Exploring the Identity of Chinese Cultural Relics on British Museum Websites Through Multimodal Discourse Analysis: A Case Study of the Official Website

The aim of this study is to explore the re-construction of Chinese cultural identity in the British Museum's official website and analyze how its exhibition strategies influence the audience's perception and understanding of Chinese artifacts. By employing a multimodal discourse analysis method that combines textual and visual analysis, the study examines how the British Museum's official website presents the identity of Chinese artifacts from cultural, contextual, and formal perspectives. Additionally, utilizing the identity theory from a constructivist perspective, the study analyzes how identity is dynamically constructed, negotiated, and communicated through discourse. The research findings indicate that the identity of Chinese artifacts displayed on the British Museum's official website is relatively weak, suggesting room for more improvements. It is recommended to establish cooperative relationships with museums in the countries of origin of the artifacts to maintain the connection between artifacts and their original cultures, thereby promoting the inheritance of cultural heritage.