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Abstract In this information age, language and other different social semiotic resources (modes) are involved in daily communication. Among these resources, language is the most important; it is the vehicle of communication through which people can share ideas, exchange experience, articulate values, transmit knowledge, and sustain culture. It is a formal scheme of communication that uses words, sounds, and visual signs to deliver new information to public. Other resources such as music, color, and typography complement making-meaning process and they participate in effective communication. Linguistic studies make a shift to investigate non- verbal different means of communication and scrutinize the interaction between them. Multimodality is the process of meaning-making through the interaction of ’’a multiplicity of modes such as image, gesture, posture, gaze, action, music, color, 3D objects, alongside speech and writing’’ (Wong, 2019, p.2). Multimodality as an interdisciplinary approach, involves linguistics, semiotics, cultural studies, media studies, computer science etc., becomes an essential practical domain (O’ Halloran &Smith, 2011, p.1). One of the most significant multimodal communication means used in this information age is advertising (Fill, 2009. P.47). Advertising is a way of communicating information about products or facilities which a company or an individual wants to market to the publics. Ads are conveyed through words, images, music, and actions in a medium which is used by the prospective buyers (Vilanilam & Varghese, 2004, p.4). Thus, ads include a mixture of ’’linguistic signs (words) and iconic signs (visual representations)’’ (Bignell, 2002, p.32). To examine an Chapter One: Introduction 2 advertisement is to comprehend its signs; every sign in an ad carries a meaning. So, to analyze the signs of ad is to ’’move from the sign’s denotative meaning to its connotative meaning. The connotative meaning is the message of the ad ’’ (Bignell, 2002, p.33). As a type of print advertisement, movie poster is composed of a mixture of semiotic resources; it includes image or a scene from the movie, title of movie, names of movie’s heroes, and production company or director’s name and the date of publication (Aisala, 2018, p.6). The chief target of a movie poster is to attract many viewers into the movie theatre (Fagerholm, 2009, p.6). Correspondingly, movie posters are powerful means for establishing the ethos of societies; they display not only movie industry, but also condition, culture, and technology of their periods (Noyan, 2009). To examine a movie poster is to decode complex multimodal resources; text, aesthetic design, or the interaction of diverse modalities and semiotic tools used in poster to generate meaning. In modern era, cinema is an important part of social and cultural life; new technology has revolutionized the realm of cinematography (Noyan, 2009). Although Egyptian cinema is highly regarded, the cinematic manufacturing also has a history of „borrowing‟ western material and localizes it to fit Egyptian spectators. This is a widespread phenomenon in recent times (Aravanis, 2020). Some of Egyptian moviemakers move away from depicting new cinematic ideas and begin to coloring American movies with the Egyptian spirit from Hollywood making them ’masreya’ (El Mohandes, 2016). This phenomenon is known in Egypt as ’Iqtibass’ or ’Tamseer’(borrowing or Egyptanizing). These terminologies have a large semantic field that can include “draw from”, “quote” and “adapt” (Gamal,2009, p. 11). Thus, Chapter One: Introduction 3 this research tackles a multimodal analysis of Arabic and English movie posters which review similar or convergent cinematic plot. 1.2.Research Problem This research is an attempt to investigate multimodal nature of Western movie posters and their Egyptian copy. The process of cultural borrowing, importing, translating or adapting of foreign scripts is problematic in Egyptian (and to a large extent in Arab) cinema. This raises the question of creativity and authenticity in the Egyptian film industry. So, a comparison between English poster and its Egyptian replica is crucial to investigate the phenomena of adaptation. The problem lies also on clarifying the ability of multimodality, as a linguistic interdisciplinary approach, to unearth visual messages of movie posters. 1.3.Objectives of Research This study aims to investigate the role of multimodal semiotic approach, as trend of linguistic studies, in analyzing images (movie posters). The study also tends to show the applicability of multimodality in exploring the similarities and differences between multiple adapted Egyptian posters and their original English copies from a linguistic point of view. It also examines, linguistically, whether the poster of adapted movie is a replica or a blind copy of the original one or not. Further, the study illuminates how the amalgamation of Systemic Functional –MDA of Kress and Van Leeuwen (2006) and van Leeuwen’s Semiotic of Typography (2006) is a comprehensive effective model for identify cultural dialogue between Egyptian cinema and |