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A Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis of the Online Brand Identity Construction of National Museums

Universal Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities | Vol 5, Issue 1

Table 1. Multimodal realizations of the representationalmeaning on the museums’ websites

Representational MeaningBM HomepageNMC Homepage
NarrativeAction processmuseum tour video, showing visitors the overall view of museumcarousel banners of posters and relics, rotating pictures, informing visitors of exhibitions
Reactional processvisitors’ gaze at exhibits, showing visiting experiencevisitors’ staring at exhibits, forming an interactive process
Speech/mental processesvisitors’ seeing and exploring experience;curators’ lecturingvisitors’ watching and learning experience;experts’ lecturing
ConceptualClassificationnavigation bars & columns, showing museum functions; blocks of pictures, showing exhibits & exhibitionsnavigation bars & columns showing the cultural institution’s diverse roles; blocks of pictures, displaying exhibits & exhibitions
Analytical structureusing distributive analytical structure to display exhibits by geographical regionsusing infographics (e.g., timelines, maps) to present elements and features of cultural history
Symbolic meaningiconic museum domes, images of artefacts, indicating the symbolic significance of global cultural heritageimages of relics as symbolic attributes to emphasize the continuity of Chinese civilization and national cultural identity