scholarly journals A Multimodal Discursive Analysis of the Communicative Elements of Sexism in Facebook Picture Uploads

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 62-75
Author(s):  
’Yemi Mahmud ◽  
Destiny Idegbekwe
Keyword(s):  
Meaning Making ◽  
Gender Segregation ◽  
Sampled Data ◽  
Discursive Analysis ◽  
Descriptive Research ◽  
Multimodal Discourse ◽  
Depth Analysis ◽  
Sexist Language ◽  
Feminist Perspectives ◽  
Media Platform

A good number of studies in the past have examined the language of sexism from the feminist perspectives, gender segregation and degradation, among others, using semiotics resources, discourse analysis, multimodal discourse, among other theories. This study looks at the linguistic and non-linguistic language features of sexist language as choices available to language users on the Facebook social media platform. Using the multimodal theory as the framework, the study examines 10 randomly selected Facebook posts with texted pictures and comments posted by Nigerians with elements of sexism. The study also engaged the descriptive research design to examine the ‘textedpictures’ used as sampled data. These sampled data were given in-depth analysis to reveal their usually hidden and laughed-about sexist messages. The analysis of data was considered by determining the existence of sexist communication on Facebook platform, examining the meaning making elements in sexist languages posts. This is precipitated on the discovery that less attention is paid on the signification of the communicative elements deployed to convey sexism on the Facebook platform. From the analysis, the study finds out that Facebook users engage linguistic and non-linguistic elements symbolising sexist language on Facebook postings; that the posts on Facebook rely predominantly on both written texts and pictures, combined to make the tagging or stereotyping concrete; that the sexist posts on Facebook platforms rely heavily on hasty or intentional generalisation in order to demean the sex they chose to target through texts, pictures and the combination of texts and pictures.

scholarly journals Norway Reimagined

2020 ◽  
Vol 41 (s1) ◽  
pp. 139-153
Author(s):  
Saara Ratilainen
Keyword(s):  
Meaning Making ◽  
Cultural Exchange ◽  
Multimodal Discourse ◽  
Fan Communities ◽  
The Social ◽  
Media Platform ◽  
Popular Geopolitics ◽  
Global Television ◽  
Horizontal Networks ◽  
Symbolic Resource

AbstractIn this article, I discuss the geopolitical underpinnings of Russophone fans’ response to the Norwegian hit teen series Skam [Shame]. Starting from the wide-spread distribution of Skam through informal horizontal networks, my article highlights the context specificity of fan participation in meaning-making around global television. Employing multimodal discourse analysis to the social media platform VKontakte, I examine how Russophone audiences of global television imagine the country of origin of their object of fandom, and how spatial imaginations embedded in this process contribute to popular geopolitics of Norden – that is, to geopolitical reasoning of narratives and representations of Nordic countries available through popular culture. My analysis shows how Norway and its positioning in the world provides an important symbolic resource for further discussions on identity and belonging. A close examination of mediated transnational cultural exchange through fan communities advances our understanding of the meaning of popular geopolitics in the age of global television.

scholarly journals Text Cohesion in English Scientific Texts Written by Saudi Undergraduate Dentistry Students: A Multimodal Discourse Analysis of Textual and Logical Relations in Oral Biology Texts

SAGE Open ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 215824402110321
Author(s):  
Hesham Suleiman Alyousef
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Linguistic Knowledge ◽  
Bachelor Of Science ◽  
Lexical Cohesion ◽  
Multimodal Discourse Analysis ◽  
Multimodal Discourse ◽  
Cohesive Devices ◽  
Analysis Scheme

