摘 要

随着信息技术的飞速发展，运动图像的表现力得以增强，电影表达因此更青睐于间接和隐晦的对话，认为它们可以更为有效地促进意义的表达和传达。会话含义作为一种重要的语言学现象，在日常的人际交流中随处可见，同时因为电影制片人普遍遵循“少即是多”的原则，在电影交流中隐藏的会话含义也普遍存在。电影作为多模态语篇的典型代表，涵盖了包括文字，图像，音频和视频等多种模态，而且这些模态共同参与到电影的表达中。虽然国内对于电影中会话含义的研究已经取得了长足进步，但仍停留电影台词的解读层面，从多模态角度对电影会话含义进行分析的研究较少。

本研究不再局限于对电影台词的会话含义研究，而将对会话含义的分析扩展到整个电影语篇，综合考虑言语和非言语形式的语义要素，例如摄影手法，视觉图像和配乐等。借助于Baldry和Thibault提出的多模态转录工具的改编版本，本研究从关联理论和多模态的角度出发，对电影《低俗小说》中的会话含义进行分析。通过对电影《低俗小说》中最突出的多义性语境进行实用和多模式的描述，这项研究对会话含义的建构，功能和恢复进行了探索。研究发现，会话含义的构建依赖于各种模式的协同作用以及上下文所提供的背景知识或隐含前提。会话含义在电影叙事，幽默感和主题揭示中起着重要作用。观众们需要利用他们已有的认知来理解隐含含义，包括相关的文化背景知识。

这项研究极大地增强了对于电影中会话含义这一语用现象的理解，有助于观众从更为全面的角度理解电影的含义。更为重要的是，它进一步证明了关联理论在分析存在与口头交流之外的会话含义的可行性，以及将非语言符号纳入分析要素的多模态视角在应用于会话含义分析的可行性。

关键词：隐含含义、多模态、关联理论、电影、低俗小说

Abstract

In film communication, an indirect and subtle dialogue is considered as maximally effective in meaning-making and convey, partly for the excellent expressive powers of the moving image with the rapid development of information technology. Implicature, a salient linguistic phenomenon, thus is not only prevalent in interpersonal conversation but abounds in film communication for the principle “Less is more” widely adhered to by filmmakers. The film, as a representative multimodal discourse, is comprised of various modes used for the meaning-making, such as text, graphics, sound as well as video. Many attempts have been made to interpret conversational implicatures in films, but few implicature studies have been done from the perspective of multimodality.

This study on implicature is not restricted to film dialogue alone but is extended to the whole film discourse and involves both verbal and nonverbal semiotic resources such as cinematography, visual images, and soundtrack. From the perspectives of relevance theory and multimodality, this study analyzes the implicatures identified in film Pulp Fiction utilizing the adapted version of the multimodal transcription tool proposed by Baldry and Thibault. Through a pragmatic and multimodal description of the most salient polysemiotic contexts in frames of the film Pulp Fiction, this study probes into the construction, functions, and recovery of implicature. It is observed that the creation of implicature relies on the synergy of various modes in cooperation with the contextual premises and backgrounds. Implicature plays a vital role in film narration, humor evoking, and the theme reveal. In audiences’ comprehension procedure involves their cognitive effort, including the relevant cultural background knowledge.

This study is helpful for the audience to attain an overall comprehension of film meaning. What’s more, it further proves the feasibility of both multimodality perspective and relevance theory in analyzing implicature in multimodal discourses and substantially enhance the interpretation of the salient pragmatic phenomenon of implicature.

Keywords: implicature; multimodality; relevance theory; film; Pulp Fiction

Contents

1 Introduction 1

1.1 Objectives and Significance of the Research 2

1.2 Organization of the Thesis 2

2 Literature Review 4

2.1 Implicature 4

2.2 Relevance Theory 6

2.3 A Relevance-theoretic Account of Implicature in Film 8

3 Research Methodology 10

3.1 Research Questions 10

3.2 Research Material 10

3.3 Analytical Framework 10

4 Multimodal analysis of implicatures in Pulp Fiction 13

4.1 Construction of the implicature in Pulp Fiction 13

4.2 Functions of Implicatures in Pulp Fiction 16

4.2.1 Narrative Function of Implicatures 16

4.2.2 Comedic Function of Implicatures 18

4.2.3 Thematic Function of Implicatures 21

4.3 Recovery of Implicatures in Pulp Fiction 23

5 Conclusion 25

5.1 Major Findings of the Study 25

5.2 Limitations and Suggestions for Further Studies 26

References 28

Acknowledgements 30

A Multimodal Analysis of Implicatures in Film——A Case Study of Pulp Fiction

1 Introduction

Films, one of the most popular ways of entertainment in the modern era, are complex semiotic systems consisting of textual, visual, auditory, linguistic, and spatial resources used for meaning composition (Barthes, 1967). In the past years, amounts of multimodal analyses of films have been done to figure out how different modes work together to construct meanings. Solely concentrating on the visual images based on visual grammar, such analyses focus on the ostensible meaning but ignore the underlying meaning, that is, implicatures in films.

Since the end of the “silent era”, film writers and critics arrived at the prevailing sentiment that indirect and subtle dialogue is economical and productive, partly for the excellent expressive powers of the moving image (Kozloff, 2000, 4–28). Thus implicature, one of the most salient linguistic phenomenon, is prevalent not only in spontaneous interpersonal communication but also in film dialogue (Desilla, 2012). The present research on the implicatures in films, however, have been mainly focused on the static mono-modal text like the film dialogue while neglecting other modes used to convey meanings like visual and acoustic resources (Yang, 2017). Drawing on insights from relevance theory, film studies, and multimodality, Desilla (2009) addressed the scarcity of multimodal studies and explored the construal and functions of implicature in romantic comedies. However, such implicature analysis in films is still relatively under-researched, and there is still no overall analysis of the construction and functions of implicature in films.

Under this research background, this case study chooses the film Pulp Fiction, an American neo-noir crime black comedy film by Quentin Tarantino, as a database to make a tentative interpretation of the film implicatures in the synergy of various modes. This study analyzes the implicatures identified in film Pulp Fiction employing the adapted version of the multimodal transcription tool proposed by Baldry and Thibault (2006), to exemplify the functions of implicature. Through the interpretation of implicatures from different modalities, the audience can comprehend an overall and profound meaning of the film.

1.1 Objectives and Significance of the Research