Article

Producing Shared Attention/Awareness in High School Tutoring

November 2014
Multimodal Communication 3(2)

DOI:10.1515/mc-2014-0012

Authors:

Victoria University of Wellington

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. Norris (2004, 2011) introduces modal density as a tool for analysing 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.

“Everything Is in the Lab Book”: Multimodal Writing, Activity, and Genre Analysis of Symbolic Mediation in Medical Physics

Article

Full-text available

Jan 2022
WRIT COMMUN

Writing and genre scholarship has become increasingly attuned to how various nontextual features of written genres contribute to the kinds of social actions that the genres perform and to the activities that they mediate. Even though scholars have proposed different ways to account for nontextual features of genres, such attempts often remain undertheorized. By bringing together Writing, Activity, and Genre Research, and Multimodal Interaction Analysis, the authors propose a conceptual framework for multimodal activity-based analysis of genres, or Multimodal Writing, Activity, and Genre (MWAG) analysis. Furthermore, by drawing on previous studies of the laboratory notebook (lab book) genre, the article discusses the rhetorical action the genre performs and its role in mediating knowledge construction activities in science. The authors provide an illustrative example of the MWAG analysis of an emergent scientist’s lab book and discuss its contributions to his increasing participation in medical physics. The study contributes to the development of a theoretically informed analytical framework for integrative multimodal and rhetorical genre analysis, while illustrating how the proposed framework can lead to the insights into the sociorhetorical roles multimodal genres play in mediating such activities as knowledge construction and disciplinary enculturation.

Multimodal Analysis

Chapter

Dec 2018

This chapter introduces the five most prominent approaches to multimodal data analysis: Multimodal (Inter)action Analysis, Mediated Discourse Analysis, Systemic Functional Multimodal Discourse Analysis, Social Semiotics, and Multimodal Conversation Analysis. The chapter begins by discussing the origin of each approach, methods of data collection and analysis, and embedded theoretical foundations. The theoretical differences between the approaches are then examined with a focus on the way each approach treats the individual, the artefact, and the notion of mode during analysis. With the variety of available approaches to multimodal data analysis, it is important that researchers link data collection and analysis to coherent theoretical underpinnings.

Multimodal (Inter)action Analysis in a Nutshell: Philosophy, Theory, Method and Methodology

Article

Full-text available

Nov 2021

Sigrid Norris

This paper presents a concise introduction to Multimodal (inter)action analysis (MIA), which began to be developed in the early 2000s in tandem with technological advances for visual qualitative research. By now, MIA has grown into a fully-fledged research framework, including multimodal philosophy, theory, method and methodology for the study of human action, interaction and identity. With systematic phases from data collection to transcription (including transcription conventions) and data analysis, this framework allows researchers to work in a data-driven and replicable manner moving past common interpretive paradigms (Norris 2019, 2020).

Fight for focus: attention and agency in sight-translated interaction

Article

Full-text available

Mar 2021

Randi Havnen

This paper presents an analysis of three roleplayed interpreted institutional meetings in which sight translation is part of the interaction. The analysis is based on multimodal (inter)action analysis and utilises the analytical tool of modal density as indication of attention/awareness. This analytical framework is novel in interpreting studies. The data include filmed material from an experimental setting and participants’ reflections about the situation. The findings show variations in sight translation practices and that the shift from interpreting to sight translation affects interactional patterns, particularly social actors’ attention and agency. In my discussion of agency in sight-translated interaction, I argue that interpreters, in addition to translating, need to pay attention to interactional issues related to attention and agency caused by the interpreting method.

Towards a shared vision of language, language learning and a school project in emergence

Article

Sep 2020

Technology development allows new ways of communication, learning and collaboration. This is reflected in the professional scenarios of language teaching. Modern curricula value participants’ interest and meaningful (inter)action as a basis for learning. Sensitivity is important in anticipating participants’ changing needs in modern learning environments, characterised by linguistic and technological hybridity, as well as novel pedagogical approaches. Language students, more familiar with teaching in the traditional classroom, need to appropriate new practices to orchestrate learning in settings requiring multiple activities simultaneously. This study explores how language students learn to manage complex pedagogical situations during a university course in which they create an online project for school children. During online chat sessions administered for the school pupils, the university lecturer’s office was an important site for negotiating and acting on pedagogical issues as well as practical matters arising from the work at hand. Nexus analysis was used as a research approach. Primary research materials include video recordings from the university lecturer’s office, chatlogs and reflection papers from students. The study is relevant for reconceptualising the changing roles of (language) teachers and provides new perspectives for language teacher education in a technology-rich world. KEYWORDS: Language teacher education, sense-making, complexity, change, nexus analysis

