This article explores how the persuasive purpose of film trailers is attained through specific visual features. The multimodal analysis of 12 comedy film trailers also reveals how these visual features enter into multilayered relationships with verbal and aural ones when creating evaluative meanings. The author proposes an interdisciplinary model of analysis in which several means of interpretation are combined. Based on Labov's understanding of narrative evaluation, this article attempts to show through Kress and Van Leeuwen's multimodal framework how Labov's model of narrative analysis can be extended to a wider analytical context, namely to multimodal promotional texts.
Adams, W.J. and Charles, A. (2000) `Promotion of Theatrical Movies', in L. Eastman and S. Tyler (eds) Research in Media Promotion, pp. 231-63. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
2.
Baldry, A. (2000) `English in a Visual Society: Comparative and Historical Dimensions in Multimodality and Multimediality', in A. Baldry (ed.) Multimodality and Multimediality in the Distance Learning Age, pp. 41-89. Campobasso: Palladino Editore.
3.
Baldry, A. (2005) A Multimodal Approach to Text Studies in English: The Role of MCA in Multimodal Concordancing and Multimodal Corpus Linguistics . Campobasso: Palladino Editore .
4.
Bordwell, D. and Thompson, K. (2001) Film Art: An Introduction. New York: McGraw-Hill.
5.
Bordwell, D., Staiger, J. and Thompson, K. (1985) The Classical Hollywood Cinema: Film Style and Mode of Production to 1960. London: Routledge.
6.
Eggins, S. and Slade, D. (1997) Analysing Casual Conversation. Washington, DC: Cassell.
7.
Halliday, M.A.K. (1978) Language as Social Semiotic: The Sociological Interpretation of Language and Learning. London: Edward Arnold.
8.
Hediger, V. (2003) `Self-Promoting Story Events: Serial Narrative, Promotional Discourse and the Invention of the Movie Trailer', in A. Antonini (ed.) Il film e i suoi multipli , pp. 295-305. Udine University: Forum.
9.
Holmes, J. (1997) `Struggling beyond Labov and Waletzky', Journal of Narrative and Life History7(1): 91-7.
10.
Hunston, S. (2001) `Evaluation and the Planes of Discourse: Status and Value in Persuasive Texts', in S. Hunston and G. Thompson (eds) Evaluation in Text. Authorial Stance and the Construction of Discourse, pp. 176-207. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
11.
Kernan, L.D. (2000) A Cinema of (Coming) Attractions: American Movie Trailer Rhetoric. Los Angeles: University of California.
12.
Klinger, B. (1991) `Digressions at the Cinema: Commodification and Reception in Mass Culture', in J. Naremore and P. Brantlinger (eds) Modernity and Mass Culture, pp. 117-34. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
13.
Kozloff, S. (1988) Invisible Storytellers: Voice-Over Narration in American Fiction Film. Berkeley: University of California Press.
14.
Kress, G. (2000) `Multimodality', in B. Cope and M. Kalantzis (eds) Multiliteracies. Literacy Learning and the Design of Social Futures , pp. 182-203. London: Routledge.
15.
Kress, G. and Jewitt, C. (2003) `Introduction', in G. Kress and C. Jewitt (eds) Multimodal Literacy, pp. 1-18. New York: Peter Lang.
16.
Kress, G. and Van Leeuwen, T. (1996) Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design. London: Routledge.
17.
Kress, G. and Van Leeuwen, T. (2001) Multimodal Discourse: The Modes and Media of Contemporary Communication. London: Edward Arnold .
18.
Labov, W. (1972) Language in the Inner City: Studies in the Black English Vernacular. Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press.
19.
Labov, W. (1982) `Speech Actions and Reactions in Personal Narrative' , in D. Tannen (ed.) Analyzing Discourse: Text and Talk, pp. 219-47. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.
20.
Labov, W. (1997) `Some Further Steps in Narrative Analysis', Journal of Narrative and Life History7: 395-415.
21.
Labov, W. (2001) `Uncovering the Event Structure of Narrative', in Georgetown Round Table. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.
22.
