822 research outputs found
Process and Product: High School English Learners Redefined
Despite 21st Century technology, our nation’s high schools deliver a print-centric curriculum driven by high-stakes tests. A majority of states have adopted Common Core State Standards that incorporate producing and consuming multiple media texts. Some teachers have begun to include multimodal activities but few are exploiting the affordances of multimodal composition specifically for the benefit of English learners. Public high school teachers hold deficit views of English learners and fail to offer them challenging, creative tasks.
Framed by the complementary sociocultural theories of ecological linguistics (van Lier, 2004), multimodality (Kress, 2010), and identity (Gee, 2001; Norton, 2000), this qualitative case study examined the process and product of high school English learners composing multimodally with digital video. Four questions guided the study: 1) What can we learn from adolescent English learners engaged in composing with video? 2) What identities do adolescent ELs explore while engaging in multimodal communication? 3) What processes do ELs engage in as they compose multimodally? 4) How do their multimodal compositions contribute to our understanding of ELs?
Participants were enrolled in an elective English to Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) class at a public high school during Spring semester of 2012. Data included student generated lesson artifacts, audio/video recordings, researcher journal, and participants\u27 video compositions. Data were analyzed through an ongoing, recursive cycle to determine themes, categories, and trends. Visual and video data were examined through visual discourse analysis (Albers, 2007b; Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006) and multimodal interaction analysis (Norris, 2004).
Addressing the process and product of learning to read and compose visual and video texts, this dissertation examines 3 pairs of student participants and their video compositions. It reveals English learners working collaboratively and creatively, exploring imagined identities, showing investment in learning, engaging in critical analysis, and effectively communicating through multiple modes. Multimodal analysis of three student videos revealed four patterns of multimodal design; less is less, layered modes, less is more, and overlapping modes. The study redefines English learners as multilingual, multimodal communicators. It illustrates the complexity and reveals the benefit of incorporating multimodal activities and provides a model for fostering multilingual, multimodal communicators
Mobility, identity and localization of language in multilingual contexts of urban Lusaka
Philosophiae Doctor - PhDThis study explores Mobility, Identity and Localization of Language in Multilingual Contexts of Urban Lusaka. By examining data from different sites of language practices of Lusaka urbanites, that include, casual and formal conversations, Zambian popular music, computer mediated discourses and advertisements; the study shows how interlocutors creatively draw on their extended communicative repertoire to make meaning, transform social structures/roles and stylize modern identities. Accordingly, the study consolidates the recent sociolinguistic theoretical position that views language as social practice and privileges speakers as social actors in shaping and recreating language. In this regard, the study foregrounds language as localized social practice and argues against the idea that language is homogenous and a bounded system.
In doing so, the study adds to recent sociolinguistic theorizing calling for a paradigm shift to language studies. Therefore, the main research question that the study addresses, relates to how Lusaka urban dwellers achieve their mediated agency, voice and actorhood through linguistic choices during interactions in various social contexts of modern Lusaka. In turn, the question relates to how urbanites use language as localized social practice to maintain, transform and reproduce social structures/roles and identities in modern Lusaka. Owing to the type of data the study collected, a multifaceted methodological and analytical approach was employed for both data collection and analysis. Informed by a descriptive research design, the study used focus group discussions and individual key-informant interviews to collect data from casual and formal conversations. Data from Zambian popular music were purposively sampled from Youtube.com and music CDs. In addition, group/individual interviews with musicians were conducted in order to supplement data collected from music CDs and video sources. Data from online discourses were collected from the Facebook platform and from two Zambian based online news blogs, while data from print advertisements were collected through the capturing of images on billboards around Lusaka city as well as advertisements from newspapers and internet sites. Television and radio advertisements were recorded from the Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation TV and radio channels. All the data collected from these sources were generally analyzed using Conversational Analysis, Facework Negotiation Theory, Multimodal Discourse Analysis and its cognate analytical tools such as Resemiotisation, Semiotic Remediation, Intertextuality, Multivocality and Dialogism. The study shows that message consumption is not a function of isolated semiotic resource but a combination of semiotic material drawn from semiotics that people are familiar with. The study