Focused attention in focus: Crossing Micro-Analytical Boundaries

Chapter

Full-text available

Jul 2019

Sigrid Norris

This article problematizes the notion of selecting micro-data pieces to shed light upon the focus of participants. The issue presented is two-fold: 1. The article shows that selecting micro-analytical data pieces does not allow a researcher to determine the focus of a participant; and 2. The article demonstrates that language use of a participant does not necessarily mean that the participant is focused upon a conversation. Both, purely working with micro-analytical data pieces and the presumption that language use indicates focus of the speaker, are problematized and it is shown with an example from a relatively large study of family Skype conversation that includes 82 participants that: 1. Focused attention can only be analyzed correctly when crossing micro-analytical boundaries; and 2. A participant can utilize language without paying focused attention to an interaction.

Gaze and Posture in Collaborative Building: A multimodal video analysis of emergent shared knowledge

Conference Paper

Full-text available

Dec 2018

This paper reports on analysis from a corpus of audio-video recorded interactions during a collaborative building task. The task generates distinct knowledge asymmetries which motivate interaction toward acquiring shared understandings. The analysis suggests that the convergence of the communicative modes of posture and gaze is crucial to producing shared knowledge. These findings support claims that there are no fixed norms for gaze distribution and postural orientation in interaction, but that these are heavily influenced by the environment and task. Furthermore, the findings suggest participants prioritise producing communicative intersubjectivity over perceptual intersubjectivity. The implications of these findings for the nature of intersubjectivity and research into teamwork are considered.

Language students learning to manage complex pedagogic situations in a technology-rich environment

Chapter

Dec 2017

Being a language teacher in the modern world requires sensitivity to complexity, which may pose challenges for student teachers and teachers in the field accustomed to classroom-based learning and teaching. This study examines how language students are managing complex pedagogic situations in a technology-rich environment while exploring new ways of being language teachers. The case context of the study is a university course, which entailed the students designing and carrying out an online English language project for fifth-graders in two Finnish schools. The project activities included online chat sessions, which the students and the course teacher administered from the teacher’s office at the university. The office was an important site for the participants to negotiate and process pedagogic issues and practical matters that arose in the course of the work. The research approach draws on nexus analysis (Scollon & Scollon, 2004) and multimodal (inter)action analysis (Norris, 2004). Video recordings from the office as well as the researchers’ participatory observations are the primary materials for the analysis. The study provides implications for developing language teacher education.

Communicating knowledge, getting attention, and negotiating disagreement via videoconferencing technology: A multimodal analysis

Article

Jan 2017

This article takes a multimodal approach to examine how two young men communicate knowledge, shift attention, and negotiate a disagreement via videoconferencing technology. The data for the study comes from a larger ongoing project of participants engaging in various tasks together. Linking micro, intermediate and macro analyses through the various methodological tools employed, the article presents multimodal (inter)action analysis (Norris, 2004, 2011, 2013a, 2013b) as a methodology to gain new insight into the complexity of knowledge communication via videoconferencing technology, which is relevant to many settings from education to employment, from organizations to gaming.

Intersubjectivity and Materiality: A Multimodal Perspective

Article

Apr 2016

Jesse Pirini

Researchers seeking to analyse how intersubjectivity is established and maintained face significant challenges. The purpose of this article is to provide theoretical/methodological tools that begin to address these challenges. I develop these tools by applying several concepts from multimodal (inter)action analysis to an excerpt taken from the beginning of a tutoring session, drawn from a wider data set of nine one-to-one tutoring sessions. Focusing on co-produced higher-level actions as an analytic site of intersubjectivity, I show that lower-level actions that co-constitute a higher-level action can be delineated into tiers of materiality. I identify three tiers of materiality: durable, adjustable and fleeting. I introduce the theoretical/methodological tool tiers of material intersubjectivity to delineate these tiers analytically from empirical data, and show how these tiers identify a multimodal basis of material intersubjectivity. Building on this analysis I argue that the durable and adjustable tiers of material intersubjectivity produce the interactive substrate, which must be established in order for actions that display fleeting materiality to produce intersubjectivity. These theoretical/methodological tools extend the framework of multimodal (inter)action analysis, and I consider some potential applications beyond the example used here.

