The Multimodal Mediation of Knowledge: Instructors’ Explanations in a Scientific Café
Abstract In this paper, we present an in depth study of the interplay between various semiotic modes in the specific instructional setting of a scientific café. We analyzed the multimodal performance of five female instructors delivering a monologue explanation during instruction on the following dimensions: speech, gesture (hand gestures, head orientation and gaze) and use of written didactical material. Results first point out the crucial role played by referential hand gesture together with gaze-body behavior both in representing new concepts (conceptual mediation) and in building bridges between information displayed in several modes (semiotic mediation). They also show cross-individual differences in instructors’ multimodal performance, that we propose to interpret as three diverse modes of mediating knowledge, guiding being the only one providing both conceptual and semiotic mediation.