Sensory threads of history: a dive into two historical documentaries

AbstractHistorical documentaries not only involve narrative indexicality and archives, but also dedicate to cultural landscape, distinctive perspectives and ethical enlightenment. So, does this legacy activate sensory experiences? Will it vary by culture? Based on previous research on multimodal dis...

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Main Authors: Zhenhai Sun, Muye Ma
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Taylor & Francis Group 2024-12-01
Series:Cogent Social Sciences
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/10.1080/23311886.2024.2302304
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author Zhenhai Sun
Muye Ma
author_facet Zhenhai Sun
Muye Ma
author_sort Zhenhai Sun
collection DOAJ
description AbstractHistorical documentaries not only involve narrative indexicality and archives, but also dedicate to cultural landscape, distinctive perspectives and ethical enlightenment. So, does this legacy activate sensory experiences? Will it vary by culture? Based on previous research on multimodal discourse analysis (MDA), we hypothesize that it can evoke sensory memory in people, whose meaning-making may differ among cultures. To test the above hypothesis, we establish two multimodal corpora from historical documentaries Frozen Chosin and The Battle of Chosin depicting the same historical event from different cultural perspectives, using ELAN 6.4 to analyze sensory contours of coldness. The findings reveal that filmmakers actualize frostbite-laden experiences by adopting a structural adversity of iciness, with compositional meaning-making as the top, interactive as the second, while the last two are representational and linguistic. Behind this overall homogeneity, the lethal frostbite during engagement and post-battle are heterogeneously mediated by different ways of contacts, perspectives and salience, in which the Chinese film narrates in a slightly convergent multimodality while the American depicts a divergence-prone pattern. Finally, we justify that MDA can help scholars gain deeper insights into the sensory endeavor made by documentarists.
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spelling doaj.art-32c8ca514c824d99a61a137690acbadf2024-02-10T07:36:41ZengTaylor & Francis GroupCogent Social Sciences2331-18862024-12-0110110.1080/23311886.2024.2302304Sensory threads of history: a dive into two historical documentariesZhenhai Sun0Muye MaDepartment of Culture and Tourism, Shanxi Institute of Science and Technology, Jincheng, PR ChinaAbstractHistorical documentaries not only involve narrative indexicality and archives, but also dedicate to cultural landscape, distinctive perspectives and ethical enlightenment. So, does this legacy activate sensory experiences? Will it vary by culture? Based on previous research on multimodal discourse analysis (MDA), we hypothesize that it can evoke sensory memory in people, whose meaning-making may differ among cultures. To test the above hypothesis, we establish two multimodal corpora from historical documentaries Frozen Chosin and The Battle of Chosin depicting the same historical event from different cultural perspectives, using ELAN 6.4 to analyze sensory contours of coldness. The findings reveal that filmmakers actualize frostbite-laden experiences by adopting a structural adversity of iciness, with compositional meaning-making as the top, interactive as the second, while the last two are representational and linguistic. Behind this overall homogeneity, the lethal frostbite during engagement and post-battle are heterogeneously mediated by different ways of contacts, perspectives and salience, in which the Chinese film narrates in a slightly convergent multimodality while the American depicts a divergence-prone pattern. Finally, we justify that MDA can help scholars gain deeper insights into the sensory endeavor made by documentarists.https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/10.1080/23311886.2024.2302304Sensory meaning-makingmultimodalityMDAChosinfrostbiteGuangchao Charles Feng, School of Communication, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong
spellingShingle Zhenhai Sun
Muye Ma
Sensory threads of history: a dive into two historical documentaries
Cogent Social Sciences
Sensory meaning-making
multimodality
MDA
Chosin
frostbite
Guangchao Charles Feng, School of Communication, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong
title Sensory threads of history: a dive into two historical documentaries
title_full Sensory threads of history: a dive into two historical documentaries
title_fullStr Sensory threads of history: a dive into two historical documentaries
title_full_unstemmed Sensory threads of history: a dive into two historical documentaries
title_short Sensory threads of history: a dive into two historical documentaries
title_sort sensory threads of history a dive into two historical documentaries
topic Sensory meaning-making
multimodality
MDA
Chosin
frostbite
Guangchao Charles Feng, School of Communication, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong
url https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/10.1080/23311886.2024.2302304
work_keys_str_mv AT zhenhaisun sensorythreadsofhistoryadiveintotwohistoricaldocumentaries
AT muyema sensorythreadsofhistoryadiveintotwohistoricaldocumentaries