thus argues that social meaning is steeped into social and cultural experiences of the speakers and that any study of language practices in such contexts should take into account the multifaceted nature of human communication. Furthermore, the study demonstrates that given the advancements in communication technology and mobility of semiotic resources across modes which have largely contributed to a reconceptualization of the nature of human language, any study of language in social contexts ought to account for other meaning making semiosis in both methodological and approaches to data collection and analysis, respectively. The study further shows how interactants in late modern settings of Lusaka stylize their multiple identities
by dissolving the traditional linguistic boundaries through use of the extended linguistic
repertoire. In this vein, the study demonstrates that social identity is a dynamic aspect of social life which is actively negotiated and performed through speakers' linguistic choices. In this respect, the study finds that speakers simultaneously stylize translocal hybrid identities which include urban versus rural, modern versus traditional, African versus Christian (Western fused) as well as gendered ones, through their use of different linguistic choices. Furthermore, the study finds that language borders and domains of language use are permeable. In this regard, the study demonstrates how Lusaka urban speakers use localized language forms to colonize the formal spaces thereby challenging the dominant ideologies about language as a fixed, impermeable and a bounded system. In the process of colonizing formal spaces using localized language forms, the study shows how speakers perform acts of humour, role play, face
saving, identity and meaning enhancement. In turn these localized repertoires are drawn upon as resources to accomplish different tasks which would not be accomplished if only a 'single' language were to be used. In this regard, the study views language as a resource that transcends the role of meaning making. In addition, the study shows how, through the use of localized repertoires in formal spaces, speakers transform traditions and modernity into a hybrid space which identifies them as having multiple identities. This demonstrates that speakers in such modern settings use language as a resource to accomplish several things at once. It also highlights speakers’ agency in recreating language as well as transforming their social spaces. The findings of the study entail contributions to recent arguments on language that view it not as
an autonomous system but rather as embedded in people’s social interactions. It demonstrates that languages have no clear-cut borders.The study also contributes to methodological and analytical approaches to the study of language in recent times. In addition, the study adds new knowledge to our understanding of identity as a performative act which is actively negotiated for as people interact in different social contexts. This implies that identity is not a fixed thing as traditionally conceived. Ultimately, the study calls for a rethinking of our conception of language and identity considering modernity practices
Composing @Play
Modern college students traverse the boundaries of traditional literacy daily. Maturing alongside Web 2.0 and multimodal social networking, these young people tweet, blog, email, film, photograph, illustrate, hyperlink, and compose their lives regardless of formal instruction. Therefore rhetorically analyzing a student\u27s recreational play with image, video, audio, and oral mediums often proves helpful for writing instructors who wish to better mentor and engage the communicative capacities of those born in the late 20th century and after. Yet few educators have actively pursued this line of inquiry over the last couple of decades. Many continue to favor traditional pairing of academic discourse with alphabetic literacy, logic, and media. Unfortunately, this means academic writing in general, and composition studies in particular, grow increasingly obsolete when facing a generation of young people whose nearly native relationship with new media encourages them to transcend the computer screen and channel their digital fluencies toward (re)composing physical reality. Few incidents illustrate the stakes and values of such conditions more clearly than the recent case of the Barefoot Bandit-a seemingly average teenager from Washington State, who made international headlines for his two-year joyride with reality: stealing vehicles, flying planes, evading police, robbing businesses, and hijacking the hearts of his peers. Armed with little more than an Apple laptop and iPod, Internet access allegedly sponsored the Barefoot Bandit\u27s specialized education in breaking the law. Not wishing to validate his unlawful behavior, my research awards importance rather to the hardly exceptional nature of his personal technologies, literacies, and motivations. In an age where any given American teenager may access the same technological resources, the lasting influence of formal education seems questionable when facing a digitally literate generation of perpetual bandits. By rhetorically analyzing the discursive conditions instigating young people to (re)compose their own educations, the following study elucidates and tests a new interpretive model for educators to use in assessing and challenging the abilities of a generation whose multifaceted literacies seem best nourished by banditry. For writing education to retain relevancy, composition pedagogues must look to the fringes of modern composing practices-where students (at least digitally) know and compose valuable non-institutional texts for diverse audiences
