ABSTRACT
Like all semiotic resources, sound and music have very specific affordances, which means they can be used in special ways. Scholars have argued that music has a special kind of force as a carrier of collective memory and tradition, working more in an emotional and almost physical sense. Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis (MCDA) assumes that communicators deploy different kinds of semiotic resources to achieve particular goals, to communicate specific ideas, attitudes and identities, in other words, to disseminate discourses that support their own interest. The origin of the national anthem, like nationalism itself, lies in the eighteenth century, although most anthems are much more recently composed, or have gone through many modifications due to local political and power changes. Anthem lyrics often refer to features of dramatic natural landscape where it is commonly thought that the spirit of a nation dwells, such as high mountains, broad rivers and deep oceans, and celebrating a united people willing to defend its borders.