This qualitative study examined multimodal cohesive devices in English oral biology texts by eight high-achieving Saudi English-as-a-foreign-language students enrolled in a Bachelor of Science Dentistry program. A Systemic Functional Multimodal Discourse Analysis (SF-MDA) of the textual and logical cohesive devices in oral biology texts was conducted, employing Halliday and Hasan’s cohesion analysis scheme. The findings showed that students used varied cohesive devices: lexical cohesion, followed by reference and conjunctions. Although ellipsis was minimally employed in the oral biology texts, its discipline-specific uses emerged: the use of bullet points and numbered lists that facilitate recall. The SF-MDA of cohesion in multimodal semiotic resources highlighted the processes underlying construction of conceptual and linguistic knowledge of cohesive devices in oral biology texts. The results indicate that oral biology discourse is interdisciplinary, including a number of subfields in biology. The SF-MDA of pictorial oral biology representations indicates that they include instances of cohesive devices that illustrate and complement verbal texts. The results indicate that undergraduate students need to be provided with a variety of multimodal high-cohesion texts so that they can successfully extend underlying conceptual and logical meaning-making relations.

scholarly journals ‘Can We See It?’: Contextualizing ‘Deforestation’ from an English-Medium Science Textbook for a Primary School Level

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 86
Author(s):  
Ahmad Sugianto
Keyword(s):  
Primary School ◽  
Visual Image ◽  
School Level ◽  
Visual Images ◽  
Science Textbook ◽  
Descriptive Research ◽  
Multimodal Discourse Analysis ◽  
Multimodal Discourse ◽  
Teachers And Students ◽  
Primary School Level

Understanding an English-medium science textbook is possibly challenging for some students. It is, for example, due to the language used. To deal with this issue, construing the use of the other mode, such as visual images, along with the verbal text is regarded useful. Thereby, the construal of multimodality in an English-medium science textbook becomes crucial. Albeit a myriad of inspections on multimodality exists, but to the best of the writer’s knowledge, such investigation with respect to an English-medium science textbook, particularly at a primary school level, was found to be limited. Therefore, this study aimed to scrutinize the verbal text and visual image presented in a science textbook used for a primary school level which is presented in English. To that end, a descriptive research design was employed. In this regard, a systemic functional multimodal discourse analysis (SF-MDA) within the trinocular metafunctions encompassing ideational, interpersonal, and textual metafunctions was utilized. The systemic functional linguistics theory, the grammar of visual design, intersemiotic complementarity, and logico-semantics were the frameworks employed to analyze the artefact, the English-medium science textbook. The findings revealed that the visual image and verbal text interact with one another within the three metafunctions. Given the interaction between the two modes, the present study suggests that both teachers and students are required to take into considerations and be aware of the potential or roles of images along with the verbal text, i.e. the images are not merely accessories, but instead, these are able to assist the comprehension of the science materials learned.

From text to ensemble: A multimodal study of television interpreting with cases from Chinese TV

2019 ◽  
Vol 39 (6) ◽  
pp. 819-840
Author(s):  
Yuhong Yang
Keyword(s):  
Nonverbal Communication ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Academic Community ◽  
Multimodal Analysis ◽  
Communicative Practice ◽  
Multimodal Features ◽  
Depth Analysis ◽  
Traditional Language ◽  
Authentic Data ◽  
Linguistic Approaches

Abstract Television interpreting, although serving the largest population of users, is underexplored compared with conference interpreting or community interpreting by the academic community, not to mention any systematic, in-depth analysis foregrounding or tailored to its salient multimodal features. Drawing on Kress and van Leeuwen’s multimodal social-semiotic theory of communication as well as frameworks established in nonverbal communication and audiovisual translation, this paper moves away from traditional language-based discussions of interpreter-mediated television events and attempts to gain new insights into this essentially multimodal communicative practice through multimodal analysis of data. This paper purports to testify a tentative framework of modal relations of “complementarity”, “dependency”, and “incongruity” which are at work in interpreted television events, with authentic data, amounting to a total length of 5 hours, recorded from live news programmes on Chinese TV. The findings of modal complementarity and dependency clearly point to the essentially multimodal meaning making mechanism involved in the semiotic ensemble that is to be perceived by the audience in a gestalt fashion, which reveals the inadequacy of linguistic approaches to television interpreting.

scholarly journals An SF-MDA of the Textual and the Logical Cohesive Devices in a Postgraduate Accounting Course

SAGE Open ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 215824402094712
Author(s):  
Hesham Suleiman Alyousef
Keyword(s):  
Meaning Making ◽  
Systemic Functional Linguistics ◽  
Business Students ◽  
Financial Statements ◽  
Making Meaning ◽  
Lexical Cohesion ◽  
Multimodal Discourse Analysis ◽  
Multimodal Discourse ◽  
Cohesive Devices

