Multimodality, ethnography and education in south america

References

Bakhtin, M.M. (1991). Dialogic imagination: Four essays by M.M. Bakhtin (C. Emerson and M. Holquist, Trans.). Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. Beaufort, A. (2007). College writing and beyond. A new framework for university writing instruction. Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press.

Brown, C. A., Dickson, R., Humphreys, A.-L., McQuillan, V., SL Smears, E. (2008). Promoting academic writing/referencing skills: Outcome of an undergraduate e-learning pilot project. British Journal of Educational Technology, 39, 140-156.

Huang, C.-H., & Archer, A. (2017). ‘‘Academic literacies’’ as moving beyond writing: Investigating multimodal approaches to academic argument. London Review of Education, 15(1), 63–72.

Kozinets, RV. (2010). Netnography: Doing Ethnographic Research Online. Sage: New York.

Lea, M. (2004). Academic literacies: a pedagogy for course design. I Studies in Higher Education, 29 (6), 739-756.

Matusov, E (2011). Irreconcilable differences in Vygotsky’s and Bakhtin’s approaches to the social and the individual: An educational perspective. Culture & Psychology, 17(1) 99–119

Taffs K., & Holt, J. (2013). Investigating student use and value of e-learning resources to develop academic writing within the discipline of environmental science. Journal of Geography in Higher Education, Routledge Vol. 37, No. 4, 500-514.

Educational technologies and formative assessment

Anna Åkerfeldt, Phd, senior lecturer

Stockholm University, The department of Child and Youth studies
[e-mail]

Digital devices are ubiquitous in western society and digitalization affects our society in different ways. This requires in turn that teachers' instructions are being developed and adapted to meet these revisions. As far as the teacher’s instructions are concerned it is for example about designing learning environments that emphasize learners’ creativity, innovation and problem-solving and also developing their digital competence. Even though the use of digital tools demands a change in teaching, it also requires change in how teachers assess students’ work. Educational technologies can play a vital role in supporting teachers to develop their assessment practice. As learners’ activities such as pathways, discussions and texts becomes increasingly accessible when working in digital learning environments, these ‘signs of learning’ create an increased opportunity to follow their learning processes.

Previous research show that formative assessment has positive impact on students´ learning (see for example Black & Wiliam 1998; 2009; Wiliam, 2011). However, teachers often testify that it is a time-consuming way of working (Vingsle, 2017), and studies investigating the impact on students´ learning are also underrepresented (Winstone et al, 2017). Educational technologies could support teachers and reduce their workload when assessing students’ work. There are critical voices raised concerning the use of technologies in schools and that they might regulate and steer teachers’ work. Previous research has shown that teachers tend to view the software as an own actor and depend on the technologies to assess students´ work (Hirsh & Lindberg, 2015).

The aim of this study is to explore, analyse and discuss the design of educational technology and how these can support or hinder teachers´ assessment practices and feedback strategies.

References

Hirsh, Å. & Lindberg, V. (2015). Formativ bedömning på 2000-talet – en översikt av svensk och internationell forskning [Elektronisk resurs]. Stockholm: Vetenskapsrådet.

Black, P., & Wiliam, D. (1998). Inside the Black Box: Raising Standards Through Classroom Assessment. Phi Delta Kappa International.

Black, P., & Wiliam, D. (2009). Developing the theory of formative assessment. Educ Asse Eval Acc. http://doi.org/10.1007/s11092-008-9068-5

Vingsle, C. (2017). Formativ bedömning och självreglerat lärande: vad behöver vi för att få det att hända?. Diss. (sammanfattning) Umeå : Umeå universitet, 2017. Umeå.


KEY-NOTE ABSTRACTS

The Politics of Texture in Contemporary Capitalism

Giorgia Aiello

University of Leeds
As a semiotic resource, texture is widely used by global corporations and other institutions to infuse a variety of media and artifacts with connotations like authenticity, locality, intimacy, and diversity. However, little has been said on texture’s relationship with key semiotic demands of contemporary capitalism such as the need to communicate distinctive identities within generic formats and to foreground difference within homogeneity.

Drawing from scholarship on the semiotics of texture (Djonov and Van Leeuwen, 2011), in this keynote I therefore address the politics of texture. I focus specifically on how different kinds of visual and material texture are mobilized in four contemporary sites of semiotic production. These are: the brand, the city, the photograph, and the visualization. With examples from original research on corporate branding, urban regeneration, stock photography, and data visualization conventions, I then go on to argue that texture is deployed across contexts in ways that promote concrete forms of attachment to a variety of media while also leaving substantial inequalities unchallenged.

