Multimodal Analysis in Academic Settings

From Research to Teaching

Belinda Crawford Camiciottoli, Inmaculada Fortanet-Gómez

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781317574668
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Communication Studies
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

This volume presents innovative research on the multimodal dimension of discourse specific to academic settings, with a particular focus on the interaction between the verbal and non-verbal in constructing meaning. Contributions by experienced and emerging researchers provide in-depth analyses in both research and teaching contexts, and consider the ways in which multimodal strategies can be leveraged to enhance the effectiveness of academic communication. Contributors employ both quantitative and qualitative analytical methods, and make use of state-of-the-art software for analyzing multimodal features of discourse.

The chapters in the first part of the volume focus on the multimodal features of two key research genres: conference presentations and plenary addresses. In the second part, contributors explore the role of multimodality in the classroom through analyses of both instructors' and students' speech, as well as the use of multimodal materials for more effective learning. The research presented in this volume is particularly relevant within the context of globalized higher education, where participants represent a wide range of linguistic and cultural backgrounds. Multimodal Analysis in Academic Settings contributes to an emerging field of research with importance to an increasing number of academics and practitioners worldwide.

Part I
Research Communications

1 Disagreements in Plenary Addresses as Multimodal Action

Zuocheng Zhang

1.1 Introduction

Disagreement has been discussed extensively in pragmatics. It is typically treated as a face-threatening speech act that needs mitigation. For example, Stalpers (1995) identifies ten strategies that may be used to mitigate disagreements. Her research is valuable in that it demonstrates the use of pauses, hedging expressions, modal verbs, token agreement and indirect speech acts in performing disagreements and illustrates their use both prior to and during the expression of the disagreement. However, this set of strategies does not reflect the complexity of disagreement in real-life communication. As Sifianou (2012, p. 1553) argues, disagreements are “complex, multidirectional and multifunctional acts” because of the context of the social interaction under question, face dynamics and multiple functions that are relevant to specific disagreements. Current research in multimodal discourse analysis also points to the interplay between various social semiotic resources in mediating social interaction: For example, Norris’s (2007) study of a public speech illuminates the variety of meaning-making resources or communicative modes such as spoken language, posture and gaze, and their complementary roles for conveying multiple messages and performing multiple identities. It is thus important to examine how actions such as disagreements are performed by investigating the various possible resources that are mobilized including linguistic and paralinguistic resources. By building on research in multimodal discourse analysis—in particular, Norris’s (2004) multimodal interaction analysis—this chapter explores how disagreements are accomplished by plenary speakers at academic conferences, with the focus on their use of multimodal meaning-making devices to achieve their communicative goals, and discusses how such insights may contribute to teaching English for academic purposes.

1.2 Literature Review

As an important research process genre, academic presentations have received growing attention since Shalom (1993). This is reflected in the expanding research that has drawn on multimodal discourse analysis (Rowley-Jolivet, 2002; Rendle-Short, 2005; Morton, 2009; Tardy, 2005, 2009; Querol-Julián & Fortanet-Gόmez, 2012; Zhang & Wang, 2014). These studies have shed valuable light on language and other meaning-making resources in performing academic presentations. For example, Rowley-Jolivet’s (2002) study of visuals in 90 presentations at five international conferences in three different fields reveals multiple functions of such meaning-making resources, including structuring the discourse and expressing logical relations. Multimodal resources are also found to interact with each other in making meaning. A good case in point is Querol-Julián and Fortanet-Gόmez’s (2012) multimodal study of the Q&A session following the paper presentation. They identify interesting uses of language, paralanguage and kinesic features in expressing evaluative meaning in the speech event. For example, these different semiotic resources may co-express attitudes as when the presenter nodded and uttered yes simultaneously. They may also complement each other as when the presenter smiled while expressing a negative affect.

However, little has been written about the handling of pivotal actions such as disagreements in such activities. Disagreements are understandably important to academic presentations. This derives from the multiple roles of academics including “disciplinary servant” and “originator” (Hyland, 2004, p. 108). The latter role is particularly true of senior academics such as plenary speakers at academic conferences. As experts on the topic they are speaking to, plenary speakers are expected to respond to uncertainties in their discipline (Woodward-Kron, 2002) and articulate their original views, which may distinguish them from others who may be present or absent at the conference venue, hence disagreements. Disagreements may therefore play a “constructive” (Sifianou, 2012, p. 1560) role in the academic context.

There has been much discussion of disagreement in the literature with a focus on its nature as a potentially face-threatening speech act that should be mitigated (Mulholland, 1991; Stalpers, 1995). Although this focus has much validity, it should be noted that a speech act such as disagreement does not necessarily perform one single function in the whole discourse. Instead, it may perform different functions subject to the context. This has been pointed out by Sifianou (2012) in her discussion of the multifunctionality feature of disagreements. On a larger scale, Bhatia (2002, pp. 51–52) outlines several identities that

professionals may be required to give expression to simultaneously in the same piece of discourse: professional identities as members of a particular disciplinary community, organizational identities as members of specific organizations or institutions, social identities, as valued members of social groups, and of course individual identities as indications of self-expression. [Italics added for emphasis]

This position also resonates with Charles’s (1996) study of business discourses. According to Charles, business negotiators are, by their professional status, buyers or sellers that are enacted through different language and business strategies. They also play situationally adopted roles such as friendly business partners with social and personal concerns, and are individuals with idiosyncratic behavior in their interaction with each other. The negotiation discourse that may be produced is subject to the interplay between these different roles. Considering the multiple roles the same piece of discourse performs in a situated interaction, it is compelling to investigate how they are achieved in the discourse.

