Published by De Gruyter Mouton

Volume 3 Issue 2 -

Issue of Multimodal Communication

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Contents
Journal Overview

Publicly Available November 7, 2014

Frontmatter

Page range: i-iii

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Discussion Paper

November 7, 2014

The Marginalisation of Finely Tuned Semiotic Practices and Misunderstandings in Relation to (Signed) Languages and Deafness

Elina Tapio

Page range: 131-142

Abstract

When people draw on the available modal resources (e.g. gestures) in specific contexts over time, those resources come to display regularities. The more a community uses and regulates those resources, the more fully and finely articulated their regularities and patterns become. Modes, organised by regular means of representation, are constantly transformed by users, depending on what the community needs. This paper discusses the way semiotic resources and practices, i.e. social actions with a history, used by sign language signers in visually oriented communities, as well as the research in such domains, have been marginalised. The paper reflects some of the main reasons for such marginalisation and argues how marginalisation is a result of some crucial misunderstandings in relation to (signed) languages, language learning, deafness, and disability. Research into human interaction, in general, has taken a multimodal turn. This paper suggests, through practical examples, how multimodally oriented research could enrich its view by recognising communication-practices inside visually oriented domains, as well as research in the area, instead of considering D/deaf and sign language related research as a specialised area of research.

Articles

November 7, 2014

Knowledge Translation in Health Care as a Multimodal Interactional Accomplishment

Malene Kjær

Page range: 143-161

Abstract

In the theory of health care, knowledge translation is regarded as a crucial phenomenon that makes the whole health care system work in a desired manner. The present paper studies knowledge translation from the student nurses’ perspective through a close analysis of the part of their education where they are in clinical practice. The analysis is made possible through video recordings of how student nurses translate their theoretical knowledge into professional situational conduct in everyday interactional accomplishments among supervisors and patients. The analysis shows how some knowledge gets translated through the use of rich multimodal embodied interactions, whereas the more abstract aspects of knowledge remain untranslated. Overall, the study contributes to the understanding of knowledge translation as a multimodal, locally situated accomplishment.

November 7, 2014

Producing Shared Attention/Awareness in High School Tutoring

Jesse Pirini

Page range: 163-179

Abstract

During the activities of everyday life social actors always produce multiple simultaneous higher level actions. These necessarily operate at different levels of attention and awareness. Modal density is a methodological tool that can be used to analyse the attention/awareness of social actors in relation to higher level actions they produce, positioning actions in the foreground, midground and background of attention. Using modal density to analyse an opening and a closing in high school tutoring sessions, I show social actors transitioning into and out of producing the same higher level actions at the foreground of their attention/awareness. Through this analysis I identify two potentially unique aspects of one-to-one tutoring. Firstly I show one way that a tutor helps a student take on the practices of being a good student, and secondly I show the influence that students have over tutoring. I argue that movements into and out of a shared focus of attention are potentially useful sites for analysis of social interaction.

November 7, 2014

The Impact of Literacy-Based Schooling on Learning a Creative Practice: Modal Configurations, Practices and Discourses

Sigrid Norris

Page range: 181-195

Abstract

Building on the argument that practices between teacher and learners in classrooms may differ (Scollon and Scollon, 1981; Brice Heath, 1983 [1996]; Street, 1984; Gee, 1996; Barton and Hamilton, 1998), I look at how literacy focused school classroom teaching/learning practices instilled into an individual have a long-term effect. Using a multimodal (inter)action analytical approach (Norris, 2004, 2014) and the site of engagement as my analytical tool that brings together concrete actions, practices and discourses as a coherent whole, I examine actions, practices and discourses produced and reproduced by an art teacher and a new art student in a small private art school in Germany. While the art teacher draws on and re-produces the practice of painting, the new art student draws on and reproduces the practices and discourses that she learned in formal schooling, forcing her to produce and understand modal configurations that do not align with the creative practice that she is learning. This paper has potential educational and social ramifications as it illustrates that formal schooling may have a negative effect upon creativity by focusing the schooled individual upon results and on language/listening . These foci directly translate into modal behaviour which disadvantages the individual when trying to learn a creative practice, where the process and showing/seeing are emphasised. As the world becomes more multimodal and creative, we may want to engage in more research to rethink what and how children are taught.

November 7, 2014

Multimodal Analysis of Parentheticals in Conversational Speech

Manon Lelandais, Gaëlle Ferré

Page range: 197-217

Abstract

Based on a video recording of conversational British English, this paper aims at describing the relation between verbal and non-verbal signals in the production process of parentheticals within the framework of Multimodal Discourse Analysis. Parentheticals are described in linguistics as side sequences interrupting linear development. Although their syntactic, prosodic, and discursive characteristics have been deeply analysed, few studies have focused on the articulation of the different communicative modes in their production process. Beyond showing that gesture brings complementary information in regard to prosody, contributing to a composite collateral message, the results allow better delineation and understanding of skip-connecting phenomena as constructing coherence. Changes in the modal configuration throughout the parenthetical sequence suggest modes are dynamic and flexible resources for indexing parentheticals and their particular framing function.

About this journal

Objective
In essence, all communication is multimodal: we use language, gesture, posture, and other non-verbal modes often at the same time to communicate. We may use many media when conducting research. We may also use creative ways of jotting down what we perceive, i.e. using poetry and other creative writing or art forms to freeze what we understand. We explain the world we investigate to others in multimodal ways.

Multimodal Communication is a venue for researchers in diverse fields of study, who are broaching communication from an interdisciplinary perspective; exploring diverse and multimodal ways to conduct research and illustrate findings. The Journal is interdisciplinary and open to papers from anthropology, through to art, math, psychology, science, sport, and beyond.

Although wide in disciplinary scope, all articles have to develop multimodality in some way. An article may use visuals/writing/sound to explore a theme; be highly theoretical and explain a philosophical point relevant to the study of multimodality; or may be based on an empirical study integrating a number of modes.

Multimodality of communication processes related to such disciplines, as

Anthropology
Art
Mathematics
Psychology
Science
Sport
Visuals
Writing
Sound
and others

Article formats
Style of exposition is not standardized, authors may send research articles, essays, visual essays or other creative pieces