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Construction of risk in road safety advertising: a multimodal analysis of Vietnamese child helmet awareness advertisements

  • Hoang van Nguyen

    Hoang van Nguyen is a current PhD candidate at School of Languages and Linguistics, University of Melbourne. Her research interests include multimodal discourse analysis, discourses of risk, and Systemic Functional Linguistics.

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Published/Copyright: February 1, 2021

Abstract

The discourses of risk serve to organise the ways in which we understand and respond to potential harms and threats, which have become a major concern in our daily life. However, the discourses of risk have not been extensively investigated using linguistic text-based methods on the multimodal level, nor deeply examined beyond Western contexts. Grounded in the literature of risk and multimodal discourse, the aim of the study is to demonstrate Multimodal Discourse Analysis from a Systemic Functional Linguistics perspective as a potential methodology to investigate how risk discourses are constructed in and through semiotic resources in a non-Western setting. Through a case study of child helmet awareness advertisements in Vietnam, the multimodal analysis reveals a comprehensive picture of risk discourses constructed across various semiotic modes. In this analysis, the discourses of risk are constructed through a negotiation of expert knowledge and traditional values to encourage the audience to take actions and provide helmets for their children. Findings of the study demonstrate the use of Systemic Functional multimodal approach to media and communication to provide evidence for risk discourses in the Vietnamese setting, which are at odds with the current literature and can potentially be extended to other contexts.


Corresponding author: Hoang van Nguyen, Faculty of Arts, School of Languages and Linguistics, University of Melbourne, Babel Building 139, Parkville, VIC 3010, Australia, E-mail:

Funding source: Melbourne Research Scholarship, the University of Melbourne

About the author

Hoang van Nguyen

Hoang van Nguyen is a current PhD candidate at School of Languages and Linguistics, University of Melbourne. Her research interests include multimodal discourse analysis, discourses of risk, and Systemic Functional Linguistics.

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Received: 2019-06-12
Accepted: 2021-01-19
Published Online: 2021-02-01
Published in Print: 2022-01-27

© 2021 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

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