Volume 12, Issue 1 - Special Issue: Multimodal (inter)action analysis: an analytical framework for the future; Guest Editor: Jarret Geenen

This paper offers a Multimodal (Inter)action Analysis study of how metadiscourse is used in university lectures. Metadiscourse is frequently employed in spoken academic discourse to guide the audience through the contents of the speech, thus becoming an essential element to foster comprehension in lectures. Although lectures have been largely researched under a multimodal eye, studies looking at the multimodal nature of metadiscourse are still scarce. In fact, previous multimodal explorations of metadiscourse in lectures point towards discrepancies in the attention given by lecturers to metadiscursive instances. In this study, six face-to-face lectures in fields within Humanities were analyzed to spot all instances of organizational metadiscourse. Next, the fragments containing such metadiscourse were further explored through a Multimodal (Inter)action Analysis to identify the structure of higher-level actions and the ways in which metadiscourse was integrated as part of the modal configurations of the actions. The analysis of higher-level actions using the foreground-background continuum reveals two main roles in the use of metadiscourse: an active one, in which metadiscourse is explicitly used to guide and engage the audience, as expected; and a passive one, in which metadiscourse is rather used as a filler in the background. These results contribute to reflecting on teaching practices and raising awareness on the importance of multimodal literacy for teacher training.

The present study centers on exploring how different modes such as speech, gesture, gaze, body posture, and head movement are employed by an EFL teacher and his students during a Critical Learning Episode (CLE). CLEs are brief instances of classroom interaction where the instructor and the researcher believe that learning is being fostered or inhibited. This article is part of a larger qualitative multiple-case study that took place at a private Colombian University. The lesson was videotaped and then analyzed within a Multimodal (Inter)action Analysis framework. Findings indicate that CLEs are created in a highly embodied, multimodal, and ecological manner through different modal configurations. Besides speech and writing, modes such as gestures, posture, gaze, and head movement played not a marginal, but prominent role, in performing various pedagogical classroom activities such as enhancing shared/ focused attention, strengthening alignment, helping teachers and learners to visually make meaning of morphological and syntactical units, and serving as devices to check for understanding.

The construction of Samoan identity in New Zealand is shaped by complex historical and contemporary social, economic, cultural and political factors. In addition, New Zealand-born Samoans are negotiating an ethnic and identity that incorporates their experience with the intergenerational stories and cultural knowledge of their ancestors. Such cultural and identity negotiations are occurring through the practice of Siva Samoa, Samoan dance. Using Multimodal (Inter)action Analysis we conduct a micro analysis of two excerpts of video data involving female Samoan dancers rehearsing for a dance showcase. Vertical identity production (Norris, S. (2011). Identity in (inter)action: introducing multimodal (inter)action analysis . Berlin and Boston: Mouton: 179, 2020:85) is used as a framework to analyze the multiple layers of discourse within each site of engagement that shape the construction of Samoan Identity for the participants involved.

This visual essay examines the non-verbal actions and the production of identity of Serbian and English native speakers during a videoconferencing task in New Zealand. This cross-cultural study examines the modes of facial expression, posture, and hand/arm movements to show how these are telling of the identity of the Serbian and English native speakers. Although gesture and language have received significant attention in research, very few studies have addressed the cross-cultural non-verbal actions and no study has compared Serbian native speakers with New Zealand English speakers. This visual essay addresses this gap.