Multimodality and Translanguaging in Video Interactions


Book Description

This Element presents and critically discusses video-mediated communication by combining theories and empirical methods of multimodal studies and translanguaging. Since Covid-19 gained momentum, video-based interactions have become more and more ingrained in private and public lives and to the point of being fully incorporated in a wide range of community practices in personal, work and educational environments. The meaning making of video communication results from the complex, situationally based and culturally influenced and interlaced components of different semiotic resources and practices. These include the use of speech, writing, translingual practices, gaze behaviour, proxemics and kinesics patterns, as well as forms of embodied interaction. The Element aims at unpacking these resources and at interpreting how they make meanings to improve and encourage active and responsible participation in the current digital scenarios.




Translanguaging and Multimodality as Flow, Agency, and a New Sense of Advocacy in and from the Global South


Book Description

This volume provides six distinct frameworks for integrating translanguaging and multimodality as pedagogical possibilities in today’s classrooms and beyond. It brings the two constructs together in investigating the language and literacy experiences of multilingual learners across a range of sociocultural and educational contexts. The book features contributions from scholars across the Global North and Global South who embrace the importance of validating scholarly experiences from the Global South as a way to transcend geographical boundaries in creating more equitable knowledge spaces. The contributing authors share their innovative theoretical and methodological orientations to translanguaging and multimodality, informed by their considerable expertise as scholars and educators. They address conceptual questions such as issues related to cultural flow, civic and professional identities, entanglement, materiality, “first-order languaging,” and raciolinguistic ideologies. Each chapter deals with these questions through integrated and innovative analyses of empirical evidence in: Chinese word instruction, teacher professional development, multimodal composition, online language tutoring, and online teaching videos in Global South societies or transnational interactions. Together, the chapters push against normative theoretical and applied boundaries to help us envision new dynamic intersections of translanguaging and multimodality for today's classrooms and societies. Provocative and disruptive, this book explores the possibilities of mixing and remixing definitions, epistemological standpoints, and methodological options and shows the continuing growth found in translanguaging and multimodality research worldwide. It will be a key resource for practitioners, researchers, and scholars of education and pedagogy, bilingual education, language and literacy education, applied linguistics, literacy studies, and language arts. It was originally published as a special issue of Pedagogies: An International Journal.




Multimodality in Language and Speech Systems


Book Description

This book is based on contributions to the Seventh European Summer School on Language and Speech Communication that was held at KTH in Stockholm, Sweden, in July of 1999 under the auspices of the European Language and Speech Network (ELSNET). The topic of the summer school was "Multimodality in Language and Speech Systems" (MiLaSS). The issue of multimodality in interpersonal, face-to-face communication has been an important research topic for a number of years. With the increasing sophistication of computer-based interactive systems using language and speech, the topic of multimodal interaction has received renewed interest both in terms of human-human interaction and human-machine interaction. Nine lecturers contri buted to the summer school with courses on specialized topics ranging from the technology and science of creating talking faces to human-human communication, which is mediated by computer for the handicapped. Eight of the nine lecturers are represented in this book. The summer school attracted more than 60 participants from Europe, Asia and North America representing not only graduate students but also senior researchers from both academia and industry.




Multimodal Interaction in Image and Video Applications


Book Description

Traditional Pattern Recognition (PR) and Computer Vision (CV) technologies have mainly focused on full automation, even though full automation often proves elusive or unnatural in many applications, where the technology is expected to assist rather than replace the human agents. However, not all the problems can be automatically solved being the human interaction the only way to tackle those applications. Recently, multimodal human interaction has become an important field of increasing interest in the research community. Advanced man-machine interfaces with high cognitive capabilities are a hot research topic that aims at solving challenging problems in image and video applications. Actually, the idea of computer interactive systems was already proposed on the early stages of computer science. Nowadays, the ubiquity of image sensors together with the ever-increasing computing performance has open new and challenging opportunities for research in multimodal human interaction. This book aims to show how existing PR and CV technologies can naturally evolve using this new paradigm. The chapters of this book show different successful case studies of multimodal interactive technologies for both image and video applications. They cover a wide spectrum of applications, ranging from interactive handwriting transcriptions to human-robot interactions in real environments.




Time in Embodied Interaction


Book Description

This is the first book dedicated to the study of the complexities that arise in embodied interaction from the multiplicity of time-scales on which its component processes unfold. It shows in microscopic detail how people synchronize and sequence modal resources such as talk, gaze, gesture, and object-manipulation to accomplish social actions. The studies show that each of these resources has its own temporal trajectory, affordances and restrictions, which enable and constrain the fine-grained work of bodily self-organization and interaction with others. Focusing on extended interactional time scales, some of the contributors investigate ways in which larger interactional episodes and relationships between actions are brought about and how actions build on shared interactional histories. The book makes a strong case for the use of video in the study of social interaction. It proposes an enlarged vision of Conversation Analysis that puts the body and its interactive temporalities center stage.