Exploring Heroic Characters in Red Chinese Movies: A Multimodal Perspective

Article

Full-text available

May 2023

Red Chinese movies depict heroic individuals who make significant contributions to the nation, and these films play a vital role in constructing the national image of new China. This paper explores the images of heroic individuals in red Chinese movies using multimodal action theory. The findings indicate that these individuals are characterized by their selfless sacrifices for their country, fearless perseverance, embodiment of international communist ideals, and unwavering devotion and warmth. The study also reveals that facial expressions, body movements, and language serve as critical mediational means in shaping these characters, while other forms of mediation are underutilized. Recommendations include employing more mediational means to create more nuanced and complex characters in future red Chinese movies.

How EFL Teachers Engage Students: A Multimodal Analysis of Pedagogic Discourse During Classroom Lead-Ins

Article

Full-text available

Dec 2021

Classroom lead-in is the initial stage for motivating students to become engaged in-class interaction. However, little research, to our knowledge, has analyzed the role of teachers’ multimodal competence reflected through their multimodal pedagogic discourse in the realization of the ultimate goals of classroom lead-ins. Based on the data collected from a teaching contest in China, this paper explores how two-winner teachers utilize their multimodal ensembles of communicative modes to engage students during classroom lead-ins. The analysis shows that different communicative modes construct the higher-level action of lead-in, and they are orchestrated into multimodal ensembles for the specific function of each lead-in move. The findings indicate that EFL teachers’ high multimodal competence plays a decisive role in performing classroom lead-ins, and different lead-ins strategies influence the different orchestration of communicative modes. In constructing multimodal pedagogic discourse, teachers build up their professional image and display their personal charm as well. Future research for multimodal discourse analysis and pedagogic research is suggested in the paper.

Discourses and practices of attention in video chat

Article

May 2021

Dorottya Cserző

This paper examines the use of video chat (VC) with a focus on expectations and construction of attention. It is based on micro analyses of recorded VC sessions (gathered between 2013 and 2015) and thematic analysis of 29 semi-structured interviews about VC practices (conducted in 2014 and 2015). Building on multimodal (inter)action analysis (Norris, S. (2004). Analysing multimodal interaction: a methdological framework. Routledge, Norris, S. (2016). Concepts in multimodal discourse analysis with examples from video conferencing. Yearbook of the Poznan Linguistic Meeting 2: 141–165) and key concepts from nexus analysis (Scollon, R. and Scollon, S.W. (2004). Nexus Analysis: Discourse and the emerging internet. Routledge), I examine how focused attention is constructed in VCs and how these practices are shaped by experiences with other forms of communication. I demonstrate that unlike other forms of distance communication, typical VC encounters require a full investment of attention. This can be formulated as an interactional maxim: focus your attention on the VC interaction . I discuss how other activities can be interwoven with a VC and examine the exceptional practice of lapsed VC encounters (previously open connections or always-on video). I argue that participants display an orientation towards the maxim when pursuing other courses of action, and that lapsed encounters operate under a different value system than typical focused VC encounters. Finally, I reason that VC is reserved for close relationships because of the required investment of attention.

References

Chapter

Mar 2019

Sigrid Norris

Conversational Organization: Interaction Between Speakers and Hearers

Book

Full-text available

Jan 1981

Charles Goodwin

Co-constructing dyadic sequences in healthcare interpreting: A multimodal account, New Voices in Translation Studies, 8: 132-157

Article

Full-text available

Jan 2012

Sergio Pasquandrea

This study focuses on interpreting in healthcare settings, taking into account a corpus of medical encounters involving Italian doctors, Chinese patients and an Italian interpreter. In the data, the interpreter and the patients often interact dyadically in Chinese, thus excluding the doctors from active participation. The aim of the study is to investigate the way dyadic sequences are co-constructed by the interactants, in their both verbal and non-verbal dimension. The analysis concentrates on the final stage of the sequences, i.e. the translation from Chinese to Italian, in order to show that closing the dyadic sequence and initiating the translation is the result of a complex negotiation, involving all the participants who use several semiotic resources to perform their communicative actions. The methodology is based on conversation analysis, but also draws on research on multimodal communication.