Embodied language performance: Mediational affordances of dramatic activity for second language learning
This qualitative study examines the unique mediational affordances a drama based approach to second language learning provides. From the perspective of Sociocultural theory, the nature of learning is greatly determined by the mediational means employed and this study revealed the importance of modeling and imitation and multiple perspective taking that arose from the recursive process of rehearsal to be instrumental in the students\u27 understanding and growing mastery of English. This recursion process occurs within instructional conversations which serve to level the relations of power between teacher and learner, resulting in a more authentic learning environment. In short, drama introduces alterity into the learning environment in ways that serve to encourage autonomy for the learners as they slowly move from other regulated activity to self regulation; The study examines how the participants interacted within the unique learning environment created by the drama workshops and the activities. Activity theory posits that each participant arrives with a unique set of motives and goals and this study discusses how drama creates a learning environment and types of activity systems that accommodate these varying goals and facilitates an authentic dialogic interplay between everyone involved. Dramatic activity affords the co-construction of meaning between participants as they engage in language performance; The study further examines the pedagogical implications for utilizing drama in second language learning. Arguing that learning is first and foremost an activity, language learning will be examined as performance. Viewing language as performance serves to demonstrate how language is highly contextual to sociocultural and institutional circumstances. The role of the language teacher is crucial to provide the necessary interventions and the learning environments that foster and extend the learners use of the target language. A drama approach to second language learning provides a number of highly unique mediational affordances which can be actively manipulated in a seemingly endless variety of ways. It is argued that viewing teaching and learning from the perspective of social activity opens a space for drama based learning in which language performance and language learning become a dialectical interplay that cannot be separated. Language learning is embodied as the learner enacting a scenario becomes a subject within a contextually situated activity system in pursuit of specific goals. This results in a highly authentic use of language for communicative purposes which in turn enhance language acquisition
THE NEXUS OF DISCOURSE AND PRACTICE IN SEA TURTLE TOURISM AND CONSERVATION AT LANIĀKEA BEACH, HAWAI‘I
Ph.D.Ph.D. Thesis. University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa 201
Gesture and Speech in Interaction - 4th edition (GESPIN 4)
International audienceThe fourth edition of Gesture and Speech in Interaction (GESPIN) was held in Nantes, France. With more than 40 papers, these proceedings show just what a flourishing field of enquiry gesture studies continues to be. The keynote speeches of the conference addressed three different aspects of multimodal interaction:gesture and grammar, gesture acquisition, and gesture and social interaction. In a talk entitled Qualitiesof event construal in speech and gesture: Aspect and tense, Alan Cienki presented an ongoing researchproject on narratives in French, German and Russian, a project that focuses especially on the verbal andgestural expression of grammatical tense and aspect in narratives in the three languages. Jean-MarcColletta's talk, entitled Gesture and Language Development: towards a unified theoretical framework,described the joint acquisition and development of speech and early conventional and representationalgestures. In Grammar, deixis, and multimodality between code-manifestation and code-integration or whyKendon's Continuum should be transformed into a gestural circle, Ellen Fricke proposed a revisitedgrammar of noun phrases that integrates gestures as part of the semiotic and typological codes of individuallanguages. From a pragmatic and cognitive perspective, Judith Holler explored the use ofgaze and hand gestures as means of organizing turns at talk as well as establishing common ground in apresentation entitled On the pragmatics of multi-modal face-to-face communication: Gesture, speech andgaze in the coordination of mental states and social interaction.Among the talks and posters presented at the conference, the vast majority of topics related, quitenaturally, to gesture and speech in interaction - understood both in terms of mapping of units in differentsemiotic modes and