Interactions, Images and Texts


Book Description

Multimodality is a fast-growing interdisciplinary approach that aims to analyze the interplay of multiple modes such as gaze, gesture or spoken language that are utilized in interaction, and to examine the multimodal production and consumption of communicated messages. This Reader provides a comprehensive text of current research into multimodality, outlining in-depth delineation of each primary theoretical and methodological approach, as well as personal accounts of scholars, who are responsible for the various approaches’ advancements. The book additionally offers a plethora of analysis chapters, written by scholars from across the world, with vastly diverse themes ranging from buying popcorn, protests in Oman, coaching sessions and identity, to kitesurfing, typography, TV news, billboards, workplace practices, or analyzing web pages, Facebook, comic books, and more. Flexible and easy to use, the Reader includes key terms, suggested further readings, and a project idea for each chapter. The key terms for the chapters also comprise the extensive alphabetical glossary. Brief introductions for the analysis chapters, written by the editors, summarize the topic, explain the methodology used, outline the thematic orientation, and link each chapter to other chapters in the book. Showcasing multimodal analysis in detail, this Reader is essential reading for undergraduate and postgraduate students, for emergent researchers, and for advanced scholars who wish to gain insight into the current state of multimodal research.




The Bloomsbury Handbook of Language Learning and Technology


Book Description

This handbook draws together international perspectives on technology and its application to language teaching and learning, written and edited by leading scholars in the field. It meets the increasing demand for pedagogically-informed online language instruction, which is particularly important in the context of the effects that the Covid-19 pandemic has had on the education sector on a global scale, as well as exploring language learning in informal and non-formal contexts. With contributions from5 continents and over 20 countries, including Australia, Canada, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, France, Greece, Ireland, Japan, Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands, the UK and the USA, the book offers a thorough overview of the main influential theories and explores technology tools, approaches to research, and applications to practice. Carefully curated, this is an innovative and exciting volume for students, teachers, researchers and lecturers in language education.




Less Frequently Used Research Methodologies in Applied Linguistics


Book Description

Research methodology plays a pivotal role in generating new knowledge in any academic discipline. Applied Linguistics (AL) researchers use a variety of research methodologies to address different research problems and research questions, given its interdisciplinary nature. Notwithstanding the plethora of research methodologies used by AL researchers, there are some methodologies that are used less frequently. The aim of this volume is to introduce and discuss these less frequently used methodologies. Each methodology is discussed in two chapters, a theoretical and a practical chapter. In the theoretical chapters, the theoretical foundations, methodological orientation, ethical issues, and critiques and responses are discussed. In the practical chapters, a showcase study is presented and discussed, including why the methodology was used, how it was implemented, the challenges the researchers faced, and the insights they gained. The volume contributes to the current methodological discussion in AL and provides early-career and seasoned researchers with the necessary discussion about these methodological orientations. Future AL researchers may use these methodologies to investigate research questions in their areas of interest. In addition, the volume can complement current methodological resources in postgraduate research methodology courses.




Multimodal Conversation Analysis and Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis


Book Description

This book presents the methodological framework of combining Multimodal Conversation Analysis (MCA) with Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) to interpretively analyse translanguaging practices in educational contexts. Beginning with an overview of the three uses of translanguaging—translanguaging as a theory of language, as a pedagogical practice, and as an analytical perspective—the book goes on to critically examine the different methodological approaches for analysing translanguaging practices in multilingual classroom interactions. It explains how MCA and IPA are useful methodologies for understanding how and why translanguaging practices are constructed by participants in the classroom and discusses types of data collected and data collection procedures. The author, Kevin W. H. Tai, shows how combining these approaches enables researchers to study how translanguaging practices are constructed in multilingual classrooms and how teachers make sense of their own translanguaging practices at particular moments of classroom interaction. This detailed and concise guide is indispensable for students, practitioners, policymakers, and researchers from across the globe, particularly those working in the fields of applied linguistics and language education.




The Secret Life of English-Medium Instruction in Higher Education


Book Description

This volume explores the inner-workings of English-medium instruction (EMI) in higher education (HE) at two universities. After an introductory chapter that sets the scene and provides an essential background, there are four empirically based chapters that draw on data collected from a range of sources at two universities in Catalonia. This includes interviews, audio/video recordings of classes, audio logs produced by both lecturers and students, policy documents, students’ written work, and student presentation evaluation rubrics. These chapters examine the following issues: (1) the choice of either English or Catalan as the medium of instruction by students and lecturers; (2) how students display ambivalence towards EMI, as well as a general lack of enthusiasm towards and an ironic distance from 'doing education’; (3) how students resist EMI by contravening its English monolingual norm, using their L1s in the classroom; and finally, (4) how EMI lecturers on occasion act as English language teachers despite their continued claims to the contrary. The book ends with a concluding chapter that draws all of the strands together around key themes. This book is written for scholars interested in issues surrounding EMI in HE in general, as well as those EMI in HE practitioners who have adopted a reflective approach to their professional practice and wish to know more about the ins and outs of EMI in HE from multiple perspectives. It is a useful resource for MA and PhD students on applied linguistics programmes in which the roles and uses of English in HE worldwide are deemed to be important and worthy of attention. Additionally, this will be relevant to courses or modules focusing on language policy, as well as curriculum issues more broadly and language teaching practice more specifically.