Academic lectures have long been the hallmark of higher education, representing an oral instructional channel through which knowledge is transmitted from experts to novices. Studies dedicated to lecture discourse have highlighted numerous linguistic features used by lecturers not only to explain disciplinary concepts, but also to interact with students on an interpersonal level in order to facilitate learning. Among the latter are questions, comprehension checks, and imperatives, as well as language features linked to informality, including idiomatic expressions and humour. However, relatively little research has been done on the contribution of other semiotic resources beyond the verbal mode to construct interpersonal meanings between lecturers and students in the context of higher education. Using a case-study approach, this chapter aims to shed light on the interplay between verbal and non-verbal modes during interpersonal episodes in an academic lecture, and how this may work towards enhancing understanding. On the verbal level, the analysis focused on the lecturer’s use of interactional devices, i.e. comprehension checks, imperatives, idioms and puns. On the non-verbal level, the co-occurrence of prosodic stress, gaze direction, and hand/arm gesturing with interactional language were investigated. The data consist of the digital video recording and corresponding transcript of a political philosophy lecture available on Yale University’s Open Courses website. The multimodal annotation software ELAN (Wittenburg et al. 2006) was implemented to identify the co-occurrence of verbal and non-verbal elements during interpersonal episodes in which the lecturer engages with students in the audience. With particular reference to gesturing, the study adopted an analytical framework based on description (Querol-Julián 2011) and function (Kendon 2004; Weinberg et al. 2013). The multimodal analysis of interpersonal features in lecturer-audience interaction contributes to a better understanding of how verbal and non-verbal features can work synergistically to reinforce meanings, thus improving comprehension and promoting a learning-friendly classroom atmosphere.
Chapter Three: A multimodal analysis of interaction in academic lectures: A case study
CRAWFORD, BELINDA BLANCHE
2016-01-01
Abstract
Academic lectures have long been the hallmark of higher education, representing an oral instructional channel through which knowledge is transmitted from experts to novices. Studies dedicated to lecture discourse have highlighted numerous linguistic features used by lecturers not only to explain disciplinary concepts, but also to interact with students on an interpersonal level in order to facilitate learning. Among the latter are questions, comprehension checks, and imperatives, as well as language features linked to informality, including idiomatic expressions and humour. However, relatively little research has been done on the contribution of other semiotic resources beyond the verbal mode to construct interpersonal meanings between lecturers and students in the context of higher education. Using a case-study approach, this chapter aims to shed light on the interplay between verbal and non-verbal modes during interpersonal episodes in an academic lecture, and how this may work towards enhancing understanding. On the verbal level, the analysis focused on the lecturer’s use of interactional devices, i.e. comprehension checks, imperatives, idioms and puns. On the non-verbal level, the co-occurrence of prosodic stress, gaze direction, and hand/arm gesturing with interactional language were investigated. The data consist of the digital video recording and corresponding transcript of a political philosophy lecture available on Yale University’s Open Courses website. The multimodal annotation software ELAN (Wittenburg et al. 2006) was implemented to identify the co-occurrence of verbal and non-verbal elements during interpersonal episodes in which the lecturer engages with students in the audience. With particular reference to gesturing, the study adopted an analytical framework based on description (Querol-Julián 2011) and function (Kendon 2004; Weinberg et al. 2013). The multimodal analysis of interpersonal features in lecturer-audience interaction contributes to a better understanding of how verbal and non-verbal features can work synergistically to reinforce meanings, thus improving comprehension and promoting a learning-friendly classroom atmosphere.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