The use of cohesive devices in academic discourse not only improves the quality of writing but also enhances our learning experiences. This study aims to explain how the multimodal accounting discourse is constructed by postgraduate business students through the cohesive ties. Halliday and Hasan’s and Halliday’s cohesion analysis schemes were employed in the systemic functional multimodal discourse analysis (SF-MDA) of the cohesive devices in the multimodal accounting texts. The schemes are based on systemic functional linguistics (SFL) which suits the context of this study as it considers language as a social semiotic resource for making meaning. Its linguistic tools are capable of explaining the way we construct and make meanings. The SF-MDA findings showed the first and most frequently occurring cohesive device type in the orthographic texts was lexical cohesion, in particular repetition of the same lexical items, followed by reference and conjunctions. Lexical cohesive devices were higher in the tables than in the orthographic texts. Conjunctions were only employed in the orthographic texts to signal extension and enhancement relationships. One of the key features that characterize financial statements is the abundance of implicit hierarchically networked lexical ties that bind the separate lexical strings, thereby organizing the discourse of financial statements. The results contribute to our understanding of the complex multimodal meaning-making processes in accounting discourse.

Gender-Biased Communication in Physical Education

2017 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 498-509
Author(s):  
Julia A. Valley ◽  
Kim C. Graber
Keyword(s):  
Physical Education ◽  
Gender Equity ◽  
Gender Stereotypes ◽  
Learning Experience ◽  
Gender Segregation ◽  
Physical Education Teachers ◽  
Study Approach ◽  
Depth Analysis ◽  
And Behaviors ◽  
And Gender

Purpose:This study examined physical education teachers’ awareness of gender equitable practices as well as the language and behaviors they employed in the physical education environment. The purpose of the study was to determine (a) what teachers know about gender equitable practices, (b) what types of gender bias are demonstrated, and (c) how teachers are influenced to adopt gender equitable behaviors in the physical education context.Method:A multiple-case study approach was used to provide an in-depth analysis of the attitudes and behaviors of four physical education teachers from four different schools. Teachers were formally and informally interviewed before, during, and after four extensive two-week periods of observations that included being audio recorded throughout the school day.Results:Themes emerged across the cases indicating that teachers engaged in teaching practices that reinforced gender stereotypes through biased language and gender segregation.Discussion/Conclusion:Teachers’ lack of awareness and understanding of gender equity prevented them from providing an inclusive learning experience for all students.

scholarly journals Influence of the Prominent Representations of Domestic Products Advertisements in Kass TV on to Kipsigis Consumers in Belgut Sub-County, Kericho, Kenya

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-70
Author(s):  
Judith Chephirchir ◽  
Peter Muhoro Mwangi
Keyword(s):  
Simple Random Sampling ◽  
Target Population ◽  
Intended Meaning ◽  
Descriptive Research ◽  
Multimodal Discourse ◽  
Buying Behaviour ◽  
Descriptive Survey ◽  
Domestic Products ◽  
Wide Population ◽  
Structured Questionnaire

Marketing and trade advertising are part of our day to day lives. This study, therefore, intended to study television (TV) advertisements. Television advertisements come in both visual and verbal modes of communication. Meaning is achieved by sounds and images, which in turn influence the viewers’ choice. This study sought to investigate how adverts in Kass TV use music, textual and visual images to create meaning and its influence on Kipsigis consumer. The objective of this study was to determine the influence of prominent representations of domestic products advertisements in Kass TV on Kipsigis Consumer in Belgut Sub-county, Kericho, Kenya. This study aimed at analysing the verbal and visual modes of communication in TV advertisements in order to determine their influence on Kipsigis viewers. The study adopted a descriptive survey research design. The target population for the study was Kass TV viewers in Belgut sub-county because it is among the Kass TV coverage areas and also due to the fact that a wide population in the sub-county is Kipsigis speakers. Simple random sampling was used to identify the subjects. Descriptive research was carried out amongst Kass TV viewers and consumers of the advertised products in Belgut sub-county. The researcher designed a structured questionnaire which was self-administered to the Kass TV viewers and buyers of the advertised domestic products. The research used 186 respondents and related questionnaires were administered to collect data. Data was analysed using content analysis with the use of Frith’s table for the analysis of layers of meanings (surface meaning, advertiser’s intended meaning and cultural meaning) by employing descriptive statistics. The study will hopefully make some contributions to the studies of Multimodal Discourse Analysis (MDA). It also makes consumers be aware of the multiple modes that television advertisement producers use to influence their buying behaviour.

