Mengting Geng, Bin Duan
Taking visual grammar of multimodal discourse analysis as the core theory, this paper chooses three cross-era Yunnan border cultural symbols: anti-colonial archives, stone monuments and native folk songs. It combines field investigation, annotated thick translation and cross-media effect evaluation as mixed research methods. Analysis proves text-only English translations without audio-visual aids fail to build complete three-layer multimodal meanings, causing severe cultural bias among overseas audiences. Combining translated texts with on-site footage and ethnic audio can fully interpret the history of border ethnic solidarity against foreign invasion. This paper establishes a four-dimensional closed research path of cultural excavation, annotated translation, multimodal creation and effect assessment, and forms a replicable paradigm applicable to southwest frontier texts, facilitating global understanding of China’s pluralistic national development and international dissemination of ethnic unity stories.