contents of the films? 1.2 Scope of the study The study collects eight films posters from Marvel Studio’s total of 24 posters which depict heroes or supermen from 2008 and 2019 The represented participants in the posters can be either the protagonist or the antagonist of the films A multimodal discourse analysis of these film posters was conducted to not only study the portrayal of lines of characters in the films but also learn the way Marvel films’ content and context are embroidered into the posters The collected data of the thesis are movie posters, which consists of more visual elements than verbal texts Therefore, the focal point of this study is put on the interpretation of pictures instead of verbal elements Putting the objective of the research into consideration, only Kress and van Leeuwen (2006)’s framework of visual communication was comprehensive enough to answer the questions presented However, the researcher has adjusted some features of Kress and van Leeuwen’s framework in order to better analyze the targeted posters 1.3 Significance of the study The study aims to investigate the way Marvel portrayed their heroes in their film posters from a multimodal perspective and how this portrayal could contribute to the conveyance of the film contents The results of this research will contribute to the field of multimodal research in the sense that it indicates the way film posters deliver the portrait of characters and the connotation of movies Accordingly, the research could serve as a reference for designers or editors who wish to produce posters to attract and engage viewers 1.4 Organization of the thesis The research content is organized into five following main parts: Chapter offers the Introduction by describing the rationale, objectives, scope and the significance of the study then raising the research questions Chapter explores Literature Review, which provides an overview of the relevant literature on the issues of multimodality and posters, especially film posters Chapter outlines the Methodology The chapter gives a description of research methods, data collection instruments, data collection procedures and data analysis procedure Chapter reports the Findings and Discussions In details, in this chapter, two research questions are addressed and further discussed with analyzed data alongside the literature introduced in Chapter Chapter discusses the Conclusion by summarizing the main results of the study Limitations and implications for further studies are also included in this chapter 2 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Theoretical Background 2.1.1 Systemic Functional Linguistics Systemic Functional Linguistics (hereafter SFL) is an approach to linguistics in which language is considered a “social semiotic" system developed by the renowned linguist Michael Halliday According to Halliday (1978), “social semiotic” is a means to distinguish linguistically language from its social context For Halliday, language is a means for generating meanings and the grammatical or the other aspects of language are considered as sets of choices (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014, p 23).SFL can be described as the connection between language and its function in the society According to Halliday’s theory on SFL, all languages are structured to conform three strands of meanings simultaneously, which are ideational, interpersonal and textual (Halliday, 1973) Halliday and Matthiessen (2014) propose that the ideational meta-function refers to the interpretation of human experience and the representation of the natural world The interpersonal meta-function deals with the relationship between the speaker and the addresses, with a view to express feelings and attitudes The textual meta-function concerns the creation of text with the presentation of ideational and interpersonal meanings as well as reveals the information structures and the organization of each coherent part of the discourse to the whole and to the context (Halliday, 2003, p.351) Having acknowledged that language is “social”, Halliday (2003) believed that the three meta-functions are recognized through the clause – the smallest unit The systems and the organization of the analysis of the clause is summarized in the following table Table Three meanings in the clause (Halliday and Matthiessen, 2014, p.83) 2.1.2 Multimodal Discourse Analysis (MDA) 2.1.2.1 Multimodality With the phenomenal development of technology and electronic media, most of the types of communication that take place are multimodal Influenced by Halliday’s continuous development theory of SFL, Gunther Kress adapted Halliday’s theory to different means The most frequently utilized criteria to hint the plot are Process – Participant, Circumstance, Size of frame, Contextualization, Salience and Framing These criteria help indicate the main characters of the films as well as the environment in which the actions occur, hence informing the overall theme and keynote of a movie This agrees with Chen and Gao (2014) that representational meaning is not only attained to reflect the internal relationship of the represented participants in the posters, but also served as an indispensable prerequisite to the pertinent prediction of the plot as well as the sound understanding of the film’s theme Nonetheless, it is notable that the poster which removes the introduction of the opposing characters tends to focus more on the main characters’ internal feelings rather than their physical combat However, the delicateness of Marvel film poster designers is shown through his effective use of minor yet critical details such as Contact, Perspective and Information Value The characters’ gaze and perspective tell their relationship towards the viewers, which adds to the overall cohesion of the multimodal text Applying Information Value is also a “tricky” way to imply the content of the film While the NewGiven in Captain Marvel ingeniously reveals her double life, Hulk’s Ideal-Real information value informs the interactive participants of the protagonist’s double characters Generally, it is clearly seen that Marvel Studio excellently exploits these criteria in revealing the synopsis of its films, making the poster an effective means of communication to the public However, the poster only delivers the synopsis of the films to a certain extent, this seems to follow Horn (2015) who believes that successful marketing campaign requires intrigue through ambiguity As proposed by Kotler and Keller (2016), communication process models can be divided into two types, namely micro-model and macro-model Micro-model of communication refers to the sequence that the buyer passes through namely the cognitive, affective, and behavioral stage Since Marvel Studio’s main product is blockbuster film, the “do-feellearn” sequence is relevant as the target audience has high involvement but recognizes little differentiation within the product ranges, such as other movies or film studios Therefore, the cognitive stage is critical in retaining its fans and this is also the stage where the macro-modal functions at its best Figure exhibits the key elements in macromodal communication, in which the sender (in this case – Marvel Studio) must