Most of our language use and acquisition happens through face-to-face interaction, which gives us access not only to what we and others say, but also how we use our bodies in interacting with others. A growing area of research explores how language is connected to gesture, facial expression and eye gaze: how are multiple channels of information like lexical choice, syntactic structure, intonational structure, and other aspects of linguistic production connected to the use of the body as we talk? How do we interact with one another and with objects in a physical world? How does this shape our language, and how does our language reflect the demands of being human beings in bodies, and in a physical world? In this module, we explore language as a multimodal phenomenon, grounding our work in everyday interactions, and using the methodological resources of multimodal conversation analysis and gesture studies.
Pre-requisite modules
Co-requisite modules
- None
Prohibited combinations
- None
Occurrence | Teaching period |
---|---|
A | Autumn Term 2022-23 |
Most of our language use and acquisition happens through face-to-face interaction, which gives us access not only to what we and others say, but also how we use our bodies in interacting with others. A growing area of research explores how language is connected to gesture, facial expression and eye gaze: how are multiple channels of information like lexical choice, syntactic structure, intonational structure, and other aspects of linguistic production connected to the use of the body as we talk? How do we interact with one another and with objects in a physical world? How does this shape our language, and how does our language reflect the demands of being human beings in bodies, and in a physical world? In this module, we explore language as a multimodal phenomenon, grounding our work in everyday interactions, and using the methodological resources of multimodal conversation analysis and gesture studies.
At the end of this module you will be able to:
You will know:
Practical stream
The practicals will cover the following topics:
Content
The first half of the module will cover important topics in the analysis of face-to-face spoken interaction. The precise content will vary from year to year, but is likely to include:
1. Foundations of multimodality (including the relations between spoken and signed languages, and the place of gesture)
2. Gaze: its alignment to other events in interaction, its use in turn construction and the formation of social actions
3. Manual gesture: its alignment to other events in interaction, its internal structure, and its relation to language production and processing
4. Facial expression, including relations with prosodic features in the construction of turns at talk
The second half of the module will focus on a particular multimodal practice, such as pointing while producing a turn at talk, that will vary from year to year.
Task | % of module mark |
---|---|
Essay/coursework | 75 |
Essay/coursework | 25 |
None
Task | % of module mark |
---|---|
Essay/coursework | 75 |
Essay/coursework | 25 |
Oral feedback will be provided in class and individual meetings. Written feedback will be provided for each essay within twenty working days.
Kendon, A. (2004). Gesture. Visible Action as Utterance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Mondada, L. (2016). Challenges of multimodality: Language and the body in social interaction. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 20(3), 336–366. http://doi.org/10.1111/josl.1_12177
Perniss, Pamela (2018). Why We Should Study Multimodal Language. Frontiers in Psychology 9:1109. http://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01109