Modes and intersemiotic cohesion in student presentations performed online: An SF-informed multimodal discourse analysis

Abstract

This study proposes a multimodal discourse analysis for investigating semiotic resources and intersemiotic cohesion in student presentations online. Data come from seminars in applied linguistics at a private university in Japan. After analyzing elements found in the verbal, paralinguistic, and visual modes, intersemiotic cohesion was identified in the form of reading aloud written text on the slides, verbal references, animations, as well as deictic gestures and word-tracking by cursor movement. A closer qualitative inspection of how students differed in utilizing these cohesive devices revealed considerable variation. Some students focused on verbal and paralinguistic modes and formed vivid narratives through a multimodal ensemble of gestures, sentence stress, and head-nodding, while others were regulated by the visual mode to such a degree that their shared slide became the locus of attentive action. In the latter case it became observable how material resources unique to the online environment were transformed into semiotic resources (i.e., tracking written text with the mouse while reading it aloud). Findings are discussed with respect to both theoretical implications and practical takeaways for doing presentations in an online environment.