scholarly journals Pauses by Student and Professional Translators in Translation Process

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 18
Author(s):  
Rusdi Noor Rosa ◽  
T. Silvana Sinar ◽  
Zubaidah Ibrahim-Bell ◽  
Eddy Setia
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Process ◽  
National Park ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Source Text ◽  
Translation Process ◽  
Descriptive Research ◽  
Think Aloud Protocols ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Right ◽  
Bahasa Indonesia

Translation as a process of meaning making activity requires a cognitive process one of which is realized in a pause, a temporary stop or a break indicating doing other than typing activities in a certain period of translation process. Scholars agree that pauses are an indicator of cognitive process without which there will never be any translation practices. Despite such agreement, pauses are debatable as well, either in terms of their length or in terms of the activities managed by a translator while taking pauses. This study, in particular, aims at finding out how student translators and professional translators managed the pauses in a translation process. This was a descriptive research taking two student translators and two professional translators as the participants who were asked to translate a text from English into bahasa Indonesia. The source text (ST) was a historical recount text entitled ‘Early History of Yellowstone National Park’ downloaded from http://www.nezperce.com/yelpark9.html composed of 230-word long from English into bahasa Indonesia. The data were collected using Translog protocols, think aloud protocols (TAPs) and screen recording. Based on the data analysis, it was found that student translators took the longest pauses in the drafting phase spent to solve the problems related to finding out the right equivalent for the ST words or terms and to solve the difficulties encountered in encoding their ST understanding in the TL; meanwhile, professional translators took the longest pauses in the pos-drafting phase spent to ensure whether their TT had been natural and whether their TT had corresponded to the prevailing grammatical rules of the TL. 

scholarly journals Applications of multimodal concordances

2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (41) ◽  
pp. 11
Author(s):  
Anthony Baldry ◽  
Paul J. Thibault
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Corpus Linguistics ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Multimodal Literacy ◽  
Multimodal Texts ◽  
Multimodal Discourse ◽  
Language Tests ◽  
Multimodal Corpora ◽  
Multimodal Corpus ◽  
Textual Organization

Multimodal corpus linguistics has so far been a theoretical rather than an applicative discipline. This paper sketches out proposals that attempt to bridge between these two perspectives. It does so with particular reference to the development of the conceptual and software tools required to create and concordance multimodal corpora from the applicative standpoint and as such is designed to underpin the study of texts at universities in foreign-language teaching and testing cycles. One branch of this work relates to multimedia language tests which, as illustrated in Section 2, use concordancing techniques to analyze multimodal texts in relation to students’ understanding of oral and written forms of discourse in English. Another branch is the exploration of multimodal tests concerned with the explicit assessment of students’ knowledge of the principles and/or models of textual organization of multimodal texts. The two types of test are not mutually exclusive. A third branch of research thus relates to the development of hybrid tests which, for example, combine a capacity to analyze multimodal texts with an assessment of students’ language skills, such as fluency in speaking and writing in English or which ascertain the multimodal literacy competencies of students and the differing orientations to meaning-making styles that individuals manifest. The paper considers these different applicative perspectives by describing the different categories of concordance achievable with the MCA online concordancer (Section 2) and by defining their relevance to multimodal discourse analysis (Section 3). It also illustrates the use of meaning-oriented multimodal concordances in the creation and implementation of multimodal tests (Sections 4). It concludes by suggesting that the re-interpretation of the nature and functions of concordances is long overdue and that the exploration of new types of concordance is salutary for linguistics and semiotics in general.

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