ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the contextual and theoretical background of multimodal Chinese discourse analysis, why we need it, and what it aims to achieve. Drastic changes have taken place in various spheres of communication and social life in contemporary China under the forces of global marketization and the development of digital technologies, including the changing mode of governance, the new practices of nation and institution branding, and the emergence of new socio-economic phenomena such as E-commerce, reality television, and livestreaming. The analysis of multimodal discourses which constitute the social changes will produce two outcomes: new understandings of communication and society in contemporary China, and a set of analytical tools that facilitate such understandings. It proposes Multimodal Chinese Discourse Studies as a new field of exploration, which is at the intersection of the two growing fields of Multimodal Discourse Analysis and Chinese Discourse Studies. It is an interdisciplinary project which aims to provide discourse analysts with a comprehensive understanding of communicative and social changes in contemporary China, and social scientists with a unique discourse perspective and analytical methods.
