Abstract

This study conducts a multimodal discourse analysis of the 2023 China national image publicity film PRC to explore how a country’s national narrative is projected to the world through visual semiotics. Guided by the principles of Visual Grammar, this study uses both qualitative and quantitative methods to investigate the distribution of the representational meaning, interpersonal meaning, and compositional meaning in the publicity film, exploring how these semiotic resources contribute to the construction of China’s national image and what distinctive national images are constructed through the integration. The study reveals that the 147-second publicity film PRC was narrated around four major themes—the modern China, the people’s China, the aesthetic China, and the united China. To convey these themes, the film frequently employs techniques such as “narrative representation”, “offer act”, “medium shots” and “center-margin composition”. Visual and verbal resources complement and cooperate with each other in the publicity film to construct a multifaceted national image that is both cognitively engaging and emotionally resonant. This study offers a comprehensive perspective on the construction of China’s image from visual modality, providing valuable insights for designing and understanding similar works.

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