A Corpus-Based Multimodal Discourse Analysis Of English Subtitles In K-Dramas

Abstract

Korean dramas' popularity raises a sense of addiction to worldwide audiences, especially teenage Korean fans who still tend to have easily influenced characteristics and imitate their role models. This study aims to determine the multimodal discourse of English-translated Korean dramas in relation to their verbal and non-verbal elements. The current studyinvestigates the interaction of non-verbal and verbal elements to explore the impacts of non-verbal modes on translation of verbal modes. This mixed-methods research was corpus-based wherein ELAN annotation tool (2006) and Relevance Theory forms the theoratical basis for analysis. This research is an effort to link up linguistic creativity with multimodality to understand the K-Dramas discourse. The use of multimodal discourse analysis provides a better understanding of communicative modes used in Korean dramas.The analysis demonstrates that the non-verbal modes serve as a component of the cognitive framework utilized to infer the verbal parts, with a concentration on the pictorial aspects in the selected clips/screenshots. The visual elements help to contextualize the translated K-dramas. When viewing translated dramas, the translator must anticipate the cognitive context created by the interaction of non-verbal cues and pertinent information stored in memory, as well as the interaction of the targeted audiences' cognitive environments with potential dialogue translations. The study concludes that multimodality is helpful when translating in other languages. When translating the linguistic components in the multimodal discourse of Korean dramas, the translator must fully utilize the contextual effect of the multimodal elements.