Sociocultural linguistic research provides a clue. Of high relevance is Bucholtz and Hall’s (2005) discussion of indexicality as “the mechanism whereby identity is constituted” (p. 593) and the range of indexing operations:

Disparate indexical processes of labeling, implicature, stance taking, style marking, and code choice work to construct identities, both micro and macro, as well as those somewhere in between.

(p. 598)

Identities as social constructs are therefore accomplished via indexing devices including language and other semiotic resources. When we explore a social action and its multiple meanings, the devices that are employed provide the objects of observation and interpretation. Norris’s (2007) study may be used to illustrate the synchronized performance of multiple identities in the same discourse through multiple indexing devices. In her analysis of an official meeting with diverse participants, including Hispanic/Latino Americans, other minority group individuals and white Americans, she shows how the speaker, a Mexican American, took on the identity of the white majority group and meanwhile constructed her Mexican identity. She was able to achieve her foregrounded majority identity by “controlling her use of spoken language” and present her Mexican identity “through other modes” such as hand gestures and facial expressions (p. 669). When plenary speakers are performing disagreements at academic conferences, how they navigate the professional, organizational, social and personal spaces to respond to the exigency of academic conference situations may be explored with reference to multiple meaning-making or indexing devices.

Academic presenters have a range of resources at their disposal. Norris (2004) proposes nine communicative modes including spoken language, proxemics, gesture, head movement, posture, gaze, layout, print and music. These communicative modes mediate the interaction as social action in the sense that these modes, loaded with meaning-making potential, enable the interaction to proceed in culturally and situationally recognizable ways, hence multimodal interaction as mediated discourse (Scollon, 2001). As each mode has its meaning-making potential, it is interesting to examine how the modes are drawn on by social actors such as academic presenters to perform social actions, for example, disagreements.

Four types of disagreements are identified in academic presentations (Zhang & Zhu, 2014), namely: 1) disagreement with a specific person who is named; 2) disagreement with a specific phenomenon; 3) disagreement with hypothetical/possible views held by the audience; and 4) disagreement in the guise of a suggestion for improving a practice or situation. Following Brown and Levinson (1987), the first type of disagreement appears to be the most imposing and confronting as the speaker names a specific individual to disagree with in public and is thus worth a specially close examination. This chapter aims to explore the use of spoken language and other communicative modes by plenary speakers in handling the action of disagreement with the following three questions to answer:

1. What kinds of disagreements are enacted in plenary speeches?
2. What are the linguistic strategies plenary speakers use in expressing disagreements?
3. How do different communicative modes interplay with each other in enacting disagreements in plenary speeches?

1.3 Plenary Conference Data

1.3.1 Data Sources

This chapter draws on the plenary speeches of two internationally renowned scholars in the field of applied linguistics on topics of their expertise at two international conferences in China. Paul Nation, the world’s leading researcher in the field of vocabulary teaching, was invited to address a plenary session at an international conference on English writing teaching and research in China in 2006. He spoke about writing from the perspective of vocabulary with three focal points: 1) how much vocabulary learners need to know in order to write; 2) how writing fits into a whole language course; and 3) how writing can help learners to learn vocabulary. In the process of delivering the second point, Nation presented his four-strand language lesson framework, which includes meaning-focused input, language-focused input, meaning-focused output and fluency development, and critiqued an applied linguist highly regarded for his research in second language acquisition. He prepared handouts for the audience and invited questions from the audience after he had covered the first two points. Nation answered a number of questions from four conference participants before moving on to his last point. His presentation finished without a Q&A session because of time constraints. The whole speech lasted 46:26 minutes.

Helen Spencer-Oatey is an internationally renowned expert on intercultural communication and language education research. Her studies of cross-cultural pragmatics and rapport management are widely cited. She sets the example of focusing on the cooperative and collaborative behavior of intercultural communicators to achieve their communicative goals rather than breakdowns in intercultural communication. She was invited to speak at the first international conference on intercultural business communication in China in 2010. Her talk, entitled “Understanding intercultural competence for business: Insights from the eChina-UK programme,” consisted of a brief introduction, a review of research on intercultural competence, research in business discourse, insights from an international project she directed and suggestions for future research. Her talk was assisted with the use of PowerPoint slides and finished with a Q&A session in which she responded to several questions from the audience. As her slides show, her aims in the speech were three-fold: to critically review conceptualizations of intercultural competence in different disciplines including communication studies and business and management s...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Figures
• Tables
• Introduction
• PART I Research Communications
• PART II Classroom Applications
• Contributors
• Index