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Lehrende/r: PD Dr. habil. Martina Lampert
Veranstaltungsart:
online: Seminar
Anzeige im Stundenplan:
05.008.200
Semesterwochenstunden:
2
Credits:
8,0
Unterrichtssprache:
Englisch
Min. | Max. Teilnehmerzahl:
- | 30
Anmeldegruppe: Engl Ling 200
Prioritätsschema: Senatsrichtlinie
Zulassung gemäß Richtlinie über den Zugang zu teilnahmebeschränkten Lehrveranstaltungen vom 07. März 2007.
Nähere Informationen hierzu entnehmen Sie bitte www.info.jogustine.uni-mainz.de/senatsrichtlinie
Voraussetzungen / Organisatorisches:
Participants in this course will first be introduced to the key concepts and methods in various domains of multimodality research; next, to promote their self-determined study of authentic English data from either ‘text’ or ‘talk,’ students are instructed step-by-step about basic tools and fundamental skills, familiarizing them with the necessary methodological practices to successfully perform a multimodal analysis, such as transcription, acoustic analysis, and gesture annotation as well as principles of text design, typography, or text-image link. Adopting a decisively empirical ‘learning by doing’ method, students will then engage in their own small-scale multimodal case studies, choosing between text or talk according to their individual preference.
To be granted Active Participation, students are expected to hand in four written tasks in total over the semester: answering some study questions on an introductory reading assignment; a critical reading report of an article to be chosen from a large cross-section of current multimodal research covering both spoken and written discourse; a proposal outlining their initial project idea; a scientific poster that is supposed to present their initial findings of and insights from their ongoing study.
The Modulprüfung, an empirical term paper of about 3,500 words, will have to be handed in after the end of the term in PDF form, whose date of submission will be announced on time.
Inhalt:
In this bachelor seminar, we will set out for an analysis of meaningful communicative behavior in English as it authentically manifests in natural contexts. Such perspective strongly invites a multimodal approach, which means to take seriously the fact that we never exclusively communicate through language alone—irrespective of whether we choose to get our message across via (written) text or engage in (spoken) talk face-to-face. Sometimes, for sure, the verbal ’code’ might dominate, as when we attend a lecture at university; sometimes, however, language is less prominent or even absent, as when we are about to cross a street and momentarily communicate with the driver of an approaching car, who might use facial expressions and gestures ‘telling’ us that they give way for us to cross over. Indeed, we will most likely have already anticipated the driver’s ‘message’ on the basis of our recognition and interpretation of the car’s changes in speed and direction alone.
As a matter of fact, then, always—and necessarily so, at that—more means and resources of expression are critically involved in human communication than just (sequences of) words, modes that decisively go beyond speech and writing: For instance, an(y) act of speaking will have to draw on voice parameters that contribute their share to the overall ’meaning making’ in the face-to-face interaction, such as variations in pitch and loudness, speaking rate, or pause patterns; at the same time, interlocutors will have recourse to various ‘visible bodily actions’ as well, e.g., directing, withdrawing, and re-directing their gaze, performing manual gestures and shifts in body posture. Similarly, writers cannot avoid arranging the diverse letterforms in lines, and ‘laying out’ the lines in significant configurations on the page, to result in head lines, indented paragraphs, or footnotes; and typically, they will employ particular typographic features to add emphasis through a bold font or CAPS.
In short, communication is essentially multimodal, and multimodality highlights the fact that people rely on a multiplicity of modes for making meaning, all of which have been socially developed as resources to effectively communicate. It is that recognition of the need for studying how different modes are combined into integrated, multimodal wholes, ‘gestalts,’ that lies at the heart of multimodality as an approach to the study of language in use; in particular, a multimodal perspective also acknowledges the differences among meaning-making resources and addresses the various ways in which, for instance, gestures and gaze or color and layout combine in actual instances of meaning making.
In this vein, multimodality has come to challenge some of the widely held assumptions still tacitly presupposed in today’s linguistics, among them regarding language as the most powerful communication system and ‘superior’ to other modes, which, in turn, justify the privileging of language as the single most important object of study. And as a strand of research multimodality decisively questions the meaningfulness, if not legitimacy, of investigating language with little or no reference to other modes such as gesture, sound, image, color, or layout. Against this background, the seminar Text and Talk will—hopefully—demonstrate the potential of multimodal research for understanding the ‘true’ ways in which people communicate.
Empfohlene Literatur:
The essential course material will be made accessible for participants in PDF form. Among others, it will include introductory reading materials, PowerPoint Presentations to introduce and survey the course topic(s), various how-to’s for the written tasks students are expected to carefully carry out; a large pool of sample studies offers a wide range of project ideas from which course members are free to choose according to their personal preferences. Additional texts will be provided on request; participants are, however, expected to thoroughly research up-to-date literature on their respective projects.
Zusätzliche Informationen:
This seminar’s explicit goal is to promote students’ academic skills and expand their analytical competence for a successful self-determined engagement with central issues in language and communication during their further studies, paying due respect to the integrative and comprehensive nature of language in use. At the same time, this course is particularly organized in a fashion to guarantee maximum opportunity for individual support, and allowing for topics to be tailored to each course member’s personal interest.
This class will place a strong focus on written competences and, in particular, on academic writing, promoting participants’ skills in major research presentation formats. Students will also have the opportunity to do empirical research, designing their own multimodal case study and using authentic multimodal data from ready at hand internet sources; this exploratory work, which will occupy them over the second half of the term, will serve as the sound basis for their empirical term paper. Further detailed updates on the course and its organization will be available shortly before the start of the term. In case of any queries on whatever issue, please do feel free to contact me any time via e-mail to mlampert@uni-mainz.de.
Digitale Lehre:
As announced, this bachelor seminar will be entirely digital, using the LMS-software of JGU at https://lms.uni-mainz.de as our major information platform, providing background sources, course materials, and various how-to guidelines. Individual exchange via e-mail is welcome any time at mlampert@uni-mainz.de, in addition the virtual office hours during course time (Wednesday10:15 to 11:45 AM), starting on October 26, 2022.
In the wake of the Covid-constraints, this digital seminar continues to take the chance of working on and enhancing students’ writing skills—a welcome opportunity, indeed, since, according to L2 teaching and applied linguistics’ experts, written competences have dramatically decreased over the last few decades when oral skills have been in the center of attention, not only in university classes. And for seminar students, this emphasis on academic writing may well have an advantageous ’side effect’ in view of their upcoming bachelor thesis. Accordingly, the requirements for Active Participation in this course will place a focus on important forms of academic writing and foster participants’ proficiency in major research presentation formats, all of which are regular skills that are expected competences in your future courses, including those of the Master program.
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