Multisemiotic Patterns of Emotive Meaning-Making in Film

Abstract

The aim of the article is to highlight multisemiotic patterns of emotive meaning making in feature films. The research tasks are: to explore the meaning-making mechanism in a cognitive-pragmatic perspective; to determine the cognitive-semiotic basics of emotive meaning making; and to identify the meaning-making potential of semiotic resources as well as to single out multisemiotic constructive patterns. To reach the aim, we apply an integrative cognitive-pragmatic and cognitive-semiotic approach, which requires the use of discursive and semiotic research methods. In cognitive-pragmatic perspective, we stress the intersubjective interaction of filmmakers and viewers in constructing ‘meaning-in-context’. The cognitive-semiotic vantage point emphasizes dynamic, enactive, and embodied character of meaningmaking in cinematic discourse. Film is a multimodal and multisemiotic phenomenon, where a synergistic combination of verbal, nonverbal, and cinematic semiotic systems constructs the film meaning through audial and visual modes. These semiotically heterogeneous resources – a verbal language, an image, and specific cinematic signs – are blended to construct emotive meaning; and the configurations of these signs determine particular contextual properties of emotions. In film, emotive meaning emerges at the intersection of audial and visual modes as realized by different semiotic resources. Each semiotic resource contains specific meaningful elements characteristic of a certain semiotic resource. Building on the theory of conceptual integration, we claim that emotive meaning in cinematic discourse is a blend constructed by cross-mapping of information from three input spaces corresponding to verbal, nonverbal, and cinematic semiotic resources. The number of blends can be countless as the process of meaningmaking is dynamic and depends upon the communicative situation. The change of any semiotic element may cause the construction of a new meaning demonstrating the emergent character of meaning-making. In semiotic and pragmatic perspectives, we have singled out the combination of semiotic resources along two main criteria: static and dynamic. The static criterion enables to distinguish patterns by parameters of quantity of semiotic resources in a shot, the quality of emotion in each resource, and their salience in film. The dynamic criterion makes it possible to single out the time patterns due to the appearance of each resource on the screen. Accordingly, we argue that there are eight multimodal patterns of semiotic resource configurations, which construct the emotive meaning in cinematic discourse: three-component and two-component, convergent and divergent, parity and non-parity, and synchronous and consecutive patterns. These patterns demonstrate the paradigmatic regulations of combining semiotic resources in cinematic discourse. The peculiarities of emotive meaning-making are illustrated based on the material of the construction of anger in the American drama film “The Beautiful Boy”. Emotive meaning-making in film occurs in two dimensions: material-perceptual and socio-semiotic, as the emotive meaning can be represented physically on the screen, as well as through the implementation of socio-cultural values.