Semiotica 189–1/4 (2012), 229 – 253 0037–1998/12/0189–0229 DOI 10.1515/sem-2012-0032 © Walter de Gruyter The ideal teacher: An analysis of a teacher-recruitment advertisement VICTOR LIM FEI and KAY O’HALLORAN Abstract Building on research in systemic functional approaches to multimodal dis- course analysis, this paper develops macro-analytical and micro-analytical techniques for transcription and analysis of a multimodal advertisement flm text. This paper proposes the usefulness of the visual semantics stratum to in- vestigate inter-frame relations in the multimodal flm text. This approach is applied to an analysis of a teacher-recruitment television advertisement com- missioned by the Singapore’s Ministry of Education where the construction of an ideal teacher’s identity becomes a form of commodifcation within a con- sumerist culture. The meanings in the advertisement are also discussed in light of prevailing ideologies in Singapore’s education system. Keywords: systemic functional multimodal discourse analysis; flm; tran- scription; visual semantics; intersemiosis; ideology 1. Constructing the teacher in a multimodal flm advertisement The construction of the teacher’s identity in the Singapore Ministry of Educa- tion’s (MOE) commissioned teacher-recruitment flm advertisement is dis- cussed in this paper. The commodifcation of the teacher’s identity in the ad- vertisement as a product to be marketed to the public is set against the backdrop of an increasingly consumerist culture in the twenty-frst century. According to Fairclough (1992: 207), commodifcation is “the process whereby social domains and institutions, whose concern is not producing commodities in the narrower economic sense of goods for sale, come nevertheless to be orga- nized and conceptualized in terms of commodity production, distribution, and consumption.” Here, the identity of a teacher is packaged and distributed for the general public’s consumption through a television advertisement. O’Halloran (2009) (CS4) WDG (155×230mm) TimesNewRoman J-2515 SEM, 189 pp. 229–254 2515_189_11 (p. 229) PMU:(IDP) 28/12/2011 17 January 2012 11:32 AM 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42