of the use of gesture and speech in social interaction. Several presentations explored the effects of impairments(such as diseases or the natural ageing process) on gesture and speech. The communicative relevance ofgesture and speech and audience-design in natural interactions, as well as in more controlled settings liketelevision debates and reports, was another topic addressed during the conference. Some participantsalso presented research on first and second language learning, while others discussed the relationshipbetween gesture and intonation. While most participants presented research on gesture and speech froman observer's perspective, be it in semiotics or pragmatics, some nevertheless focused on another importantaspect: the cognitive processes involved in language production and perception. Last but not least,participants also presented talks and posters on the computational analysis of gestures, whether involvingexternal devices (e.g. mocap, kinect) or concerning the use of specially-designed computer software forthe post-treatment of gestural data. Importantly, new links were made between semiotics and mocap data
The Impact of the Internationalisation of Higher Education on Scientists’ Multimodal Communication: A case study from Catalonia
Les universitats de tot el món són instades a participar en el procés d' ‘internacionalització’ com a distintiu de qualitat i com a reclam per atraure estudiants. Aquest estudi aborda aquesta qüestió des del context de les institucions catalanes d’educació superior, que afronten el dilema de donar suport a la/les llengua/gües local/s i, alhora, abraçar el multilingüisme i, sobretot, l’anglès. L'objectiu principal d'aquest estudi és examinar l'impacte de la internacionalització de l'educació superior en la comunicació diària dels científics. Les dades etnogràfiques s’han recopilat al llarg d’un període d’11 mesos d’observació de dos grups de recerca (RGs) multinacionals amb seu en una universitat catalana, i s’han contrastat amb dades extretes d’un RG amb seu a Alemanya i amb idees inspirades en les pràctiques del RG de la pròpia investigadora. De l'objectiu empíric n’ha derivat un objectiu teòric, que consisteix a dissenyar i provar un marc teòric adequat per estudiar el fenomen proposat de manera integral. Aquest estudi té l’objectiu de contribuir a la limitada literatura que descriu aquelles pràctiques comunicatives "informals" i inèdites dels científics, així com a la literatura sobre la internacionalització de l’ensenyament superior. A nivell pràctic, aquest treball pretén contribuir a la millora de les polítiques d’internacionalització de les institucions d’ensenyament superior de Catalunya, d’Europa i potencialment d’altres contextos arreu del món.Las universidades de todo el mundo son instadas a participar en el proceso de ‘internacionalización’ como distintivo de calidad y como reclamo para atraer estudiantes. Este estudio aborda esta cuestión desde el contexto de las instituciones catalanas de educación superior, que afrontan el dilema de apoyar la/s lengua/s local/es y, a la vez, abrazar el multilingüismo y, sobre todo, el inglés. El objetivo principal de este estudio es examinar el impacto de la internacionalización de la educación superior en la comunicación diaria de los científicos. Los datos etnográficos se han recopilado a lo largo de un período de 11 meses de observación de dos grupos de investigación (RGs) multinacionales con sede en una universidad catalana, y se han contrastado con datos extraídos de un RG con sede en Alemania y con ideas inspiradas en las prácticas del RG de la propia investigadora. Del objetivo empírico ha derivado un objetivo teórico, que consiste en diseñar y probar un marco teórico adecuado para estudiar el fenómeno propuesto de manera integral. Este estudio tiene el objetivo de contribuir a la limitada literatura que describe aquellas prácticas comunicativas "informales" e inéditas de los científicos, así como a la literatura sobre la internacionalización de la enseñanza superior. A nivel práctico, este trabajo pretende contribuir a la mejora de las políticas de internacionalización de las instituciones de enseñanza superior de Cataluña, de Europa y potencialmente de otros contextos en todo el mundo.Universities worldwide are urged to engage in the process of ‘internationalisation’ as a hallmark of quality and as a lure to attract students. The current study approaches this issue from the context of Catalan higher education institutions, which deal with the dilemma of supporting the local language(s) and at the same time embracing multilingualism and especially English. The main aim of this study is to examine the impact of the internationalisation of higher education on the daily communication of scientists. Ethnographic data have been collected throughout a period of 11 months from two multinational research groups (RGs) based in a Catalan state university, and contrasted with data taken from a RG based in Germany and with insights from the researcher’s own RG. From the empirical objective has derived a theoretical objective, consisting in designing and proving a suitable theoretical framework to study the phenomenon holistically. This study aims to contribute to the limited body of research describing scientists’ "informal" and unpublished communicative practices, as well as to the literature on the internationalisation of higher education. On a practical level, this work is intended to aid in the improvement of internationalisation policies of higher education institutions in Catalonia, in Europe and potentially in other contexts worldwide
