Masterclass on Multimodality | Sue Hood

BREMEN MASTERCLASSES ON MULTIMODALITY
21 December 2016 | 12.15-13.45 | GW2 B3010

Exploring the collaboration of language and body language in structuring knowledge and pedagogy in a law lecture.

Susan Hood
Associate Professor in Applied Linguistics
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
University of Technology Sydney
sue.hood@uts.edu.au

Abstract
This presentation reports on part of an ongoing project exploring the dynamic multimodal construction of disciplinary knowledge and values in live undergraduate lectures (Hood 2016a, 2016b, Hood & Lander 2016). The general aim is to contribute insights for the design and critique of renovations to teaching and learning in higher education. The data reveal a multitude of semiotic resources in play, each constituting an immensely complex system in its own right, and generating endless possibilities for multimodal interaction. The analyst must necessarily apply a limiting gaze on such data. Drawing on a systemic functional linguistic perspective on pedagogic discourse and on multimodality, here my focus is on the role of body language, particularly whole body movement, in cooperation with spoken language in the structuring the pedagogic discourse of a lecture. The lecture, in the field of commercial case law, is first analysed as verbal text to identify linguistic configurations of meanings as genres and stages, and within stages as phases of register. Drawing on Rose (2014), two interacting genres of pedagogic discourse are differentiated – the knowledge genre “through which institutional knowledge is acquired”, and the curriculum genre, “the dialogic discourse through which knowledge is negotiated”. The location and flow of whole body movements in space is then analysed to consider whether and how the semiosis of language and body cooperate in discourse structuring. The study reveals a systematic patterning both in terms of the space occupied by the lecturer and in terms of shifts from a dynamic to static body.

References
Hood, S. (in press) ‘Live lectures: The significance of presence in building disciplinary knowledge’. Onomázein.
Hood, S. & J. Lander (2016) ‘Technologies, modes and pedagogic potential in live versus online lectures’. International Journal of Language Studies, 10(3), 23-42.
Hood, S. & P. Maggiora (2016) ‘A lecturer at work: language, the body and space in the structuring of disciplinary knowledge in law’. In H. de Silva Joyce (ed) Language at work in social contexts: Analysing language use in work, educational, medical and museum contexts. Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 108-128.
Rose, D. 2014, ‘’Analysing pedagogic discourse: an approach from genre and register’, Functional Linguistics 1(11)

BREMEN MASTERCLASSES ON MULTIMODALITY
21 December 2016 | 12.15-13.45 | GW2 B3010

Exploring the collaboration of language and body language in structuring knowledge and pedagogy in a law lecture.

Susan Hood
Associate Professor in Applied Linguistics
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
University of Technology Sydney
sue.hood@uts.edu.au

Abstract
This presentation reports on part of an ongoing project exploring the dynamic multimodal construction of disciplinary knowledge and values in live undergraduate lectures (Hood 2016a, 2016b, Hood & Lander 2016). The general aim is to contribute insights for the design and critique of renovations to teaching and learning in higher education. The data reveal a multitude of semiotic resources in play, each constituting an immensely complex system in its own right, and generating endless possibilities for multimodal interaction. The analyst must necessarily apply a limiting gaze on such data. Drawing on a systemic functional linguistic perspective on pedagogic discourse and on multimodality, here my focus is on the role of body language, particularly whole body movement, in cooperation with spoken language in the structuring the pedagogic discourse of a lecture. The lecture, in the field of commercial case law, is first analysed as verbal text to identify linguistic configurations of meanings as genres and stages, and within stages as phases of register. Drawing on Rose (2014), two interacting genres of pedagogic discourse are differentiated – the knowledge genre “through which institutional knowledge is acquired”, and the curriculum genre, “the dialogic discourse through which knowledge is negotiated”. The location and flow of whole body movements in space is then analysed to consider whether and how the semiosis of language and body cooperate in discourse structuring. The study reveals a systematic patterning both in terms of the space occupied by the lecturer and in terms of shifts from a dynamic to static body.

References
Hood, S. (in press) ‘Live lectures: The significance of presence in building disciplinary knowledge’. Onomázein.
Hood, S. & J. Lander (2016) ‘Technologies, modes and pedagogic potential in live versus online lectures’. International Journal of Language Studies, 10(3), 23-42.
Hood, S. & P. Maggiora (2016) ‘A lecturer at work: language, the body and space in the structuring of disciplinary knowledge in law’. In H. de Silva Joyce (ed) Language at work in social contexts: Analysing language use in work, educational, medical and museum contexts. Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 108-128.
Rose, D. 2014, ‘’Analysing pedagogic discourse: an approach from genre and register’, Functional Linguistics 1(11)