encode its messages so the target receiver can successfully decode them via communication channels such as personal communications 41 channels, non-personal (mass) communications channels or the integration of both Personal communication channels can be referred to as word of mouth According to a research conducted by BursonMarsteller and Roper Starch in 2006, one influential person’s word of mouth tends to affect the buying intention of two other people, on average and that number increases to eight via multiple online platforms (Marsteller & Starch, 2006) Acknowledged the power of social media, Marvel Studio always seems to try their best to take advantage of this wonder Marvel’s fans gradually become active participants with larger experience rather than watching the film alone They are engaged indirectly as “co-producers” through interactions within the exponentially growing fan communities via social media such as chat rooms, message boards on platforms namely Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp, etc Marvel cultivates curiosity and provokes its fans’ interest and discussion by showing hints about the films’ characters and plotlines through film posters, hence promoting its brand awareness Figure Elements in the Macro of the Communications process (Kotler & Keller, 2016, p 585) 42 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 5.1 Summary of the main ideas The study finds out how protagonists and antagonists are multimodally represented in Marvel Studio’s film posters and also analyzes how Marvel’s film posters reveal the synopsis of the films In order to conduct the study, the author did an initial research of Marvel’s total 24 films’ posters to see the proportion of them in terms of gender and number of characters presented After that, the researcher took two representatives from four categories namely poster portraying single male character, poster portraying single female character, poster portraying couple of characters and poster portraying group of characters Then, a qualitative research was conducted on the total posters based on an analytical framework The framework was mainly adopted from Kress and van Leeuwen (2006)’s work with the exclusion of the less critical criteria to the posters to better describe and analyze the implied meaning of those representative posters To seek the answer for the first question: “How protagonists and antagonists are multimodally represented in Marvel film posters”, the author summarized all the aspects relating to the representation of the characters in the films Based on the results of the analysis, it can be concluded that Marvel Studio acquires significant features when designing its posters Firstly, as this is a superhero type of film, the representation of characters obtaining higher status is a norm of Marvel Studio Secondly, it can be observed that the villains’ gaze is always an offer one, while that of the main character may vary depending on the plot Thirdly, the antagonist’s frame size is never longer than the lead characters And lastly, the antagonists are either not represented or not represented as salient of the posters This is true to seven out of eight analyzed posters, except for the last one – Civil War In response to the second research question: “How are Marvel’s film posters succinctly address the contents of the films?”, the author recapped all the analyzed features into a table to see which criteria assist the message that film makers aim to deliver to their targeted audiences It is observed that the posters contain a lot of elements which reveal the film’s content The most easily and frequently used are Process – Participant, Circumstance, Size of frame, Contextualization, Salience and Framing to present the character and the film context The less used yet trickier elements are Contact, Perspective and Information Value These criteria serve as indicators of the characters’ internal feelings as well as their characteristics The posters design effectively helps Marvel 43 Cinematic Studio deliver the message that it wishes to its audience, hence boosting brand awareness as well as viewership in order to escalate its revenue 5.2 Implication The study reveals the way film posters, one of the most crucial initial means of communication with moviegoers, are designed to illustrate the film’s lines of characters and its plot Although some Marvel posters might seem “boilerplate”, the underlying messages are varied and purposeful It is persuaded that the interpretation of these posters could firstly serve as the resource for teaching and learning about multimodal discourse analysis Secondly, with these findings, poster designers can use it as a base to enhance the quality as well as engagement towards their audiences by delicately imbibing the way Marvel presents its characters and assimilating Marvel’s way of sewing the story into the posters in order to enhance the communication’s effectiveness 5.3 Limitations and suggestions of further research There are undoubtedly limitations in this research due to time constraints and lack of resources Given the limited time and length of a graduation paper, the number of analyzed posters is rather humble at only over Marvel Studio’s 24 film posters There might be features of protagonist and antagonist representation and the way the posters deliver the plot that were missed out in the chosen data Alternatively, the scope of the study could be enlarged in order to obtain a more comprehensive understanding of the research topic Another limitation lies in the focus of the research, in which only visual elements are considered Further research can consider investigating the verbal texts to gain a more inclusive look into the multimodal text Another recommendation is to choose another film studio to find out whether there are any similarities or differences in the approach in designing their posters 44 REFERENCE Bezemer, J., & Jewitt, C (2009) Social semiotics In J Östman, J Verschueren& E Versluys (Eds.), Handbook of pragmatics Amsterdam: Benjamins Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/286459229_Social_Semiotics Chen, Y., & Gao, X (2013) Interpretation of movie posters from the perspective of multimodal discourse analysis GSTF International Journal on Education (JEd), 1(1), 1-24 Chen, Y., & He W (2015) Interpretation of the compositional meaning of movie posters from the perspective of multimodal discourse analysis Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/308116130_Interpretation_of_the_Co mpositional_Meaning_of_Movie_Posters_from_the_Perspective_of_Multimoda l_Dis course_Analysis Clark, Z (2013) The Real Purpose of Advertising Retrieved May 2021, 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Table summarizes the representation of the protagonist and antagonist in the Marvel film posters, which is mainly... looking off to the left side of the poster, as are Loki and Sif, the antagonists However, subordinate characters like Odin, and the villain Malekith are facing the interactive participants The. .. data about the presentation of Marvel characters in its film posters in terms of gender and number of characters portrayed FEATURES OF PORTRAYAL IN MARVEL FILM POSTER Single Male Single Female