Reception as social action: the case of marketing.

Chapter

Full-text available

Jan 2012

Paul White

Advertisers and marketers today, like the journalists Scollon studied (1998:156), “are broadcasting and writing into a highly interdiscursive, contested, and social space in many cases and in others they are being pasted up as wallpaper or used to wrap fish.” In the 21st century there are more marketing messages being mediated via more mediational means than ever before. According to Art & Copy, a 2009 documentary film about advertising in the US, the average consumer ‘receives’ 3,500 marketing messages per day. All of this highlights the difficulty marketers encounter if they want people to pay more attention to their messages than they do to the wallpaper in the room or the wrapping fast food comes in. The point being that no-one receives any message at all if they are not paying attention. Gaining and keeping attention has always been at the heart of every social action (Jones, 2005) and it is vital to every information processing activity (Olshavsky, 1994). Moreover, no matter how we look at communication “…from a mediated discourse perspective or a marketing communications stance - studies acknowledge that attention plays a crucial role in successful communication in the 21st century,” (White, 2010). Yet, “it’s tougher than ever for new messages to break through our perceptual barriers,” (Sacharin, 2001: ix). Sacharin even suggests this is because, “the constant noise is leading to an entire society with a form of attention deficit disorder,” (ibid, 2001:ix). The ‘noise’ Sacharin is talking about comes not just from the number of messages being mediated by marketers but also from the plethora of ‘sites of engagement’ (Scollon, 1998) where communication takes place, due to the continuing explosion of communications technologies and their applications. My use of Scollon’s term ‘sites of engagement’ here should not be confused, though, with the marketing term ‘media’. To say there has been an explosion of media due to the rapid rise of new technologies is true, but what is equally true is that, in social interaction terms, new technologies have both multiplied the number of sites of engagement where social actors engage and they have fundamentally changed the nature of communicative actions (Jones, 2005, 2009). Rather than media, such as TV, radio, billboards or the web, and their texts, merely denoting physical sites of engagement we can also define them in Scollon’s terms as being, “constructed through an interlocking set of social practices which produce a window within which a potential for mediated action becomes instantiated as discourse in real time,” (1998:135) and the concept of “sites of engagement is useful to focus our attention on … those moments when texts are actually in use – not just present in the environment,” (ibid:12). Taking this definition of sites of engagement as a starting point, Jones (2005) argues that ‘sites of engagement’ are more accurately seen as ‘sites of attention’. This idea is founded on the theory of attention economies (Goldhaber, 1997). The theory of attention economies holds that “… in an age of information overload, what gives value to information is the amount of attention it can attract” (Jones, 2005: 152). Ensuring reception of any marketing message in an age of information overload, then, is intrinsically bound up with both gaining and keeping a person’s attention at any single site of engagement and with creating multiple sites of engagement/sites of attention wherein a message is mediated. The aim of this chapter is to show how the convergence of media is being used to create new, interconnected or hybrid sites of engagement and spaces of communication. This chapter also demonstrates how, despite the threat of society developing a form of attention deficit disorder, marketing communications which require more attention rather than less are getting their messages through, particularly where old and new technologies converge to mediate that message. Moreover, it also illustrates how time and space are being redesigned through the use of convergent media in marketing contexts.

Achieving activity transitions in physician‐patient encounters.

Article

Full-text available

Apr 2001
HUM COMMUN RES

This article examines how physicians and patients interactionally accomplish the transition from the activity of history taking to that of physical examination. Prior research focuses on participants' reliance on overt verbal resources (e.g., physicians' requests for permission to examine patients or explanations that foreshadow examination). Using the methodology of conversation analysis, this article draws on a corpus of 40 primary-care encounters to demonstrate that: (a) In addition to verbal behavior, nonverbal behavior is integral to the accomplishment of transitions; and (b) patients' understandings of physicians' verbal and nonverbal behavior as communicating transitions are achieved through situating those behaviors in other contexts of embodied action, talk, activity, and social structure (i.e., the phase structure of encounters). Findings have implications for: (a) the theoretic relationship between verbal and nonverbal behavior in terms of social meaning, (b) what it means to explain transitions and reduce patients' uncertainty, (c) the organization of physician-patient interaction, and (d) the relationship and interface between macro- and microconceptualization of context.