Finally, I introduce the concept of ‘texturization’, a process that works to add visual and material cues invoking the experiential qualities of media and other semiotic artifacts. In doing so, I link this concept with that of stylization, a process which often entails techniques aimed at subtracting ‘inappropriate’ traits from multimodal texts in the pursuit of normative identities (Cameron, 2000).

These two concepts and processes may seem to be at odds with one another, with stylization being more readily recognizable as a power-laden way to achieve status in contemporary capitalism. However, I posit that texturization ought not only to be seen as an emergent development of stylization, but that it may also be a more insidious process due to its entanglement with vernacular, emplaced, and embodied semiotic practices. Ultimately, here I argue that both processes and their relationship have important implications for a social semiotic understanding of texture in its own right. As a whole, the keynote also aims to make a critical contribution to multimodal theory’s growing agenda in areas like materiality and the politics of semiotic production.

References:

Cameron, D. (2000). Styling the worker: Gender and the commodification of language in the globalized service economy. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 4(3), 323–347.

Djonov, E. and Van Leeuwen, T. (2011). The semiotics of texture: From tactile to visual. Visual Communication, 10(4), 541-564.

Tasting excellence: serial multimodality and metamodal strategies in Noma’s presentation of self
Robert Hodge

Western Sydney University

This presentation combines two concepts, serial multimodality and metamodality, developed through an analysis of textuality surrounding Noma, Denmark’s most famous restaurant. Noma as a site poses some interesting challenges for multimodal practice and analysis. How can Noma use multimedia resources to communicate what can be supposed to be the essence of its message, excellence as an attribute of something eaten and tasted? What kind of multimodal analysis can identify these strategies and their possible effects?

Serial multimodality describes the processes involved in the generation and circulation of complex texts whereby different multimodal structures are transmitted and transformed into new meanings and effects at different stages. For instance, the Noma multimedia package contains both speech and writing, but the speech is recorded audio, whereas the written text does not reference a prior spoken text. Images record specific dishes, primarily as visual images but also communicating effects of taste, all combining to signify a less sensual meta-signifier ‘excellence’.
For this complex package of multimodalities to work, makers and receivers of the multimedia package need means of labelling the functions and effects of the different modalities and integrating them in a functional though possibly fissured whole. For this process I use the term meta–modality, modelled on and inspired by Bateson’s theories of meta-communication.
For Bateson normal communication occurs across at least two modes, in his case verbal and non-verbal. He envisaged these two primary modes as having different primary functions carried by contradictory messages, with metacommunication loops assigned the task of assigning meanings and values to different messages across different modes. Weakness in these metacommunication loops led to damaging dysfunctionality, according to Bateson, manifested as schizogenic minds, communication and relationships.
In this talk I look at Noma’s communication from this double perspective. Can analysis show a subtle but effective control over the relevant forms of serial multimodality? Or could an organization achieve international success by exploiting what might be dysfunctional strategies of communication and uses of modality? Or could both be true, in different respects for different purposes?

Multimodality – a theory-dependent standpoint or a common sense view on communication?

Anna-Malin Karlsson

Uppsala University

Social semiotics has a proud tradition of multimodal analysis and theorizing, based partly on Halliday’s systemic-functional model of language and grammar. Whether this results in a language-biased approach to multimodality can be (and has been) discussed. However, it is clear that a systemic mindset, where meaning-making is construed as organized by strata, metafunctions and more or less distinct modes, differs from a more purely interactional and emic approach, such as the ethnomethodological (eg. Goodwin 2000, Mondada 2007). Another theoretical paradigm where multimodality is central is Mediated Discourse Analysis (eg. Norris 2004). Here, the nexus of meaning-making and the historical body of meaning-makers are foregrounded, rather than the interplay between modes and their potentials.

Understanding multimodal meaning-making seems difficult without theory, or at least without theoretical assumptions about what meaning-making is about. Furthermore, multimodal approaches to discourse have in many cases emerged as a development of existing theories of language, communication or social interaction. This has resulted in parallel strands of multimodal research, with very little contact in between.

