Computer-mediated Computer-mediated exchanges in language exchanges in language

learning:learning:what can be researched what can be researched

and how can we go and how can we go about it?about it?

Mirjam Hauck, Regine HampelDepartment of LanguagesThe Open University/UK

Eurocall CMC SIG, León, 23–25 April 2009

Outline

• Part 1: What is the focus of your research?

• Part 2: Researchable text and multimodal data

• Part 3: Tools for recording, transcription and analysis

• Part 4: Approaches to transcription Challenges!

Part 1: What is the focus of your

research?

Areas of research (e.g. using DA/CA, Lamy &

Hampel 2007)Researching learner language

• Grammatical accuracy

• Pragmatic functions and syntactic complexity

• Analysis of discourse (among chat participants)

• Individual differences in working memory and oral proficiency

Researching communication

• Communication strategies to fill comprehension gaps

• Patterns in native–non native chat

• Learner engagement with native speakers

Researching intercultural issues

• Intercultural competence

• Politeness and style shifting in different cultures

Researching affordances

• Techno-literacy, impact of the medium on ways that learners interact

Researching pedagogy

• Teacher training and teachers’ cultures

• Critical pedagogy (power and equality in learning online)

Part 2: Researchable text and

multimodal data

What is multimodal data (in the context of CMC)?

• it is complex and diverse• requires tools for description and

analysis that can accommodate this complexity

FlashMeeting

Elluminate

Our understanding of text

“We want to insist from the beginning that the semiotic instances in which we are interested – the texts – include the everyday practices of ‘ordinary’ humans as much as the articulations of discourses in more conventionally text-like objects such as magazines, TV programmes, and so on. We will refer to these [as] ‘practically lived texts’”

(Kress and Van Leeuven’s (2001: 24)

In digital media…

text = writing + still/moving images + space + (often) sound

Body and meaning

the ways in which we• direct our gaze• use facial expressions, gesture, move, stand• manipulate objectsare part of how we communicate

we experience events as ‘multimodal scenes’(Gray 2004)

Part 3: Tools for recording,

transcription and analysis

The role of technology

now we are able • to record audio and visual data (e.g. using

Camtasia)• to transcribe them (e.g. using Transana)• and to store and analyse them (e.g. using

CAQDAS)

Camtasia

FlashMeeting data log

CAQDAS

• Computer Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis Software (CAQDAS) packages (e.g. AtlasTi or NVivo) offer systematic frameworks for:– organisation, coding, searching and retrieval of

data– creation of visual analytic networks– building portfolios of linked multi-media data

clips accessible in just one or two clicks→ managing multi-media data sets→ allowing for new forms of transcription

• but: they don’t interpret the data!

Part 4: Various approaches to

transcription

What is multimodal transcription?

• “multimodal transcriptions are ultimately based on the assumption that a transcription will help us understand the relationship between a specific instance of a genre […] and the genre’s typical features” (Baldry and Thibault 2006: 30)

• transcription = reduced version of observed reality

• “transcription is theory: the mode of data presentation not only reflects subjectively established research aims, but also inevitably directs research findings” (Ochs 1979)

Transcription example (Hampel and Hauck 2006)

The dilemma of traditional approaches to transcription• traditional approach to spoken interaction:

– transcribing spoken verbal language– timings– pauses– overlapping and contiguous utterances

• written and spoken language is still predominant in transcription

• how can the following be transcribed?– objects (at the centre of/peripheral to the

interaction– spacial relationships– temporal organisation

Transcription example (Satar in preparation)

Transcription example (Goodwin 2007)

Transcription example (Norris 2006)

What is transcribed?

context has gradually gained ground:• posture• gesture• head movement• gaze• music• print and layout

“multimodal texts are composite products of the combined effects of all the resources used to create and interpret them”(Baldry and Thibault 2006: 18)

Challenges of new approaches

• how micro is useful? Is macro analysis more productive? Zooming ‘in’ versus ‘panning out’

• representation of simultaneous events in a linear medium (e.g. in an article)

• paradox: difficulties of ‘reading’ multimodal transcription could outweigh advantages of descriptive ‘purity’

• media chosen should not become the research method

• software and technological expertise needed

THANK YOU!

Flewitt, R., Hampel, R., Hauck, M. and Lancaster, L.What are multimodal data and transcription?In: Jewitt, C. (ed.) The Routledge Handbook of

Multimodal Analysis (July 2009)

m.hauck@open.ac.ukr.hampel@open.ac.uk