Exploring the Interactions Between Writing Pedagogy and Technological Knowledge in Online Writing Consultation
Online writing consultation continues to advance from mere asynchronous email systems to more technologically rich synchronous venues. Technologies, such as chat rooms and video conferencing software, to even more immersive and interactive virtual environments, have created complex and rewarding spaces for writing consultations to take place. However, most professional conversation, training, and research for online writing consultation focuses on two aspects of online writing consultation—technological knowledge, often fixated on learning to use a technology to teach, and pedagogical knowledge, knowledge about writing and tutoring practices, which are often based in traditional face-to-face tutoring processes. This study looks at how writing tutors come to understand the interactions between pedagogy and technology by considering their talk both in reflection of their development as writing tutors in addition to their online consultation sessions. Following a small staff of 7 writing tutors from their training onto their tutoring session and in their reflection of their practices, this study utilized both multimodal discourse analysis and critical discourse analysis to learn more about how they shaped their practices when working online. By analyzing tutors’ ways of talking about their practices, how writing consultants come to recognize and understand their pedagogical approaches through the lens of a tutoring technology, and how they interact with and utilize a technology meaningfully based on their pedagogical methods, assists in developing more comprehensive training for online writing consultants
Electrodance as a "being-together": New forms of mediatization in the communication of youth styles
Aquesta tesi s'emmarca en un interès per explorar com els estils i les cultures juvenils són produïts culturalment en un marc de comunicació digital en xarxa com l'actual. Amb aquest objectiu, pren com a objecte d'estudi l'electro dance, un estil de ball jove nascut als suburbis parisencs cap al 2006 i disseminat en anys posteriors globalment, l'aparició i desenvolupament del qual arriba amb la darrera onada de mitjans i plataformes digitals. La tesi proposa, des dels plans teòric i empíric, una anàlisi de les pràctiques quotidianes dels electrodancers que configuren una manera d'«estar tots plegats», i dedica atenció especial a les que fan un ús intensiu dels mitjans digitals recents. Conceptes com mediatization, interface, comunicació broadcast enfront de network integren un marc d'interpretació des del qual s'observa com nocions habituals com les de públic i privat, producció i consum, local i global o interacció cara a cara i tecnològicament mitjançada assoleixen una nova articulació en els nostres dies i esdevenen expressió d'un entorn de comunicació global massiva en constant transformació.Esta tesis se enmarca un interés por explorar cómo los estilos y las culturas juveniles son producidos culturalmente en un marco de comunicación digital en red como el actual. Para ello, toma como objeto de estudio el electro dance, un estilo de baile juvenil nacido en los suburbios parisinos hacia el 2006 y diseminado en años posteriores globamente, cuya aparición y desarrollo se da de la mano de la última ola de medios y plataformas digitales. La tesis propone, desde los planos teórico y empírico, un análisis de las prácticas cotidianas de los electrodancers que dan sentido a una forma de «estar juntos» y dedica especial atención a las que se apoyan intensivamente en el uso de medios digitales recientes. Conceptos como mediatization, interface, comunicación broadcast frente a network conforman un marco de interpretación desde el cual se observa cómo nociones habituales como las de público y privado, producción y consumo, local y global o interacción cara a cara y tecnológicamente mediada adquieren una articulación distintiva en nuestros días y son expresión de un entorno de comunicación masiva global en constante transformación.This thesis focuses on the study of what is known as ElectroDance youth style - i.e. a dance and sound style which began to blossom within Parisian clubs and affluent suburbs in 2006, spreading quickly across the globe in subsequent years. The aim is to explore the way youth cultures and styles are culturally produced under the conditions of the current global network communication environment. The thesis theoretically and empirically analyses electrodancers' everyday practices, paying special attention to those based on an intensive use of new media, that create a sense togetherness among the youth. Concepts such as mediatization, interface and broadcast versus network communication build an interpretative framework which allows a way to look at which of the traditional notions (public and private, production and consumption, global and local, or technologically-mediated and face-to-face interaction) manifest themselves differently nowadays, acquiring thus a new expression at a time when global mass-communication is in constant transformation
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