In this talk, the similarities and differences between systemic, ethnomethodological and socio-historical approaches to multimodality will be explored, and the affordances of the different theoretical assumptions to provide explanations and solutions will be tested on authentic communicative cases. Is there a potential for building a theoretically eclectic multimodal field, based on similar-enough standpoints and concurrent empirical findings? Would a less theoretically rigid and more ‘common sense’ conception of multimodality facilitate multidisciplinary and practice-based collaboration, and even strengthen a general multimodal conception of communication?

References

Goodwin, Charles. 2000. Action and embodiment within situated human interaction. Journal of Pragmatics 32.10: 1489–1522.

Mondada, Lornza. 2007. Multimodal resources for turn-taking: pointing and the emergence of possible next speakers. Discourse Studies, 9(2), s. 194–225.

Norris, Sigrid. 2004. Analyzing multimodal interaction: A methodological framework. London: Routledge.

Stepping back to look ahead. Speculating on developments and uses of Social Semiotic Multimodal theory
Gunther Kress

University of London
The framing paragraph that prefaces the announcement of this conference suggests that things in this corner of the academic world have developed with remarkable speed. It may be useful, maybe necessary – still barely two decades into this form of work – to pause for a moment and to look at the social environments and the prompting occasions that have framed and continue to frame that still very brief history. It will reveal similarities as well as decisive differences even in that brief period, and these can be helpful in speculating about the short to medium term future of the field. Central in that will be serious reflection on a remarkable shift of “the social” in that period: from seeming stability to near overwhelming provisionality. That can help to explain the consequences for the semiotic landscape, bringing it starkly into focus. Equally essential will be reflections on the relation between the development of “the social” and the rapid transitions in technologies affecting this field. There, the essential question is: “Who is to be master in our field? “The social” or “the technologies”? ”
Recognizing stark social, semiotic and technological differences over that period, it remains essential nevertheless not only to notice “breaks” but also to point to continuities; to look beyond fragmentation to that which has remained and is likely to remain stable, even if at some level of generality. It may be that most of us who work in this field have left whatever had been “our” “mainstream” for good reasons. Such dissatisfactions are a major resource in shaping satisfactory approaches and tools.
My talk will, in some part, be a quite personal reflection on that development. I hope that can be useful in raising the questions which are likely affect the thinking of all of us in this domain. In particular it may make it possible to focus on and work for continuities, and, in that, continue to work for integration – socially and semiotically – in our current work. As part of this reflection I will present a very brief outline of an integrated approach to some of the questions I have raised.

Organization/s and intersemiosis: a plea for the old; a pitch for the new
Louise Ravelli

University of New South Wales
While the various theoretical frameworks and approaches to the description and analysis of multimodal communication each offer their own insights, social semiotics offers a particular focus on social aspects of meaning which has proven to be highly productive. Social semiotic approaches themselves can vary, but they are largely underpinned by an understanding of meaning as being metafunctional, following Halliday’s linguistic model. This paper aims to push forwards, by going backwards a little, revisiting the metafunctions and how they mean in multimodal contexts. With a particular emphasis on the organizational (/textual) metafunction and spatial discourse analysis, I hope to show how an understanding of the metafunctions has been both brought forward and extended in new domains of multimodal communication research. At the same time, however, many gaps remain, and an incursion into the realm of organizations and organizational theory highlights the need for significant theoretical extensions, not least in the direction of intersemiosis.

Networks – A Social Semiotic Approach
Theo van Leeuwen

University of Southern Denmark
Departing from the theory presented in Reading Images (Kress and Van Leeuwen, 2006), this lecture will outline and exemplify the basic ‘narrative’ and ‘conceptual’ models that underlie contemporary visualization – linear processes, cycles, flowcharts, analytical models, classification models (including lists and trees), tables and networks.

It will then present a social semiotic history of the network model, showing how it evolved from a 1920s American approach to the quantitative analysis of social relations which replaced the ‘social’ with the ’interpersonal’ and saw society as a community of equals in which status derived from popularity, to an all-encompassing approach to visualizing the relation between items of information on the basis of the frequency of otherwise meaningless associations, rather than on the basis of semantic relations.

The lecture will illustrate how this model underlies contemporary visualizations such as mind maps and word clouds, and evaluate the way visualization is used in linguistics and its multimodal offshoots, including the onion diagrams and networks of systemic-functional linguistics and discourse analysis.

The lecture will end with a plea for a critical and historically grounded approach to the study of contemporary visualization.

Kress, G. and Van Leeuwen, T. (2006) Reading Images – The Grammar of Visual Design. 2nd edition. London: Routledge