Mediated Discourse: The nexus of practice

Book

Sep 2002

Ron Scollon

Body movement in the transition from opening to task in doctor-patient interviews

Article

Jan 2003

D.P. Modaff

The ‘Chosen One’: Depicting religious belief through gestures

Article

Dec 2013

Boonyalakha Makboon

In this article, I analyze gestures produced during a dharma orientation lecture. The dharma orientation lectures are a part of the I-Kuan-Tao cult in Thailand. The analysis undertaken draws on multimodal (inter)action analysis (Norris, 2004, 2011a) providing the description of the interaction through multimodal transcripts of how different types of gesture simultaneously interplay with other modes in creating meaning. I begin with a frame analysis (Goffman, 1974; Tannen, 1993) of the interview transcript, where the primary participant consistently positions himself as ‘the chosen one’. Next, I analyse how the ‘chosen one’ uses different types of gestures to convey such ephemeral religious concepts as the ‘cycle of reincarnation’, ‘soul’, and ‘nirvana’ during the I-Kuan-Tao dharma orientation lecture. I demonstrate that gestures utilized by the participant, namely deictic, iconic, metaphoric and beat gesture (McNeill, 1992; Kendon, 2004) show the participant’s belief that he is ‘the chosen one’.

Actionary pertinence: Space to place in kitesurfing

Article

Dec 2013

Jarret Geenen

Contemporary research investigating the phenomena of lifestyle sport has highlighted the centrality of space, spatiality and spatial appropriation. Lifestyle sports tend to manifest in liminal and/or unbounded spaces with practitioners drawing upon the affordances of the natural environment in new and unique ways. Simultaneously, practitioners employ continuously evolving technical tools (equipment) in the undertaking of these activities. This article articulates the ways in which the specialised equipment employed as mediational means affect the perception, interpretation and valuation of physical components of the natural and man-made environment. In this article, I introduce the notion of actionary pertinence and concept of locational element through the analysis of the ways in which general geographic areas (spaces) become actual kitesurfing locations (places) for specific social actors through mediated action and in direct connection to the mediational means through which action occurs. Drawing upon data generated through a year-long video ethnography, I argue that components of the physical environment become locational elements for specific social actors in and through mediated action. This explicitly extends theorisation regarding how mediational means affect and structure the nature of the action they mediate (Vygotsky 1978, 1987; Wertsch 1991, 1998), and extends this argument by exemplifying how mediational means also affect and structure the perception and interpretation of physical components of the environment which have a bearing on mediated action. Furthermore, I articulate the ways in which these locational elements are considered, read, re-read and interpreted in terms of their actionary pertinence. Thus, the materiality of locational elements manifests as salient and/or relevant through the bearing an element has on specific mediated actions and practices.

Interactive Frames and Knowledge Schemas in Interaction: Examples from a Medical Examination/Interview

Article

Jun 1987

Earlier work suggested that "frame," "schema" and related terms could be understood as "structures of expectation." Suggesting now that there are two distinct types of structures of expectation to which such terms have been applied, we use "frames" to refer to the anthropological/sociological notion of interactive frames of interpretation, and "schema" to refer to the cognitive psychological/artificial intelligence notion of knowledge schemas. Drawing on and expanding earlier analysis of talk in a pediatric interaction, we show how frames and schemas interact. Balancing and shifting examination, consultation and management frames accounts for the burden on the pediatrician who examines a child in the mother's presence. Mismatches in the pediatrician's and mother's schemas for health and cerebral palsy account for the mother's discomfort and recalcitrant concerns, and consequently for her frequent questions which trigger the frame switches.

Talk At Work - Interaction in Institutional Settings

Article

Dec 1995

Multimodal (inter)action analysis: An integrative methodology

Chapter

Sep 2013

Sigrid Norris

This article is an introduction to the theoretical and methodological backgrounds of multimodal (inter)action theory. The aim of this theory is to explain the complexities of (inter)action, connecting micro- and macro levels of analysis, focusing on the social actor. The most important theoretical antecedent, mediated discourse analysis (see Scollon 1998, 2001b), is presented with its key concepts mediated action and modes. It is shown how action is used as the unit of analysis and how modes are understood in multimodal (inter)action analysis – as complex cultural tools, as systems of mediated action with rules and regularities and different levels of abstractness. Subsequently, methodological basics are introduced, such as lower-level, higher-level and frozen action; modal density, which specifies the attention/awareness of the social actor; and horizontal and vertical simultaneity of actions. Horizontal simultaneity can be plotted on the heuristic model of foreground-background continuum of attention/ awareness. Vertical simultaneity of actions comprises the central layer of discourse (immediate actions), the intermediate layer (long-term actions) and the outer layer (institutional or societal contexts). In short, it is sketched how multimodal (inter)action analysis aims to answer questions about the interconnection of the different modes on a theoretical as well as on a practical level.