Labov, W. and Fanshel, D. (1977) Therapeutic Discourse: Psychotherapy as Conversation . New York: Academic Press.
23.
Labov, W. and Waletsky, J. (1967) `Narrative Analysis: Oral Versions of Personal Experience', in J. Helm (ed.) Essays on the Verbal and Visual Arts, pp. 12-44. Seattle : American Ethnological Society.
24.
Lemke, J. (1998) `Multiplying Meaning: Visual and Verbal Semiotics in Scientific Text', in J.R. Martin and R. Veel (eds) Reading Science: Critical and Functional Perspectives on Discourses of Science, pp. 87-113. London : Routledge.
25.
Lukk, T. (1997) Movie Marketing: Opening the Picture and Giving It Legs. Los Angeles: Silman-James Press.
26.
Martin, J.R. and Plum, G.A. (1997) `Construing Experience: Some Story Genres', Journal of Narrative Life and History7(1-4): 299-308.
27.
Martin, J.R. and Rose, D. (2003) Working with Discourse: Meaning beyond the Clause . London: Continuum.
28.
Martinec, R. and Salway, A. (2005) `A System for Image-Text Relations in New (and Old) Media', Visual Communication4(3): 337-71.
29.
Medhurst, A. (1998) `The Big Tease', Sight and Sound7: 24-6.
30.
Peterson, C. and McCabe, A. (1983) Developmental Psycholinguistics: Three Ways of Looking at a Child's Narrative. New York: Plenum Press.
31.
Peterson, C. and McCabe, A. (1991) `Linking Children's Connective Use and Narrative Macrostructure', in A. McCabe and C. Peterson (eds) Developing Narrative Structure, pp. 29-53. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
32.
Polanyi, L. (1989) Telling the American Story: A Structural and Cultural Analysis of Conversational Storytelling. Cambridge, MA : MIT Press.
33.
Pratt, M.L. (1977) Towards a Speech Act Theory of Literary Discourse . Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
34.
Rothery, J. (1996) `Making Changes: Developing an Educational Linguistics' , in R. Hasan and G. Williams (eds) Literacy in Society, pp. 86-123. New York: Addison Wesley Longman.
35.
Rothery, J. and Stenglin, M. (1997) `Entertaining and Instructing: Exploring Experience through Story', in F. Christie and J.R. Martin (eds) Genres and Institutions, pp. 231-63. London: Cassell.
36.
Royce, T. (2007) `Intersemiotic Complementarity: A Framework for Multimodal Discourse Analysis', in T. Royce and W.D. Bowcher (eds) New Directions in the Analysis of Multimodal Discourse, pp. 63-111. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
37.
Staiger, J. (1990) `Announcing Wares, Winning Patrons, Voicing Ideals: Thinking about the History and Theory of Film Advertising', Cinema Journal3: 3-31.
38.
Staiger, J. (1992) Interpreting Films: Studies in the Historical Reception of American Film. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
39.
Staiger, J. (2000) `The Perversity of Spectators: Expanding the History of Classical Hollywood Cinema', in Ib Bondebjerg (ed.) Moving Images, Culture and the Mind, pp. 19-31. Luton : University of Luton Press.
40.
Thibault, P. (2000) `The Multimodal Transcription of a Television Advertisement: Theory and Practice', in A. Baldry (ed.) Multimodality and Multimediality in the Distance Learning Age , pp. 311-85. Campobasso: Palladino Editore.
41.
Van Leeuwen, T. (1998) `"It Was Like Magic": A Multimodal Analysis of Children's Writing', Linguistics and Education10(3): 273-305.
42.
Van Leeuwen, T. (2000) `Programmed Heteroglossia', Information, Technology, Education and Society1(1): 7-22.
43.
Van Leeuwen, T. (2005) Introducing Social Semiotics. London: Routledge.
44.
Wyatt, J. (1998) High Concept: Movies and Marketing in Hollywood . Austin: University of Texas Press .
45.
Zanger, A. (1998) `Next on Your Screen: The Double Identity of the Trailer', Semiotica120(1/2): 207-30.