Participants' online analysis and multimodal practices: Projecting the end of the turn and the closing of the sequence

Article

Feb 2006
DISCOURSE STUD

Lorenza Mondada

Studies of talk-and-bodily-conduct-in-interaction have inspired new insights into the way in which language, interaction and cognition might be articulated. More particularly, they have shown that participants mutually orient to the finely tuned multimodal details by which talk and action in interaction are sequentially organized. This article deals with this form of ‘participants’ multimodal online analysis’ by focusing on a particular phenomenon - the methodical practices and resources by which the end of a turn and of an activity phase is projected and collectively achieved - in a specific videorecorded setting - a meeting in an architect’s office. It aims at questioning both how these local orientations are systematically displayed and exploited by the participants for the sequential organization of their activity and how they can be demonstrably observed by the analyst.

Footing

Article

Jan 1979
Semiotica

ERVING GOFFMAN

The abstract for this document is available on CSA Illumina.To view the Abstract, click the Abstract button above the document title.

Emergent focused interactions in public places: A systematic analysis of the multimodal achievement of a common interactional space

Article

Oct 2009
J PRAGMATICS

Lorenza Mondada

This paper deals with the multimodal and spatial arrangements of the participants within pre-beginning and opening sequences, i.e. sequences taking place before the actual opening of a social interaction and achieving the conditions for an imminent opening. In face-to-face conversations, these sequences are characterized by intense body activities in space, through which participants achieve their social and spatial convergence and conjunction, and initiate a coordinated common entry in the interaction. In this phase, even before beginning to speak, participants achieve the mutual orientation of their bodies and of their gaze. Pre-conditions for social interaction are visibly and publicly assembled in time, within the progressive establishment of a mutual focus of attention and a common interactional space. In public places and between unknown persons, this mutual arrangement is even more important, emerging progressively from the participants’ transition from moving to standing, and their transformation from unfocused pedestrians to focused would-be-imminent-co-participants. On the basis of a corpus of video recordings, the paper offers an analysis of a collection of pre-beginnings of itinerary descriptions in public space and systematically describes the identification of the emerging interactional partner, the organization of convergent trajectories in space, the exchange of first mutual glances, and the very first words produced in the encounter.

Mediated Discourse and Social Interaction

Article

Jan 1999

Ron Scollon

Identity in (Inter)action: Introducing Multimodal (Inter)action Analysis

Book

Jul 2011

Sigrid Norris

In this monograph, the author offers a new way of examining the much discussed notion of identity through the theoretical and methodological approach called multimodal interaction analysis. Moving beyond a traditional discourse analysis focus on spoken language, this book expands our understanding of identity construction by looking both at language and its intersection with such paralinguistic features as gesture, as well as how we use space in interaction. The author illustrates this new approach through an extended ethnographic study of two women living in Germany. Examples of their everyday interactions elucidate how multimodal interaction analysis can be used to extend our understanding of how identity is produced and negotiated in context from a more holistic point of view.

Analyzing Multimodal Interaction: A Methodological Framework

Book

Jun 2004

Sigrid Norris

Our perception of our everyday interactions is shaped by more than what is said. From coffee with friends to interviews, meetings with colleagues and conversations with strangers, we draw on both verbal and non-verbal behaviour to judge and consider our experiences. Analyzing Multimodal Interaction is a practical guide to understanding and investigating the multiple modes of communication, and provides an essential guide for those undertaking field work in a range of disciplines, including linguistics, sociology, education, anthropology and psychology. The book offers a clear methodology to help the reader carry out their own integrative analysis, equipping them with the tools they need to analyze a situation from different points of view. Drawing on research into conversational analysis and non-verbal behaviour such as body movement and gaze, it also considers the role of the material world in our interactions, exploring how we use space and objects - such as our furniture and clothes - to express ourselves. Considering a range of real examples, such as traffic police officers at work, doctor-patient meetings, teachers and students, and friends reading magazines together, the book offers lively demonstrations of multimodal discourse at work. Illustrated throughout and featuring a mini-glossary in each chapter, further reading, and advice on practical issues such as making transcriptions and video and audio recordings, this practical guide is an essential resource for anyone interested in the multiple modes of human interaction.

Multiparty interaction: A multimodal perspective on relevance

Article

Jun 2006
DISCOURSE STUD

Sigrid Norris

This article investigates a multiparty interaction in an accounting office by applying a multimodal approach to discourse (Norris, 2004a). This approach allows the incorporation of all relevant communicative modes and is based on the following three notions: 1) the notion of mediated action; 2) the notion of modal density; and 3) the notion of a foreground– background continuum of attention/awareness. The article illustrates that a social actor in a multiparty interaction simultaneously co-constructs several higher-level actions with the various participants on different levels of their attention/awareness. On a theoretical level, the article argues that traditional approaches to discourse analysis, with their unconditional focus on language as the primary mode, misconstrue the multiple higher-level actions that a social actor is engaged in simultaneously as dyadic or triadic interactions in quick succession.

The Neglected Situation

Article

Feb 2011
AM ANTHROPOL

ERVING GOFFMAN

The abstract for this document is available on CSA Illumina.To view the Abstract, click the Abstract button above the document title.

Action and Embodiment Within Situated Human Interaction

Article

Sep 2000
J PRAGMATICS

Charles Goodwin

A theory of action must come to terms with both the details of language use and the way in which the social, cultural, material and sequential structure of the environment where action occurs figure into its organization. In this paper it will be suggested that a primordial site for the analysis of human language, cognition, and action consists of a situation in which multiple participants are attempting to carry out courses of action in concert with each other through talk while attending to both the larger activities that their current actions are ambedded within, and relevant phenomena in their surround. Using as data video recordings of young girls playing hopscotch and archaeologists classifying color, it will be argued that human action is built throught the simultaneous deployment of a range of quite different kinds of semiotic resources. Talk itself contains multiple sign systems with alternative properties. Strips of talk gain their power as social action via their placement within larger sequential structures, encompassing activities, and participation frameworks constituted through displays of mutual orientation made by the actors' bodies. The body is used in a quite different way to perform gesture, again a class of phenomena that encompasses structurally different types of sign systems. Both talk and gesture can index, construe or treat as irrelevant, entities in the participants' surround. Moreover, material structure in the surround, such as graphic fields of various types, can provide semiotic structure without which the constitution of particular kinds of action being invoked through talk would be impossible. In brief it will be argued that the construction of action through talk within situated interaction is accomplished through the temporally unfolding juxtaposition of quite different kinds of semiotic resources, and that moreover through this process the human body is made publicly visible as the site for a range of structurally different kinds of displays implicated in the constitution of the actions of the moment.

Qualitative Research And Evaluation Methods

Article

Jan 2002

Michael Quinn Patton

Contenido: Parte I.Cuestiones conceptuales en la investigación cualitativa: Naturaleza de la investigación cualitativa; Temas estratégicos en la investigación cualitativa; Diversidad en la investigación cualitativa: orientaciones teóricas; Aplicaciones cualitativas particulares. Parte II. Diseños cualitativos y recolección de datos: Estudios de diseños cualitativos; Estrategias de trabajo de campo y métodos de observación; Entrevistas cualitativas. Parte III. Análisis, interpretación e informe: Análisis cualitativo e interpretación; Incrementar la calidad y la credibilidad del análisis cualitativo.

Analysing the construction of meaning with mediating digital texts in face-to-face interactions

Jan 2013

J Adams

Adams, J. (2013). Analysing the construction of meaning with mediating digital texts in face-to-face interactions (Unpublished Doctoral Thesis). Lancaster University.

The only problem is finding a job”: Multimodal analysis of job interviews in New Zealand (PhD Thesis)

E Kuśmierczyk

The only problem is finding a job": Multimodal analysis of job interviews in New Zealand

Jan 2013

E Kuśmierczyk

Kuśmierczyk, E. (2013). "The only problem is finding a job": Multimodal analysis of job interviews in New Zealand (PhD Thesis). Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, N.Z.